Placating the God of Skating

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“The skating edge is the god of skating, everything else has to follow that. It’s a gentle god, so if the shoulders (or some other part) want to overrule it, they can. But then things don’t work so well.”

That’s an always relevant quote from Kim, who teaches me the footwork patterns called ‘moves.’ Last year Kim quit coaching, I injured my back, and I wasn’t able to work with her for over a year. Now we’re both back and I’m on her schedule again, for which I’m very grateful. With Kim on my side and some work on the ice I’m sure I’ll get my juvenile moves before long.

The juvenile moves are a footwork test usually taken by young figure skaters. I’ve gone through all the footwork tests designed for adult skaters and am now working on the tests that the young skaters take.

I’d thought it might take me a few months to bust out these moves after passing adult gold moves, but it’s been three years and counting. The trickiest move for me is the back power three turn pattern.

skating around the littlest skate camper

One problem is that my left side is not yet as strong as the right. You can see this when my left side is free, that is, held up in the air while the other foot skates. On the first circle the free left hip starts to drop by the third turn and really sags on the fourth.

Another problem relevant to all of my skating is that I use my shoulders and arms too much to force myself around turns instead of working from my feet and using the power of the skating edge. If I were putting my body awareness and power more into my feet and lower body, you’d see a much more powerful push on these turns. My arms would be quieter and you wouldn’t see any flailing. Here’s a stronger skater testing this move so you can see what I’m talking about:

You can see that before her turns Jenya brings one arm– it’s actually her skating arm at that point in the move– toward her free arm while keeping her free arm still. That’s called “working from the skating side,” and it’s what I need to do. By contrast I tend to crank my free side ahead of me into the turn.

Not only does that not work well, the extra torque is hell on my knees. I need to follow, and not try to overrule, that all important edge of the blade that Kim has christened “the god of skating.”