So... This Is What Pain Feels Like?

I skated in my new skates and it was MISERABLE. Hello square one, how are you doing today? AHHHH I had no idea it would be THIS difficult. I thought maybe there would be a little pain here and there, but boy was I wrong!

So….that’s what pain feels like? Hmph. I digress. I walked into the rink on Wednesday with my head up high, walking in with my skating bag (and my brand new skates) like I owned the place. I was excited and somewhat nervous, but mostly excited. I started out by doing my normal warm up exercises: muscle stretches, jumping jacks, lunges, galloping (to the side), and jumps. I walked over to my bag to get my skates on for the very first time at the rink, it only took me a couple minutes to get them on as compared to the 15 minutes I spent to tie my old skates. That in itself was a success.

From the moment I stepped on to the ice I knew that it was going to be a challenge. The toe pick is way bigger than my older one, I was hitting it with just normal stroking. As I skated to the benches to put my stuff down I quickly realized that I would have a very difficult time stopping. Once I got to the benches I did the whole making snow thing to get my blades adjusted to the ice, those of you with new skates or newly sharpened blades, this is a must! It definitely made a difference as I continued.

It really was back to square one though, I basically wasted a class session. I worked on stroking, swizzles, half swizzle pumps, and one foot glides during practice time, and then two foot turns, crossovers, and spins during class.

My feet were aching THE ENTIRE time. Yet I managed to go home rest my feet a little and then got them back on again. I’ve been told by numerous people now that I need to walk around my house in the skates (and hard guards). So, I’ve been doing that for a few days now and they finally feel like they are setting in. Everytime I put them on they feel a tad more comfortable than the last time. Sometimes I warm up my socks before I put them on to mimick the heat molding experience, I figure this will speed up the process. I was told that some people put heat packs in the boots for a while then set their feet in, also to mimic the molding process. I’ll basically will try anything at this point that won’t ruin the boot. I can’t handle two weeks of no progress. It may just be the death of 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

Learn to Skate Makeup

Class was amazing today. Shocker. I spent most of class just working on a couple skills, but it was incredible because I feel like I’m actually learning the proper way to do things. My coaches are fixing my posture, they tell me where my arms and weight should be and this really makes it easier to learn the skills. My muscles hurt from doing things the “right way” over and over again, but I know I need the basics down before I can successfully move on to bigger and better things. Today I mostly worked on half pump swizzles on the circle, both my right and left legs. My right foot has got it down, but the left foot is much weaker. I was also taught a simple combination, 2 swizzles and then a one foot glide. I was really pleased with this warm up because I was combining skills.  At the end of class, I asked one of the coaches to show me how to do the spin properly, unfortunately I was still unable to get it. I was told initially to split my body in two, upper and lower half, but I think it’s confusing me because I am not able to move both sides at the same time. I’ll work on it and it will come in time. On the plus side, I showed them the turn that I taught myself to do on like day three and they said it was a legitimate move! I am excited by the idea that I am capable of teaching myself how to do certain things on the ice.