Lilting Blues

The Canasta Tango Official Dress Rehearsal was today. Dance Coach had me get on the ice for 5 minute warmup then go into the 'test' to see how I handled it. I handled it just fine.

But I had 30 minutes of walking plus 20 minutes of yoga/pilates to get it to work. Warmup is always important.

The dress I picked plus the red lace bolero was deemed a success. Several people asked where I got the bolero--"I ordered it from England," I said, which caused jaws to drop. Nice people who had never spoken to me before on freestyle came up and complimented the outfit.

I give credit to the girdle. Don't tell anyone.

Then Dance Coach decided I needed to practice the Rhythm Blues. Now this dance has the Evil Step Behinds on the end pattern. But I can do those.

*

I can do those in my sleep,

or partnered by a sheep.

Or dancing with a ram,

while knitting socks with spam.

 *

Anyway, what I can't do is, I can't do Lilt.

Lilt is supposedly easy. You stroke, extend the free leg, hold it straight, go down in the knee, come up, and do a crossover (or progressive). I think I do it correctly. Down, extend leg and hold as I come up, and do crossover. OMG. The.Yapping.  Apparently, I'm not holding the leg straight.

So I hold it straight.

And it's still wrong.

Dance Coach demonstrates what he wants done, as opposed to what I'm doing.

Yep, still do it wrong. Again.

Looked at lilt in the RB in videos, and that's what I think I'm doing. But apparently, I've got some unconscious hitch, or flex or tic, or timing error. I guess this means I have to resort to Hell.On.Earth....getting Dance Coach to video  me. 

Here's a nice video from 2007.

Lilt at seconds 22-23 on first pattern--who can get that wrong? Oh, me.

Shocking the Neighborhood

I got off freestyle today, and unexpectedly ran into Dance Coach. Maybe it's the Russian tonality of his voice, but whenever he runs into me at the rink outside of lesson it sounds like I'm being grilled by the FSB.

"What are you doing here?" he asks with suspicious undertones, as if I'm smuggling state ice dance secrets out of the country.

"I took the day off to practice." I take a seat to get out of my boots and smile at the woman seated facing me across the narrow lobby. She's my age and looks timid and hesitant. I turn to Dance Coach. "I practiced the Nasty and the Blues. I think I have them down." I bend down to untie my boots.

Dance Coach mock arrogantly says, "We'll see about that tomorrow."

My head snaps up. I give an exaggerated gusty laugh. "Oh-ho-ho! So is this evil Russian ice dance coach talking? 'You talkin' to me?'"

We banter back and forth like this for a minute, settling some rink business about some boots I need to pick up and my music, then Dance Coach leave to change into his coach suit. I shove my boots into my bag, and glance across the short distance to the older woman facing me. I swear, she has a look of horror on her face as I walk out of the rink to put my boots in my car.

When I come back to pick up the boots Dance Coach brought in for me, I see him speaking to the shy woman.

Oh, God. She's his student! And from her shyness, she must be a new student! And she's witnessed the two of us bickering like crows, no wonder she had that look of horror on her face! She's wondering what's she's got herself into!

Photos from my Ice Dance Lessons

Canasta Tango

Here Dance Coach demonstrates "Tango Expression" in reverse Killian hold. Note the tango hauteur and wonderful posture that bespeaks years of professional training in projection of not only skating skills, but attitude and style of the dance.  Normally in hold he looks ahead, the turn of the head here is because he is speaking to me.

Here I am demonstrating the chasse' from the Canasta Tango. This is one of my earlier attempts. You can see I'm keeping an eye on Dance Coach's expression. My posture is better now, and my upper body carriage is much stronger.  The lean to the right is completely gone, and I carry my head in 'the ice dance way'.

Alas, I'm still this fluffy.

Rhythm Blues

Dance Coach demonstrates the inside swing roll from the Rhythym Blues.

What can I say, OMG, that extension. 

I'm having a bit of a problem with the pattern down the side of the boards. Although I have the step behinds on the end patterns, the crossovers on the side feel a bit like this:

I hate that 'lilt' in Rhythm Blues!

You don't speak Russian-you bark it

For my ice dance lesson Dance Coach came hurtling away from his young Russian speaking student, his face super-Frowny, and he started barking at me in Russian. Wow! Did he sound mad!

First thing to cross my mind? He's read my blog.

But, happily it turns out he wasn't mad, Russian just sounds that way.

Russian sounds like this

I learned "Push". Which sounds something like "Tahl-Chuck." and there's another word--russian speakers please forgive me--I think it's Tahl-chuck-kae-suh. That is apparently some variant of "Push".

I eventually want to know all the skating words in Russian, but lesson time is not it. For one thing,  his Royal Meaness is all over keeping me moving --- fast.

Don't have Power with a capital "P"? Want some? Get a coach 30 years younger than you are.

I'm stroking, and tahl-chucking my little heart out. He's just gliding along after me, being pleasant.  After 18 months of this, I hardly feel the strain and don't get out of breath.  Just don't ask me to do something new. And thank goodness he doesn't.

He just gets pickier.

Now he's working on my cross-roll on the Nasty.  He makes me do cross-rolls up and down the rink, during public. I have edges, I have rip(!), I have teeny-tiny little curves. There's probably a check-list of things I'm not doing right to boot that he hasn't got to yet. So far, if I don't know what's on the check-list I can feel comfortable and gain confidence with my skating. I appreciate that Dance Coach doesn't tell me every little thing I'm doing wrong. That would be devastating.

We run through the Nasty a few times; scaring children and teenagers. I feel bad about scaring anyone under 10. Scaring teenagers though, that's a bonus for learning ice dance on public.  Then we switch to the Rhythm Blues. This charming little dance has the evil step behinds on the end pattern. Not a problem. Coach Amazing fixed those. Evil Step Behinds are now my best element in the dance. What is killing me is the lilt/crossover, crossover and hold pattern.

We do the RB a couple of times, then third time is not a charm. I do the lilt and cross. Cross aaannndd hoollldddd. The hoollllldddd doesn't hold.  My right leg rolls to the left. The left leg that is supposed to be extended like a pretty little china figurine of a dancer, just keeps going like an Amtrak train headed for the boards. I boot out on the left leg and can't do anything with the right leg except head face first to the ice.

Not happening

Fortunately, Dance Coach decides to imitate a small civil engineering team; he hits the brakes and hauls me upwards. My first words? "Are you okay?" Honestly, he should just step back and let me fall occasionally. I fall when he's not there.

We do it again, and this time I at least get the steps right without another disaster.

The horn sounds and the resurfacer doors open as we're working on Foxtrot hold. I ask, "So what's the Russian word for 'stroke'?"

There's a long pause. Like a 15 second pause. Dance Coach stares at the ceiling while he thinks. Finally, with great hesitation Dance Coach says, "Strohk."

Right. Just like 'stroke', but angrier.

Mar 3 Lesson: Coach's Eye ^2

I haven't skated in two weeks, and when I stepped on the ice straight into lesson, I was all over the place. Stiff legs (even though I did warm up and stretching), unsteady, and a load of lacing issues.  But on the supergood side, the rink is now offering freestyle on Saturday mornings so I can get some time in ice dance with the music. Maybe I will be ready for my April test after all!

So let's get the Disappointment out of the way. I may love swingrolls, but I look awful doing the inside ones. Dance Coach told me to get down in the knee more. He started waving his hands and talking about kneebend and flow and blah blah blah dance stuff. I just can't translate this into action. Deeper kneebend where? When?  I said, "Here just video me." and pulled out my iPhone with Coach's Eye on it. This is an app that allows coaches to mark up video and send it to their students. So Dance Coach videos me doing inside swingrolls. When he's finished I go to the View section and see the static thumbnail of my skating. "Oooh, I look good with a ponytail," I say.  That's my last moment of happiness.

Once I view just seconds of the video, I can see the problem. I need to 'sit on the edge'. I'm leaning too far forward, and man am I slow....but my edges are nice. We don't really spend much more time on the inside swingrolls, but my eyes are burning from the memory. The good thing about my skating, is that I don't have to look at my skating.

Kneebend! Kneebend!

Due to the mid-winter public sessions I've been taking lessons on, it's been impossible to do any dances. I've forgotten stuff over the last couple of months and had to go through the dances a few times to recapture the muscle memory. I've read, and know it to be true, that to get muscle memory as you get older it takes a lot more repetition to build it. Stupid  old age.

So we do the Rhythm Blues and the Canasta Tango several times with music and without. I finally get the dances together both in my head and my body. Dance Coach must have been driven to despair,  but when he gets all bossy I just roll with it. This was one of those days where I was satisfied to be on the ice and not falling down. I'm not slacking. I'm skating as good as I can. It just takes me longer to get it.  I'll practice tomorrow and see if I can get those swingrolls where he wants them and get the side pattern on the Rhythm Blues. But he did say the Evil Step Behinds were nice.

My one brief moment of happiness was when I caught a look at us in waltz hold in the glass. I was finally skating in the upright position.  Not a lot of grace. Not a lot of flow. But there was no sniping about my posture, no quibbling about my arm and hand positions in hold.  I did take a shot because when I'm back stroking in waltz hold I should be stroking with my foot pointing directly at Dance Coach--pretty much aiming between the legs--but tell me once, and it's fixed.

So I rate this as a Recovery Lesson. I've been off the ice a couple of weeks and this is the lesson where I recover my skills.

I just wish recovery involved a chocolate prescription from my doctor..

It's the middle of Lent. I'm jonesin' for some chocolate.

The student after me is the best boy skater at the rink. Dance Coach looks so relaxed. I guess in the end the best and the oldest, it balances out.

Saturday Lesson: Boot Issues

"Yeow!" Dance Coach swears some long Russian thing as he pulls me up from a near fall.  It's like being hauled up by a winch into a helicopter. "What is wrong with you?"

"Did you hurt your back?" I ask, "You should let me fall, I've got the pads on."

Dance Coach just rolls his eyes. "I do not let you fall." I guess he's a member of the Ice Dance Coach Order of the Sacred Boot. In darkness, under an arch in a spooky square they all get together once a year and take an oath, "The Old Lady Does Not Hit The Ice." And I nearly fell 4 times.

Ordo Sanctus Tabernus
"Vetus domina non ledo glacies"

Unfortunately,  there is a still problem. And it's me.

I'm skating in my new dance boots, and they've started to break in after only 10 hours. That's unheard of for me. Unfortunately, the right boot is enlarging like a yeast raised loaf, I can hardly keep up with it. I've put the silipos pad around my heel and put an extra layer of insole underneath. My right foot is still flopping around like a fish inside. Well, Jessim did warn me in her comments. If it doesn't snow tomorrow I'll take them to freestyle and try it with yet another additional insole in there.

The left boot is a perfect fit. I hate inconsistency. Right now it's like I've got feet from two different people. Unfortunately, my skate tech is away to competitions. It will be weeks before I can get the right boot remolded. Push comes to shove I may have the local sharpener switch the blades to my freestyle boots and default to them.

And despite all this kerfuffle, Dance Coach said out of the blue, "You are much, much better in these boots."

Stuff like this just makes me want to scream!

Nope, not me. But you get the idea.

So the ice was pretty empty except a party of hockey boys in the fateful 11-14 age group. Dance Coach caught them and told them not to come in the center. Apparently he either impresses or scares them, they would skate right up to the blue lines and do a dead stop then turn around. Maybe it was sarcasm but they stayed out of our way.

Since there was open space we did the Canasta Tango and the Rhythm Blues. The CT is okay. The RB is needing work. None of this is helped by the fact that I irrationally feel the right boot is about to fall off.  Yet, I can really get that forward foot way up in the air for the slide chasse' and the swing roll. Too bad I occasionally fall backward.

Moves Coach was on the ice with Hockey Harold as her student, and Dance Coach did his usual act of driving us right into her. I so..o..o don't get this. They're friends, but put them on the ice together and Dance Coach turns 11. They squabble back and forth for a few seconds and it's fun to watch. Hockey Harold and I catch our breaths, then it's off again.

We start progressives. I've got a long way to go. It requires some technique I just don't have yet. We work on my back crossovers, which like so many adult learner's are not my strong point. They're a bazillion times better than they were last year, but not pretty. Some tidying up work on the Waltz 3 in hold; getting ready for the Cha-Cha. Then lesson is over and I limp to the benches to tear my boots off.

Ice Dance is Good for Your Skating: Part 1

The more ice dances I learn, the more respect I give to the coaches and pros who developed not only the dances but the structure of the testing program. Since I'm a system engineer,  I started doing a matrix in my head of the skill building that comes out of ice dance. Then I decided to do an irregular series of posts on what I see are the skills coming out of learning the compulsory dances.

Dutch Waltz-Swing Rolls & Progressives (or Crossovers), Stroking
This is the dance where I felt the emphasis on edges really comes to the fore for a beginner skater. To do the swing rolls you must have confidence in your edges, and the fact that it's a swing roll rather than an edge, emphasizes the independence of the body from the motion of the free foot. At the end, there is a change in the rhythm of the progressive that gives the dance enough variety to keep the new skater alert and keep the dance from being robotic.
Skills: Edges, Independence of Body, Rhythm

Canasta Tango--Swing Rolls, Progressives (or Crossover), Cross Roll, Chasse', Slide Chasse'
There's no real stroking in this dance, but I've come to respect it for what it does for your stroking. Not only do you have some interesting footwork, but to make this dance 'go', I feel you need strong impulse on every single push. Since you're pushing into a different element every time, you have to lead the curves and anticipate how you need to hold your upper body for each new element. The slide chasse' prepared me for those future dance moves where I needed to hold my foot ahead of me and develop the skills not to rock back when I do hold the foot forward. The cross roll to swing roll on the end pattern has some quick changes in upper body required, and anticipation of the next edge.
Skills: Power, edges, anticipation of curve, getting used to the forward foot

Rhythm Blues--In the Canasta Tango the second curve of the dance was a mirror of the first curve. In the Rhythm Blues you have something different with every step with no mirroring. This dance really makes you work on your kneebend and your rhythm (coating of beats). Also, the swing roll on the inside edge is introduced. On the side pattern you have two progressive/crossovers. The first you rise up on the skating leg before you cross, the second you hold the under leg, well, under for two beats. No just sliding through a couple of progressives here. You have a pause before one, and a pause after the other. You now have to break up the rhythm of your stroking, hold and then move on at the right beat. The second of this series, the progressive with the 'hold under' is immediately followed by a step into a FI Swing roll. Although it's never explicitly stated, I think this beautifully prepares you for the wide step in the Cha-Cha.
As for the Evil Step Behinds? Remember the slide chasse' in the Canasta? That slide chasse' prepared you for the forward position leg in the step behinds. Elegant planning. And the step behind itself? Ah, that preps you for the little step up/step back down in the Cha Cha. It also got me over my fear of putting one foot behind the other.
Skills: Inside edges, varying steps, counting the beats, preparing for the Cha-Cha, knee bend.

I spend an hour today on a freestyle session. Every single coach was working with their student on spins or jumps. Not one student was working on any skating skills. Sad. I guess Ice Dance will remain the last bastion of good skating. Certainly the beautiful planning in the compulsory dances could be used by anyone to improve their skating skills. The more I learn; The more I admire.

The Rhythm Blues

I've been unable to find out when the Rhythm Blues was introduced to ice dance, but it must have been later than the Blues, which was in the 50's.

The RB (so I don't have to type 'rhythm' over and over) is the first dance I've done where the steps have a tiny bit of complexity. Progressive, stroke,  RFO swing roll, LFO stroke with 'lilt', progressive, progressive with hold, LFI Swing roll, RFI swing roll, progressive, step behind step behind step behind, progressive.

Whew! For once I find the steps along the side actually trickier than the end steps. After the 'progressive hold', I have to step into a LFI swing roll. I'm used to having a stroke in front of a swing roll to give me time to meditate on what I'm about to do next. Here, I'm down in the knee for the progressive and hold, bring the left leg out from under the crossed right leg, step on the ice and do an inside swing roll. .....Hmmm....tricky. I think I have to have myself canted towards the centerline in that progressive  rather than straight down the side coming out of that progressive. Must ask Dance Coach. Step too wide and the whole thing destroys the power I need to get into the next swing roll. Bleech! The following RFI swing roll with the step into the round the corner progressive has a fiddly touch to it too.

Compared to that, the end pattern with its evil step behinds is now a cuddly teddy bear of comfort. The only problem with the end pattern is that it needs a certain 'blues feel' about it. Unfortunately, while I've looked at all the RB's I can find on youTube, I can't find one with a blues feel in the end pattern. Everyone looks mechanical. I'm putting my 'amateur auteur' hat on. I think it would look more bluesy if the free foot were held lower on the rise after the step and had a little hip action, but that's not what the judges want to see.

If I'm mentally messing with stuff anyway, it would be fun to do the RB in foxtrot hold.  I wonder if Dance Coach will do it with me once, just for grins.  We always end the lesson with some stuff in foxtrot hold, it would be fun to do a whole pattern (and shock the ice dance purists!) Or maybe not.

[After I wrote this post, I asked Dance Coach about doing a dance like the Canasta Tango or the RB in Foxtrot hold. Apparently, he's a purist. He gave me a look of such horror and shock, I knew I'd stepped over some forbidden ice dance line. I'm surprised he didn't cast me into the outer darkness with the freestyle skaters and people who put lemon in their coffee.]

"See what happens when  you do something different?"

Jan 7 Lesson: Canasta Tango Obstacle Course

It was Canasta Tango and Rhythm Blues today, on a midwinter public session. Coach will decide if I test in February, so I'm desperately laying down all the pieces preparatory to doing the dances. He's trailing after me, hurling imprecations about my swing rolls. I got no excuse for those; Apparently, I suffered a brain fart and switched my arms--Unbelievable!

I'm on an inside roll, when I pass near a kid. I don't touch him. I never get closer than two feet away. But apparently, I glared at him with my laser eyes.  If you had a Russian dance coach yelling at you, you'd use laser eyes too. The kid looks at me like a bunny and falls.

My laser eyes

Coach and I kind of glance back at him as we pass. He's up again. Man I wish I had knees like that. At my age, getting up from a fall involves some grunting and a small civil engineering team.

Sad too say, I've turned into one of those scary people on public ice that can pass within inches of other people on public and don't think anything about it.  Since I'm in dance patterns I'm down the sides a lot and not in the center and I pass close to a lot of people. And I look fast to them. I feel good about my skating when I'm on publics.

Unfortunately, on freestyle sessions, it's different. A week ago Dance Coach put me in the middle during a freestyle. "Should I be here in the middle? That girl's in program," I said. "She can skate around you," Dance Coach said. "I can skate around you," the girl said.  "She can skate around you," her coach said.

Great, I'm so slow I get a pity pass from Freestyle etiquette.

Freestyle hand of pity bursting the bubble of my skating ego

Dec 30: Whining on the ice

"Boh-zhe-moy!" I exclaim after nearly falling backwards while doing back cross rolls. Coach grabs my hands and stops the fall. Disaster is averted. "My boot is too tight. I can't get ankle bend."

"Don't be whiney," Dance Coach laughs. "We do it again."

I'm having a terrible time today because I pulled a muscle weight lifting, now every time I twist to the right a pain shoots up through my spine.  I spend a lot of the lesson whining 'Can't do that,' to various requests. Still progress is made on the Canasta Tango and the Rhythm Blues. For all the evil step behind is a curse upon skaterkind, once you learn the evil steps, the rest of the dance is pretty fun. The Canasta Tango though, that's requiring more power and edges than I'm used to.

"So, what is Russian for 'whiney or whiner'?" I ask. I have fans, they must have a russian word in every lesson post.

"There is no russian word for whiner. Russians do not whine."

Man, he's just full of jokes today. I'm tempted to ask if Russians discovered America, but that's from the Cold War, and he's too young to get the joke.

In two weeks he'll decide if I test in  February. Two short weeks. Two dances. Rhythm Blues is looking good, but in the Canasta Tango (sigh) there are moments my brain refuses to function right after the second swing roll. At those moments, I look like this....

The canasta tango makes me want to cry....

Surprise Lesson

Russian used in today's Lesson
Stoi-kee -- tough. As  in "Be tough on me Coach."

I went to a public session to practice and passed Dance Coach on the way in. He had a lesson scheduled, but they didn't show up, so I took the session.

"Be tough, " I told him. "I want to test in February. I don't have a Russian word for this lesson, so tell me how to say 'tough' in Russian."

Dance Coach thought a long time on this one. There are a lot of words in russian that mean 'tough'. Tough meat, tough (hardwearing) material, tough problem. I looked up the one he gave me. Stoi-kee seems to mean 'mentally tough'. So be 'mentally tough' on me, Coach. Mmmm, well, may I'd better keep looking for a better word.

We're working on the Canasta Tango and the Rhythm Blues. While I test the Canasta next, I'm doing better at the Rhythm Blues. At the end of the last time we did the dance, Coach said, "You're meeting standard."

"Master's standard." I said, "For the over 50's."

"No, Adult Standard."

Wow. Same standard as a 20 year old. Just, Wow. Of course, that's 'meeting the standard' as long as Coach is calling the steps, but it encourages me that I can do the dance to the standard when test time comes.

Unfortunately, I test Canasta Tango first. There doesn't seem to be anything terribly hard in the dance step wise, until I start to skate it at the right speed. Man, there's all these curvy bits, and I'm not curving enough. Sometimes, I'm not curving at all. Dance Coach say, "You have to help me on that second swing roll, start turning the right direction."

"Just drive me like a truck." I joke, referring to our first lessons last year, when I had little control.

Coach gives a bitter laugh. "This is regime of tough coach. Skate better."

Just great. I asked for it.

Stoi-kee, Ford Stoi-kee

Move.Smooth

"Don't jerk your foot like that." Dance Coach has the frowny face as he watches me do the Evil Step Behind from Rhythm Blues. If I'm not paying attention, when I  bring the front foot up, I do it too quickly (just to get the thing over with) and my upper body will rock slightly in response.

Ah, yes. Move. Smooth. It's more than just style points. There's actual physics involved.

Since I'm a beginner, up to this point, most of my skating problems have been soluble by thinking about my center of gravity.  It's not until I got to the Evil Step Behind that I run into more complicated concepts.

For those of you pursuing Freestyle, I'd better explain The Evil Step Behind. Think of it as a back cross roll, without the back, or the roll. You skate forward, bring the free foot in front, then gracefully (this is ice dance) move it so it crosses behind the skating foot, to the opposite side, and switch feet so the free foot is now the skating foot. You don't 'roll' so there's not any margin of error of skate placement. This is usually the make or break point for adult ice dancers. And it's in a beginner dance. Fortunately, Coach Amazing helped me past this point with her advice to Point.That.Toe. Now, I have to achieve consistency and 'pretty skating'.

What happens when you too quickly move your foot up ahead of you, either in the first step or subsequent steps? Well, there's a disturbance in the Force. And that disturbance is called jerk. I do not make these names up.

What happens when that front foot snaps up too quickly is that your foot accelerates up, then suddenly stops. The rate of change of acceleration abruptly goes from something to nothing. You get a physical jerk, hence the name.

When you stop that foot too quickly the rest of your body has to respond to the resulting release of force. A beginner skater like me wobbles in the upper body to keep from falling. This doesn't happen when you're standing on the ground, but when you're in skates, you're on the rocker. Your stability is lessened and the upper body is sensitive to sudden changes in acceleration. Even small changes in acceleration such as from a badly done step behind can cause a wobble in the upper body. (More experienced skaters don't have this problem, as they have better body control and years of practice. This is a beginner problem. )

The solution to this is to Move.Smooth. The motion of raising the foot from the ice and bringing it to a stop has to be done so that there's a slow change in acceleration. It should be like stopping a car when your elderly great grandmother is sitting beside you. Don't just 'step on the brake' to stop. Plan that stop so it feels like a soft pillow gently being put on a sofa. Same thing with the step behind. Raise it (increase the acceleration from zero to something), then bring it to a stop in a planned manner. Smoothly.

Interestingly, in the early rocket programs of the 50's and 60's jerk caused the destruction of many rockets. Here's some motivational video of rockets exploding.

The Rhythm Blues Evil Step Behind

In yesterday's post Jessim commented about her experience with the step behind, and how difficult she found it. I was only using the step-behinds* as an example of how Point. The. Toe helped keep me centered and balanced, but it's not the only thing I do when I'm doing the step behind.  Since I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that Pointing. The. Toe alone was my answer, Below is a list of all the things I needed to do:

1. Keep my center of mass over the blade
   For me, this requires the following:
a. Bend. The. Ankle
b. Bend. The. Knee
c. Don't. Look. Down
d. Don't. Hunch

2. I also want to keep the moving parts of my body from pulling my center of mass away from over my blade. This requires:
a. Move. Smooth
b. Point. The. Toe
c. Keep. Your. Legs. Close
d. Independence of Movement

3.  Do the step behind without hitting the blade.

That's a lot of stuff going on, but they all apply to just about every area of my beginner level skating.  If you look at the list you'll probably see phrases your coach has said to you.

Starting in a couple of days, I'll begin a string of posts over the next few weeks that cover all of these. The first post in the series will be "Center of Mass--It's the center of everything".


*And, just a note, I have not tested the Rhythm Blues.

Point.That.Toe

As a beginning skater I was able to get through learn to skate with only a moderate amount of extension and toe point. Then in ice dance I ran into the screeching wall of EVIL DEATH called the Rhythm Blues.
It is the third in the beginners dances, all forward steps, with one little trick to it. In the end pattern you skate forward and step behind your skating foot with your free foot.

See 00:15 for the beginning of the EVIL Step Behind

The picture to the left represents my expression the first time I did the step behind. OMG, there's so many things that can go wrong. Let me count the ways:
1. You can step on the blade of the skating foot--and fall backwards
2. You can jam the free foot toe pick into the ice behind the skating foot--and fall backwards
3. You can be moving the free foot behind the skating foot--and fall backwards
4. You can just raise your free foot up a tiny bit and fall backwards.

Then I went to Lake Placid Adult Skate Camp and took a lesson from Coach Amazing. She had me doing the step behind in 15 minutes. The points that I took away with me were: keep the thighs together (no wide stepping, no swinging) and when you bring the free foot forward POINT. THAT. TOE!  Suddenly I was doing the step-behinds. After a half hour they ceased to be scary. What was going on?

I did a little experimenting with  this. First I exaggerated flexing the foot. I stood on one foot, bringing the free foot forward and FLEXed the free foot. I felt a pull up the back of my free leg, through my glues and to my lower back. Since my center of mass is just below my belly button, that leg is acting as a lever arm pulling me backwards. Don't want to go there. I point the toe, point it with all my heart. Now the pull is on the front of the leg and up to my core. The pull  is now pulling me slightly forward over the middle of my skating foot. That's where I want to be.

Here's what I think is going on. When I point the toe I'm  keeping my balance forward over the blade because all the muscles in the front of my body are active and the muscles in the back of my body are more relaxed. Being centered and stable reduces stray movements that can cascade into losing my balance and falling backwards when I move the free foot back. I could certainly do the step behinds with a flexed foot, but as  beginning skater I would end up very subtly rocking to the back of the blade, thus creating a potential for falling backwards.

So the test for me was to use POINT. THAT. TOE. on inside swing rolls. The first time I tried this (pointing my toe with all the fierce force fervently forward) I sat on that inside edge like I was riding a rail. Excellent! I was channeling Maia Usova!

Now when my foot is forward or back and extended, my toe pointing is as hard as I can make it.  So far so good. At some point I may run into a case where POINT. THAT. TOE should be point. that. toe. but by then my skating skills will be better and I'll be able to judge what level of effort to use.

Fierce. Foot. Fervently. Forward! And beyond!