First Official Weigh In

It’s official. I’ve lost weight! To the people I see everyday, this comes as no surprise, but for some reason this is a shocker for me. I’ve been weighing myself on a semi-regular basis at home for a few months now and my weight hasn’t fluctuated very much, clearly my scale is not working at home.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor to get my knee checked out because it has been bothering me from the numerous falls (more about that later). I used the visit as an official weigh in day so that I can get an accurate reading of the weight I was in October to compare against my current weight. Drum roll please….! I’ve lost about 15 pounds, shout out to..... me! It probably doesn’t sound like much since it’s over such a long period of time, but I’ve gained a lot of muscle weight in these last few months.

I’m really excited and motivated by this as it is a confirmation of my hard work and commitment. I’ve been asked about my weight change several times over these last few months and I am pleased to say that I am motivated by my figure skating endeavors. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it will be easier to “jump” if I’m lighter and stronger.

Over these last few months I’ve done a good job of slowly cutting the “crap” out of my diet. I’ve been taking pictures of several of my meals over the last few weeks and I’ll be sharing more details about my diet soon.

Now, back to the doctor’s appointment. I visited the doctor because I noticed that my knees started to make “clicking” noises when I bent them. This worried me because I thought something was torn, I've taken numerous falls on my knees at this point, who knows what's going on down there? I also feel a significant amount of pain when I am exercising/moving around a lot. I’ve confirmed that nothing is torn/broken, but I need to continue wearing the brace for extra support and I need to do some exercises to strengthen the muscles around my knees. Good times. I had a friend (in residency) check out my knee before this official visit and she told me I’d probably have to stay off the ice for a couple weeks, thankfully this is not the case. So, I can continue doing what I love: being on the ice <3

3rd Private Lesson

Today I had my third private lesson. I still can’t believe that I am taking private lessons! I warmed up a lot today by running around the ice a few times and doing the stairs in the bleachers. I also stretched and did some off ice jumps.

The lesson was good, we went through a lot of things that we started in our previous session like lunges, spirals, and 3 turns. We went through some new things like backwards slaloms, power 3’s, and the waltz 8. While I am glad that we started some new things, I am really pleased with my progress on the backwards crossovers. I worked really hard on them after our session so I can’t wait to show them to Coach T tomorrow.

After the session, I continued skating during public free skate and worked on a lot of the elements that we worked on during the lesson. Unfortunately for me, I may have went to hard because I took a few difficult falls. I fell on my hips numerous times, I fell on my butt a couple times, and I can’t even count the number of times I fell on my knees. All learning experiences right? Instead of being scared now, I just go for it and a lot of the time that means falling. Olympic skaters fall, it’s a part of the sport. I’ll get over it one of these days.

I am really looking forward to my next session with Coach T tomorrow, I hope I don’t get stuck at work for the second half of the day. I am going to try my best to get out as fast as I can so I can get some practice ice time before the make up class. And following that, I can get some one on one time with coach! Woot Woot!

**OHH I forgot to mention what happened during public ice time today! A girl (about my age) came up to me to ask how I do that thing where I bend down, so I said, “like a lunge?” So, I told her, a few times actually, that I was still learning and probably shouldn’t be giving a lot of advice, but I proceeded to show and explain to her what I knew. From this experience, I just can’t believe that someone came to me for advice, as if I looked like I knew what I was doing. Ya’ll know I’m excited by this!**

Lesson:

Warm up

Stroking

Swizzles

Stopping

Spirals

Lunges

Crossovers (forward and backward)

2 Foot Turns

3 Turns

Consecutive Edges (inside and outside)

One Foot Glides

Slaloms (forward and backward)

Waltz Jump

Swizzles Crosses (forgot actual name)

Power 3's ( I think that's what they're called, one foot slaloms)

Waltz 8

Meet My Two Best Friends

Constant soreness in this sport is an understatement. So the ice pack and heating pad have become my new best friends. After icing last night, I finally woke up without feeling sore, even after being on the ice for two hours.

It’s pretty embarrassing to be a young adult groaning after getting up from a seat due to the pain. This is what comes from putting that much resistance on my legs. If I put my hands on my knees and bend them I can feel ligaments/tendons rubbing against each other - I may want to consider having this checked out.

There is always a bruise on my body. It’s been two months now and I don’t think I’ve gone a day on the ice without a new bruise. My body doesn’t even bruise very easily. This is just a wicked sport (I dare you to argue that this isn’t a sport).

I am getting calluses on my fingers from tying my boots just right and indents on the lower half on my calf from jumping. Did I mention that I am sore ALL the time?

Yet I am loving this! I come off the ice with satisfaction that I’ve never felt before. Sure, there are days when I am disappointed about my time on the ice or not being able to successfully learn a new move. But ultimately, this experience is transforming me physically and mentally. That is why I love it. It’s almost like it’s showing me a better me.

So Many Disappointments Today….Progress Overall: Exceptional

I am so incredibly excited for class today. It’s the first day of session two and I am crossing my fingers that I’ll have the same coaches as the last make up sessions on Wednesdays. I decided to show up at the rink two hours before my class today. I really didn’t want to be at home, but here’s my thought process… ½ hour to write/watch the actual figure skaters on the ice, ½ hour to warm up, and 15 minutes to get my skates on (I tie and re-tie over and over to get it just right). Nope it still doesn’t add up, I don’t care. I want to be here, maybe I’ll learn a thing or two from watching the skaters and coaches do their thing.

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So yesterday’s class didn’t exactly meet my (very high) expectations, but nevertheless I made some progress. My first disappointment was the coaching staff surprise, unfortunately I didn’t have the same coaches as the makeup sessions. Now, we only have one of the figure skating coaches and even she will only be there every other week. The other coach we will have is younger with less experience, my understanding is that she is strictly a learn to skate coach. I will make the best of the time I have with figure skating coach C.

I skated for just over an hour between practice time and class time. I have made leaps of progress with my forward half pump swizzles, now I can do them with confidence and speed (this would not have been possible if I didn’t do open skate for 3 hours on Monday!)There’s another woman in that class whose taken it 4 times already and I’m pretty sure we’ve made the same progress, so that excites me. We took a short break after working on those..this became my second disappointment for the day. We don’t (correction: I don’t) need a break in a half hour class. I want to be learning new exercises so that I can work on them when I go to open skate. During our little break one of the women mentioned that she didn’t know how to fall "correctly" (really now, we are going to spend time on learning to fall?). Well for the record, I have taken several spills and I know how to fall and get back up...not sure if I want to spend class time doing this, disappointment #3.

After our falling lesson we moved on to crossovers. Coach C asked if I was ready to begin these, little did she know I had started “working” on them with Coach T. So I started and didn’t look like a complete embarrassment because it really wasn’t my first time, haha! I didn’t fall in the 5-10 minutes that we worked on these so that was good. Coach C fixed my posture and explained the step by step process. This explanation is exactly the reason I decided to sign up for Wednesday classes as opposed to Saturday classes!

We took another break (arghhhh), disappointment #4. I couldn’t really take it anymore so I scooted myself back a little and just played around, while still making it seem like I was a part of the useless conversation.  Then I mentioned that I wanted to work on my spins so coach suggested we all work on them. I showed her what I had been working on...something that I “figured out” but to my dismay I’ve been doing it all wrong...arghhhh disappointment #5. She showed me how to do it the proper way, gliding in the shape of a six with my weight in my left leg, half swizzle with right leg, keeping the weight on that foot, and spin! Sounds easy enough. Nope. My brain definitely gets it but my body sure doesn’t. Disappointment #6.

Class ended and the other women skated away, but I took the opportunity to ask Coach C a couple things before the Zamboni came out. First I asked her if I could show her the Waltz by the wall that I had been working on. She looked really scared for me at this point, clearly I am way ahead of myself...but jumping excites me and I am going to work on it simultaneously with basic stroking. She made a couple changes to my posture and toe picking foot, then we had to skate off the ice because the Zamboni came on. Once we were off the ice she asked me if I had learned the bunny hop (clearly I was supposed to learn this before the waltz), I hadn’t. So she showed me off the ice what I was supposed to do. Yay! I have something to work on next time I skate on my own!

[Bunny Hop: Scissor right foot (lift, bring forward, bring back, then forward again, small jump - toe pick, land on right foot, glide with the left, repeat.]

After this conversation, one of the practice time coaches came up to me and talked to me more about my waltz (I had asked her a question about it during practice time). The conversation was very helpful and motivating, I had mentioned that I’ve only been on the ice for 2 months and definitely wasn't ready to do the jump without the wall by my side, but she had a lot of faith in me (or at least made it seem that way). She said that she couldn’t believe that I had only been on the ice for that short of a time period and was impressed with my progress.

Though there were many small disappointments today, I still feel like I’ve made a lot of progress in these last couple months. At this point I have mastered my forward swizzle, forward half pump swizzles on both my right and left legs, one foot glides (my left foot is a tad bit weaker but I can still go on one push ½ the width of the rink), and 2 foot turns with a start on both my left and right leg. I hope I can squeeze in an open skate session sometime between today and next Wednesday...if I don’t I am taking a day off next week so that I can do an adult open skate session. #priorities

Last Learn to Skate Class (of session 1) & An Incredible New Skill

Wow, today was the last day of learn to skate. I feel like it was definitely worth the money I paid for it. Today as soon as we got to practice there was no “warm up time” we went straight to the circle and began with challenging moves, half-pump swizzle (right and left legs), then one foot glides, and finally crossovers. Coach T came over to help me with those, what a relief! Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. She let me do them on my own….and I took a great big fall. Flat on my face. It didn’t hurt that much, until I got home and saw the bruise, but at this point falling is a learning opportunity for me. I’ve learned how to fall and not completely hurt myself and I’ve learned how to pick myself up and continue doing what I was doing. Now as soon as I did so, my favorite hockey coach told me that the “toe pick” got me. No shiz bro? I know that...thanks for letting everyone else know too.

After our circle exercises we moved on to the normal layout of exercises moving from one end of the rink to the other. We did swizzles, half pump swizzles, one foot glides, and then the awful half pump backwards swizzles. Dun Dun Dunnnn. I am not about that life. So...I moved over to where Coach T was, working with the really beginner group again. It was near the end of class so I asked to work on my spins, thankfully another woman in class was thinking the same thing and came over with me. We attempted on working the spins again, but didn’t get much farther. I understood what I needed to do, but had a difficult time actually doing it. So….Coach T decided it was time to move on….to JUMPING!!! I’m sorry? What’s that you say? Jumping in the first learn to skate session? I didn’t think so either. But apparently we were going to jump! ARGGGHHHH!! Excitement through the roof!

[So, here’s the thing. I’ve been going through this process and it’s been really exciting, motivational, and challenging in so many different capacities. I never thought I’d be doing any jumps in the first year of this, yet alone the first two months! I was shocked, excited, and very nervous!]

Coach T grabbed my hands, explained what I was going to do (very quickly I might add) and had me do exactly what she described. I basically had no time to think. I took a leap of faith (literally) and landed. Sure, most of my success was dependent on the fact that she was basically holding me, but I landed my first jump! After doing it with her, she did the same with the older woman that came with me to practice spins. The best part: there was still a few minutes left of class. So, she showed us how to practice on the wall!

This first jump is called the waltz jump, fairly simple to explain and incredibly difficult for a first time adult skater! You essentially swing your foot back, then swing forward, jump up (turn 180) and land on the opposite foot.

At the end of class I thanked Coach T for everything and asked if she taught private lessons. I’ve considered this a little over the last few weeks, but I thought I would ask just to get it out of the way since I am no longer taking Saturday classes. She said she was fully booked for the upcoming session, perfect for me since I wasn’t going to do it until the following session! Get excited folks, this is getting serious!

Open Skate:

I went to open skate today and spent every minute on the ice working on my spin and the waltz jump by the wall. I was annoyed because I had to keep moving away from the wall for first time skaters, but I had to keep myself grounded. I was a first time skater not too long ago (literally 2 months) so I should give them the space that I also needed at the time.