Sibling Rivalry

You hear about it all the time. My sister and I were no different. As kids we fought more often than we got along. My mother gave up trying to referee us and only stepped in when someone was in danger of getting injured. My sister and I also skated together. We were in the same club and skated on the same ice. This was back in the '70s so we did patch (figure 8s for you younguns out there) and freestyle together. We had the same coaches. My sister was the jumper. I don't know if she had no fear but at least she had less fear than me and as far as I remember she had a flip jump which I never mastered. Me, I was the spinner. I was scared of jumping but not spinning. I had a scratch spin, camel, layback, broken leg and a weird variation of an upright spin my mom had learned as a show skater. The only spin I didn't do well was a sit spin. I didn't have the quad strength to hold me up while keeping my leg straight out in front of me. My sister and I were always comparing notes. Can you do this? Have you tried that? I always thought we got along remarkably well on the ice. I guess compared to the knock down fights we had off ice (yes we used to get into physical fights as well as verbal ones) we got along famously on the ice.

When we were kids I never recognized the competitive streak that runs deep through my sister. It is only now as an adult that I see it once in a while. In a step aerobics class where I had more platforms under me than she did or during discussions on figure skating (she has never returned to the ice like I did). I am discovering that whenever we get into a technical discussion on figure skating she argues with me thinking that she is right. I even ended up going on to the Internet to look something up to prove that she was wrong. I am beginning to think that I might have to stay away from these discussions to keep peace during family gatherings. Yet she doesn't understand my passionate return to training for figure skating. I think my Mom, who instilled the love of the sport in me from the start, is also a bit shocked at the depth of my commitment to the sport and perhaps thinks I should be committed. I was quizzed about this during my last visit. Apparently neither of them knew that I have always Loved (yes, capital L loved) skating. Even when I was a kid I loved it. I just knew I wasn't great at it. I watched my friends progress faster than me and my sister always did better higher jumps so when my self esteem was at an all time low I quit the sport although I truly enjoyed it. Now that I am adult I understand that I won't be in the Olympics but I also understand that I don't have to be. Just being on the ice doing anything is fine with me. I don't care if it takes me years to get a back spin and I will be truly shocked if I ever do a flip jump. But I am going to keep skating as long as I enjoy it. I am going to compete now that there are competitions for us low level skaters (there weren't any when I was a kid) and I am going to pass as many tests as I can. I am happy when I am on the ice and that counts for everything. I just need to refrain from getting in technical discussions with my sister to maintain the peace when I am off the ice. ;-)

Spin lessons in Lake Placid

Over Christmas, I got to skate up in Lake Placid which is always a pleasure. This time I was surprised at how few people there were on the ice. Apparently this is normal. There are not a lot of skaters that are seriously training up there. I don't know why since ice is cheap and there are some great coaches up there. I guess they aren't high level enough to attract the serious skaters. It is a great place for intermediate level people though. Anyway, I got three days on the ice and a spin lesson. I got to show off my camel sit for my Mom which thrilled me to pieces. I learned a few extra tricks for the back spin but the most important exercises I learned for the camel and back spin were straight line work. For the back spin you start going backward in the loop take off position with the arms in an L as if you were going into a backspin. Now as you travel in a dead straight line you pull your arms and free leg into the back spin position and hold it. Think this is easy? Try it. I found I would tip my shoulder just slightly and I was off on a curve. It took me numerousl trys to stay traveling in a straight line. Then we tried the same thing for the camel. Do a back spiral in a straight line. I still can't do this one and I've been trying for weeks. Weird thing is I have been doing forward spirals for two years now and have no trouble traveling the length of the rink on either foot in a straight line but backwards? No way. Not happening. This proved to me how tipped over I was in the spin. No wonder it doesn't work most of the time. I'm getting into some wierd contorted postion. I'll get it eventually but it is going to take a lot more practice.

shut up, Shut Up, SHUT UP!!

Like duh! I've known about sports psychology for decades. I just never considered that it would ever EVER apply to me. Why would I need to know any of this? I have never considered myself an athlete even though I have spent many many hours in the pool, gym, weight room and ice rink. Now that I am seriously into figure skating and potentially facing my first season as a competitor I am recognizing that I am going to have to take a dive into the psychology end of this sport.

Currently in my training I am on the cusp of relearning the stunts I used to do as a kid and learning brand new things I have never tried before. I am currently and always have been afraid to fall. The ramifications of a serious fall as an adult are much more far reaching. As a kid I would inconvenience my parents (mostly only my mother) and end up doing my school work at the house for a while and maybe get to go to school with a cast on. As an adult I would scare my husband silly, halt all cooking and grocery shopping in the house, suspend taxi service for the kid and make a mess out of my work career. With this in mind I have taken up a sport that for every 1000 hours on the ice there is a serious injury (not necessarily from a fall). I have seen these injuries occur which is probably the basis of my fear. I have taken up a sport that is very very hard; you are trying to do stunts from the single edge of a blade while keeping most of your body rock still and in perfect alignment. It requires great balance, core strength, concentration and skill. This is probably why I like it so much. It is HARD! However, while relearning old stunts I do get frustrated but I know in my heart of hearts that I can do this. I've done it before and with enough practice I'll be able to do it again. But now I am crossing over into new territory, doing stunts that I have never done before. Can I really do this? My coach thinks so and I think she needs a reality check. In my mind's eye I see myself doing a belly flop on the ice. I am finding that when I start a learning a new stunt such as a back spin (I never learned these properly as a kid) I go through several weeks of mental anguish. Every time I start the entrance to the spin the little guy in my head starts a rant that goes something like this "We are going to DIE! Or at least fall on our ass. It is going to hurt. A lot! Did I mention we are going to die? You look like an ass." No matter how much I plead and yell he doesn't shut up. Now what this guy does is stop me from having any rational thoughts go on in my head at the same time such as "Bring you arm forward. Snap the free foot around to the front. Bend the skating knee." or all the directions that I need to follow in order to actually perform the spin. So what happens? The guy in my head wins; I look like an ass and come damn close to falling down if not cleaning the ice with my butt. So far I haven't actually died so he has been wrong on that count multiple times but it still doesn't shut him up. I have to go through this for 2-3 weeks every time I start something new; Salchows, Toe Loops, Back Spins, etc. Once the guy figures out that I'm not going to die every time I attempt one of these stunts I can start hearing the instructions. This is when I switch over to actually learning the element and improving on it. I have decided that it is absolutely no use having a coaching session while the guy is screaming in my head. I literally can't take instruction while he is yelling at me. Once he has quieted down it is another matter entirely and I can start fixing things.

I have also had face offs with him during test sessions. Luckily I did several years in Toastmasters and have managed to quiet him down to a dull roar. He can no longer tell me that I will make a total ass out of myself. He knows it won't happen. I do however need to keep him from talking prior to my taking the ice. I have to jump around, pace, stretch, do stuff so he can't take over my head. I need it empty so I can hear the instructions. As long as I can hear the instructions I know I'll be fine. So far I have passed thee tests on the first try with no reskates.

I find that tests aren't so bad since it is only the judges, my coach and me that are in the arena. No biggie for me. I am used to being judged (evaluated) in Toastmasters. I can handle it no problem. Now I am about to launch into a whole new area, competition. Skating to music in front of lots of people. Ugh! How am i going to shut him up this time? I'm not sure. I have to think about this for a while. In the meantime I'm off to the library to start researching sport psychology or "How Not to Choke During a Competition!" Wish me luck and if you see the little guy from my head running around stomp on him for me. Thanks!

Just another practice session

I can't believe that I haven't written for over a month but then again I didn't have much to write about until last week. I have been trying to learn new things so that I can pass my bronze freestyle test. This includes several stunts that I still can't do such as back three turns, a backspin, a good toe loop and a good Salchow. While I had a breakthrough last month with the Salchow while in Lake Placid, until last week I just kept practicing and not progressing very much with any of my new maneuvers. I seem to just keep making the same mistakes over and over and not getting anywhere. This is really frustrating with the back threes since I know I could do them when I was a kid but my body has retained absolutely no memory of them. The backspin is another story. I never learned these as a kid so it is all new to me. I just keep reminding myself how long it took me to get a good front spin and figure that the backspin will take just as long if not longer since I never did them before. Therefore, I am a bit more patient with that one.

The only things that have marginally improved is my sit spin which is finally becoming somewhat consistent (meaning I can usually pull a decent one off during most practice session unless I'm having an unusually bad day) and I'm doing better at actually jumping during the Salchow. Not to be confused with a good jump; jumping for me is that I actually manage to get air time between the take off and landing rather then stepping through the jump. This frustrates my coach to no end. As soon as she tries to "fix" my jump by giving me instructions it rapidly deteriorates back to the no air time variety. I was petrified of jumping when I was a kid and that was when I weighed about 1/3 of what I do now and was much closer to the ice so the falls weren't as much of a disaster as they are now. Falls seem to be infinitely more painful now that I am an adult. Even though I have more padding this also means I have more mass and further to fall. Being an engineer I also understand that this means that there is much more force to dissipate through my body when I actually do hit the ice. I have enough aches and pains as it is without adding nasty falls to the list of injuries. My fear of falling has intensified now that I am an adult. It often makes me question my sanity of taking up figure skating as a sport. I guess we can't always choose what we fall in love with. This sheer utter terror of falling has been detrimental to my jump practice. I have gone slow. Really slow. For a long time I would only jump when I was on weekend ice so if I broke something my friends and my coach would be there to help me. Now at least I can jump Salchows and Waltz jumps where ever and when ever I want. They just aren't pretty but at least I am practicing them each time I get on the ice. I guess this should be considered a major accomplishment on my part.

So a month goes by, my backspins still grind to a halt after the entrance three turn, I double foot my back three turns and I still can't do a "good" Salchow. I haven't even gotten to the toe loop yet. So what changed? Why am I writing? I had a good lesson last week. I had two small triumphs. My coach had me do a long, LONG, three turn practice. First she fixed my forward threes since I tend to pitch forward on push off. That was a simple weight transfer problem. I had my weight even between both feet before launch but it turns out that my weight needs to be all on my push off foot and then quickly transferred to my skating foot. This keeps my upper body still. Woohoo. Forward three fixed. Now I just have to practice a lot so I get some body memory for them. Then we started on the back threes. This was much harder. My free leg was all over the place. I can't seem to lock my knees together to keep the free leg still during the turn. The big reveal happened when I accidentally saw my reflection in the glass of the hockey barrier and noticed that I stuck my hip out horribly coming out of the apex of the turn. I had no idea I was doing this. Once I paid attention to keeping my upper body position then the turn was infinitely easier. I still two footed it after the turn but it was much closer to happening than my klutzy prior attempts. As soon as we switched to the other side I managed a good one on the first try! Huzzah!!

A half hour had gone by already. We moved on to spins. I did two scratch spins with no problem. They weren't centered as much as I like but she was happy with them. I tried a couple of camels which didn't go as well. It was a bad camel day for me and these spins are not even close to being consistent yet. She had a minor correction for me but that didn't fix the spin I still fell off my inside edge since I wasn't balanced over my blade. I did a sit spin for her which was great. She said it looked good and she had no corrections other than working on getting lower on the supporting leg. This is a high compliment from her. Then she had me try something new. A camel sit combination. I had never ever done one of these before even as a kid. She had to teach me how to transition from the camel position with my leg sticking out behind me to the sit position with the leg in front while keeping my balance and keeping the rotations going. The key is going slowly. I went into a marginal camel spin which I knew I couldn't hold for long so after two revolutions I started the transition to the sit. It went flawlessly! I was so excited that I only managed two revolutions in the sit before I bounced up, stuck my toe pick in the ice to stop the spin and wave my arms wildly in the air. She was amused. I skated over to the boards all excited and she just looked at me and said that I need three revolutions in each position. "I know but I DID IT!!!" The Zamboni chased us off the ice. I was so excited that all day at random I would turn to my husband and say "I did a camel sit today!" Now I just need to get some more practice in so I can perfect things.

Excitment and Frustration

While I was in Lake Placid for Skate America, I also got in some ice time of my own. I managed to squeeze in a little over three hours of practice but the real bonus was the half hour lesson. I love the coach I see up there. We are so on the same wavelength. We actually trained together as kids growing up on Cape Cod. We even had the same coach at one point but she went on to skate at the national level while I ended up quitting the sport. Anyway, within a half hour she had me jumping the Salchow and Toe Loop; she fixed my change edge spiral and we worked on the change edge patch figure.

Skating up there was magical as always. It is so exciting to be on Olympic ice. To be skating in the same rinks as Sonja Henie, Scott Hamilton and Evan Lysacek. Way cool. The first day on the ice was so so. I was out of practice and my muscles couldn't do anything but Brian Orser greeted my mom and I as we got on the ice, "Good Morning Ladies!" Cool! He is a cutie! The second day was my lesson and I had plenty of sleep the night before so I was raring to go. The lesson went great. I was skating well and fast and coordinated. I showed my mom the start to my program which she liked. I almost crashed into an elite dance team after they did a violent lane change and headed straight for me (they split apart at the last minute and went around me but it was a close one). I skated for over an hour and a half and loved every minute of it. The third day I only lasted a half hour. I was pooped from the day before but I wanted to go over the stuff from my lesson so it would stick in my head and muscles. Tired but happy I left the ice to the younger more elite competitors.

Now the reason I bring this up weeks later is that today I had my first private lesson since I got back from LP. I have been practicing my Salchow every time I get on the ice. I have been practicing it in my head before I go to sleep at night. The main thing Robin taught me was the timing of the Salchow: outside edge, inside edge, hook, jump. A nice steady 1, 2, 3, 4 pace. So before I fall asleep at night I am reciting "outside, inside, hook, jump". After two weeks of physical and mental practice I got to do them for my coach today. Once I got over my abject fear of jumping by doing a few along the boards I landed several out on the ice surface. She slowed me down a bit more but didn't have any other corrections. She was quite happy with it which shocked the hell out of me. She always has corrections. I am amazed. We moved on to the Toe Loop jump which didn't go as well but I haven't been practicing that as diligently. She corrected several items but then was fairly happy with it. I did a Camel spin for her which have been driving me batty but I hit this one fine and spun for several rotations before doing a nice scratch spin out of it. She told me again that she had nothing to correct. Another shock. This spin isn't consistent for me yet. I miss it more often than hitting it but I seem to be able to pull off at least a couple each time I'm on the ice if I am skating okay. She had more corrections for the sit spin which I had been doing really well yesterday. I did pull off a couple that she was happy with.

I wasn't so lucky with the back spin. This one is going to take some time. If I use the inside three turn as the entrance I just seem to grind to a halt rather than spin. I have better luck doing a change foot attitude spin and can eek out several backward rotations before putting my foot down. I actually managed the requisite three full rotations on one occasion which I have not been able to repeat since. When I start getting annoyed with myself I just remind myself how long it took me and how much diligent practice it took me to get a good forward spin. It will take as much time to do the back one. I have to get used to balancing on the ball of my foot just letting the toe rake scrape the ice while maintaining a back outside edge; all while the arms, torso and free leg work in perfect coordination and timing. This is going to take some serious ice time. It is a combination of learning the balancing, acquiring the fine muscle control in the foot and also getting the timing right of everything else which is just a long process. She told me that when I master it I will probably enjoy spinning backwards more than forwards. Apparently this a preference of most athletes. One extra obstacle I am trying to overcome is that I never ever learned this as a kid so it is totally new to me unlike the forward spin which I was actually quite proficient at and even had a nice layback when I was a kid. Patience. This is going to take a while.

The same with my three turns. I swing them. It is supposed to be a slight twitch of the shoulders and I use my whole body for the turns. The back threes are frustrating me to no end. I managed to do some in LP during summer camp but I haven't been able to do them for months no matter how much I practice them. I know I have been doing something horribly wrong but without a coach watching me and fixing me they have deteriorated rather than improved. We spent a lot of time on back threes today. She got so frustrated with me. "It is a simple movement," she kept telling me. Just the shoulder twitch. "Nothing else moves. Hold everything else still." Then I try it again, I swing something and end up pitching forward at the waist and putting my foot down after the turn. I just don't do them well. I am trying to overcome 30+ years of bad habits here. If I don't practice even the forward threes they quickly deteriorate into swinging uncontrolled messy turns. I have to make these a regular part of my practice to make them improve rather than deteriorate.

As my friend was saying today "skating is hard". I totally agree with her but that is why it is so exciting when you can finally do something well. When something is mastered it gives you real pleasure to perform it. I try to make my practices a mixture of things I can do well, things in process and things I can't do yet at all. This balances out the frustration with some excitement and flat out fun.

The Skating Gods

Anyone that skates understands that the figure skating gods are a fickle bunch at best. One day you can do a perfect camel the next day you can barely center a scratch spin and this happens for no apparent reason. You just have bad skating days. Somehow you inadvertently offended one of the skating gods. Of course where I skate the lesser gods inhabit our rink. They sometimes bestow a perfectly centered spin on you or an amazing wipe out while doing a simple three turn but mostly they ignore us. The Olympic skating gods however are much worse. Two international level top skaters will do the same jump, one lands it perfectly and the second cleans the ice with their butt. They can both do the jump or they wouldn't be in the competition in the first place. It is just that one is in favor with the gods that day and the other is not.

I was at Lake Placid for the Skate America competition. This is the first high level competition that I have gone to. I was very excited and got to see the Olympic skating gods in action. Brandon Mroz was one of their toys over the weekend. He landed everything in practice. He did okay during his short program but his long program was a complete and utter disaster. I don't think he landed a single jump in his program. I felt so bad for him. The gods had it out for him for sure. It isn't like he can't skate. During his practice he did a wonderful job. The Olympic gods just decided to mess with him that day. Rachael Flatt and Evan Lysacek however were in their favor this weekend. They both skated wonderfully. Rachel skated a perfect long program and Evan a perfect short program and a near perfect long program. Rachael even beat out Yu-Na Kim in the long. But the gods had favored Yu-Na the day before with a perfect short program so she got the gold medal.

But the gods decided to chase one of the Russian competitors down and take him out. Again the kid skated well in practice but dumped his jumps during the competition. If he didn't finish last he was dam close to the bottom. Once he was done he went out drinking. As if this wasn't bad enough, he then went out and found a car with the keys still in it (this is Lake Placid after all and people still leave their keys in their cars) and went for a drive. After the police caught up with him, he landed in jail for car theft and drunk driving. The Russian team left without him while he sat in jail waiting for a court hearing. He may get the charges dropped but the gods were not done with him yet. The Russian Skating Federation has banned him from competition for one year so he is going to miss the Olympics. The Olympic skating gods can be a mean lot when you piss them off.

I have felt their touch when I skate in LP. I seem to skate better and faster when I am up there. I am more daring but also fall more often. Their touch is feather light but always present. I truly hope I never anger them but I still have no idea how to appease them.

What is up with Wednesdays?

I performed boot surgery last Saturday afternoon. Sunday I went skating to try them out. Normally I don't skate two days in a row never mind three. My muscles typically don't have the stamina and my performance degrades each day that I'm on the ice. However, with the new arch supports in the boots and the tongues fitting much better I skated wonderfully. My figure eights were better, my three turns were easier and I managed my first perfect camel spin as an adult. I must admit it surprised me. I didn't think I did anything different but here I was spinning fast and easily, arms and free leg parallel to the ice. I wasn't slowing down either. I lost count of my revolutions after four. I was totally blown away by how easy the spin felt. I finally came out of it and ended the spin with a perfect scratch spin. I looked down and all the loops of the tracing were contained in a space of a dinner plate. You couldn't tell how many revolutions since it was centered so well. Wow! That is what it feels like! Amazing! Please let me be able to do that again some time soon!

As is my wont, I did my lower body weight lifting workout on Monday instead of skating. It kills me to loose a day of ice training but I know the weight lifting is doing me good. My legs are stronger, my knees are doing better and tolerating the abuse of ice skating much better than they used to, and my core is getting stronger so I can hold myself erect more easily. As an added bonus I seem to be dropping inches off my waist if not pounds off my scale weight. In general, lifting weights has improved my skating. However, it seems to have wrecked havoc on my Wednesday skate. After being able to skate wonderfully this past Sunday I get on the ice on Wednesday and can't even center a simple scratch spin. I have to go back to basic figures to get my edge control back. Then I slowly work up the difficulty scale and work on spinning from a standstill, simple spirals and spread eagles before moving on to spinning from speed. I am a wreck. I can't center anything even from a standstill. If I manage something resembling a centered spin and I try it from speed it has a three foot long trail instead of neatly turning on top of itself. OMG, why is it so hard to skate on Wednesdays? This isn't an isolated incident. It happens every week. The only thing I can attribute it to is the weight lifting.

Now I know that, in weight lifting, in order for the muscle to get the idea that it needs to grow, and hence get stronger, you need to damage the poor unsuspecting sod. So you go into the weight room and literally rip up your muscles until they can't lift any more. Then you take a day or two off, eat lots of food that is good for you, get lots of rest and voila new muscle mass is born. Turns out that I must need to teach the new muscles how to skate on Wednesdays. The old muscles haven't shown them a thing. They must be tired from being beaten up on Monday and don't feel like talking with the new kids on the block (leg, arm, torso..). By the weekend everyone seems to be getting along again and skating progress can be made.

But now, instead of loosing one day of training due to weight lifting I really am loosing two days since Wednesday is remedial day. I can't quit weight lifting. It really is doing me a lot of good. I am particularly impressed with how well my knees are doing with the new routine. I just have to accept the fact that the weight training is slowing down my skate training. Since I am older I need to make sure I am doing as much as I can to make myself strong and resilient instead of beating the crap out of myself as if I was 16. I have watched parents at the rink beg their kids to either get off the ice or not jump since the kid is injured and under doctor's orders not to skate hard. What does the kid do? Land an Axel, do double toe loops. The kid's competition is coming up and they don't want to loose training time. It is more important to me to be able to climb stairs pain free than land an Axel but that is 47 year old me talking. When I was 13 I thought casts were cool rather the pain in the butt and months of rehab my older body knows. I guess Wednesdays are going to have to be figure skating 101 days for a while.