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!

After 6 Weeks of Physical Therapy, a list of the Exercises I have to do, TWICE A DAY!

For the REST OF MY LIFE!

The most recent diagnosis?

Lordosis.

(Swayback)

Which has the effect of making me...

Plump in the rump

Junk in the trunk

y'know.

There goes my dreams of being a supermodel!

Also, it explains why I have trouble going down on the back edge in turns. The lordosis is right on top of compression fractures in my spine. 

More Exercises! 

Every Day!

For the Rest of My Life!

Now Here's a relevant little song.

The Crossover Second Push

My coach, Miss Bianca, was delighted to see me back in lesson for the first time in a couple of months. I was glad to be back and expected to be handled with kid gloves as a 'post injury skater'.

What I wanted

Miss Bianca seems to be of the philosophy that I shouldn't call up for a lesson unless I'm ready to be rode hard and put away wet. Yeah, she hit the hard stuff right away.

What I got :-) !

So we worked on the 'second push' in forward and back crossovers. 

Some of you don't find this hard, and some may have never heard of it. Here we go.

The first stroke in the forward crossover just the stroke onto the outside edge. Then there's the crossover, followed by the 'under leg' pushing out from the crossed leg. The movement of the 'under leg' is called 'the second push' or 'the underpush'. The picture below shows a textbook example of the second push.

Over leg, under leg, see the under leg pushing outwards
from the  over leg.
Voila! Second push

I

I knew the second push existed, but before my PT, I was only able to do it either occasionally or badly. Miss Bianca's technique is for me to do the crossover, hold the feet both on the ice in the crossed position, then push outward with the under leg by bending the knee of the over leg.

Then at the end there's a little tinkerbelle 'flick' of the toepick as the blade of the underleg is the last thing to leave the ice.

The 'flick' as the toepick leaves the ice

 "This will give you more power," Miss Bianca tells me.

So, good news, the PT on the hip means I can do the second push. AND the tinkerbelle maneuver.

Bad news, I'm not sure I want to go all that fast!