Winter has Finally Arrived

I used to live in Minnesota, and I know real winter. I know about snow arriving on Easter Sunday. I know about digging myself out snow drifts that are as high as the top of my car's wheels. I know that I can back uphill, on a snow covered driveway for a quarter of a mile to get to get to the main highway.

But now that I'm old?

Last week it was  Summer Outside-

And Inside the rink It Felt Like SUMMER!

Today It was Below Freezing Outside And With

Two Shirts, a thick jacket below my hips, 

double layer skate pants

Inside the rink It Felt Like.....

 Next Week I'm Skating at an Outdoor Rink

Brrrrr!

I'm getting wussy in my old age!  

The Slow Fall

Every coach I've ever had has at one time or another said, "You're a slow faller."

Most people fall like this. But not me.

I get to a point where I'm going to fall and then there is a...pause.

At first, I hang on an edge.  There's no struggle to right myself, no arm waving, I just reach a point where I can't recover  and then gravity seems to stop its pull. It's like it's waiting for an audience for my disaster.

People begin to gather around me and stare.

I  hang. 

My coach stares. 

I  hang.

The rink guard comes over and stares.

I  hang.

Then the little girl doing spins in the center stops and stares.
 
Finally, when I have gathered a sufficient number of people to observe the fall, gravity resumes its inevitable pull, and I hit the ice.

TA -- DA!

And when I hit the ice, people exclaim, "You're a slow faller!"

The Curse of the FI3

As you can tell, one of the reasons I love figure skating is not just for the beauty of the performance, or the glow of success when I conquer a new element, but the fact that I can treat figure skating as an engineering problem.

Let me give you an example.

Today I was working on my FI3 (my never ending bête noire.)

I warmed up about 4 feet from the boards to so I could look into the glass and keep my eyes focused on the wall.  And also to keep away from the multitude of speedy little rug rats skating every which way.

Stroke. Extend the free leg to 'set' my posture. bring the free leg to the active heel. Turn.

Works fine.

Try the other side.

Works fine.

Go out in the middle.

Does.Not.Work.Fine.

I struggle through a few. Unable to Solve the problem.

Leave the middle, back to the boards. Stare at the glass. Stroke. Extend. Set. Turn. Works Fine.

Out  to the middle. Nope.

I went back and forth 3 or four times. Then as I'm standing in the middle, I think, "What am I doing at the boards that I'm not doing here?"

Then this is the engineering trick; I reversed the question. "What am I doing here that I'm not doing at the boards?"

And you know what it was? I was glancing down during the turn.

And why?

Because out in the middle, there's a horde of tiny little speedsters below my eyeline and it's an unconscious habit to glance down to check to make sure no one's in my way. When I glance down to my direction of travel, I disrupt the flow of the turn. At this stage of my learning the turn, it doesn't take much to disrupt the flow.

It's these unconscious little habits that are the hardest to find, and equally hard to break.