Finally, Back on the Ice

I made it to the rink today, and for the first time since the end of August I skated.

Back on the Ice!

For 30 minutes.

Yeah, when you're old, you lose your skills and muscles faster than when you're young. Another reminder that I'm another day closer to death....woohoo.

On the other hand, I'm off to skate again tomorrow unless the government un-shutsdown. I hope to make 45 minutes!

For the first 10 minutes my blades were all over the place but I quickly got back my stroking skills and just did some lap skating. Then I was able to do some russian stroking for a few times. I did a lap of the rink backwards, and then I.was.done.

Couldn't wait to get my boots off

Probably a couple of weeks of lap skating and I'll be back to the level I was before.

End of Fiscal Year

 I've been doing end of year reports

Yeah I feel like this

 But wait! I may get a "vacation " AKA. a furlough.  I guess I'll get back on the ice then.

(begin sarcasm) Thanks for the unpaid free time Congress. (close sarcasm)

Hip To Be Square

Since this is a problem that I thought might be experienced by other adults, I thought I'd write about twisted hip. In twisted hip, one leg drags the body back and to the side. This might also be called open hip.  Instead of keeping my hips square when I skated, I would twist my right hip. This affected even something as simple as basic stroking.

There's a lot of reasons to twist the hips when skating, but as a basic skills skater, it seems easier for me to learn a lot of basic skills if the hips are square.

 It's hard to find a picture of basic stroking with twisted hips, instead these are the best illustrations I could find of yoga positions, just so you can get the idea.

This gives a view of how a hip can twist back

You can see here how hips can be square. Notice how
even they are.

Anyway the physical therapists wanted me to get my hips square while I was stroking.  I spent a lot of time on an exercise machine strengthening my gluteus medius to make it happen. After  couple of months they succeeded and I was able to stroke with squared hips. It smoothed out my skating and my coach stopped yapping about how the left side skated better than the right side.

Once I got my hips square, I was able to conquer 3 turns. With hips square I stopped flinging my way around the turn, and they became controlled. Without squared hips, I sort of jerked my way around.  I'm making progress on my spins as well.

I had a coach who was yapping about my crossovers. Finally, I turned on this coach  and I snapped, "Am I the only one that has every coach find a new problem with my crossovers? Crossovers with the arms holding the circle. Crossovers with the arms square. Crossovers with the arms in any position. What do you want me to do, now?"

"Ah," the coach said, "Keep your hips square, and twist your upper body."

So, I did. It made her happy.

Just knowing the next coach will want me to do something different in crossovers, so I'm not holding my breath this is the last crossover 'fix' for me.

Still, keeping my hips square has helped me a lot with my basic skating skills. If I ever stay well enough to advance, I'm sure there's elements where a twisted hip with be the thing to do,  but for now, I'm square hips all the way.