2nd week of June: thoughts on rest and balancing my skating

I knew I’ll have a meeting on Monday so I decided to skate on Sunday. I never skate in the weekend because usually there is no ice, if there is, it is very crowded. Plus I formed the rhythm of skating during the week and resting in the weekend.

The minute I decided to skate on Sunday, I felt unhappy.  As I tried to acknowledge my thoughts and feelings,  I have found many... What set my negativity off, is that while looking for ice for Sunday, I had to face the fact that the ice schedule is gonna change for the summer, I'm gonna have fewer options for ice time and the ice is gonna be crowded. Then, I've realized that I am actually tired. I am physically tired from skating ( 5 times last week) but I'm also more tired because  most of my free time goes into skating, I have less time to rest. I was then thinking again about goals, and, if I want to improve, I do need lessons and practice, so I do need to put in all these time, planning and work. I think, this will get better as I will find more clarity in how to balance the skating.

As for this particular Sunday, I found it difficult to decide what to work on, and it felt like I just didn't want to work on Sunday. So I decided to have a skating day for my own pleasure. That lifted the pressure and the unhappy feeling. At the rink, I started slowly and concentrate on feeling my breath, my posture and my extensions. I took the time to finish the exercises with a pose.  I ended up actual working at lots of things!

So, note to myself, do occasionally slow down and smell the roses! I guess, this is, in fact, part of a balanced approached to skating...

Monday, no skating because of a business meeting. But... I have to acknowledge that I was very tired the whole day, unusually so, and it made me wonder if I may be skating too much?

Tuesday I was very busy and I still felt tired. Then I’ve realized there is a full moon coming, I never rest well when there is a full moon. In this circumstance, I’ve decided to not go skating, be gentle towards my body and schedule.

Wednesday. Tuesday night there was this huge beautiful strawberry moon, so of course I woke up at 5 and couldn't fall back asleep. I was even more tired than the previous days. In the past I would have definitely not gone skating. But I have planned a lesson on Thursday, so I felt I had to go. This is one of the benefits of having planned lessons, they make you commit. I didn't stay that long but I was pretty happy on how the Tenfox worked. I was careful ti alternate the work on the Tenfox with slower exercise.

Thursday, I had a dance lesson with my new coach. I woke up rested but I worked so hard to catch up on work, I felt distracted before leaving for skating. Then, I had traffic, it took me 40 minutes instead of 20-30. Then, this session was a Freeskate one, a bit busier that I'm used to. Anyway, these are my excuses for not doing well. The 3s in Tenfox were skidding all the time, every single time! I left very, very disappointed.

Friday. I went skating, it was very crowded, I mostly worked on the Tenfox 3s that didn't go much better than Thursday.

This week was rough, I was excessively tired following the very busy previous week. I kept the skating schedule and the lesson, and that is a win in itself. I got disappointed in the Tenfox 3 turns but I have to remember that progress is not linear, I was tired, or I was too much into my head... Otherwise skating felt in fact good! I think this is the perfect reminder that I have to skate for my own enjoyment and continue in organizing the skating weeks and months so they feel balanced between work for progress and enjoyment.

1st week of June

On Wednesday I'll have a business meeting North side.  That is where my boot fitter is and there is where my old coach is. I've decided to drive up and have a lesson on Tuesday and drop the boots, and pick them up when I get off my business meeting on Wednesday/

Monday. In preparation for my lesson with old coach, I practiced the double 3 turns. They were very rusty but got acceptable during the practice. The only negative was that I took a pretty heavy fall and my muscles tensed up and hurt. But luckily I haven't injured anything. 

Tuesday. The drive there was 1 hour 15 minutes, but back was an hour and a half... so, yeah, it not doable to see my old coach too often. As I work on dance with the new coach, I though to have this lesson toward moves in the field. I requested a full hour lesson. 

- The warmup was edges (correction: look where I'm going - I was flicking my head towards forward, and don't  twist, meaning stay square and encourage the edge by leaning). For the FI edges, tailbone under and more ankle bend. More ankle bend (push into the tongue of the boot, knees have to surpass the toes) I continued to hear during the whole lesson. On B edges more ankle bend and arched back, forming a Z.

- The coach wanted to start with simple 3-turns.  LFO3, surprisingly, the correction for the (the one that troubled me as I couldn't control the exit) was that I didn't turn it on the ball of the foot, I was towards the middle of the blade. I was also not completely aligned over the hip, the correction that worked was to lift the ribs over the hip. Then, a strong check is needed. RBI needed better alignment (lift over the hip and the free shoulder should pass the skating heel, so I should lean into the circle way more) and have the free leg thigh/ knee press into the skating leg. RBO same correction for the free shoulder. Also turn on the back of the blade, on the last 2 screws...

- For the double 3s is very important to check the 1st 3, use the top of the lobe carefully to change the upper body and extend the free foot (for the B 3s)

- Power 3s, after Mo, a push into B3 is acceptable, then the power comes from a lift like for a Loop jump. Strong check and repeat 

Wednesday, after I picked up the boots, I stopped by the rink on my way home. It was a bit of bad lack that the session I used to go to, was now an hour later. I decided to enter the session that was on right then, but I had just 15 minutes of skating. They had then, a 30 minutes break... so I didn't stay for the next session. With that little time I decided to not go through the 3-turns correction. I decided to work on the TenFox 3-turn. Yeap still scrapping...

Thursday. After 2 days away from home and work, I had so much to do. There were 2 skating sessions that day, morning at 9, and mid day 1.30. I decided to go to the 9 am one, because from my previous experience, when I get too much work to do I get caught up or exhausted  and I don't go skating anymore. While driving I though on how to organize the skating sessions and I couldn't really. My mind kept slipping back to work. So, I skated in default mode, and that took my again into the TenFox... mostly the 3-turn. I skated only TenFox related exercises and I skated hard so I felt tired after 35 minutes. Maybe it was ok for that day, as I had lots of work waiting. But,  this is exactly what I don't want to do... I want to balance each skating sessions (to work on more things) and the skating journey in general. My goal from this month, is to find ways to do that.

Anyway... the TenFox 3-turn. 

- I figured I was pressing towards the ball of the foot to accentuate the FO entry edge while rising, so at the point of the turn there was no more space to rock forward.  So I have to stay on the back of the blade. Probably a stronger core and posture, with the tailbone underneath, or hips forward, would help

- While twisting (and turning) I have to bring the hip forward (the free ribs and hip feel stacked over the skating side). And of course, the feet together (correction from my new coach). Then, I figured maybe I should think ate pigeon toe instead of feet together, that may bring the hip forward too.

Friday I went skating with the thought of finding balance in my skating. 

- I warmed up as I always do - fast

- I added some alignment awareness warm up exercises (like slower edges) - slow

- Chasses and SwRolls - fast

- Those seamed to help the entry into the TenFox 3-turn - slow

- TenFox - fast

- regular 3-turns with emphasis again, on alignment. I insisted on the LFO 3-turn and the circles (edges) F and B - slow

-TenFox - fast 

- exercise for TenFox of RFO double bend into the 3 turn. I think I finally figured out how to fix it. I was rising at the end of the 4 count double bend. The new coach suggested to stay low, but you have to rise to push into the 3-turn. I watched some videos of the dance and it looks that both the rise in the middle of the 4 count, and at the end of 4 count are very quick, not a full beat, so the rise is AFTER the 4 count double bend edge, and it IS the push into the 3 turn. With this approach the 3-turn seems to be on time. I think I was adding almost 2 beats there... one to finish the 4 count lobe and one to push into the 3-turn. If this is figured out, fingers crossed, I still need to make everything a little quicker to match the required tempo. 

 -Twizzles - I didn't work on them in a while and they weren't stable - slow

- the B power 3-turns, but slow, working at the form 

-F  Stroking and Xstrokes - they were slow, a sign that I was tired

- Winding down 

This took 45 minutes, I was happy at the end. Of course I could have felt happy because I felt progress on TenFox. But maybe I made this progress because I tried a different approach. Also, a shout out to the alignment exercises, they seam to help and I can do them slow, when I'm tired. I should continue to incorporate them into most of the session. And I looks that I intuitively worked on some fast things, then some slow things.

Monthly skating review: progress and goals adjustment

I was skating hard and the Covid interrupted, well, everything. After Covid I had a hard time picking up skating again because of boots problems, I actually almost gave up.... Then,  I skated on and off. Whenever I picked up the skating again I had to go through a painful phase of building muscles. I also couldn't reach my coach because of heavy traffic during construction on expressway. I had no structure in my skating week or sessions, I've got demotivated, and got busy with other things.

But I figured out basically all of these! 

-The boots. I needed tighter, lower volume, boots and none of the four acclaimed boot fitters could not figure out a model to do that, including a custom boot, I bough in desperation on ebay, a half size too small and stretched the tip of one of the boots that felt too small. I have to keep stretching it weekly and it is not as tight as mi old boots, but it works! I still skate with temporary screws, I hope I can have the mounting finished this coming week.

-The building of the muscles. I am hyper mobile and so, my muscles get tired easier than regular people. I figured out after studying all kind of articles that I should not skate too hard when I'm building muscles. If I overwork the muscles, they get too damaged, I am in too much pain, and they need a long time to recover, like a full week, and they don't get the chance to build, and the following week I'm back to square one. Instead, I have to skate just to the point of feeling tired, then I can skate after 2 days, or even the next day and in couple of weeks I have some improvement!

- Coach. The expressway in my area is under construction and the traffic made it unrealistic for me to go to the rinks where my coach teaches, what it used to be a 35-40 minutes drive is now an hour and a half. I just found a coach at 20 minutes away, and my old coach was her coach back in the day, so there is some continuity there. I will still see my old coach whenever I can find the time, but now I can count on continuous instruction.

- Structure, motivation and goals. Having a coach gives some structure to my skating week and makes me skate harder as I have somebody to show my progress.

- Ice time. While floating around in between rinks, I ended up going more to a new rink that is very close to my house, just 10 minutes. It is the training rink (with two surfaces) of the big city hockey team. I tried it when it first opened, but they had unreliable schedule. Now, they figured it out better, and they have freestyle ice and public skate almost every day. 

My plan for the next months is, of course, to test the TenFox. 

BUT... my main goal is now: skating longevity, I want to build a balanced practice, a more uniform effort. When I used to skate hard in the past, before covid, I used to yo-yo in between feeling motivated to progress and test, and frustrated by any adverse condition, and even bored to stick to working on the same skills. So the bigger plan is to pay attention on the effort towards progress versus the enjoyment I get from skating day by day.