Program Preparations w/ Coach T

Private Lesson W/ Coach T

I had another private lesson with coach T today, it was very productive. We worked on my program elements for an hour which meant a lot of repetitions! The following required elements are in my adult 5 level program: crossovers (forward and back) in a figure 8, t-stops, change of edge on a line, beginning 1 foot spin, and inside 3 turns.

The first half of my program is fine, I have some cheesy arm movements, a couple swing rolls and slaloms, and then I get into my figure 8. Then I stroke towards the center, do a couple more slaloms with arm movements, my inside three turns, and then my one foot spin. Everything after goes downhill. I am exhausted and very confused, I often forget my steps or go in the wrong direction. It’s basically a mess.

It was my goal to have this program down by mid-May so that I could just clean it up and make it more smooth by competition, so I basically have five more days to do this. In these five days I have two LTS lessons (Wednesday) and (Friday), then one open skate this weekend. I believe in myself, but yes I do have some doubts that I am going to get this where it needs to be for competition. I am by no means a perfectionist, but I’d rather not make a fool of myself in front of my family and friends who are all coming out to support me.

The change of edge on a line and one foot spin have been my hardest elements to learn in the last two weeks. They were the last elements to be presented to me by a coach so I’m still in the very beginning stages of picking up on them (If you don’t skate, skip down to the last paragraph!)

Change of edge on a line: My coach showed this to me about 10 days ago. Since then I have done it successfully maybe 5 times after attempting it about a hundred times in five ice skating sessions. For those of you who don’t know what a change of edge is, you basically do a swing roll, then bend your free leg so that its behind your skating leg calf and your edge changes. With that change of edge, all my body wants to do is continue on the same edge, so in order to switch to an inside my top half also needs some restructuring. One of my biggest problems with skating is my inability to totally relax, my shoulders are stiff and mentally I am timid, approaching every new move with caution. In the week that I have been working this I’ve come home sore, incapable of doing anything but eating and sleeping. My abs are sore from the resistance that I am putting on them from my change of edge. My abs are also sore from spinning. Over and over again.

One foot spin: My one foot spin is hard to come by, nowadays I think I hit my sweet spot two out of every three tries, but I only rotate 3 times if I give myself a really good push. My coach told me something interesting yesterday...she said even if you start to hit your toe pick you need to keep spinning, so if you feel like you’re coming out of a spin, get back into it. This morning I was watching the ladies free skate session on contract ice and I noticed that before getting into a camel spin most girls were hitting their toe pick and then getting on the blade for the spin. Other girls were just barely managing to land a jump and would hit their toe picks one or two times to land it - somewhat. This whole idea baffles me, if I am “going down” or feel like I am coming out of a spin I just follow what my body tells me. I rarely if ever push myself to complete a move when I think I am going to fall. This is clearly something that I need to work on. The idea that I can continue spinning even if I hit my toe pick or if my body is feeling out of balance is unnatural, but much of what I do in this sport does feel unnatural - because I haven’t been doing it since I was 3. One of the adult blogs that I follow closely really summed up the one foot spin experience for a beginner, here’s a link to it if you want to check it out: http://icedoesntcare.blogspot.com/2016/05/why-my-one-foot-spins-go-wrong.html.

I have a lot of work to do between now and June 4. I need to learn those two elements and make my program a whole lot smoother. I’ve taken a chill at the gym because I just can’t seem to manage two jobs, family commitments, figure skating 4 days a week, and working out. I get mini workouts in before I skate each day and I make sure I walk at least a half an hour at work so that seems to be working because I am continuing to lose weight (more on that later!). I just really hope I can get this program looking decent in a few weeks, I know I am cutting it close. Most figure skaters put programs together in the fall and work on them the entire year. I put mine together a couple weeks ago for a competition that is oh so soon.

Happy Skating!