The Ice Doesn't Care

Last year, after canceling several lessons first for back pain, and then after the knee went 'kablooey' ( TM applied for )  I gave m...

It's not supposed to be like this. I tend to creep up on skills. I learn a piece of it here, and a bit of it there, and then wit...

I took my new blades and skated on them at freestyle then immediately went into one of Coach Cruella's group edge classes. Fortunately, ...

A long time ago, I had a coach who on my first lesson said, "Don't be shocked. I'm going to need to touch you occasionally to c...

For the last two weeks Coach Cruella has had us working on edges inside and outside, forward and back, facing out of the circle ! The firs...

Coach Cruella can read my mind, or look into the past in her mysterious crystal ice ball. I have a problem with hitching my free leg comin...

(Edit) I had a lesson with Coach Cruella a week after I wrote this post. I found I'd misunderstood her in a lesson, so now I'm corre...

Some people are gifted in skating. They can learn even complex skills in 3 or 4 repetitions. The may not be smooth, or graceful, but they...

Since I started taking lessons from Coach Cruella, I've skated deeper in the knee than ever before. It's really improved my skating....

"You need to hold on to me harder." Dance Coach said. It's been decades since a man said that to me, popped into my brain b...

I really want to get my mohawks smooth and....well, I can't say 'sexy' because with my short legs I look like a frog when doing ...

I have fallen into a perfect partnership between my ice dance coach and my edge coach. And yet they've never met. If they were to meet a...

In my old figures books, what we now call a push off or even just a push, used to be called 'the strike'. Doesn't that have a po...

When I told Coach Cruella that Dance Coach had said some time ago, "You're not ready," for progressives, she got down and crac...

Three more discouraging words I've never heard: You're not ready. When I asked Dance Coach to teach me progressives he shook his h...

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...

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 wh...

Taking a lesson from anyone can  be overwhelming. Move the body here, twist here, hold the arm here, don't do that -do this , BEND THE K...

I was deeply affected by a group lesson given by a coach at Lake Placid when she started her mohawks class with a motivational speech. ...

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 th...