Suck In That GUT!

Friday skate is pretty good. Mostly adult skaters, kids leftover from freestyle, and a handful of ice tourists. I had room to spread my wings!
I tooled around worked on my leg strength and my mohawks and my three turns.

Then I remembered something I'd heard Johnny Weir say on his TV show (when he was giving a group class to some freestyle skaters).

"Squeeze your stomach in like you're squeezing a tube of toothpaste."

 This tells you something about Johnny Weir: he's good with coaching imagery, and he doesn't roll his toothpaste up from the bottom to get every last dollop out of it.

 Man, what do I have to lose? So I squeezed in my gut.

OMG, does this make a difference! I was able to finally get my leg to rotate in my hip so my toepick didn't point down to the ice--Even on my bad side mohawks! That right leg is finally getting fixed by the Physical Therapy so that I don't fear its collapse during mohawks, the gut squeeze just is the icing on the cake!

I can really control my hips, and the leg extension, and the upper body position. So give it a try if you're not doing it all ready.

What I think happens is that even though I have good abs, when I squeeze hard, I stop relying on my back muscles and balance the stress on my back.

It also give me a chance to use my favorite non-skating related gif.

Now you'll never forget, squeeze that gut!