4 Month Skate-versary

Well, it’s my 4 month skate-versary! I haven’t made a ton of progress this month as far as actually crossing (or highlighting) skills on my curriculum guide, but I do feel like I’ve improved on many of the skills I have learned in the last month. So, even though I will be posting my curriculum guides on here for the month, I don’t think they accurately describe how much I’ve actually improved. For that reason, this will probably be the last time I post the basic skills sheets. My coach has showed me everything I need to know from the list, so what I haven’t already learned is “outdated” or unnecessary to learn according to her. Once I have more of these skills down, I’ll start working on my freestyle curriculum guide!

This month, I am going to do things a little differently by describing what I need to work on for each skill that I am currently working on.

1. Stroking - stay low, keep knee bent on the hold and extend free leg longer with more control.
2. Forward Crossovers (Fxo’s) - hold the cross for longer. These babies have really sped up over the last month!
3. Backwards Crossovers (Bxo’s) - hold the cross for longer, keep looking back to keep body in control, use “other” leg more in order to keep on or near the circle. I also need to remember that I don’t have any pumps before I cross on the figure 8. I don’t even think I could do these consistently a month ago and now I’m doing them on figure 8’s!
4. Forward Consecutive Edges - give myself some self some space when starting these, I don’t need to start right next to the wall. Remember that the first circle will be the size for the entire line. These have gotten a lot smoother and more consistent in the last month.
5. Backwards Consecutive Edges - Both outsides and insides are miserable still, but at least I have the patterns down. A few weeks ago I kept switching between insides and outsides. Remember to pull hip up and bring knees together for insides, and for outsides I need to remember to keep my shoulders pulled back and more relaxed (I tend to hunch and have too much weight on my knees - hence the issues I am currently having with my knees).
6. Mohawks - I can do these more consistently and with arms! Now, I need to work on doing them with speed and not on the line. I am almost there with the left side since I do it on the crossovers figure 8, but I have a lot of work to do on the right side.
7. Waltz Jump - I am landing pretty consistently now with decent posture, until I psych myself out. I am practicing these from backwards crossovers now. I’d like to see myself getting some more height on these in the next month and possibly doing a couple in a row for a simple combination.
8. Mohawk Crosses - If I pay more attention to my arms and pay less attention to the ground, I might actually get these down soon. Less toe picks as well, those things are going to be bare soon if I continue scraping them on every cross.
9. Consecutive 3 Turns - Once you have a skill semi-down in this sport we make it more difficult by looping it to other skills, in this case it’s doing these consistently down the line. Outsides are terrible because I miss the LO3 half the time but also because I am not going in the right direction after the turn. I need to get the pattern down. Insides are better since the turn is more natural for me and I actually hit the 3 turns each time - unless I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing…
10. Swing Rolls - Don’t bend the free leg! Bend skating leg and stand straighter on the “swing” for more speed and “technically” control, but I don’t have that yet. I feel like I have less control when I do this.
11. Toe-loop - This jump barely exists, I jump one out of every five or so tries. I can’t believe I landed it on my first try, but now I just psych myself out. I need to remember to keep my free leg straight while bending my skating leg (this is awkward and unnatural). I also need to keep from hammering my toepick into the ice, beginner problems...I thought you were supposed to do that.
12. Spins - I have the two foot spin with some speed and 4-5 revolutions on a good try, not always the case. My one foot spin is coming slowly but surely. I need 3 revolutions by my competition on June 4 and right now I have 2 revolutions on a good try - which is rare. I need to remember to bend my left knee and straighten out for more speed, I also need to remember to keep the weight on the balls of my feet while spinning.
13. Waltz 8 - I did this with pretty good control and speed a couple times at my last practice and then almost fall due to lack of control on my final run. So, it’s obvious that consistency is an issue here (and on EVERY single skill I’ve “learned”). I need to remember keeping my free leg forward for the backwards one foot glide.
14. Spirals - Look good according to Coach C and Coach T (on separate occasions) which shocks me because I never feel like I have my free leg up high enough. I need to remember to keep my weight in the back of the boot so I don’t fall on my face (again).
15. Lunges - I love doing right foot lunges! I need to practice my left foot lunge though, half the time I can’t go down and then when I do I can’t get back up without falling.
16. Bunny Hops - I can do four or five consistently on my right foot, my left foot I can do 1-2 while feeling like death. Easy to say that my left foot is not as coordinated as my right foot. Coach T always makes me do these on both feet, but I asked Coach C if I need to learn them on both feet and she said no, but it’s good to learn them on both feet so that my left foot learns to be more coordinated. The joys of having two coaches!
17. Forward Crossover Pattern - I did this with Coach T one time more than a month ago and I had to hold on to her the entire time. Last week she had me do these around the entire rink and I did them on my own. The pattern was off, but after doing them at practice a million times I got them down and with a lot of speed. I need to remember to that there are three steps on each side and that I can’t have two feet on the ground at the same time.  Can’t wait to learn them backwards, it will be challenging, but I am so pumped!
18. Program - My program is slowly coming together. In a month I need to have it down for competition, but I’d like to have it completely down in two weeks so I don’t make a fool of myself in front of my family and friends.

I began skating in late December and started taking group lessons in early January. It's been about four months and I cannot believe that I've made this much progress. When I first began I thought I'd be doing jumps in 2-3 years and I started jumping more than a month ago. I can't say that skating comes easy to me, because that's far from the truth, but I love it and I spend between 8-10 hours on the ice each week. On some days I am on the ice between 3 and 5 hours! Sure, I'm in grave pain afterwards, but it's worth it because I'm following my dreams. I am determined to get better at this sport. They say you shouldn't compare yourself to others, but I do it anyways. I've made progress in this time that many other adult skaters make in 2-3 years of skating. I hope that I can continue to progress at this rate, but I know that I will plateau soon unfortunately. The things I am learning are getting harder and my ability to do them consistently is fading. In this upcoming month I will be spending most of my time on the ice working on my program to prepare for my very first competition so I am not sure how much new stuff I will learn. I think I am going to slow down the pace that I am learning and practicing at so that I can be in good shape for that competition. This summer I will be contracting ice and working with a coach at that time, so I hope that I'll get back to learning a lot during the summer months! Happy Skating!