New Blades, Old Challenges

I took my new blades and skated on them at freestyle then immediately went into one of Coach Cruella's group edge classes. Fortunately, group class was exactly what I needed, forward inside and outside edges with the leg in front and back. It was nice to have a half hour of relaxing skating where I could get used to my new blades in a disciplined fashion.

As usual, Coach Cruella stood in the center of the circle dictating our every move.

Achtung! Skate! SKATE, I tell you! Forvard inzide edge, foot in front, NOW!

Yes, our own little edge nazi.

And she's just that cute too. And not much taller.

 So what happened in privates? Well, since they were new blades she made me demonstrate stroking forward and backwards to make sure I was balanced. It turns out that going backwards, my left foot is not pushing as strongly as my right. So with every stroke I had to chant OUT LOUD, "Left side push, Left side push." to get my left foot / leg to push stronger.

Eerily, it did work.

But, despite my stroking weakness, man, I loves me these blades going backwards.

It's really easy to get in the right position with knee and ankle bend so that I'm skating with upright posture, and for the first time going backwards I don't feel like I'm about to fall on my tuchus. 

Like this Cistercian Sister at Nuns Skate Free day at the rink.

Somehow it seems mean for the Benedictine Sister to be getting a good laugh out it.

Deeper! Deeeepppppeeeerrrrrr!

Coach Cruella has a small all adult (all women too) class of skaters wanting to improve our edges. Her spin class is full of the fanatics that like to get high by using centripedal force to brush their brains up against the interior of their brain pan, but in the edge class, there's only us 3. And one is a woman in hockey skates. (We're on the ice during the Learn to Play class. Based on the number of women in hockey skates in that class, Learn to Play is the new place to meet guys.)

Coach Cruella's approach to skating is much like every other coach I've ever had, get down in the knees. But she enforces it.

Her first lesson to us was stand in front of the boards and look in the glass. Then we had to mark where our noses were in the reflection. Then we bent our knees until the top of our head was at the line where our nose had been. That, she declared, was how deep our knees should be.  And when we skate, she makes us stay there until we whimper.

This is what her class is like:

Down in the knees or a puppy dies

It's a solid half hour of deep knees, using the hips as headlights, and resting 'the girls' on the table. Then this week she added pinching your shoulders back until it hurts. I may look beautiful on ice, but right now I feel like a soldier in a corset.  I ache when I get off the ice.

In the last lesson we learned how to get our back edges.  Her approach was to re-teach us how to do backwards pumps. I apparently pump to the back of my foot. I'm supposed to pump so that the outside foot comes to the font part of the inside foot (does not cross ahead of it). And it works! I'm on a well-balanced outside edge! It's not a miracle, but it's one advance over my awkward back edge issues.
Now if she can help me channel my inner Maia Usova, I'll be happy.

I'm the one on the left, going "Huh?"