Hip To Be Square

Since this is a problem that I thought might be experienced by other adults, I thought I'd write about twisted hip. In twisted hip, one leg drags the body back and to the side. This might also be called open hip.  Instead of keeping my hips square when I skated, I would twist my right hip. This affected even something as simple as basic stroking.

There's a lot of reasons to twist the hips when skating, but as a basic skills skater, it seems easier for me to learn a lot of basic skills if the hips are square.

 It's hard to find a picture of basic stroking with twisted hips, instead these are the best illustrations I could find of yoga positions, just so you can get the idea.

This gives a view of how a hip can twist back

You can see here how hips can be square. Notice how
even they are.

Anyway the physical therapists wanted me to get my hips square while I was stroking.  I spent a lot of time on an exercise machine strengthening my gluteus medius to make it happen. After  couple of months they succeeded and I was able to stroke with squared hips. It smoothed out my skating and my coach stopped yapping about how the left side skated better than the right side.

Once I got my hips square, I was able to conquer 3 turns. With hips square I stopped flinging my way around the turn, and they became controlled. Without squared hips, I sort of jerked my way around.  I'm making progress on my spins as well.

I had a coach who was yapping about my crossovers. Finally, I turned on this coach  and I snapped, "Am I the only one that has every coach find a new problem with my crossovers? Crossovers with the arms holding the circle. Crossovers with the arms square. Crossovers with the arms in any position. What do you want me to do, now?"

"Ah," the coach said, "Keep your hips square, and twist your upper body."

So, I did. It made her happy.

Just knowing the next coach will want me to do something different in crossovers, so I'm not holding my breath this is the last crossover 'fix' for me.

Still, keeping my hips square has helped me a lot with my basic skating skills. If I ever stay well enough to advance, I'm sure there's elements where a twisted hip with be the thing to do,  but for now, I'm square hips all the way.

Ready, Steady, Got! Or Not...

At times figure skating can be enormously frustrating. Kids sometimes lose their jumps as they grow. One day an adult can do a skill, and the next day not. Yeah, one day skating is ready, you're steady, you gots... and the next day....nots.

I've had that for the last few weeks with my three turns. I used to have nice ones. Not great, but consistent and I could do them with any foot, leg or arm position.

Today I saw Dance Coach leaning on the boards while he waited for Miss Cheerleader to warm up for their Gold Moves lesson. "How is your return to skating coming?" he was kind enough to ask.

"The knee and the hip," I waved my hands in frustration, "I'm going nowhere fast."

That was a hard statement to make. I must have looked really down. Dance Coach smiled sadly and said, "Skate safe."  What else could he say?

Five minutes later, I fell off my back edge in a 3 turn. I almost walked off the ice. What was I doing? This constant stream over the weeks of choppy three turns, no improvement,...

But I'd paid for the ice, so I skated to the other end of the rink to get away from the 'falling spot.'  'Falling spots' carry bad juju for a few minutes so it's best to skate away, just so it doesn't reach out and zap you. Yeah, I'm a doofus.

Other end of the rink, I do a FO3, and just as I'm about to do the turn I squeeze my thighs together. Bam! Perfect three turn with about 10 feet of glide, steady as a rock.

Rest of the session I'm doing outside threes with any foot, leg or arm position, either direction equally well. As long as I bring that free leg in so the thighs touch, I'm golden.

No idea what's going on, but...

Back in love with skating!

The Curate's Egg in Saturday's Lesson

As you all know I'm in the process of  re-learning to skate (for the THIRD time--every time I get competent something happens). So today, when Madam Mim was coaching me, she said, "I hate 3 turns, but I love mohawks. Let's review your mohawks."

"I love mohawks," Madam Mim says.

I've done these a few times since I returned to the ice. I have them to the left but not to the right, so I'm behind where I was when the knee went Kablooey (TM applied for) last November.

I rip off one to the left: fast, noisy and scary for anyone watching (although I'm solid as a rock they're not pretty).  When I come out of it, Madam Mim smiles.

"That was actually not awful," she said.

I give a fist pump, "YEEAH!"

Yes, I'm at the stage of skating where 'actually not awful' is a GOAL!

This is the Curate's Egg of skating. I'm taking the positive attitude from my critiques. Some parts of my mohawk are 'quite excellent'!

Madam Mim has decided I'm going to learn Moves--not test-- just learn. So today I learned using the mohawk as a transition between the forward and backwards crossovers in the crossover eight in Pre-Bronze. Homework, I have homework!

Czech Please! Part Dva !

One of the reasons I picked Madam Mim is that when she substituted in a Group Class, she tried to fix my 3 turn checks.

Well, actually as I did my three turn, she grabbed my arm and pulled it into a check position. "Stop being a baby. Learn to Check."

Today, we revisited my checks.  After a few whacks at it. Madam Mim commented, "Why do you wave your arms around when you three turn?"

"Uh, overexcited shoulder action?"

Yeah, I'm one of those beginner skater who falls into bad arm waving habits to force the 3 turn. So I suppressed my arm waving and got some decent checks.

Maybe life would be easier if I had a pivot in my head.

Now here's the miracle. With the shots in my knees, and physical therapy, and icing my hip 3 times a day, I'm skating without pain and with more response in my knees than I've had for 30 years. I can feel the rocker, and I'm gliding backwards further. So happy about that.  And it only takes a few minutes for me to improve my checks.  A ways to go, still a lot of improvement in one lesson.

But as the lesson continues working on my back edges, Madam Mim comments, "It's scary watching you go backwards on an edge, you're so slow, I don't see how you do it."

Every coach I've ever had has said that. What can I say? I had thorough  balance training as a child!

A Hand of Coach Poker--I Fold Early

"Now, we work on three turns." Dance Coach says.

I do a FO3, and then because I feel good, I do another and another, and more until I've done a circle of them and end up standing in front of Dance Coach.

I've never done threes around the circle before.

We've never even discussed them before.

Still, when I stop in front of Dance Coach I'm not surprised that he has no expression. He's got his Russian coach poker face on. He says:

"Do again, you stepped wide."

So, I do them again. This time with, I swear, nothing wrong in them I can think of. Arms. Good. Size. Good. Flow. Good. Turn forward. Good.

I come to a stop in front of Dance coach.

"Your head was in the wrong position," he says.

Mohawk Mambo and Three Turn Tango

Mohawk Mambo and Three Turn Tango--those sound like great dances, don't they?  But what they are is the feeling I had after my lesson with Coach Cruella.

I felt like dancin'.

How I feel about my mohawks

 The last little bit of the Mohawk has slipped into place, and I'm comfortable with them now. My problem was that when I was practicing, I was checking at the wrong point. Without Cruella there when I practiced, I wasn't catching my error. Once she fixed that she made me chant my way through a mohawk just to prove I had conscious knowledge (as opposed to mere physical sense) of what I was supposed to do through the mohawk. I think this verbal step through is a good check on a student's knowledge. I had to do it for the instructor when I was learning to jump out of planes. It really cements the steps in your head, and reassures the coach that you are conscious of all the steps, as opposed to just getting lucky during lesson.

Then we switched to FI3. I hate these. I've had so many close calls that my practices were next to the boards. And eventually, after having the short chunky ones, I got out of the habit of practicing them so they disappeared. Cruella  had me doing big, sweepy ones inside 15 minutes. Okay, she had to steady my back hand but it was a light touch and I barely need it. But there was no wobble, no forward bend....no panic.

After 5 or 6 good solid, sweepy ones, I covered my face with my hands, shaking my head in disbelief. "Do you know how many hundreds of dollars I've spent on these?" I said, dropping my hands.

Cruella gave a sympathetic smile, "When [a former student] told me of your 3 turn problems years ago, I told him to have you contact me."

I looked up, "And I did! But that love god of a husband of yours kept getting you pregnant!"

We both got a laugh out of that.

I don't feel like I have them solid yet. I have them where I'll start practicing them again, and work on them independent of a coach. Still, looking good! But what ties my mohawks and FI3 together? It's that inside edge.  I never had strong ones until I learned good edge control from Cruella. I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm much, much stronger than I was before.

 Anyway, here's where I feel I am on the Three turn as expressed as a tango. An old tango. Not an exciting one, but still it's a Tango!

I'm just starting out again on FI3 (c. 1915)

Waltz Troika (Edited)

Troika-(Rus.) Three Turn

There appear to be two kinds of Waltz Threes in figure skating. There's the one that's done in Freestyle. Skip that. Then there's the one that's in Ice Dance. That's the one I'm talkin' about.

In Ice Dance the waltz three is a three turn in waltz hold.

Waltz Hold

I'm  learning the baby variant of this. I skate forward and do a FO3 in Waltz hold, tuck the free foot through the turn, switch feet, and the new free foot goes forward towards the gentleman. I don't know what the gentleman is doing (back 3 maybe?). I've got my own feet to think about. His feet are not my problem.

Anyway, after we do one of these waltz threes, we do another, and another. At that point my three turns are lagging badly, scratching awfully, and Dance Coach is effectively holding me up. After the 3rd Waltz 3, we stop. Dance Coach makes some pithy critique while I grip my knees and try to get un-dizzy.

I'm just not 'getting' these.

The traditional way to talk about this is for the lady to skate as if she's aiming directly between the gentlemen's legs. I've heard this from Dance Coach and other people. It's not working for me. The first Waltz 3 is nice then I start falling further and further behind. Scratchy threes then appear.  Dance Coach has tried various fixes. He's adjusted my shoulders, my hip positions, my head, my leg position, my arms; nothing worked. Turns 2 and 3 stay scratchy.

The funny thing is, I can do these by myself. FO3 with neat feet, and a kick forward at the end. For a beginner skater like me, that's not easy.

But with Dance Coach standing in front of me---I gotz nuzzink.

After some unsuccessful go rounds last week, Dance Coach sighs. "Don't aim between my legs." he says. "Skate towards this leg." He slaps his left leg.(edit: This was apparently an experiment for that lesson. We've gone back to the traditional way of 'skate between the legs') Since I'm doing left FO3 to his whatever he's doing, I guess that makes it his outside leg. But, to tell the truth, I just shove in in my memory as, "Aim to the left leg, when I'm on the left foot. vice versa."

"Ready, go," he tells me.

One rotation, two rotation, three rotation. Zip, Zap, Thunderclap! NO SCRATCHING! And I'm perfectly aligned with his position throughout!

I get my first Waltz Three High Five

Why this works and the traditional way doesn't, is a complete mystery to me. But work it does.

(edit. There will be a later post on my struggles with this element. I think I've figured it out though)

Troika!

Today's Russian: Troika!--three turn

Taking a lesson from Coach Cruella is a little like drinking from a fire hose.

I could make a whole week of posts from the group and private lesson I take from her one day a week. Right now I'm going to talk about her fixing my 3 turn.

Cruella Says:

So I have three turns that are minimally flingy. As long as I'm under Dance Coach's thumb, he's had me doing them the Ice Dance Way: with the free foot tucked up to the skating foot heel. This is because you're skating with a partner and kicking each other or stepping on each other is a Bad Thing.

So Coach Cruella brings out the Magic Marker of Doom. I cringe as she draws out a half-circle slightly smaller than the half circle at the net end of the rink. Then she draws a line at each third of the half circle.

"Skate the circle, then go down in the knee----" Insert mad scientist laugh here, "deeper each mark. And do a three turn here." She points to the third mark.

Bear with me here. I'm a beginner skater, with historically weak three turns and fear of learning new skills that have a backward element in them. What expression do you think I had when I started this.

 

Was it this one?

Coach Cruella takes my hands and supports me around the circle.

Start with a T-push, down at the first mark, down at the half mark, down at the third mark..... TROIKA!

I've had some opportunity to practice these by myself a few times, and I'm getting the hang of them. I've heard of mythical 'three turns that do themselves' . And I've been told down-up-down hundreds of times. In my limited experience with this method, the three turns do turn themselves (but I have to get REALLY down in the knee) and the down-up-down motion seems natural rather than forced.

So the pros--beautiful three turns, stable with just a half hour of practice.

And the cons--I need to enter with a little more power than I'm used to. A little scary there until I get comfortable with them. These don't work for me if I have too little power.