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.

The Sixth Sense

Everyone knows about the five senses: Sight, taste, hearing, touch, smell. We use these everyday. But we have a sixth sense, and not the one that pops up in horror movies. It's the sense of where the various parts of your body are. It's called 'proprioception'. Broadly, it's the ability to know even with your eyes closed, where the relative position of your body parts are to each other. For example, close your eyes and ask someone to move your hand. Do you know where it is? Of course you do. That's proprioception.

When I used to ride horses, I wore spurs. I had a trainer who told me to wear them because  "You always know where your heels are." That's praise in riding circles. I never jabbed the horse with them, I just used them for subtle cues when doing equitation. It's an art to ride with spurs.

You'd think with skillz like that, knowing where my feet are when I skate would be easy. It turns out, that  I have no clue.

More than once I've had a coach say, "Your free foot is in the wrong place." I cheerfully confess that especially in mohawks, I know that the free foot is pointing inside the circle.  Where it is relative to my skating foot--no idea. Ahead at the toe, back at the heel, where? Where?

So Coach Cruella has me doing exercises where I get on a strong inside edge, then move my free foot to mohawk position (while simultaneously going deeper in the knee) then hold it.

And hold it. And then hold it some more. But not do the turn. This is a position exercise, not a turn exercise.

She does the same for my free leg with the three turn exercises. I stroke, hold the leg in the extended position, then go down in the knee, again, again (for the outside 3), but again, and again (for the inside 3).  My job is to hold that edge, hold that posture, hold that extension.

This is pretty effective, especially with someone there the first few times  to point out where the free foot is going wrong.

After about 10 minutes of this work on threes and mohawks, I have a much more refined sense of my foot position. It's hardly a miracle cure, I'll need to practice this many times for it to become second nature, but it shows that focused practice can have immediate effects on my basic skating skills.

Whoa! Too far back on the heel! Bend the knee!