Birthday Axel!

The day finally came. I got to try my first on-ice axels. On the harness, of course. And, it was my birthday! I got to say, that is a great way to start out a birthday.

We actually spent my entire lesson adding some style to my compulsory program, at the request of my primary coach. But I noticed when we were finished that no other students had showed up for a lesson, so I asked if we could take a few extra minutes and do the axels on the harness that she had promised in our first lesson.

She strapped me into the harness and we started with a couple waltz jumps to get a feel for the harness. Then she had me try a waltz backspin and after that we were off. The first few felt so much like the waltz backspin that I wasn't really sure that I was doing anything different. We tried getting more explosive, we worked on the take-off. Some attempts were wild, some were underrotated. And some were actually pretty decent, I think.

The strangest thing to me about the harness is that you can't hold a landing edge for very long because it pulls you away from the harness track. I was never really sure if I was standing up on the landing because shortly after I'd land, I'd pull against the harness and couldn't keep my balance. I had to rely on feedback from the coach to know how it had gone and she pointed out some things on one and other things on another.

I loved trying them. I was so excited at first, my legs were shaking and that made everything a little harder. I can't wait to try them again and it was a birthday event I will never forget!