Monthly skating review: progress and goals adjustment

After not skating much during the summer, the last two weeks I skated 3 times a week.  I knew I'll have to find my skating legs and that I'll have to build back some of the muscles. What I didn't expect was that I have to build stamina too. Maybe that is related to me needing to "muscle" trough things, as I don't have the muscle to do the things the easy way. The result is the same, I'm in a rebuilding phase. Looking back I kind of regret letting my skating slide. But I cannot go back in time and in those past moments it felt the right thing to do.

I worked mostly on moves because I thought I'll be able to get back to being ready to test quickly, and passing a test is always a confidence boost, plus I wanted a focus, a goal while skating. But, I worked at them as I used to when I was ready to test them. And that is 5 minutes warm up, then present the moves in full force. I'm happy that I feel I'm almost back, ready to test. And now... "the but"... But, after these 15 minutes it took me to go trough the warmup and test, I was all spent... I couldn't really work on the dances or the jumps, so the rest of the session was wasted.

The plan for next month is to rebuild and organize.

Off Ice: After feeling pain in the muscle after an intense skating session (a lesson), I decided to put in the time and start doing exercises for the hips every day. It didn't happen every day but I did them often enough to feel they help and I want to stick with them.

MITF: I could push them for testing but it seams that it would be all I would be doing, and then I would be too tired for anything else. I don't feel it is worth it so, I'll work on the technique a little bit more and wait to add the power needed for testing when I'll feel stronger, hopefully on the second part of the month.

Ice Dancing: I'm thinking to focus my private lessons and the biggest chunk of time on Ice Dancing. That would be again, on technique not on power. I didn't do Ice Dancing consistently in probably 6 months so I need to review the technique.

Freestyle: While I rebuild the muscles and stamina that I need for both moves and Ice Dancing I plan to put a little more time into Freestyle. I'll try to start with them, after warming up a little bit and see how it feels. I hope I can get a little progress there and still have energy for dance and moves. And as motivation, as soon as I'll have the loop jump and sit spin (at least be close) I'll start working at a new program.

Skating for my own enjoyment: When I started private lessons around 3 years ago, I had this plan to push for progress in skating in order to enjoy it later. And that went well for over a year and the progress was enough motivation for me. But lately, I couldn't push for progress. First, a little over a year ago, it was the hip injury.  Then, I had an emotional withdrawal caused by disappointment in how skating is organized (clubs, testing, rinks). So I'm at the point where I need something back from skating itself, I need to find a way to either enjoy the process as a whole, or at least to alternate period of work for progress with period of enjoyment (like working at jumps and spins, then putting them in  a new program). On the other hand I admire somebody's way of skating at my rink, both the looks of it and the joy he seems to get out of it. He does a little bit of coaching not as a first job, not even as a second job but maybe more as  sharing the joy for skating. At least this is how I perceive him. Anyhow I want to take some lessons from him and I already told him that I want him to teach me how to skate for my own enjoyment, in addition to continuing lessons with my current coach that are focused on technique.