Competition #2 or The Evil Salchow

A Salchow is one of first "full" revolution jumps taught to beginners. I have quote marks around "full" because the jump is really only a 1/2 to 3/4 turn at most. It is a weird combination of a three turn and waltz jump. You do the forward three as an entrance and then from the back inside edge you start swinging around and when you are sideways you jump and land on the other foot going backwards. This is supposed to be easy. Turns out it is very difficult to do properly. I can do an amazingly crappy Salchow at speed. If I am trying to do them properly I have to go slow. Unfortunately I need this dam jump for my next competition on April 10th and due to the twisted ankle I wasn't able to jump them until a couple of weeks ago. I did practice the entrance over and over again which was a good thing since I keep tipping forward after the three turn. To make matter worse I was on vacation last week and lost eight hours of ice time and a lesson while away. (I had a great time BTW. I highly recommend going to Santa Fe, particularly if you like rocks or stars not so much if you like ice skating.)

Anyway, for the competition I need the following five elements: lunge, forward crossovers, Salchow, Waltz jump, and a single foot spin. Four of the five elements I have a strong consistent grip on. The Salchow is still dicey. I fell on it last night during my lesson. The coach just looked at me and said "you shouldn't have fallen on that. You did everything right. You had a good entrance but you fell anyway." In some strange way it was comforting to hear that I shouldn't have fallen. It was great to hear that I finally did the entrance correctly. I don't know if it was just nerves since this jump still scares me sometimes; the little guy in my head telling me that I'm going to die that freaked me out; or if the little toe on my landing foot was numb (never ending nerve problems from the blasted car accident years ago). Who knows. Sometimes I just fall. I swear the little guy in my head causes brain seizures. I get so wound up about jumping and he gets so loud I just freak out and botch the jump either not taking off at all, doing it poorly or just plain falling down. Why is this so difficult?? Why is this so scary?? I should be able to do this. I have landed a bunch of them and some of them are even good. I have even landed them at speed. Why do I still get on my freak bus?

I think I need to get some dialog going. I don't have my words yet to distract my brain from the little guy constantly screaming about dying. Today in practice I started counting out loud. That seemed to help tremendously. I am doing a Mohawk turn and three turn prior to the jump so the cadence should be the same. I think I need to start doing six counts for each element so I can't hear the little guy. It will probably go something like this:

Mohawk: 123 bend the knees, turn, 456 hold, step
3 turn: 123 bend the knees, squeeze shoulders together turn, 456 bend and hold, step
Salchow: 123 stand up straight, squeeze shoulder together turn, 456 stand up straight, swing bend jump, hold landing, step forward

Between counting out loud and going over instructions in my head the little guy can't get a word in edgewise. I have used this technique for a while now and it seems to work well. I even found it in the sport training book I've been reading so I'm not the only one that finds it a useful technique. I'll have to try my new words out during my next practice. I have one week to get more comfortable with this. Unfortunately, since I am 47 I can only jump so many times during practice before my legs are wasted. This too will improve with time but for this competition it is a luxury that I don't have.

Bronze Goddess

CJs movie
Originally uploaded by p_danek

Not sure what to write. My friend called me this after she found out that I won bronze and I liked the title.

This was my first competition ever. I only had one event the PreBronze Compulsory Moves. Which is a mini one minute program without music. There are five required elements with connecting steps. In this case it was a two foot spin, one foot spin, lunge, waltz jump and backward crossovers in a figure eight pattern.

When I was a kid I wanted to skate in competitions but you had to pass seven school figure tests first. Since I have never been a gifted skater this would mean that I wouldn't be able to compete until I was 20 or so. My family also didn't have the money for me to continue in the sport so at around 13yrs old I decided to just skate recreationally.

Then, two years ago after being injured in two car crashes, I decided that I needed to exercise. I had been off the ice for almost 15 years and had no idea if I could do it because of some lingering minor nerve damage to my feet. That same year I also went up to Lake Placid to watch my mother skate in Adult Nationals. During the competition I watched the Bronze ladies events in my age category. As I watched I came to the realization that even though I was in my mid 40s, quite overweight and slightly injured I had a shot at competing. What did it matter that it was 35 years later? I could do this!! And thus my training started....

Yesterday was the culmination of the last two years of work. My first ever competition. I kept telling myself that this wasn't important. It is only an adult competition, not regionals or nationals. It was only a moves event not a full program. But dam it, it was VERY important to me. Here I am a 47 year old, 200+lbs woman skating in a competition. I was excited beyond words. I knew I could skate this program. I had been skating it clean for a month. It came down to nerves. Could I keep them in check? Could I hold myself together?

I got to the rink with my two other skating friends, one of whom was also competing. We set up shop in the stands under one of the heaters. Our bags were every where. We had to have practice clothes, costumes, stretching gear, food, water, street clothes, blankets, et al. We settled in for the duration noon-6ish. I couldn't believe how many people that I knew there; people running the competition from Colonial Club, people I skate with at various rinks, people I even met on line. I felt plugged in. I got to chat with various folk and introduce my friends to them. It was really cool.

Then it was stretch time. My practice ice was in 20 minutes. Jump rope to get my blood moving then stretch out on the yoga mat. Suddenly the events ended and practice ice started without an announcement. I went up to the gate guard and asked if this was practice ice and he said yes. "I guess I'll go put my boots on then," I replied. I was late but I wasn't going to stress about it. I had booked 40 minutes of practice which I knew right then and there was too much. I had skated hard the day before and only needed to warm up and get the feel of this particular rink and ice. They make great ice at Colonial so I wasn't really worried about it.

I got on and diddled around just getting my feet under me. Did a few spins. Worked on my 2 foot spin which had been giving me problems. I just had to remember to point my toes in and it was fine. I did bits of my routine. Then I decided I had to do a full run through. I went to the end where I was going to perform and did it flawlessly. I could do this if I held myself together!!

My friend took to the ice. Her practice time started during the second 20 minute slot. It turns out that her mom is a still a skating mom. She was hanging over the boards taking flash photographs of her daughter during practice. The bulb kept firing and it started to get irritating. Flash photography is prohibited during skating events since it can be horribly distracting and now I know why. It breaks your concentration. I don't know how she put up with it.

I did a couple of spirals just for fun and then decided that I was done. I left the ice only to be faced with the longest hour in the history of man. Every time I looked at the clock it had only moved a minute or two. I wanted to get ready. I wanted to warm up again. Instead I had to settle for pacing. I went to the snack bar with one friend and then to the skate shop with the other. I showed one the figure rink that had no hockey lines or Plexiglas.

Finally I took my things to a changing room. It was a disgusting vile dirty room with the light fixtures hanging by wires from the ceiling, the showers boarded up and the whole thing painted battleship gray like they had some kind of sale on it. Icky. I didn't want my feet to touch the floor but I had no choice. They also didn't have double doors so anyone in the hockey boxes could see right into the room when the door was opened up. I promptly decided an underwear change was not an option. On went the tights, on went the leotard, on went the dress. I was done in record time. I wanted out of that nasty room.

I have to move to get rid of nervous energy. When I was home that morning I suddenly understood why Johnny Weir cleans his house before a competition. I found myself doing the same thing. I cleaned the kitchen and living room before I got distracted with doing my nails. But here I was at the rink with no dust cloth so I paced. During one of the brief moments I was sitting I almost broke down and started crying. I can't believe I am here. I can't believe I am finally doing this. I can't believe that I am skating in a competition! I had to get a grip. I can't start bawling two minutes before I get on the ice. Ugh.

Finally it was warm up time. I don't remember much of this but I did do a complete run through that went awesome and I stopped directly in front of the judges who were all looking at me. Yeah! It was time to get off. I was the second skater. I had to wait one minute before I had to do this again. I wasn't sure I would catch my breath in time. I stood by the gate, panting, doing deep breathing just trying to catch my breath and calm down. Suddenly one minute went blazing by at light speed instead of crawling like molasses. It was my turn. I stepped on the ice and hovered at the boards until my name was announced. I skated elegantly to my start position. Said "what the hell" and launched into my two foot spin. While I was spinning I heard the announcer "You may begin." @#$% no one told me I was supposed to wait. I hadn't watched the girl before me so I hadn't noticed this for this event. Oh well. Can't do anything about it now. Onto my backcrossovers, "nice and slow" I kept telling myself. "take your time" "pay attention". Lunge, three turns, jump, spin. I was done! I skated clean!! I was so happy!

I headed off the ice. I collapsed in the bleachers and couldn't catch my breath. I almost cried again. I was so happy!! I had done it. It didn't matter to me if I came in dead last I had competed!! I had done my best and did it well. I was excited!! I was exuberant! I was desperately trying to catch my breath and not break down crying. My husband came over and took my picture. He found it amusing that I turn beet red when I skate. I felt like I had held my breath for the entire minute I was on the ice. I hate the picture but love it at the same time. I look so tortured and happy. It isn't at all flattering but it shows the physical and emotional work it took to get to this point.

Turns out I got a bronze medal for my efforts. I got to stand on a podium for the first time. I congratulated the winner whom I had met on an Internet forum for competitive adult skaters. It is a small world.

We then stayed at the rink for my friend's turn to compete. She did well. She landed her axel and got a silver medal. We all went home happy. We had a great time together even if it was stressful.

Now, a day later. I am happy with the experience. I think I am hooked. I want to do this again. I want to take more tests so I can compete at a higher level. I don't know if I would have been any good at this when I was a kid. I didn't have the nerve or self confidence. Then again if they had let me compete my mom may have never gotten me off the ice ;-)

Tidbits

Tidbit #1
I dreamed that I passed my bronze freestyle test. I was surrounded by little kids and they were all cheering for me because I did so well.

Odd since I'm not even practicing for that yet. I would understand if it was a competition dream since that is only five days away, but a test dream??

Tidbit #2
I have been reading about mental training which is fascinating to me. Concurrently I've been listening to interviews with Olympic skaters. I am starting to see weird patterns with them prior to them taking to the ice. They have preparation routines that they don't break. Johnny Weir vacuums his apartment so that there are lines in the rug for his return and dusts with lemon pledge. Evan Lysacek burns a particular brand of scented candle. The routines are calming routines. To start getting ready mentally for practice or for competitions. The routine that I seem to have fallen into is tearing around the ice really fast and then doing school figure practice. This gets rid of the high level energy and then calms me down and makes me connect both with my body and my body to the ice. Once I have done figure practice for five minutes or so I am ready to skate properly. I have plugged in to the rink and left the world outside.

Tidbit #3
I skated Friday and Saturday until I was very tired. My ankle which I had sprained two weeks earlier was behaving itself. Then Sunday I went dress shopping and spent two hours walking over concrete. That night my ankle started aching. I put it up. It got worse. I slathered Traumeel on it. It got worse. I looked down at it and it had swollen again. I put ice on it. This morning I had trouble walking on it so I made the rounds. First the chiropractor, who rearranged the bones in my foot, toes, ankle and knees. Then to the acupuncturist to get rid of the swelling. It is doing much better. I've had it up all day. Next is an Epsom salt bath after I'm done writing.

Tidbit #4
My very first ever competition is in five days. I don't feel nervous but there is tension in my shoulders that doesn't want to go away. Wish me luck.

Tidbit #5
Things seem to have returned to normal on the group ice that I skate on. After taking a week to calm down I talked with the group skate director regarding the safety issues of not warning the little kids to stay out of the adult area. This is when I find out that not only is the ice for group lessons but they have opened it up for bridge lessons and freestyle (the club is cash strapped). I feel sorry for any of the kids trying to do MIF during the group skate. I gave that up last year. You just can't skate the length of the rink during group lessons. You'll take someone out or go down yourself. At least I had some good practice. The only people I've had to dodge is the other adults most of whom I can skate around.

Going for Gold

We are in the throws of the Olympic season. The ladies long program was on two nights ago and our adult class has more new students in it than I've seen during the entire time I've been back on the ice. Some of them can even skate! While I would love to be chatting with them and getting to know them it is two weeks before my own competition. I am getting focused. I do back to back run throughs during every practice now. I am trying to get used to doing the program from end to end instead of practicing it in bits. Since this is a prebronze event there is no music so I can't don a neon vest and have the right of way on the ice. Instead I am dodging people. I figure if I can do this while not tripping over the guy on hockey skates that just went down in front of me I have half a chance at the competition.

At this point I can skate all of the elements and skate them well. My problem is distractions and forgetting that EVERYTHING in the program is important. The connecting steps count just as much as the spins and jumps as Evan Lysacek just proved winning gold without a quad. He has excellent connecting steps. After I showed my coach my run through today this was the first thing she corrected. I had sped through the connecting steps rushing from jump to spin while not giving the steps my attention and consideration. I did it a second time concentrating on each element and she was much happier. I am on the verge of freaking out about this. I can feel a rush of nerves every once in a while that subsides as quickly as it showed up. I am going to be okay. I can do this. Perhaps I too can win gold without a quad.

Worst Skating Day

It was bound to happen sometime. I suppose I shouldn't complain; no one got mangled, at least not yet. However, a day later I am still quite upset by the whole thing.

It started out badly. For no apparent reason, I twisted my ankle walking out of the house to my car. I didn't trip. I didn't loose my footing. I just stepped on the side of my foot and down I went. Of course with the competition three weeks away a string of expletives were sent out to greet the sunny Saturday morning. After having a crying jag, throwing my water bottle and hitting the door a few times I calmed down. My husband finally found me and helped me get up. I could put weight on it and walk without limping so I decided I was going to the rink anyway.

I skipped jump roping and just did my stretching. Then, on went the boot. A little sore but very tolerable. I got on the ice. Stroking no problem. Hard edges no problem. Forward crossovers no problem. Backward crossovers no way. Since I injured my landing foot, I already knew that jumping was out, so today went from a Salchow practice day to a spin practice day. I did a program run through with a few substitutions to mark the back crossovers and the waltz jump but I was happy with it considering the bum foot. I practiced the footwork prior to the spin. So far so good.

The ice was getting crowded. This session is a group lesson session rather than public or freestyle. Anyone that pays money can get on. This is where we learn to skate on club ice without the high test kids whizzing around. The rules of play are slightly different for group lesson ice than freestyle ice. Typically each coach is given an area of the ice and their students take their lessons and practice in that area. The adult group has been assigned the end of the ice from the blue hockey line. Of course we get the Zamboni end of the rink with the crappiest ice but hey it is cheap ice and sometimes it is even smooth.

We are in the midst of Olympic fever so each week one or two new adults show up for group lessons. We went from four of us skating a month ago to having nine crammed in our area with two others down the other end of the rink with a different coach. That is eleven adults from absolute can barely stand up beginner to my friend that is doing axels and double jumps and we are all bouncing off each other in one third of the rink. Thus, my friend and I commandeer one of the hockey circles and take turns, me spinning and my friend doing jump runs. Everyone is fine if a bit cramped.

Now this is where thing get strange. I went up to my coach for my ten minute lesson and apparently someone had told one of the other adults that we were supposed to stay at our end of the rink. Well I already knew this and once warm up is done we all tend to stay down that end of the rink anyway. It was probably announced for the benefit of the newer adult skaters that didn't know this. I don't mind adhering to the rules as long as the other kids/coaches do the same. However, during my lesson we kept getting interrupted by kids whizzing past me. I looked down the other end of the rink and there is a coach who stacked her students up in a line and was sending them one by one down the length of the rink right into the adult end and right through the path of my lesson. We had to move to another patch of ice. My lesson was done and my coach moved on to another skater. My friend and I went back to the hockey circle setup. I was in the middle of a sit spin and along came the little kids. I almost sliced one of them in half with my blade. That was it. I shooed all of them out of the area before one of them got seriously hurt. My friend and I went back to practice. However, I notice something totally weird, the rest of the ice is completely clear. The nine adults are all skating around our 1/3rd of the rink but all the kids are clustered in clumps around the boards. Super odd. While I have seen this phenomenon occur in freestyle sessions, I dont' think I have ever seen this in a group session before. Not being my concern I go back to practicing.

My coach comes over to give my friend her lesson so I leave the hockey circle and find another patch of ice to practice spins on. There isn't enough room for an entrance so I am doing them from a dead standstill. Suddenly kids come tearing down the ice doing spirals. I look to the other end and every single kid is coming down the ice. A coach is at the other end yelling instructions. The kids had formed a pack and were now commandeering the entire rink doing circuits following the coaches instructions. What is this bullshit? No one can skate. Everyone has to get out of their way. My friend's lesson is interrupted. All of the adults trying to practice are interrupted while this mob skates around.

I get pissed. Really really pissed. I'm tired. I twisted my ankle and didn't get the practice I wanted. I almost hurt a six year old kid because they haven't been told to stay out of our area by coaches who should know better. I tear off down the ice. If they are skating in the adult area I'm going to skate in their area. Because the kids are skating as a pack there is lots of empty ice at the other end of the rink. I start doing spirals, spread eagles, spins. Anything that takes lots of room and speed. As the mob starts back down my end of the rink I start doing sit spins since these take up a huge amount of space. People can't get near you or they risk getting their shins slashed open. I hear the coach yell "Stay away from the girl that is spinning!" WTF!!

I don't blame the kids. I think I stepped into some weird turf war between the coaches and the kids were being used as ammo. The coaches were shooting them down the rink into enemy territory. In the heat of the battle what wasn't taken into consideration is that someone can get hurt and hurt very badly. We wear razor sharp blades on our feet with very nasty toe picks on them. You can break bones and get concussions when you hit the very hard ice. This is a very very dangerous game to be playing.

Because I am angry I just want to go and get in their way. Tit for tat. This is very sophomoric on my part but I am so angry. There is no call for this. This is immature and dangerous. There is no reason for this as far as I can see. If the coaches have a problem with each other then they need to settle it off ice NOT use the kids as pawns in their battle. I need to calm down so that I can act more mature myself. I don't want to but I know that if I don't then I will just escalate things. I will make them worse if I start skating through other people's lessons. I might get kicked off the ice myself. Besides this isn't the fault of the kids. It is the coaches that are behaving badly. What the hell is their problem anyway??? Why interrupt my lesson and practice when I haven't done anything to them? WTF? GROW UP PEOPLE!! This is supposed to be fun!!

I'm not enjoying myself anymore. If this continues I'm going to have to look into other options. I am friends with the rink manager. I could always see if he will set up an adult only session independent of the club. Then we could skate in peace instead of in pieces.


(Just to keep you guessing I skate at five different rinks with four different clubs.)

Four Weeks

In a little less than four weeks I am going to be in my first ever competition. I just got finished with my lesson. My coach only made me repeat the second half of my power three turn MIF pattern. She then had me repeat my back edge pattern but hold my chin up. We then moved on to the compulsory moves program. She told me that it was fine and she didn't want to touch anything. She also told me that was my personal best at skating my back crossovers. She then went on to say that this was getting too easy for me and that I needed to start working on harder stuff. I am so happy. If I were a dog my tail would be wagging! This is someone that doesn't hand out compliments lightly and she basically passed everything I just did! Wow!

Now I just have to remember everything for the competition. I do run throughs in head every night before I go to sleep. I try to vividly think of the rink, me, the sound of my blades, my body positions, what it feels like as I run through my program. Now I am starting to step through it on my living room floor. I am nervous of forgetting what comes next. If I repeat it enough times I'll be fine. I am already pretty ok with it. I tend to get caught up in the element I am skating and forget what comes next. I need to relax and let my body skate.

I did so well we had tons of time left to do other stuff. We moved on to jump practice and she had me walk through Salchows and Toe Loops. We did everything slowly. Went over all the minutia. After doing the entrance over and over I finally jumped a Salchow. She then told me that I could now do it better than some of her other students. I don't think that they are very good yet since I am not doing them at speed or with much height but she is happy that I am doing them correctly. It is a good start.

We then ran out of time. I am starting to want to skate for more than 50 minutes again. A sure sign that I am finally feeling better since being so sick over Christmas. I can't get in enough skating practice. I didn't get to do spirals, spread eagles or Ina Bauers. I am probably going to have to start doing double sessions on Saturday again.

What a great skating day!