My Christmas Program

Miss Bianca is determined that I do a Christmas program. Why she wants to torture a poor audience filled with parents and children, I have no Idea.

"What song?" I asked.

"Shimmy Like My Sister Kate."

The woman is clearly insane. I'm an exuberant older woman who's willing to go places of bad taste that is clearly inappropriate for an under 18 audience.

"I have no skills." I say, but I'm sure she intends to choreograph something. I can see it now.

I stroke in as fast as I can.

Start with a shimmy

A two foot spin

Some back skating

A little backend work.

Then I do some foot work

Some final shoulder work

And a nice ending

Well, old performer that I am, I know what it will take for this program to work. "So," I say to Miss Bianca, "Can I have a costume with Double L cups?"

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."

Madam Mim's Army

I stopped  at the boards while Madam Mim's working with another student, and take a stab at improving my checking. She wasn't even looking in my direction.

Then in my lesson, first thing...

"I SAW YOU! I TOLD YOU, NO PRACTICING NEXT TO THE BOARDS!" 

sooorrrryyyyy

Apparently, when you get to be a coach, PSA allows you to order the All Seeing Eye off their website.

"Great! My PSA approved back of the head eye is here!"

And since she's a beloved coach at the rink, once they heard my story about 'no boards',  all my skating buddies have told me they're going to tell her if they see me practicing at the boards...

She's got snitches in her power now. Not even Cruella was able to do that.

Oh, God, I just realized they all have video too.

I'm doomed.

I guess I'll just have to get out in the middle.

Toughing It Out

 Madam Mim is determined in my post injury restart, to get me to use power.

Backwards.

So we spend about a third of the lesson in back crossovers and back edges or in transitioning to back edges (waltz threes). And I have to use real, adult power. Not scaredy cat adult power.

Power? Backwards? You sure?
I'm okay in here in the no power hotel.

Madam Mim won't accept a weak back crossover (usually my clockwise ones). We start with back crossovers around the circle, and those go fine. They're as smooth and solid as my forward crossovers (which are superior).

It's not until I'm doing alternating back crossovers that my sidedness issues appear.  Madam Mim lightly touches my hand to get my leading shoulder further back . And reminds me to 'sit' into the crossover. After a couple of tries, I'm laying them down, alternating CW to CCW, with power and good edges on my own.  Probably some of the best alternating crossovers I've ever done. I'm not nervous, or twitchy. The transitions are smooth. The crossovers are soundless. I am in complete control.

NO TOEPICKING!

Say hello to no toepicking in back crossovers

Yes, I'm making real post injury progress; now I'm finally starting to improve, not just recover basic skills.

Unfortunately, I'm going through tissues by the pound. I use up all of mine, then I have to dig into Madam Mim's stash and I go through hers. Stupid head cold.

At the end of the lesson, I have a really bad back fall. My right skate 'gets stuck' in a drop three and a fall backwards so that my skating foot is almost tucked under my butt when I land. There's a pain in my bad knee like a knife. I don't really remember that landing, I just know I rolled around in what must have been scary to behold.

 I hear a sudden silence in the freestyle, then the sound of skates coming towards me.

"I'm good." I tell Madam Mim quietly. She calls out "It's okay." I'm able to get up on my own and we go back to lesson.

Yeah, my least inspiring lesson in a long time. But I came off the ice feeling that I'm finally comfortable with backwards skating. I'm getting tweaks now, not corrections. I feel at ease going backwards. I don't feel uncomfortable looking over my shoulder to see ahead, and I have good skating skills. I'm happy with that for today.

Had to stop at a grocery store to buy some frozen peas to ice my knee, but I'm okay.

Useful in an emergency when you don't have access to ice.
Or an ice bag.

Forward Eights

I started out skating wanting to do figures. For those of you who are too young to know what 'figures' was, it was a form of structured skating often known as 'compulsory figures.' These were skated in competition until 1990. In the last couple of years the basic figures, the forward 8s and the backwards 8s have been introduced into Moves. So while these may seem 'antique', there's still a reason to learn them. Recently, I began to do the forward eights successfully, consistently.

Here's what a basic figure 8 looks like.

Text for this diagram

Some people are able to do these right away, and others have to work on them. I was the 'work on them' type. Up until recently, even though I have a good push (the "strike") and nice upper body position,  I couldn't complete the figure without giving myself a toepick boost to make it past the last couple of feet. Now I can. Here's how.

So you start a figure 8 in the center where the two circles intersect. On the diagram above, this is position 6. The figure above is pushing with the left foot onto the right outside edge (position 1). This part is easy, just remember to face out of the circle and keep you trailing shoulder pushed back to keep your back against the circle (arcane skating talk there).  Your free foot should be tucked to the heel of the skating foot.

As you approach the halfway point of the circle you must bend deeper in the knee and bring the free food smoothly in the front of the skating foot. This will give impetus to your power.

Use the free foot in front to guide you to the center of the figure,  when you are at the 3/4 point of the figure switch your arms.

As you get to the center of the figure you will step down onto the free foot, and do the other circle with the new skating foot.

I am now going to talk physics (mechanics) which I haven't thought about for 30 years. So I could be wrong.

The curvature of the blade and the  twist in our body, makes us skate on a curve. As we skate on a curve vector forces come into play. I will now simplify them down to two.

First the radial vector that points to the center of the circle.

Second, the downward vector that is a combination of gravity and our acceleration over the ice.

If you take the cross product of these two vectors, you will get the vector for your forward motion (right hand rule).

When you bend deeper in the knee at the halfway point, two things happen. First when you drop deeper in the knee, you briefly change the load into the ice, altering the vector due to your acceleration, and  you shift back on the rocker, which also affects the acceleration by changing the load. This is very brief so you generate a pulse into the system, which kicks up your power. Finally, bringing the free foot forward also subtly affects the load as well.

Properly done, this is all smooth, and doesn't look like anything much is happening, but it's a 'stroke less stroke'. You get a tiny push of power, just enough to move you across the ice without putting your free foot down.

And now I can do 8's successfully, because I have new knees and can get that kneebend at the halfway point!

Yeah, angular momentum is in there someplace,
I'm just not touching anything with a theta angle in it.
That's real physics.

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.

New Coach--First Lesson

"You don't toepick," Madam Mim said, "That's good."

On our first lesson, Madam Mim had been running me through my forward paces. Stroking, edges, crossovers. She made a couple of tweaks: arm position, leg position, and knee bend. This is the reason you have a coach; You can fall into bad habits unless you have a coach. I'd only skated in the last few weeks a total of about 2 hours. I was still unconsciously favoring my knees and had some sloppy habits. On the good side no one could fault my posture.

So my impression of her impression of my forward skating was that of the 'nice Madam Mim' in The Sword in the Stone.

"No toepicking--nice stroking! Good posture!"
(I takes good news where I can find it)

However, going backwards was another story. I just don't trust my knee yet in deep kneebend going backwards. My back crosses were weak, pathetic really. And my back stroking--let's just say I've been given homework to bring me up to speed.  The knee may be (mostly) pain free, but a ligament or a bone, or a muscle, or something else could snap at any moment. Yes, I am a wimp. And paranoid to boot.

So when she saw my back crosses, my coach was like evil Madame Mim.

I reject your back crossovers,
and substitute ones I like

I have to pretty much redevelop back crosses and back stroking.  I have backward skating homework, like a remedial student in summer school.

(On the other hand, FO3 and mohawks coming along!)

So summary of this first lesson:

This is a knee.
Bend it more.

Coachified!

I have a new coach.

She specializes in Basic Skills, although she's taken adults through Moves. I was tempted to give her the blog nickname of Xanboni Jr. but that would be confusing and probably violate a trademark (love your blog Xan). Anyway....I'm at the stage now where I need to relearn my basic skills. I can do a FO3, and a mohawk, but I still have the fear of the 'bad' knee collapsing. Fortunately, my new coach (note to self, must work on blog nickname) went through an injury and had to rebuild her skills, so she has off-ice stuff for me to do to get back my confidence and strength.

We haven't had a lesson yet, but she saw me working on the  skills I still have and she said, "You're not as awful as you think you are."

How awful do I think I am right now?

Like a cow on ice. I don't feel like I belong yet.

Still, I'm improving. Three turns and mohawks away from the boards, solid stroking and crossovers with NO arm waving.  Good posture. Good head position. Back stroking and crosses coming along. Stamina and power--not so good. Still I see progress every freestyle. I'm relearning very fast.

Now, since I didn't really have any funny stories I thought I'd point you to some figure skating humor.

Here, just in the god awful pun level of humor:

And I'm going to point you to the blog of the cartoon strip, "Over The Hedge", which had a wonderful week of figure skating humor. Enjoy!