Back To Basics

I have been either out of town or really busy in the past week or two.  We took a short camping trip and I am getting ready for a trip to Michigan for my son's wedding.  As a result I have not been skating my usual 4-5 times per week.  (And it shows).

Today I had only 45 minutes to skate before going to see the Orthopedic surgeon to get a "status check" on my sore knees.  The good news there is that my knees are holding up pretty well considering I had 2 arthroscopic surgeries 32 years ago.  He said my bones look great after seeing my X-rays.  My diagnosis  for the pain I sometimes have after skating (also walking, biking, skiing, climbing up or down stairs) is Chrondomalacia Patella which is basically cartilage softening.  His recommendation:  Keep Skating !!!  But also to take it easy on days when it hurts or won't recuperate the next day.  Wear a knee brace on days that I plan on doing extensive jumping (ha ha ha) and to keep taking Glucosomine supplements (I drink Joint Juice every day) and Calcium + Vitamin D (Costco and Trader Joe's have chewable supplements).

I ran through my Moves in the Field today as my initial warm up.  I wanted to see if I could execute them if I showed up to the rink for testing without a prior warm up.  I was able to get through them, but I was not as fluid I would have been if I warmed up first.

Afterwards I ran through a few jumps and worked on (slow) spins, trying to center them more.  I worked on my back spin and think I found a correction.  It really seems to help to cross the free leg over right away.  I have been trying to keep it to the side like a simple scratch spin trying to find my center before attempting to cross the leg over and I cannot center it.  I just fall onto the back of my blade (dangerous).  I didn't capture that on video, but I will the next time I practice.

The video below shows some edge work and trying to learn a twizzle.