This week, on Monday I started to feel I've reached a reasonable alignment on my old boots. At some point I do have to stop adjusting the blades and allow myself to get used with what alignment there is. I knew from when I've changed my blades few years ago that my right boot is collapsed towards inside. Than, and my pronation that probably cased the boot to collapse in the first place, were compensated by added shims between the sole of the boot and the frame of the blade. I added another layer of shims, as I felt and I could see the old layer was compressed. I also added to the left boot, where while I cannot see the boots is collapsed, it may be, because that is what I feel. This is not an ideal solution, and it may not hold for long (I was hoping for a a whole year), but I finally felt I could skate. I also tried to screw extra screws with a hand screwdriver, and it worked. So I think I'll be safe.
On Wednesday, I've tried to get into my old skating routine. Part of my warm up are exercises that bring awareness to alignment and the need to press into ice. I do slalom, edge presses and stroking forward and backward. Then depending either on my mood, either on the plan to test something or not, I do either MITF exercises, either dance exercise, or both. I've found myself cautious to go fast so I ditched the dance in favor of the moves. I'm quite comfortable with these Pre-Juvenile exercises so I felt I could work on building back speed. The good surprise is that I feel the 3-turns are better. I think the new blade alignment helps. The back circle eight is not very confident and not coming around on the inside edges. That may be because of the added shims that push me towards outside. I'll have to get used with it. I've tried all kinds of exercise in the MITF category, mostly on the slow side. I did fast exercises only on the things I'm most comfortable with, stroking, crossovers. I haven't tried jumping yet, that is in the plan for the next skating session. My forward spin is still MIA, that may be because of the new insole that is thicker on the forefoot but the arch is lower, so it's pushing me more to the heel then before? Hopefully I'll get used with that too... it is very frustrating. The other not so pleasant surprise is that I was sore and tired after the skate on Wednesday. The worst surprise is the fact that my hip that was injured acted up again. Those muscles are either not strong enough, either they tense after a more intense work out. I did longer strokes with the extension held, I did the Preliminary pattern of back crossover to back extension edge, and I did spirals. I'll try to tone it down and build those muscles carefully. I'll also have to stretch after skating, even if shortly, because we are not allowed to stay more then 10 minutes in the building because of covid restrictions.
Friday, as I stepped on ice, I found myself feeling tired and slow. After my usual warm up of slalom, edge presses and stroking I thought I'll try the dance exercises including the dropped 3-turns, without pushing, just observing the alignment and my level of confidence in skating faster. After all these, I felt like going slower, so I did circles 8s, the backward inside still not coming back to center. I did sets of forward to backward 3 turns, forward brackets, twizzles. I tried the forward spin, nope, nope and nope... Backward spin... fine. I did some jumping just 3 to 5 of each waltz, salcow, my under rotated loop and toe loop... fine. At this point I felt like running the Pre-Juv MITF exercises and they were mostly fine. I did some stroking around and talking to a friend. Then, with renew energy I did the Ten fox.
All in all, the conclusion after this week's skating, is that while I'm not 100% comfortable with the alignment of my blades, that is probably because the boots are old and deformed and there is not much I can do about it, so I should try and allow my body to get use with them.
My skating skills are kind of there, but kind of dusty.
My body needs a little time to build up the muscles again, no wonder, as I didn't skate at all in January, and most of February I was skating slowly to break in the new boots that I returned.
I'm missing... maybe gumption would be the right word... Hopefully I'll get if after my body will feel stronger.
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