We Don't Just Excel, We Axel

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