We Don't Just Excel, We Axel

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 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...

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...

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 ...