The Never Ending Construction Project--Me

I'm a FO3 flinger. When I'm doing a LFO3, I fling my right hip around during the turn. Apparently, I do this going up stairs in just regular life, so there's an underlying disability. Rapunzel the Cruel, my physical therapist, has been working on strengthening and stretching muscles around the hip, and the  effects are starting to bleed through into my skating.

"I've been working on not letting my right leg  open up too much on FO3," I tell Miss Bianca. "I think if I keep my hips square it seems to help me with the back edge."

"Hm, let's see." Miss Bianca says.

I demonstrate.

"No," she says, "The issue is that you keep your right hip hiked up and fling it around the turn. So when you go backwards, you're off balance. Let's fix that right now."

I think every coach I've ever had, has told me a variation of this. I just didn't know how to process it. Now with the new awareness I've gained from physical therapy, and stronger muscles around the hip, I'm ready to work on it consciously.

I spent my lesson, getting my hip to un-hike. It's not just a matter of lowering it a little, it's a matter of lowering it a lot. To get my hips even, I have to lower my right hip to the point it feels scary.

"Lower," Miss Bianca says, "Even lower than that."

"Eeeeee!" my brain goes. But it works!

We do some edge exercises, and for the first time on an inside edge, I can feel a sense of power as I get the hips even.  What's happening, is that when I hiked my hip up, I was either on the flat or an outside edge ("How do you DO that!" one coach said) when I'm supposed to be on an inside edge. Unhiked, I'm finally on the inside edge.

Nothing's 'fixed' yet, but I think I've had a breakthrough.

Miss Bianca says, "Oh yes,
that looks much better."

Power with a Capital P and an Edge Exercise

 Madam Mim is still in the stage of making assessments of my skills (those that I still have) while I'm trying to come to grips that I now have knee bend.

Yes, the injections and physical therapy have restored knee bend that I haven't had since I was 14. But I still have habits that rely on muscle memory from when I didn't have knee bend.  So mixed bag here.

Madam Mim has me do one of her 'little exercises'. "Let's look at your power. Take one stroke onto an edge and see how far you get around the hockey circle."

So, it's a simple little exercise. The hockey circle provides a measure of the distance I can skate, so I can   see how I'm improving.

Old knees, I can get 3/4 of the way around on a good day, with a run up to the stroke

New Knees: All the way around both edges (thought LFI  is the weakest) without a run up to the stroke.

Woohoo!

"Cellllllebrate good knees, come on!" source
Song: Celebrate (Kool and the Gang)

Then Madam Mim teaches me a strokeless inside edge exercise.  The exercise looks like a traditional edge serpentine, but only one quarter to one half the size.

Source

Face perpendicular to the direction of travel. Stroke onto an inside edge and hold the free foot knee (oops!) toe to heel. This is supposed to be the only stroke you'll need.

As you get to the top of the arc bring the free foot forward and simultaneously bend and rise on the knee. This 'pumps' power  into the glide. Effectively, it's a 'strokeless' stroke. Timing has to be perfect, I can only do it half the time, but working on it.

When you get to the line, step onto the free foot, and put the former skating foot to to heel. If you did the 'strokeless' stroke properly, you won't need to take a stroke to maintain forward motion.

Fans of compulsory figures with recognize this as the leg swing in the 3 circle serpentines.

I can see how this could lead to power pulls, but still intimidated by them.

Back Underpush instead of a Back Crossover

Much technical skating jabberwocky in this post. Sorry.

So in an earlier post, I mentioned that when doing back crossovers I have a tendency to do an underpush on my weak side. I also mentioned 'advanced alternating back crossovers'. This post will explain both those. I assume you know basic skating terminology about edges,  inside and outside, because this post is full of that.

Back Crossovers (AKA back crossovers with a crosscut, and Big Girl Back Crossovers)
Note: I am not a coach (obviously) I'm just writing this using the editorial 'you'. Don't consider this instruction.

Skate backwards on two feet, facing inside the circle. You step obliquely back into the circle with the inside leg so that you lean inside the circle. Your blade inside the circle should be on the outside edge. Your blade on the outside of the circle should be on the inside edge. 

As you're gliding backwards on these two now separated feet, draw the front (outside) leg across the back (inside) leg so that the front boot passes in front of the back boot. Remember the front boot is on the inside edge.

When the front leg is drawn across the back leg, the front foot moves, and the back foot stays fixed (relative to your body).

The Underpush in Back Crossovers
In an underpush, the front (outside) foot stays fixed, and the back (inside) foot crosses behind and under the front leg.

The reason I get to the underpush on my weak side is because I'm on an flat on my inside leg, and a weak outside edge (or a flat) on my outside leg. In other words, on my weak side I don't have the strong lean into the circle I need. Instead I draw my stronger leg back leg (the one inside the circle), under the fixed front leg.  I know they're wrong, but I'm in my happy place doing these. This week two coaches made me fix them.

How I feel about leaving my happy place

Inherently, an underpush going backwards is not a bad move (my way is just a bad way to do them). You see it all the time in elite skaters. Maybe they use it for  positioning, timing, spacing, or setting up for the next element.  I don't know why they use it, it's just there.

Advanced Alternating Back Crossovers
This is a USFSA term from the Adult Basic Learn to Skate video. And as this post is too long already, I'll post that tomorrow.

Turns while going fast vs Turns while going sloowww

The Amazing Coach is full of these skating tidbits. Actually, this is one of those 'small pieces of information' that have 'big impact'. Like LIBOR.

Here's the tidbit: initiating a turn while you're going slow is started with the body; initiating the turn while going fast is started with the edge of the skating foot.

Wow! That just blew me away when she told me that. Then she drilled me in starting the turn with the edge by making me scamper up and down the ice as fast as my stubby little legs could take me and turning in tighter and tighter turns.

It was initially hard to get the edge in the turn first, before using the body. I'm used to using my body first in turns because I'm a naturally slow skater. But after 15 minutes of drill in ever decreasing arcs of turns I was doing it consistently.

Here are some mnemonic images.

Slow speed-initiate turn with body

Fast speed-initiate turn with edge

 So where does this fast=edge first, vs slow=body first mean the most to me so far?

Mohawks.

When I'm doing mohawks now with more speed that I used to feel comfortable with, I'm now able to do the switch between the free foot and the skating foot a lot easier by just remembering to deepen the edge on the bit at the end, and bingo the feet switch. Maybe I'm wrong to do this, and everyone reading this will recoil in horror, but this is part of my Learn It Yourself philosophy. I'm experimenting and seeing what works for me. So far it's made my mohawks (always an issue for adults) a lot less intimidating at speed.

Ooooh, and I almost have a hockey stop too!

Cruel Edges--Smooth Edges

You know you've been around the block when you walk into a new rink and recognize half the coaches. Started group at the new rink and Coach Amazing was there, and Notable Bob, and the Big Guy's old coach, Coach Cruella.

So, I've been wanting to take lessons from Coach Cruella for years, timing conflicts of babies (hers) and injury (mine) made me give up on the idea. Then last night I walked into the new rink and she was teaching my edge class. Coach Cruella has a Russian coach husband (he recently took a skater either to Nationals or the Jr Nationals)  who taught her how to coach. As you would guess it's all crack the whip, get down in the knees...DEEPER....DEEEEPPPPEEERRRRR!!!!!!

Dance Coach has been yapping at me to stop bending forward (I'm not hunching,  I'm bending forward at the hips) but Coach Cruella uses what I have to assume are Russian instructional techniques so I hope Dance Coach will be happy at my next lesson. The 3 of us students are on the circle (not a hockey circle, we're squeezed into a corner) and it's outside and inside edges for the whole class. No. Let. Up.

She wants us back on the heel, and upright with an arch in our backs. We're supposed to:
a. pretend there are headlights on our hipbones and we have to shine them ahead, not down at the ground.
b. pretend we're carrying 'the girls'* on a table, not below the table.

The "girls on the table" thing means just keeping the shoulders back (Don't.Hunch) and an arch in the back. I'm not hunching, but I'm not arching either. The arch is awkward at first, but I got used to it.

Dealing with the "headlights on hips" is fun. I remember this from when I used to ride the sitting trot in dressage. The trick is to rotate the top of the pelvis backwards, rather than curl the butt under. If I curled my butt under, it stressed my back muscles, stiffening my lower back and making it hard to be flexible with my  upper body. By rotating the top of the pelvis backwards, I found I was using my abdominal muscles leaving my back muscles unstressed. So I did that in the edge class and it worked for me.

So, the class was fun, forward edges only. Next week it's backwards.

Hope Dance Coach notices my edges and upper body improvement. Otherwise, it's yapping all over again.

PS The rink ice felt funny. First time I've ever run across that.

*Men reading this. Ask a woman what 'the girls' are. I'm not explaining.

On Ice Warmup

Everyone has an on ice warmup. Those of you who are younger may just be able to step on the ice and do a few strokes, then do some jumps and spins. Not me. I have to actually do both an off ice and an on ice warmup. I've written about the off ice warmup elsewhere. This is about the on ice warmup.

I start out with stroking around the rink twice, doing double knee bend stroking. This is where you stroke onto the outside edge, with a deep kneebend, then rise upward, and as you drop down again, stroke into a deep kneebend onto the right outside edge. If my legs are still cold I do another round.

Next I do alternating crossovers. This is just crossovers down the rink the first set CW, then the next set  CCW,  The first couple of sets are clunky, but once they're smooth, I add a strong underpush complete with the toepick being the last part of the blade off the ice (The Twinkle Toes Maneuver) and a strong  free foot extension to the rear.

I'm now on exercise 3--outside swing rolls. I like to get  strong shoulder action here, and after one or two sets, I really start to work on getting the extension of the free leg as high as I  can both forward and back.

When I'm happy with that, I switch to inside swingrolls which I'm finally comfortable with.

One of the things I haven't mentioned is that I work on starting from a stop for all exercises without favoring either leg as a starting leg. My right leg is my power leg, and it's my prefered starting leg. However, I make myself alternate legs as the initiating legs for all exercises. I think favoring one leg is a real beginner skater habit, and I'm trying to break it.

After the exercises down the sides, I usually do inside and outside edges across the rink a few times, and then take a stab at both outside and inside figure 8's.

If I have time I do some chasse's down the rink and work on my power. Finally, some 3 turns and mohawks, aiming for smoothness and elegance,

In all these exercises I work on positioning of my upper body, and my extension. 

Nothing spectacular here. I'm a beginner skater and I spend time working on beginner things: edge control, power, finesse, and posture. I'd like to add alternating back crossovers and power 3's, but in midwinter, the rink is just to crowded to go backwards without a spotter.

This warmup is long because of my age. I know you youngsters don't have  to do long warmups, but I think everyone benefits by establishing a warm up program with set goals and objectives. Mine will change,  and as soon as the crowds go away, I'll make some adjustments to mine.