We Don't Just Excel, We Axel

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. ------------------------- "These are pretty good!" the Tammasaurus proclaimed with, what I hoped was, a hint of surprise in her voice. You don't get to impress your coach very often at ice skating exercises so I smiled quietly to myself while she couldn't see. We were doing consecutive backward outside edges. Consecutive edges practice is the bread and butter of ice skating basics. Anyone that's learned a musical instrument in the past will no doubt be familiar with the concept of practising things like scales (piano was my attempt at learning an instrument as a teenager). Practising your consecutive edges fills a very similar function in learning to skate. They're not particularly flashy or fun, but they're essential for getting better overall. For the uninitiated, the gist is to simply glide for a bit on either the inside or outs

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  Following on from my last post . ------------------------- I decided that things needed to change if my skating was going to pick up again and I was going to start with my diet. Since I'd started skating then I'd been dining out on a luxurious, pre-skate breakfast of hot chocolates and cheese toasties from the Costa near the rink. If you're reading this, you're probably like "WELL NO WONDER YOU HAD ISSUES IN YOUR LESSONS", but when you consider that I was getting up at 6:20am to do a two hour coach journey out to the rink then I'm sure you'll agree it doesn't seem so insane that I'd wanted to treat myself a little bit. Plus the group lessons I'd been doing prior to starting with the Tammasaurus were, comparatively, incredibly gently-paced, so I hadn't had any problems before. Quick Parks & Rec

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  The Tammasaurus and I had been working together for about 3 months now and I'd been having some troubles over the preceding few weeks. Things aren't always peachy in the skating world (as in life)! ------------------------- "Can we stop a sec?" I wheezed in the middle of another intense lesson with the Tammasaurus. "Sure," she waited for me to catch my breath. "I think I'm okay now," I said after a few seconds. "Okay, let's try for some nice big 3 jumps." I took two strokes to get going. "Nope, no good, I feel sick. Can we get off the rink for a second?" Lessons with the Tammasaurus were always vigorous, no doubt about it, and I liked it that way. They were very productive and counted as some actual exercise in my otherwise slothlike existence, but for the last few weeks I

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. ------------------------- "So you see, it's more like this," the Tammasaurus proceeded to execute the step sequence that she'd been trying to teach me. When I say "step sequence" then I don't want you to imagine a complex intertwining of wondrous and challenging skating finesse, so I'll confess it was just alternating mohawks with crossovers we were doing as an exercise. As usual though, I was utterly incapable of stringing them together - coordination has never been my strong point. My mohawks were scrappy and bad most of the time, we'd been using them as the entry for my consecutive backward edge practise and I always imagined the Tammasaurus cringing as I scraped my way through the mohawk entry. Now she was expecting me to do the mohawk nicely and add a crossover on the end, which shouldn't even be that complicated

I did a counselling course once where my tutor had to teach the fundamentals of three different theoretical models of counselling therapy: psychodynamic (mostly Freud), person-centred (mostly Carl Rogers) and cognitive behavioural therapy (known as CBT). My tutor hated CBT, he absolutely loathed it, it made him shake up with rage when he was forced to talk about it and he would rant about it at any opportunity. The mohawk turn is my CBT. I hate them. They're a nasty, horrible move designed to remind adults how inappropriate their ageing bodies are in the youth-centric sport of figure skating. If there was any move that made me wish I was an eight year old girl then it's the mohawk. Unfortunately my next HP post relies on me having a reference point for people that don't know what mohawks are so they can read up on them. So here I am, writing a reference post on my hated enemy, the mohawk turn. So what is this nonsense? The mohawk's actually devilishly simple in t

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. ------------------------- "Have we started the Salchow yet?" the Tammasaurus asked towards the end of my latest lesson. "Not yet, no," I replied. I tried to sound nonchalant, but inside I was jumping up and down, the Salchow! My first of the six standard rotation jumps! This was one of the skating moments I'd been waiting for since I started! Off ice, I had secretly done some preparatory reading on the Salchow to prepare me for the magical day when we started it. A lot of descriptions talked about doing an outside 3 turn then holding the resulting backwards inside edge on the skating leg while doing a scooping motion with the free leg to twirl you round as you jumped off the ice. I had tried giving it a go off ice with no idea of what it was meant to look or feel like and it seemed both insane and fiddly, but this didn't diminish my

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background: I now had new skates and they were off to the rink for their first outing. ------------------------- "I'm now officially a run-of-the-mill, bog standard figure skater," I called across the ice to the Tammasaurus, who was finishing up a lesson with one of her advanced skaters. "I even have a Coronation Ace," I added. This second part was entirely because I didn't want the fact that I'd spent time researching to go unnoticed now that I'd chosen the absolute classic of free skating blades. This tactic is also known as, "BE PROUD OF ME, TAMMASAURUS! BE PROUD!" "Ooooh let's see your skates!" the Tammasaurus excitedly skated over to visit me at the barrier. Honestly, I don't really get the whole excitement around looking at new skates, I mean, I like it when people pay my new skates attent

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  Part 4 of my ongoing quest to find new skates. ------------------------- At last, my trip to Nottingham had been fruitful and I had a pair of skates on the way ! Giddy with excitement, I went nuts and splurged on accessories. I ordered some Chloe Noel husky soakers (you are never too old for animal soakers, seriously, see below on this) and also some Rockerz skate guards in purple and blue (I know they're expensive but I'd already spent so much on the skates and blades I figured why not go all out?) Pretty hard to resist. Side note - Those soakers are one of the best purchases I've ever made, firstly because they look so much fun and secondly because everyone at the rink is insanely jealous of them;  own this look I tell you! Own your child-marketed, ice skating paraphernalia and it will reward you tenfold in envious glances an

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  Part 3 of my ongoing quest to find new skates. Following on from my last post , I was in the middle of planning a trip up to Nottingham when I had another lesson with the Tammasaurus and she threw a spanner in the works: ------------------------- "Have you looked at getting those Edea Chorus' yet?" "Oh, the Chorus? Uhh, I'm working on it, I have a trip planned." The Chorus? That was the boot level above what she'd previously prescribed and that I'd been considering so far (the Overture). Maybe she'd just got confused with the names? I went back to Edea's website and looked up the Chorus, which are for double jumps and I definitely wasn't at that point yet. But, the greed demon inside of me looked at the shiny 4 gold stars on the boot (for non-skaters: men get printed on stars, women get little atta

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  Part 2 of my ongoing quest to find new skates. ------------------------- I once wrote a post, not so long ago in fact, about my first mission to buy new skates . Past Me resolved at that moment in time that the issue of properly researching how to buy skates would be tackled by Future Me. After all, Past Me assumed that Future Me would know much more about this sport and would just be generally better at everything in life ever. Unfortunately, Future Me was now Present Me, a mere six months ahead of Past Me, and Present Me was absolutely no better off than before. I took to the internet to begin my search and started with all the classic internet search terms "buying new ice skates, buying advice, how to choose ice skates, what brand should I use" and was soon swamped with a mash up of articles, forum posts and informational sites that al

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background: I was a lesson or two into my time with the Tammasaurus when she ambushed me during my warm up exercises... ------------------------- "What boot and blade have you got on?" I winced slightly knowing that my Graf 500 boots were just beginner level, which, while technically passable for the level I was at, would really need an upgrade to continue. I'd only got them about six months ago and had fully expected I'd have to upgrade in about a year or so, but I hadn't expected to progress this fast. I didn't know how much further I had left in them, but I knew I'd have to do some damage management with my response here as the Tammasaurus trains all the young, elite skaters and I didn't want to get a disapproving look. "Urr, they're Graf 500s. The blade just came with the boot, I think it's just a standard Gr

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  I'd just set up my first one-on-one lesson with the Tammasaurus . Some called me insane, the others were taking bets on how long I'd survive... This is a rather long post, I apologise for that, but if you want a taste of what my first private lesson was like then I recommend consuming the whole thing in one sitting - that's right, the food metaphor has already begun - as my first lesson proved to be a similar feat of endurance. ------------------------- Sweat poured off my face, my hair was already soaked and I was beet red as I puffed for breath in the middle of the rink. I hoped, in that instance, that I could've been described as a "hot mess", but I've long suspected that my hair drenched in sweat doesn't look in any way as sexy as it can do on some people. Side note - At this point, I was going to illustrate

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  Two months-ish into the 5-8 group , I'm enjoying the progress plus David and the group are nice, but... ------------------------- The time had come, I was ready to take another step on the rung towards becoming a real figure skating community member (not that I wasn't already but dramatic effect yo!) It was time to find my own coach. We'd been doing similar kinds of exercises for a few weeks in the 5-8 group class, but, despite David's fun stretch & reach goals , I had reviewed the Skate UK skill requirements and figured I was basically at the end of it all. Sure, I could probably refine the stuff we were doing over a long period of practice, but I'd noticed so far that continuing to do new stuff helped me approach old skills in new ways, so everything got a little easier as I progressed. Sadly, in terms of progressing, the

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background: Still around the month and a half mark in the 5-8 class by this point. ------------------------- "How about we give some choctaws a go?" David smiled broadly at his suggestion. David was a fan of implementing "stretch and reach" goals for our class; he didn't call them that, but that's what they were. "Stretch & Reach" was (probably still is) a policy used in some UK school education to help indicate to kids what they had to do in their work in order to be working at a higher grade of competency than they currently were, or to indicate how they could go beyond what was required of the expected standard at their level. Stretch and reach goals made sense in the 5-8 class as, broadly speaking, we'd all covered the 5-8 material even if we weren't doing it with any great skill, so, in the spirit of doi

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background: I'd been enjoying the 5-8 class for a month or so by this point. ------------------------- " That doesn't look so hard... " I thought to myself as I stood on the rink one morning. Do other adult skaters have this kind of thought a lot? I was watching another skater - the classic, young girl skater type - and her coach on the centre circle as the coach tried to get the girl to do what I'd later come to know as the 3 jump (waltz jump for those across the pond). For the uninitiated, it's a half-rotation jump that you start gliding forwards on one leg, and do, what is effectively, a hop onto the other leg. You do a half rotation in the air to land backwards. My hunger for new skating moves was always on the edge of my mind, nagging away at me when I got a bit bored of practising something I'd been doing for a few weeks. I&

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background: Another departure from the usual HP format. Time to introduce a new cast member! Note: this post probably won't display well on mobile, apologies if you're reading via that medium! ------------------------- She tosses her lustrous, blonde locks over the shoulders of her gilet as she sets her coffee down on the rink barrier and steps out firmly onto the ice. Your eyes are immediately dazzled by the neon pink snow pants now emerging from behind the barrier as she strokes slowly around the ice, her eyes sweeping the rink as she surveys her realm. These snow pants are her crown jewels; a striking pink beacon on the ice that sets her apart amongst the sea of fast-moving black leggings and grey tops the other skaters are wearing. As you watch her skate, you start to appreciate her stance: precisely-balanced and graceful, her years of training clea

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  I'm about a month into the 5-8 group in this moment. ------------------------- Head Coach Jane was in charge of us this week as David was off sick. Some of us had enjoyed Jane's last foray into our lessons so having her again was met with an undercurrent of excitement by those of us from before, and the usual wariness of a new coach from the others that hadn't had her. One of the things that I like about Jane is her willingness to push the limits of skaters' comfort zones with new material. Adult classes can be a little wary of anything that sounds too insane but Jane doesn't shy away from pushing people as she knows that everyone is capable of doing what she suggests and there are always ways of simplifying anything that seems too difficult at first. We worked through a variety of exercises from basic stroking to warm up (e

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  I'm now up in the 5-8 class with David as the group coach. ------------------------- Following in the footsteps of his forebears, David was yet another enthusiastic and friendly coach - clearly these are the traits of UK, male coaches! Furthermore, for a sport so heavily populated by women then the coaching gender demographic at my rink is comparatively very balanced between the sexes. One of the funny things about moving up to the 5-8 class was that, while there was an extra layer of nuance on top of many of the skills I'd done before, Ashley and Jason had worked with us quite a bit on the 5-8 skills instead of moving us up sooner so we were reasonably able to keep up with the standard of the current 5-8 people. They were obviously still better than us, but many of the things we were struggling with (* cough * 3 turns and backward crosso

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background: Quick departure from my usual HP style for some reflective thinking! ------------------------- I was now swimming with the bigger fish in the 5-8 group, the same group that I had once looked up at in wonder and awe as they sailed around with their advanced moves. It was strange now being in that class because, while I was a lot better than when I started learning, I still didn't feel like I had any "fancy moves" to show for my time in training. It's important to clarify at this point that I was (and still am) very much enjoying ice skating, but I was reflecting on the way my perception of what I'd learned had changed. When I'd looked up at the 5-8 class when I started then it had it all looked so impressive and complex. But now I was in that class and I still didn't feel that what I was learning was really that comple

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Background:  Jason's now taken over the beginner group class following Ashley's departure. ------------------------- I didn't stay in Jason's group very long after he confirmed he would be taking over. Not because I didn't like him (in fact, I liked his teaching style a lot) and not because someone else replaced him (they didn't, at time of writing he's actually still teaching that class), it was for a much simpler reason. After about a month of lessons with him, Jason showed up with the register to check off our skills. "Hey up," he said, "some of you guys aren't on this list." He tapped around on the tablet for a bit. "Ohhhh, you guys are meant to be in the 5-8 class. Well, I'd be happy for you guys to stay here if you wanted, I like teaching you, but you're meant to be in the other class."