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...

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...

"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...

"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...

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting, see  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Avid readers will, again, notice that this post is entirely out of order with the last two, particularly in relation to my progression with the loop jump. I got the order all muddled up around here, oops! ------------------------- "You know, there is a long term plan for all this," I announced to the Tammasaurus as I finished up a continuous 3 turn exercise. "Oh, what is it? Tell me!" The Tammasaurus lit up like a Christmas tree, her excitement was palpable. In the past , the only direction I'd really given her was that I wanted to "go beyond" the curriculum that the group lessons had taught. "I'll tell you when we have a break," I reply. Given my level of fitness then these were pretty regular so she wouldn't be waiting long. I got started on my 3 jump practice. I was a bit nervous about telling her my lo...

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. Avid readers of this blog might recognise I detail myself as trying the loop jump before having done it with the Tammasaurus, when I explained in the last HP post that her and I were very much in the middle of the process of learning it together. That is because I wrote these out of order, oops! ------------------------- Practice, practice, practice. That sentiment never goes away in the endless quest for sporting perfection and it's just as true in all things ice skating. Lately, my Salchow had been coming along (probably thanks to time spent walking through it next to my work printer every time I went to do some printing) and the Tammasaurus had run through the toe loop with me. I kinda hated the toe loop, it felt like a clunky and nasty jump to do. For those unfamiliar with it then you basically just jam one of your toe picks into the ice and "vault...

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See  my first HP post  for the full notes on these. ------------------------- " Valar Fallghulis " or "all men must fall." (Or "all people" for the modern thinker, but those that don't get the reference need to pop to their nearest bookstore and look for the George R. R. Martin section!) I have always embraced the spirit of falling in skating, indeed  ' falling is learning ' has become my personal motto. It will never stop happening, even the professionals are dropping here and there, so we might as well welcome it and use it as the learning experience that it is. However, even though I know everyone does it, it still came as something of a surprise when, one typical lesson, the Tammasaurus tumbled to the ground. We were discussing the loop jump, which we'd only started a week or so ago (after I'd cheekily demonstrated that I'd secretly been practising it bef...

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 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...