Intermediate Backward Skating and Backward Swing Rolls

I've worked on the Swing Rolls (both forward and backward) very little since I've hurt my hip (a year and a half ago), because I feel that when I hold the extensions I put more strain on the hip muscles. But I need the Backward Swing Roll in the Ten Fox, so I have to work at it a little.

I've wrote a post about the Backward Swing Rolls not long ago, here, but I feel I've got enough corrections for an update:
- Push straight back, find a good edge with a good, high extension of the free foot forward.
- After the push, the free leg ending a little away from skating knee (free foot is 6 inches away from the edge's tracing)
- Level shoulders, don't drop the free hip back, pointing the free foot's toes forward, helps keeping the free hep forward.
- Rise over skating shoulder, draw free foot towards the skating foot.
- Don't swing too late, swing at middle and quickly
- Press into the ice, straighten the skating leg and push the hips forward
- Free shoulder very back over skating hip
- Feel the weight over skating side 
- Free leg very back, don't let the hip open

I've written here about how I plan to work more on my backward skating and I'm doing it... Every single day I'm on ice, I do these (boring and frustrating) backward exercises as much as my patience allows me. Some days it is not much, but some days I've stuck with them for half hour. My coach's wisdom (all coaches' wisdom) is that after you've understood how to do something correctly (and that can take a while), do it a thousand times (yes this can take a long, long time), so it becomes body memory. To bring my backward skating to an intermediate level I feel I need to look and feel more confident and that implies finding my balance quickly, good erect posture, high extension on the free leg forward, no wide stepping, comfortable speed.

Backward stroking concentrating on:
- going slowly
- look up and straight posture
- re bending before pushing (my coach asked me to actually stay few seconds in the bend position). If I rush, I bend forward as I push back, then I loose the press into the ice as I straighten and I don't have a strong push.
- holding the core engaged. I think I'm overdoing this, I feel tense and I think I look tense, but generally it seems it helps me to overcompensate for a while and then pull back to a more balanced approach so after the push the whole body moves like a block, doesn't twist
- not allowing the pushing foot hip to go back after the push, pointing the toes forward help too
- not allowing the upper body to twist after the push, hold it square
- press into ice as I rise (on the front of the arch foot, or just back of the ball of the foot)
- bring the free foot in tense, as I would have an obstacle in it's way, like the arms of a scissor
- feel the boots touching
- re bend
I think my biggest problem is the rise while pressing into the ice and holding the balance and posture... and that will affect the re bend so the push, so, everything....

Backward Chasses on a circle:
- posture (straight, almost back, with the shoulders rolled back)
- pushing the heals back (to the direction of traveling) to balance the shoulders rolled back
- touching the boots
- pressing into ice and pushing from the ankles. For the chasse you push just from the foot outside of the circle you are creating, the foot that is towards the inside just lifts of the ice and goes back on it. The pushing foot is always on an inside edge, and the foot that does the chasse is on an outside edge. It is a good exercise to train this push from the pushing leg that is on an inside edge to the other leg that is on the outside edge. That includes holding the boots pressed together so you can place the foot towards the inside of the circle on an outside edge.
This is a good exercise to teach your body to push from an Backward Outside Edge to an Backward Outside Edge as you have to do to change the lobes on Backward Chasses on alternating lobes exercise that I described here. And the secret is that as you rise to finish one lobe on the BO edge, you flip that foot on an inside edge just before pushing on the other foot BO. Holding the boots together while flipping the pushing foot on the inside edge, puts the other boot in the perfect position to be placed on the outside edge on ice. Again I think I'm not always balanced as I rise, and that makes re bending hesitant so I rush and I put the free foot down. That inevitably is a wide step and an inside edge. It's gonna be a long road to do this correctly.

Skating Technique: Intermediate Droped 3-Turns (Ice Dancing)

I'm working lately a lot at 3-turns. I do the Ice Dancing  dropped 3-turns, and also the ones for the MITF Pre-Juvenile test (Forward Outside to Backward Inside and Forward Inside to Backward Outside. I had a post describing Beginner Forward 3-turns (FO 3-turns and FI 3-turns), and I kept writing the new instruction I've got in different posts.

Today I'm writing about the Ice dancing Forward Dropped 3-turns. I've done one Left, or ccw, as part of the intro steps to the Swing Dance, the same one in the Hickory Hoedown, the on Right or cw, in the Willow Waltz, and there are two Left ones (one as intro step and one in the dance), in the Ten Fox. They are getting better and better, but after I'll test the Ten Fox I'll start working at the Pre-Silver Dances, and the European Waltz is basically just 3-turns... And they have to be good.

Look at this video, these are really good ones. She is an Olympic medalist in Ice Dancing...

Instructions:
Stroke (not step) into the 3-turn, hold the outside edge and extension and pressure into ice.
As you rise:
- keep pressing into the ice
- turn the head into the circle and look up
- turn the upper body toward the center of the circle, lean in the circle
- feel the inside shoulder scapula going back
- bring the free foot near the other foot (some do a T at the back).
- bring the hips around (it will still be a little back).
- don't think and try to turn backwards, just 90 degrees, the rest is done automatically by the blade sliding and body inertia
Turn and Check
- roll to the front of your blade (the ball of your foot)
- boots are touching
- the turn is happening from the knee,
Hold the Back Inside Edge for a little
- after the turn, balance on the front of the blade
- press into ice
- the boots are still togheter
- hold posture, butt in, look up
Re bend holding the weight on the skating foot
- press the foot into ice by feeling the shoulder pressing down (and lift from the rib cage as for plie in ballet)
- press the boots together, creating tension. The skating, pushing foot is on a back inside edge and as the free foot boot is hold pressed on the pushing foot boot, it is getting in a goot position to be placed on ice on an outside edge
Push to a outside back edge straight back
- keep the pushing foot pointed forward, don't let the hip go back, that will make the upper body twist

 And for 3-turns done one after the other
- Rise on the back edge with the back  align over the circle
- Re bend
- Open the feet on a T position
- Stroke into a new 3-turn , push forward without leaning forward

Tracking the partner:
- you stroke towards the inside of the circle.For a ccw 3-turn that is towards the left of the partner. It is counter intuitive, because the partner feels in your way, but trust me it is gonna work. It was proven to me by my coach, by drawing it on the ice, demonstrating with another skating so I can watch, and doing it with me at vary slow speed... yes I was very stubborn in my disbelieving
- as you rise, look up, at the partner, lean towards the partner, don't stick the butt out, and square the shoulders with the partner
- the turns happens by itself....

I had to fight hard to do every single line I wrote in the instructions. I'm still not always looking into the circle before the turn, even when I do the 3-turn on its own not in a dance. In a dance, I still do randomly all the mistakes that I thought I've fixed long time ago. Instead of stroking I was stepping and not holding the extension and not pressing into the ice.  But you need a good outside edge and reasonably fast, the extension and pressure into ice hold that outside edge. Then keep pressing into the ice. Then twist the upper body, then lean into the circle...I'm still not holding the exit edge and I rush to push what it should be backwards but it is in fact a hook around, while breaking at the waist (butt out). And don't ask me about partnering... some days I do it, and some days I'm just not. I mean, I am getting better, but painfully slow.

Update on dropped 3-turns on Jan 2020 here

Progress... slow progress

I haven't really worked at my skating skills and for progress, since the beginning of the summer. The reasons were the lingering pain after the small hip injury, getting upset and put off by the politicking in the skating world, to what it was added the inconvenient summer ice schedule. As a result of all that, I've got both unmotivated and out of my skating rhythm. I've tried to get them back in the fall and I just couldn't find a way. So I've decided to skate for my own enjoyment, which I have lost when I was working too hard, for progress, and I wrote about it here. Ideally would be, of course, to work for progress and enjoy the process, but I couldn't find a way to do that just yet.

I wrote here, over a year ago, about progressing from a skating Beginner level to a High Beginner level. I though at that point I was at a High Beginner level, and I think I was right. I was wondering then and I'm still wondering, how to push into an Intermediate level (a beginner Intermediate level). I think I'm at the threshold. I need just a final push to get over it. And I think working towards finally testing the Pre-Juvenile MITF and the Ten Fox will finally get me there. So I'm trying to pump myself up to work for testing. And I'm shooting for testing in mid January. There are few test sessions in mid December that that's after the week and week end I'll be busy with the Nutcracker on ice, so I expect I'll be too tired. Testing  though, is just a symbol of passing a threshold. What I'm wondering is what skills should be acquired for a skater to be (look like) an Intermediate level skater.

I'm so grateful to my coach that he asks and listens about me feeling stuck and unmotivated, not confident even, and trys to help. Lately, instead of going trough the MITF exercises and the Ten Fox, he actually went for skills developing exercises. I mentioned them here and here.

So, just to review what I need to work on with awareness:
- posture and looking up,
- alignment over edges,
- pressure into ice
- touching the boots before pushing (so no wide stepping)
- bending into the ankles at pushes
- pushing perpendicularly away from the axis
- holding the whole body engaged (I think of it at tense, but is more like core engaged, upper body lifted, keep the tension after the push to have straight knee and pointed toe for the free leg.
- speed

I feel quite solid on forward skating. On backward skating I still don't find the balancing point quickly, I feel the push on the left outside edge is "empty". I immediately loose the good posture after the push and I'm not always on the edge. Theoretically I know I have to work on all the things I mentioned, and allow them to became body memory. So I plan to do lots and lots of backward stroking, chasses, progressives both on a circle and on alternating lobes, swing rolls. And of course, the turns (the dropped 3-turns from Ice Dancing and the forward to backward 3-turns from the moves) will get better when the back edges will be better.

Ice Show Rehearsals

This year I'm doing an ice show at a different rink than where I usually skate. I watched it last year and it was charming so I wanted to be in it, the Nutcracker on Ice. They do it every year and it actually follows the ballet quite closely and I love ballet. I'm in the adult group number. The adults are the "guests to the party" so we are on ice the whole first act. I'm impressed that they allow adults to have solo numbers too (at my regular rink, they don't).

We've had two rehearsals and they were soo relaxed, especially compared with my old rink rehearsals. You can find my posts about the ice shows I did, under the tab "ice shows". The choreographer/ instructor started by saying that he wants us all to feel safe and enjoy, and we don't have to do anything that doesn't feel like that. Then, he explained the process: we'll try different things and depending on what they look he'll decide the choreography for the next week. He asked who can do what, and had us do some things together.

On the second week rehearsal he gave us the backbone of the choreography. We are split in 3 groups, filling the middle and the ends of the rink and will do 3 main things, a line with some steps and a spiral for who wanted to do it, then some steps into waltz jumps, then pinwheels. We haven't actually put it all together, but some of the skaters do this show every year and they seam confident that it's all gonna work, plus they are very used to work with each other and they are part of each of the three groups on ice, so I feel they'll lead the rest us well. I also loved that it allowed for each of us to choose the costume. No stress there, again, compared with the previous shows I did, where we had quite strong unhappy voices about the costumes. And then, we went to breakfast, almost all of us.

We have a two weeks break, then four more rehearsals all on the weekend and week before the show, two one after the other on the same day, then a matinee for the neighborhood school kids, not open to the public, then three performances.

Up to now it aligns well to my idea to skate for my own enjoyment, as a balance to skating hard to progress. I'm especially happy because I feel I'm finally starting to get some desire to push for progress again, and for testing.

Skating technique: Intermediary skating skills (power, press, alignment, lean)

I usually have my private lessons on Monday and I get to skate before the lesson, so I'm warmed up already. I cannot skate next Monday so I asked for an extra lesson this week. It was on the first hour of the "Freestyle practice ice" so i had to start with a warm up with my coach watching and obviously helping and correcting.

After slalom forward and backward I did the forward outside edge presses. First the forward outside. My coach said that the hip is sticking out. That is the hip inside the circle. I am supposed to lean into the circle, with the shoulders parallel with the ice, but the rest of the body being a straight line. Like here. I tried and tried again and we ended at the boards looking into the glass and modeling my body to achieve the hip in, so the straight body line, the lean into the circle. This lean should be achieved on all edges forward, backward, outside, inside and it is always the same visual of not having the hip inside the circle sticking out. Another way I was asked to not stick the hip out was to feel, to make a hollow, that somehow doesn't work for me. I was even allowed to look down, at the hip... blasphemy! I've learned that the hip that is mentioned in the skating instruction is lower then I thought of it. That may make a difference in trying to align it. One other words I remember I've red about this hip in, were to push with the hip from inside the circle into the hip from the outside of the circle. Whaaat? No, actually that made sense when I've tried it, that's why I'm mentioning it here. To add to that is to make a hollow under arm of the arm towards the inside of the circle. That is to help the lean but I suspect also to not drop that shoulder. And also, on all the edges the upper body should be align over the circle.

After this anatomy (or contortion) lesson, I did the crossovers to inner edges from the PreJuvenile MITF test as my next warm up. My coach said to press into the ankle, so ice, the inside edge on both forward and backward. Not to just glide there. Use each step energy into the next step. We've run this 3 times. But it seams the coach was happy seeing that I was able to incorporate some of these corrections (that I've heard many times before), so he decided to continue with all this concept of power in skating. I mentioned the concept of power in skating many times, like here. The first step in building power in your skating is the correct push, (from underneath you, and pressing into the ice, that I described before (forward and backward)

So  we've continued with the rest of the MITF test exercises. Next were the power pulls. There, the biggest correction today was on the backward ones to align the upper body over the circle (the edge) so on the back outside edges pull the opposite shoulder back to lead with it, and on the back inside edges, the same side shoulder. Obviously on the power pulls you press into the ice. The 3-turns had less corrections then usual! But the focus was the same, the same alignment over the circle and lean into the circle. And then it was mentioned probably the biggest component of power on ice, the speed. I have to put more speed into the 3Turns. But generally, speed goes hand in hand with feeling confident in the edges, lean, alignment, press into the ice. You cannot have speed without having the others, and I think when all these "others" work, the speed increases automatically.

Back circle 8, you've guessed, we've insisted on the exact same points... On the inside ones I'm leaning out of the circle as I bring the foot in at the top of the lobe,  then I'm twisting too much facing inside the circle  (that would be not align over the circle) and that's slows me down. I worked at this alignment over the circle when skating backwards mostly trough backward edge presses, that I'm realizing I've never described, but I will soon...

I'm very happy with this lesson. It made me feel that I'm on track to getting the power.

Monthly skating review: progress and goals adjustment

I started last month with not much of a plan, but a "laissez-faire" attitude (the economic concept of free market translated as "let it happen"). I work on Ice Dance, Moves in the Field and Freestyle and I used to prioritize only one at a time so I can push it for progress and test. Now, I skate less time then before because I don't have enough energy (physical from my hip still not being 100% after the injury and emotional even) so I cannot push for progress on any of those. So I let them all be, progress or not, and try to enjoy the process. In a way I also wanted to experiment and see what happens if I don't push. And I think I've got confirmation that progress doesn't happen unless I push. So I have to be ready, at some point to start pushing again. But not this month... I think this month will go more or less like last month. Here is how last month has gone:

Ice Dancing: The private lesson went towards Ice Dancing, I think I took just 3 lessons. I'm getting more and more comfortable, with the basic steps exercises and the Ten-Fox. I didn't prioritize Ice dancing in my training for close to a year now, from when I tested the Willow Waltz. Whenever I want to work on Ice Dancing I need to do it when the ice is emptier so I have a better chance to hold the pattern, so I have to prioritize at least from that point of view. And I'm doing this now.

MITF: I still do them but without trying to add power. I hope I do maintain them because I certainly don't improve.

Freestyle: I started taking group lessons for Freestyle. I've had 3 lessons. And we did a review of spins and jumps (scratch spin, back scratch, waltz jump, salcow, and toe loop), that was most welcome. We didn't get yet to my targets, the sit spin and the loop jump. I feel it would be beneficial to work a little more on freestyle, but then again as I'm taking more time for Ice Dancing, I do not have more time for Freestyle.

Falls and Injuries: In my almost 10 years of skating I've never caught a toe pick. But I've caught one today. I was late to the group class and I joined  as they were just finishing the warm up with bunny hops. The first line, on the easy leg, was fine, but on the second line, on the harder leg... toe pick. I really blame it on not being warm up, I just didn't jump high enough... And I splashed on ice in a "superman" position, and slid... Yeah, it was a good one. I have scratches and a big blue bruise on my left knee, the side where my hip is still hurting and I had an ankle injury few year ago. It seems it is my favorite side to injure. I think I'm fine, but I'll know for sure just in few days.

Off ice: I said I have to do off ice strengthening exercises... I'm not doing them regularly...  I'm also not warming up before I get on ice, because I'm always late. So, I hope I'll do better. At least the ballet class is on again and I feel that helps with strengthening. I also did some stretching after few of the skating sessions and that seemed to help.

The kittens are doing fine, but they still take soo much time and energy.

The Skating for my own enjoyment saga: Because I don't push for progress I don't get frustrated. So at least I have that. On the other hand I don't think I'm really consciously enjoying. I'm comparing this enjoyment with the feeling of being present in yoga and with the feeling I get sometimes at ballet (not always), and that is again a feeling of being disconnected from the regular day and connected with the music and feeling lighter both body and soul. I've had another lesson with the new coach that helps just with this. On the first lesson we established some concepts of  musicality and soul involvement but we also did 3 clear exercises that I can practice. We polished some things from the first lesson when and did 3 new exercises. It's all I wanted from these lessons, my only disappointment is again, that I don't have more time to practice them. I firstly need to "get" the movement before I can incorporate soul and music into them.

NEXT MONTH, as I said, I expect it's gonna be the same and... more.

The Nutcracker on Ice: I'm gonna have 2 rehearsals this month, the first one this coming week. I'm very very excited.

Skating training: My main coach pushes the Ice Dancing, that it's covered. I don't feel I have to work much harder on my own. Most of the work it's happening during the lessons, especially now that we started partner the Ten-Fox. The Freestyle I plan to keep at the same intensity... On the MITF I plan to train the 5 minutes warm up for the test, but not on the first 5 minutes on ice. I feel that was throwing my whole session of. And I'm thinking at this point that is the thing that I'm least confident about the test day, go figure, the warm up...