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!

Physical Therapy Begins!

My therapy involves low weight, high repetitions, all on the side of the body with the bad knee. Surprisingly, this is tiring. I was also told to ice my bad knee after I skate. So there's your little health tip for the day.

Still, I'm in much, much better shape than anyone else in the therapy gym except the cute guy in his 20's who's recovering from some sports injury.  One of his exercises was to stand on one foot, on a therapy cushion, throw a ball at a rebounder and catch it on the way back.  They're at least not starting me on that. I just have to stand on one foot on the therapy cushion and not fall over.

"You can touch the barre for balance," the technician told me, "if you feel you're going to fall over. Just don't use the barre to hold you up."

I stood on the cushion, took up my ice dance posture, and raised my left foot. 15 seconds, 3 times. I never touched the barre.

The technician was impressed.  "You're doing better than I could," she said.

Well, we all know the reason why, don't we.

I . am . a . figure . skater!

(We'll see if I'm this smug when they make me stand on one foot and throw that ball at the rebounder. I can't even catch a ball if I'm standing on two feet!)

Skating Again after Kneemageddon!

I went to freestyle today at my old rink and skated for 30 minutes.  Honestly, that last minute was torture. I've lost so much muscle tone in my right leg, and my balance was all over the place, that when I cautiously got on the ice I looked like this....

Slip, Slidin' Away

 This is one of the things I anticipated. As you get older,  the body loses muscle and flexibility at a rate that's positively depressing. Even though I continued my weight lifting and stretching exercises over the last 3 months, there was nothing I could do to keep my legs strong. I had to let them rest and recover. Now I have to rebuild them.

I started out with some simple stroking, the lack of practice showed, It took me a few minutes to get my posture and upper body back in alignment. I knew I looked like a Basic 3 skater, but the kids knew me and avoided me (the sweethearts). I was able to do forward and backwards crossovers by the end of my half hour; three turns and mohawks were where I was a year ago.

So what's a good thing for an elderly  mature woman to do to recover?

I did some research and everyone agrees that the four fitness goals for a 'mature' adult are the following:
Endurance
Strength
Balance
Flexibility

Endurance. What's a good exercise for this on ice? Swizzles. I found that swizzles were very demanding on my weaker leg, and I had to work hard to make the swizzles symmetric.  Also I wouldn't let myself do 'lazy swizzles'. I did them so I touched my feet together then out again which I find harder than 'lazy swizzles'.

I've been doing strength training of upper body during kneemageddon, and just started rebuilding my leg muscles. Pnysical Therapy starts Monday. When  I look at the strength exercises for the 'mature' online, the weights are at the 3 and 5 pound level. I'm using 15 and 20's and have a personal trainer. I guess I'm not the traditional little old lady.

Balance. Believe it or not I've been working on my off ice balance during Kneemageddon.  It's not the same as real skating. Cross fingers my skating balance comes back quickly. And what, you ask, is a balance exercise? Stand on one foot--working up to standing on one foot with eyes closed, on a Bosu Ball.  Still at standing on one foot with my eyes open. Man, the whole one foot on the Bosu ball, not happening.

I'm on the left....sigh.

Flexibility. Use it or lose it, baby. I do 30 minutes of flexibility work every weekday. My DVDs for this are here. I also have a knee rehabilitation DVD and a few others. My orthopedic surgeon was amazed. If I had one thing I would unreservedly recommend to 'mature' adult skaters, it's regular stretching training, and these DVD's are really good.

Now you're wondering how I was skating after the half hour of practice.

Ta Da!
(I am this cute!)