We Don't Just Excel, We Axel

From my lesson today... Tammasaurus : Backwards outside 3 turns. Me : Sure. I've never taken the time to detail in my blog what these are, but, essentially, they're your bog standard 3 turns done backwards instead of forwards - the post I linked to mentions them towards the end as there was a time when I thought of backwards 3 turns in horror... In truth, I'm still mostly terrified of them. The key difference to the backwards version is that instead of using the front part of the blade (the rocker) to do the turn then you have to use the considerably spicier  heel section of the blade. Much like the rocker, the heel part of the blade minimises the amount of blade contact with the ice so that rotating your foot is easier. The spicy part comes in that you have to sort of lean back into the turn, put all your weight in your heel (with its deliciously minuscule amount of blade contact) and just hope you don't go over backwards onto all manner of delicate body part

Upright spin . The most basic and trivial of spin techniques, yet one I stubbornly continue to struggle with a year and a half into my skating career. It seems so odd that I can be practising to do the hardest single jump and yet still completely floundering on the basics of spinning, but hey ho. Lately, the Tammasaurus has been pulling all sorts of tricks out of her playbook in order to get me to make some semblance of progress at spins - I strongly smell the air of desperation, though more from myself than her. She remains as professional as ever, despite my string of floundering attempts at spinning. Something I've noticed with learning spins is that every time we try a new method then I immediately do it fairly well first time round. Fantastic. Of course, I am then completely incapable of repeating my beautiful first execution ever again. It's almost as if the thrill of the new drives me forward and then my body has a taste and is like " we've done that now, gi

This story comes courtesy of a conversation I had with one of the excellent, lovely, talented, senior-level ice dancers that is now turning his hand towards coaching at our rink. Why include so many praising adjectives about this wonderful young man? Well, because of him, I now know that I have achieved a degree of notoriety at the rink, and I LOVE  that fact. Gaining notoriety means I'm now officially a badass, right? I'm well known at my rink for throwing myself into the jumping aspect of free skating with rather more zeal than is strictly necessary at my level of learning - you could say that in my quest for bigger and better then I compensate for a lack of skill with misguided effort. Scenes of me smashing into the ice are relatively common, so I often hear jokes from my friends and the rink staff about how I'm going to injure myself next. I haven't done any real damage to myself until relatively recently , but no need to worry about that! Not to be deter

Disclaimer:  I've written a small disclaimer for these articles on jumping  over on this link . Reading it isn't obligatory, but it does cover a lot of ugliness that I don't want to type every time I write one of these, so if you're about to pick me up on the finer points of jump execution then please read that first! The Salchow You have a beloved, imaginary friend called Lorenzo. Lorenzo is a human-sized teddy bear with the classic posture of a sitting teddy bear: both arms and legs open in a welcoming embrace. He's accompanied you through many of the big occasions in your life: first day at school; first relationship; first drunken escapade when you stole a traffic cone; your wedding/civil ceremony of choice; your first kid; etc. etc. However, Lorenzo's a  needy , imaginary friend, he wants to be hugged every so often, which would be simple enough, except he's only happy if you employ his preferred patented hug technique, which is a hug whilst swing

Disclaimer:  I've written a small disclaimer for these articles on jumping over on this link . Reading it isn't obligatory, but it does cover a lot of ugliness that I don't want to type every time I write one of these, so if you're about to pick me up on the finer points of jump execution then please read that first! The Toe Loop You run a money laundering operation, I keep telling you not to, but that hasn't stopped you yet. It's a  typical day for you as a money launderer (whatever that looks like, you tell me) and you're just on your way out of the house to pick up some ill-gotten gains. You step your right leg forward and raise your left foot heel off the floor so just your toes are touching the ground. In this position, you suddenly realise you've forgotten your keys, you clutz! Still facing forwards, you push down through your left toes into the floor behind you, with the intention to pivot to the left on them so that you can reach your keys

Personally, I think all skating progression carries a degree of risk and, in the pursuit of jumping perfection, then you fall a lot . I literally cannot emphasise how much falling you do. However, I don't want anyone doing themselves a mischief because of the insanity I'm going to be spewing in the upcoming articles, so I am putting together a little disclaimer that goes a little something like this... I am not a trained skating coach and I strongly recommend that you learn any and all skating elements with assistance from a coach. That said, attempting the jumps isn't THAT dangerous at all unless you're a total maniac, so while the below can all be attempted off ice, no liability is accepted for your own fooling around when attempting any of them, whether on or off ice. Watch out for any objects nearby. Furthermore, none of my jumping explanations are intended as a comprehensive primer on jump execution, they're largely intended as a simplified, jokey versio

Previously in my quest for the vaunted single Axel , I experienced an unpleasant series of injuries and MY GOODNESS did those injuries become the bane of my skating pretty much over the course of the last two months. It turns out that you can't drop hard on your hip as an adult, twice, without repercussions, which is a shame, because like all reckless, young men (I'm not sure I can keep claiming I'm 'young' but hey ho), I like to think of myself as indestructible. In the weeks following my injuries, I endured pain in my hip whenever I climbed stairs or tried to do basic stroking on the ice. Life was sad and skating was making me miserable. I had no motivation to try anything because I was in pain and not trying anything meant I wasn't progressing, which made me not want to come in and practise, which set my progress back even more. I confess that the reason my blog's posting rate suffered lately is almost entirely because I just haven't been in the

I have always wondered the secret to the dashingly youthful looks that so many ice skating coaches have. The Tammasaurus once explained that the chill of the rinks that they spend so much time in provided enough of a cryogenic freezing effect to keep their skin nice and taut as they age. Never has the Tammasaurus spoken more untruth than in that moment! This reporter comes to you now with what he believes to be the true source of the stunning looks that our venerable ice skating coaches continue to sustain not through the rink's natural benefits, but through the evil draining of young childrens' energies! I stumbled into this sinister plot while doing the most innocuous of acts: finishing off my time on the evening patch session with a few poor attempts at improving my upright spin. Typically I'm the only adult on this session (not counting the coaches) and the rest is made up of kids that have come straight from school to practise. Little do they know the disturbing

My face every time the Tammasaurus asks this: PLEASE TAMMASAURUS, I LOVE YOU, DO NOT MAKE MY PRACTISE MY SPINS. I KNOW I NEED TO, BUT I AM AN INCAPABLE CRETIN THAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO SPIN! And she just looks at me...

I've finally sustained some injuries in my quest for Axel. I've always had a rather gung-ho approach to skating, frequently throwing myself around and trying things to see how they work, so it was basically inevitable that this would happen at some point. Plus, learning ice skating, jumps in particular, is definitely a process that can be accurately summarised as follows: I've been getting better at Axel prep exercises, so the Tammasaurus optimistically said " why don't we try a little 3 jump into backspin?" Anyone with a passing familiarity with my blog will know that I loathe spins, not because I don't think they're great fun and all that, but because I just cannot do them for love nor money. " I think that's a little optimistic," I reply with a laugh. However, I've never been afraid of a little challenge, my pivot into backspin has  been improving so I figured I'd give it a go. First try and I land the jump but, unsurpr

When I'm not skating, which is, to be fair, quite often, then I do one or two other hobbies, one of which is board gaming. I could write a lot about modern board gaming, but that's not what this blog's for, however while attending one of my usual board game groups then a joke was made we should all form a synchro skating team. I joked along with the rest of them, but, one bored night, I decided to look up what competitive synchro actually looks like... Reader, my life has been TRANSFORMED. Where has synchro skating been all my life?! Please enjoy the following (starts at 1:04): If the opening line sequence isn't satisfying enough then w atch out for the intersection starting at 2:25, followed almost immediately afterwards  with a  bizarre-looking spiral sequence; and it's all  set  to  a toe-tapping Canadian country rock song about mud! What's not to love?! Isn't it all just magnificent? I can only imagine how much practice goes into getting th

In the last post in this series , we looked at the basic rules of jumping in skating and the breakdown of jumps into the distinct categories of "toe" and "edge" jumps. The toe and edge jumps combine together in an order of supposed ascending difficulty as follows: Toe loop ("easiest") Salchow Loop Flip Lutz Axel ("hardest") But what do I mean by 'supposed' ascending difficulty? In my opinion, the order of difficulty is pretty accurate if you look at it from a roughly empirical angle. The further down the list you get then the more complex the actions required to execute them correctly become. However, people learn in different ways and some people find they actually prefer a jump that is traditionally thought of as "harder" over an "easier" one. Personally, my current preference tends to be whichever one is working better on any given day! "Working better on any given day," you hear me say?

I'm shortly going to be writing a series of posts describing the six free skating jumps that are used in free skating. These descriptions will be via the medium of absurdly silly "real life" situation comparisons that will hopefully at least give you a laugh even if you don't learn anything about the jump executions. Before that though, we need to talk a bit about the general bits and bobs of jumping on ice. This will no doubt be nothing new for regular skaters, but I write for family and friends as well and they appreciate the explanations where I remember to do them. A bit of history Most of the standard jumps that are used in competitive skating today were invented between 1880 and 1930 (though it's not entirely clear exactly when for some), but why do we jump on the ice at all? Honestly, I thought about researching this to get to the origins of jumping in ice skating, but I strongly suspect that the actual answer boils down to "because we can."

My quest for the Axel jump has officially begun! Strictly speaking, it unofficially began a month or so back when I started practising 3 jump + loop jump combination as prep work into the Axel, but as of a week or so ago I'm officially into the territory of "I throw myself forward and hope I make it round the necessary rotations for the Axel." For the uninitiated, the Axel is the hardest jump at any given amount of rotation because you have to sneak in an extra half rotation alongside the standard number at the level you're doing (so a single Axel is 1.5 rotations, compared to just 1 for any of the other single jumps). You're still landing backwards, like all the jumps, but it's the only jump you take off facing forwards in order to get that extra half rotation in. Ironically, despite its difficulty, the Axel has perhaps the simplest looking opening of all the jumps, you pull both arms and your non-skating leg back while gliding on your skating leg and

I like to think I'm a friendly person, the rink is pretty good for this kind of personality as well because people are usually pretty happy to approach others and chat about skating, so you can make friends pretty fast if you're a regular at your rink. Despite my friendly interior, I'm fairly certain that I look somewhat aloof and distant when I'm just skating around on the ice. If only I could actually have this much poise on the ice! However, even with this icy facade, I do still occasionally get approached by members of the public that are persistently attempting to learn some ice skating move. Maybe I don't actually look all that aloof and I'm just super unthreatening, but either way they must've decided that I've demonstrated sufficient skill to be "the right guy to ask", which is obviously immensely flattering. "Moi?" This process always goes fairly similarly: Them: " Hey, you look like you know what you&#

That is all. But seriously, a while back , I wrote that "the first rule about my spins is that we don't talk about my spins", but I can't hide from them forever so it's time to write something about them. When I first started skating, I would watch the little girls practising their beautiful spins - so many dazzling rotations - and I would dream of one day being able to do the same. Alas, that day has still not come. With everything else I've learned in skating I've seen even the smallest amount of improvement almost week on week as long as I make sure I give it a go for even just a few minutes each time I go to practise. But spins? Nah. I've been at this a year and a half and my rate of progress has been sloooooooow . For the uninitiated, there're a ton of exercises to get you going on a basic upright spin (which is the most primitive of the spin variations), I know because I've had a million thrown at me in an attempt to ge

Rink regulars tell me I should get some programme music, I'm all: But inside I'm all: The search begins, late one night so that plausible deniability remains intact... Initially I'm all: But, after several hours of suggested playlists, everything starts to sound the same... Then anytime I walk into ANYWHERE that's playing ANY SONG, I'm all: I drop by the Tammasaurus for advice, she's all: Which I know means "Choose something you love... but 90% of your choices will be..." And so the search goes on...

"THIS IS OBSCENE!" I cried for the tenth time that session. About a month ago, the Tammasaurus and I started seriously working on the Lutz jump. I've said before while learning the Salchow that I thought it was a fairly contrived piece of nonsense at the time (it's actually one of my favourites now), but anyone that's familiar with the Lutz will I'm sure agree that it is a similarly insane piece of body shenaniganary (not a word). It's also the Tammasaurus' favourite jump, so I mentally prepared myself to disappoint her for a while as I got up to speed with it. I'm currently writing up a humorous description of the execution of the Lutz in a separate post, but the general gist is you glide on a back left outside edge and twist your top half (arms and all) round to the right, far beyond what you think would be comfortable for any human. When settled in this position ("settled," hah!) then you reach back with your right foot and smack

A combination of nagging from the better skaters and their mums at my rink; my growing obsession with obscenely long run ups to my paltry, single jumps and starting work on the Lutz jump with its absurd entry all came together to push me into moving my lesson and regular training schedule into a patch session instead of public sessions. Some people find the prospect of transitioning to patch a bit daunting as it's where the serious folk go to learn to skate, but when I talk about "the serious folk" then what I really mean is mostly girls aged 8-13. Most adults are afraid of the judgement that might come from this group, however one of the first things I discovered when training on patch is that it's a bit like going to the gym: all the regulars care about is their own work out and they're happy that you're making the effort to be there yourself, whatever your ability. So I got started by trialling myself on the busier after school session, just to see how

I'm about to write a post about my transition to training on "patch" sessions at my rink, but for the uninformed then here's some info about what "patch"  is . The term 'patch' stems from the bygone age where skaters learned what were known as the "compulsory figures", which were used as part of competitions alongside the short and free programmes. People haven't stopped practising figures, but as they're no longer a component of the competitive schedule then the need to learn them (and thus their prevalence) has somewhat diminished. To put this a little more bluntly, figures are kind of what Latin is to modern languages: they represent a lot of the basic skills in application, but basically no one does them anymore. I've heard of some US adult skaters talk about doing them occasionally on their blogs, but that's basically pretty much the sum of my exposure to them. Their removal doesn't mean they're without meri

It was a school break this week in the UK, so the rink was overflowing with parents and their kids looking for something to distract them. I've had this post about exactly those kind of times in draft for a while and I think now is the time to deploy... Are you able to tell a Red Zoner from a White Zoner? Welcome to my lecture on public session skater taxonomy, which is an optional module you can take for 15 credits. There will be an assignment to collect samples of taxonomic specimens and a written exam on the tendencies of the various zones. You can buy my recommended text for the course (my own book of course!),  Rink Etiquette 101 ,   from any good academic book store. If the people at the back of the class are done yawning... yes , I'm talking about you guys... then I'll begin. Public sessions are the destruction derby of ice rinks. Actually, that's ice hockey, but if you don't want to strap on more armour than a medieval knight and smash a tiny piece of ru

"You've dropped some money there," the Tammasaurus noted as my body crashed into the ice, another spectacular fall during a loop attempt gone wrong. I knew, rather than saw, that she was referring to the two pound coins I'd had in my pocket that I'd heard clatter to the floor as I fell. I have some trousers with zip pockets to stop stuff like this happening, however I hadn't had those to hand when I'd dressed that morning. "Well, strictly speaking," I began as I picked myself off the ice and started to look around for the coins, "they're yours. At least, they're part of what I was going to pay you with this week." The Tammasaurus bent down to collect her money off the ice. People talk about paying for ice time, but here the ice was paying for her time. I had intended to be chivalrous and collect the money from the ice for her, but she was already at it so there seemed no point in stopping her. I retrieved the rest of her pay

"Okay! Crossovers in a figure of eight!" a typical warm up exercise in my lessons with the Tammasaurus, "... and finish with a landing glide," she calls as I'm completing the last backwards clockwise circle. I reach the straight and obediently raise a leg as I glide backwards on the other one. I was actually pretty pleased with the final product: I felt it had good leg elevation, a decently straight back and good bend on my gliding leg, plus I was holding the glide confidently with my arms nicely outstretched. I steal a glance at the the Tammasaurus who has a pained look on her face. "Ooooowennnnnnnnnn," she whines in a scolding tone. " WHAT? " I think, " THIS LANDING GLIDE IS EXCELLENT! " I'm internally outraged but I defiantly continue to glide along, holding my pose, awaiting the incoming critique. "Come on now, what leg do you land on?" she asks wearily. ... Oh yeah, my right leg... and I'm currently

I tend to make something of an effort to speak to some of the new skaters on the rink basically because it seems to be a general rink tradition that everyone's just so friendly to everyone else on the rink. To that end, I recently got talking with a new guy in the beginners' class. That's right, alert reader, a new guy , which, as will be no surprise to ice skating regulars, is a rare thing, made rarer still by the fact he's in his 20s, like me. You see -  clears throat -  LEGEND HAS IT... For every generation of skating learners (adult or otherwise) there is born just one male into the flock of women (heterosexual men take note of this gender imbalance) . It has been this way since the dawn of time and we must nurture these rare adult males who might go on to be a lonely female's ice dance partner, or perhaps they will one day perform such adult free skating wonders as the double Axel, double to--- "Yeh, so, I'm learning in secret because my missus pla

No italicised intro for this post because this is the end of the  HP posts  I've done up until now. Broadly speaking, we're up to speed with the current day and I think I've covered the most memorable bits of my skating history up until now. From here on out it's all uncharted territory... Oh god, I'll have to rely on comedic observations and bizarre stories of the Tammasaurus and I gallivanting around on the ice, me falling everywhere and her all stern faces and disapproving looks. I'm just kidding, the Tammasaurus and I always have a laugh. If you want to keep up to speed with what I'm working on at the moment, snapshot style, I've got a goals page with my short and long term goals that I'm updating as I go along. If you've come to this late then you can head back the beginning from my first link on this post! Until then, onwards!

I arrived at the rink today with my favourite waistcoat and white shirt combo hidden under my coat. I'm not ready for a routine yet, I can barely manage the basic coordination required for the simple steps I'm doing at the moment, let alone a minute and a half of flowing steps, jumps and spins, so I'm holding off until the Tammasaurus basically insists that we get on with it. However, I wanted to see what it felt like to skate in a waistcoat and shirt in case that was the sartorial route I went down when I do get to a routine. I unzipped my jacket in the cafe, the waiting eyes of the assembled skating mums lingering on me as I revealed the outfit. The cafe audience cooed appreciatively at my choice, the ladies in the locker room nodded admiringly... Some suggestions that I should add glitter and stones were made, but, for now, just the Tammasaurus's approval to go. "Looking  very nice today!" she said admiringly as she joined me on the ice for my lesso

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. ------------------------- One day, I hope to compete in adult free skating competitions, so when my local rink held a competition (non-adult) then I decided to go along and check it out to get a feel for what competitions looked like - as a bonus, a friend of mine was competing so I could support her as well! I don't normally go out of my way to watch free skating competitions (like the international ones) because I take the view that I'd rather be doing the sport than watching it. Also, I'll willingly confess I don't think it's that good of a spectator sport - the jumps (and falls!) are fun to watch and I like honing my on-the-fly jump identification skills, but I'm fairly indifferent about spectating otherwise. It's hard to write a concise beginning-to-end story of what went on, plus it probably wouldn't be that interesting, s