Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Skating With Friends

Skated at Frontier Ice today with my friend Sheila, who is breaking in her new boots.

I know everyone is getting really sick of hearing me say how TIRED AND SORE I am ... so I will
try to keep my whining to a minimum.  Yesterday I did a little extra - played a 9 hole round of golf after skating and this morning I walked and then did about 30 minutes warm up and barre work before heading to the rink.

Did it help?  Yes and no.  I felt more "ready to skate" but a little more sore and the jump rope takes it toll on my knees - but what the heck...



Monday, March 30, 2015

Monday Practice - Ho Hum

Monday practice -

Nothing new,  just trying to get most of my jumps in ..  energy was a bit low today.


Monday, March 23, 2015

Back On Home Ice

So happy to be home again.  The road trip was great, but there is no place like home  ... hmmm who said that ??? If I only had a brain....

... If I only had a brain... I would have put my camera on the rails like I always do during my practice sessions.... FACING THE RINK.  Instead I carefully made sure it was taking video and promptly turned it facing the cement wall behind it ... for an hour!

... Thereby missing my free style session and 15 minute lesson.  Here's what you missed:


  • Me, panting .. out of breath while I stroked and warmed up
  • Me, falling twice during my lesson trying to get more distance on my Flip jump
  • Me, trying to learn the beginnings of a Haircutter Spin
...  Seriously .. sometimes I wonder what my coach is thinking. I think she likes me to think outside the box ... the box of reason... the box of what I call the Double Axel box ... everything in that box ... 
has absolutely no chance of ever happening in my life... but I don't like to be negative... 

... I suppose if I stretch and practice trying a haircutter .. maybe eventually I might have a little layback spin.

... First thing - how to make my leg weigh like 1/2 of what it does now... otherwise .. there ain't no way I can do this.  My legs are so heavy I can't even lift and hold it long enough to grab my blade!

... We also worked on my Camel Spin .. which I somehow pulled of 6 revs and that made her happy. So we moved to a Cannonball sit... I collapsed onto the ice .. naturally.

Anyway... that's what you missed today!  I am so bummed I picked today of all days to have a brain fart and turn my camera the wrong way.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Road Trip

I just got back from a week long road trip to California via Oregon and Nevada!  My friend Sheila needed new skates and she is an SP Terii girl from way back.  I am a Harlick girl!

We left on Sunday and made a few pit stops in Bend Oregon and Oroville California for rest and errands, then onto South San Francisco for a fitting and new boots and blades.  Luckily she found a boot that fit so she didn't need customs and they had the right MK Professional blade there - ready to mount on the spot.

We spent another night near San Francisco on the beach in Pacifica California right on the beach with perfect weather and went skating the next day at Vacaville Ice Sports on a freestyle session with my friend Michael Tongko "Mikey" ...  to try and start breaking in her boots.

A few days in Truckee/Tahoe and we headed back up north via Medford Oregon and stopped to skate at The RRRink.

Here's a little montage of the skating related part of our road trip.


Thursday, March 12, 2015

Adult Skate Day!!!

Today was a wow day... not due to my skating, but due to the fact that there were 5 adult skaters on the ice.. 6 if you count Stephanie who is a coach and manages our rink.  Nevertheless we were all out there like a mixed bag 'o nuts .. working on whatever.  It was great.

I know there are lots of rinks and clubs out there with a large adult contingency .. we are not one of them.. but things are looking up!

I am still far from feeling like I am "back", but at least I popped off a few jumps today.  Spinning really made DIZZY!


Monday, March 9, 2015

Toe Loops and Loop Jumps

I had a lesson today and I had no idea what we were going to work on - So I spent my first 10 minutes trying to do all the warm up stroking exercises I got last week and then launched into trying some jumps.  Fatigue and FEAR were my enemies today!  The Toe Loop .. as always is frustrating for me.  This jump should be a confident jump that I can pull off easily in combination at my level.  I am still afraid of it all by itself.

So that was our focus today.  I found out that I was relying too heavily on it being a "toe jump" and trying to vault off it rather than use my free leg - kicking it through - like a waltz jump or a salchow to achieve both the height and the small rotation.  Coach wants me to practice this on the center circle taking off and landing from the blue line.  (the approach inside edge and three turn is outside the circle)

I drew this to explain..



Thursday, March 5, 2015

Real Time Stroking Lesson

Yesterday I posted my practice with a high speed version of my stroking and practice.  By request... here is most of the skating in the lesson in real time.  Obviously there are minutes of standing around talking about it ... which I didn't include.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Moves Practice & Stroking Lesson

Skated public again today.  (Not sure why I am saying that... as if it's NOT the norm!)  Anyway, worked on some more stroking, then went through most of my Gold Moves repeatedly (but only put 1 each on the videos).  As usual they have mucho room for improvement and the brackets eluded me.

My coach arrived for a lesson and I asked her for a stroking lesson to help me work on strength and stamina.  Since returning to the ice I have felt extraordinarily tired and I feel like I am not making any headway.

Somehow I thought it would be easier following her around!  Of course it totally kicked my butt AND I was even unable to do some of the things very well... especially my power pulls!  She gave me some great exercises ... thereby forgetting - for now - all about my "russian stroking" .. which, by the way ... I did not DARE mention to her!


#nevertooldtohavefun

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Stroking

I spent Monday's practice entirely on stroking.  I subscribe to icoachskating.com which I use as my "coach in between lessons".  There are countless videos there of high level coaches giving tips to skaters and other coaches on how they teach everything from basic stroking to triple jumps.

I love to watch videos of skaters from all levels, especially my level.  The aging adult skater .. getting out there and taking their sport seriously.  I feel their pains, frustrations and great levels of accomplishment when progress is made and things go right.

So today after having a talk with myself about my warm up habits and general quality of my stroking - I decided to look them up for some stroking tips.  My coach had a family member sick and had notified me she couldn't keep my lesson today... so I used this instead.

This video is my attempt at doing what the coach and choreographer: Pasquale Carmerlengo called "Russian Stroking".  I know if I told this to my own coach ... she would laugh and say that it's not Russian Stroking... that the kids from our club do this pattern all the time.  I don't care what it's called or who named it.  I just know it's a far better warm up than the one I presently do and if I could learn to stroke well in this fashion... I would be a better skater.

Here's my first time trying the patterns.


Im on my last legs here…

 I just can’t turn the corner on these dances.  One pattern looks about as good as I can do it, but two patterns I make too many mistakes. M...