Skating goals and keeping the old bod on the ice

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at Lloyd Center last month

Hi friends. I’m back after a three week break from blogging and skating that was a great rest for my body and mind. In September I made a list of goals for my September through June skating season, thought I’d share. I also finally decided to share my video from my competition a month ago (below).

One thing I’ve discovered about skating goals: they take way longer to accomplish than I imagine. Most of these will likely still be on the ‘want’ list in June. I have to focus on enjoying the process and looking for small improvements to appreciate, otherwise I’ll become frustrated.

My Goals:

General skating: Less scratching. Improve carriage especially shoulders. Nice expression, no scowling or mouth hanging open (a low standard I know). Extend legs. So far: maybe a little progress.

Freestyle elements: Learn camel spin and sit-change-sit, at least sit-change-sit if not both in program. Improve centering of spins. Get all jumps that I have (up to lutz) as solid as possible.

So far: Both of those spins are in my freestyle program, but neither one is good enough to receive credit as such. I’ve made some progress on centering my front scratch spin, sometimes I’m quite happy with that. A couple of skating friends spontaneously told me that my jumps looked solid. Encouraging!

Moves: Improve power pulls, twizzles. Learn juvenile moves (not sure if will have time), at least learn power 3 pattern and whatever else will give me more power/speed. I did a lot of these in the adult moves already but want to go back and learn them better.

My coaches felt that the juvenile moves would be more useful than the intermediate moves for my skating. The juvenile moves include skills like cross-steps that occur in my programs. They also include power pulls, and mine really need more work. When I worked on power pulls as part of the adult silver moves, I did as few of them as possible because they aggravated my knees.

Lloyd Center again

So far: I had several lessons on the juvenile moves with coach Kim. We went all the way back to the beginning with the power pulls and I worked on them on two feet, then on one foot without overusing my arms. Under those conditions I cannot get any speed at all, but hopefully I’m getting some technique. I also learned the outside mohawk pattern, which has changed since I took the adult silver test from simple circles to a figure eight.

Ice dance: Work on pre-silver dances. Hope to test a couple before coach Ty leaves town next June. So far: I’ve skated the pre-silver dances enough to remember the steps.

Programs/events: Bring both dramatic program (rose program) and bronze freestyle program (to Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis) to Adult Sectionals and Nationals. For both, focus on artistry: extension, expression, not scratching, flow and speed. And also good spins and jumps of course! Hope to skate a couple of events to prepare, like competition at Lloyd Center in November, maybe one other.

So far: I did bring my Tallis program to Lloyd Center. This week I worked on artistry in my rose program and tried for prettier jump landings, more extension.

For the next several months the programs will be my first priority. Doubt I’ll have much time for the moves and dances. Unfortunately I have a new overuse injury, peroneal tenosynovitis on the right foot, that is limiting the amount of time I can practice. It’s not bad enough to need PT right now, but of course I don’t want to worsen it by overtraining.

So that adds another, urgent goal: learning a hockey stop on the left foot. Beginner move, right? But I always stop with a hockey stop on the right foot, and can barely do a hockey stop on the left. Not, I think, coincidentally, the tendon that has problems is responsible for turning the bottom of the right foot up to the outside, exactly as I do with a fair amount of pressure in that stop.

I could instead do a T-stop, which turns the foot to the inside instead of everting it. But the tendon on the inside of my foot has had problems too. Duct tape and baling wire, I tell ya, but for now it’s skate on…