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...

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...