Smooth as a baby's...

There is no finer feeling than skating on a well-maintained rink. The last couple of weeks the rink has been resurfaced a bit, and the ice is just unbelievably smooth. A true joy to skate on. Tricks that were hard before are now easy. The sensation of flying is intensified. I LOVE IT!

I believe they are able to look after it better now that the hockey playoffs are over. Anyone in Melbourne should get down to Olympic Ice Rink now while it's still great!

On a personal note, my hockey stops (at least in the anti-clockwise direction) are a thing of beauty. I can madly skate at full speed down the rink and do a massive 8 foot skid at the end, spraying ice in the air. It is so much fun! I'm the envy of my skating buddies, as none of them can do a decent hockey stop -- some can't even manage a bad hockey stop! It's weird like that -- some skills are easy for you and hard for others, and vice versa. Perhaps that's why the sport is so addictive... there's always so much to learn and improve.

Still Skating!

I know I haven't updated in a while, but I'm still skating and everything is cool! I just haven't really gained any new skills recently so I didn't see much point in writing about my lack of progress!

Well, that's not entirely true, as I AM progressing. My clockwise forwards and backwards crossovers are improving nicely, although they still are not at the level of my anti-clockwise ones. I've also moved up to the Advanced class, as the intermediate class was getting a bit repetitive. In the advanced class I'm probably the worst skater, so it is very humbling -- but still, it means I'm going to really learn some good stuff there.

Had a couple of falls recently but nothing too painful. Have been working on my inside three turns which are really tricky. Also, my two foot spin which is slowly coming along. I've had to relearn it because I was doing it incorrectly before and don't want to encourage bad habits!

Still loving the feel of the ice. Especially at the moment as the rink is very smooth and just gorgeous to skate on. I've had to miss this morning's (Sunday) skate due to me being at work, but I went yesterday and I'll be there Wednesday night as usual.

Weekend Skating Report!

Two great days of skating!

Saturday was a really fun day. I felt good on the ice, and I seemed to be able to learn quickly. I was even asked by my teacher Trevor if I wanted to move up from Intermediate to Advanced! I said no, because I'm still not comfortable enough with my skills on the weaker left clockwise side. But perhaps in a couple of weeks I'll move up to do the first half of the lesson in advanced, and then drop back to intermediate for the second half. Clearly I was skating well!

I also met one of my crushes for the first time. I've seen this girl on a number of occassions, but never had a reason or opportunity to chat to her. This time I was skating with Anna and she decided to strike up a conversation with her, which allowed me to very easily join in! So I found out her name (Courtney), and a bit about her and how long she has been skating (since February) and she was just totally sweet. She's a really lovely person, and unbelievably cute, but she has a boyfriend. Still, it was divine to meet her and I'm sure we'll chat again.

On Sunday I made a new friend. Her name is Pam and after almost making her fall over one time when I skated past, I figured the least I could do was chat to her! She's lovely and a pretty smart cookie, too. She does ballroom dancing too, as well as a bit of rollerblading in the summer. She's a massage therapist and is 24. She's a fast learner like me, and rollerskated as a kid (like me!).

My other crush was there today too, but I never got the chance to speak to her because I was either skating with Pam or she was with her skate teacher. Maybe next week. She's really pretty, but I know nothing about her!

It was one of the regular skaters birthday today. Catherine turned 21. I thought she was about 17! As a treat they let her drive the zamboni! No, she wasn't doing the cut - the blades were not touching the ice. I got my camera out a bit late to capture it, but here's a pic anyway. Happy Birthday Catherine!

Green Light

Well, I've been super careful with my hip and I think it's good enough to skate on tomorrow. I'm definitely going! I only had to miss Wednesday night, so I'm pleased with that. I haven't felt any pain from it today, so I'm pleased.

Update after the skate!

Injury Number Two

Con sarn it.

Last night at ballroom dancing I injured my hip flexor, or my glute -- one of those. It made my dancing a living nightmare and I had to stop. I woke up this morning and it still hurts to use my right leg. Hence, skating is out for tonight.

I'm so frustrated. I've just gotten over one injury and now another one comes along. I hope it heals for Saturday. I'm going to rest it as much as I can.

DOID

Had a great skate today, and was lucky enough to witness some incredible skating by a skater I'd not seen before. He has just got back to Australia after touring the states with Disney On Ice, and he was just amazing. So much speed and height in his jumps! I saw him land a stack of double toe loops (even a double toe, double toe combination), as well as nearly land a triple (slightly fell out of the landing) and a couple of double axels. He's been skating for 20 years now, and so is understandably slightly better than me!

I don't know his name though, so I'll just refer to him as the 'Disney On Ice Dude', or DOID for short!

I think it's about time for a progress update on my skating, so here we go. Forwards crossovers in my favoured counter-clockwise direction are pretty clean. In the clockwise direction they are a little stunted, but improving. Backwards crossovers in my favoured counter-clockwise direction are very nice. In the reverse direction they need a lot of work. I worked on them a bit today and managed to fall over a couple of times doing so. One foot balance forwards is perfect on both feet. Backwards balance on one foot is remedial and needs work. My mohawk is good and clean in both directions. My eagle is very good in the right-foot-leading direction, and just okay leading on the left foot. My two-foot spin is remedial -- I seem to have lost a lot of my balance while I was off the ice. T-stops are great. Hockey stops are very good. Backwards skating is okay, but it needs work to gain confidence, balance and speed. My outside 3 turns (RFO and LFO) are pretty good. My inside 3 turns (RFI and LFI) are sloppy. My pathetic excuse for a 3 jump (or waltz jump) is very shaky, but then, I haven't officially been taught that yet -- I'm just clowning around. Overall, I feel like a solid intermediate beginner! If I can clean up my backwards skating, and really nail those crossovers, I'll be able to fool people into thinking that I've been skating a lot longer than I have.

So, to round it all up... I've got a fair bit of clockwise skating work to do, and some backwards work. Everything else is pretty decent!

I'm also pleased to say that when I fell over today I didn't instinctively put my hand out to catch myself. Good boy! Hopefully my right wrist will heal up soon, as it's still very sore.

The usual gang where all there, and it was fun to catch up with Michelle, Anna, Pat, Cecelia and Tanya (with little Casey!). Tanya offered to bring Casey and come with me to see "Ice Princess" when it comes out, so I don't feel like a dork going to see it by myself! Yay!

Back in Bidness!

Okay!

I was back on the ice this morning for the first time in almost 2 weeks, and it sure felt good. Just the feeling of gliding over the surface was unbelievable... the lack of friction... the sensation of flying (kinda)... heightened by my absence! And I wasn't nearly as unco as I thought I would be, so that's good!

Caught up with Anna and Michelle, who both expressed interest in just where-the-hell-have-I-been! I explained the calf injury and they was all cool. Especially when I told them that I got the injury from squash -- not skating :)

Had a great lesson with Trevor, and I tried not to do anything too tricky. My hockey stops have improved in my absence from the ice (what the?), and every thing else stayed about the same. I guess having a break now and then is good!

I have been practising my spins in the loungeroom and kitchen with socks on lately, trying to get used to getting into the backspin position (which is left leg crossed over in front of the right leg) quickly. Unfortunately, it did not translate to the ice as well as I had hoped. Well, that might be because I don't know how to do a one-foot spin on the ice yet, so I had to two-footers, and they don't feel the same. So my ice spinning has definitely gone backwards as far as two feet is concerned. It will be interesting when I start spinning on one foot to see if I've got good balance from my recent practise or not. Is it useless? I don't know, but it's fun!

Michelle didn't skate for long, citing tiredness. She mentioned that she was out swing dancing till midnight last night, which really got me interested! I love swing! It's my fave dance! She told me about this place that she goes to which has a swing dance every second Friday night, so I'll be heading along to the next one to give it a whirl (in two weeks).

I loved getting back out there! It was wild and I can't wait for tomorrow morning! Yay for the amazing healing human body!

Healed! (I think...)

Well, it's been almost a fortnight since I've skated, but I think my calf is now fully healed. While I haven't run on it yet, I have moved around a lot and it doesn't hurt at all. So I think it's cool bananas.

Will be great to skate again (even though I'll suck)... and to catch up with the girls -- it's been a while! :)

Still Out

My calf was still healing over the weekend so I couldn't skate on either day. It was disappointing but I need to be realistic -- no point in making my injury worse and losing a whole month or something.

I can walk normally now and am hoping to be back on the ice by Wednesday. Of course, I'll be crap at everything and will need to do some serious catching up!

Injury

Darn.

I have an injury of some kind to my achilles tendon (I think). No skating tonight (or squash for that matter). It started hurting last night during dancing.

I'm scheduled to see the physio tonight at 6:15, so hopefully he can get it into good enough condition that skating on Saturday morning will not be affected. At the moment it's very painful and I'm walking with a limp. Fingers crossed for the wonders of modern medicine!

**Thursday morning edit: I found out it was to my Soleus muscle, which is part of my calf. The physio ultrasounded it, electro'd it, iced it and massaged it back to life. Hopefully it will be good for Saturday.

Tired

Well, Sunday was an ordinary skate if ever there was one. I was really tired from going out late the night before (got home at 1:30am) and so didn't have a lot of energy to skate. I even took a 45 minute break during the free session to have a hot chocolate and just rest. Then I got back on and skated it out.

I did have fun skating around with Casey, who is the ultra-cute daughter of Tanya. I would chase her around the rink growling like a monster, and then she would chase me. It was hysterical!

Reggie was a no-show today, but there's always next week! It depends on how deep her addiction is... there's only one rink in Melbourne!

Reggie on Ice

Well, what an interesting session today!

That's Reggie from 'Big Brother' and 'Skating on Thin Ice' in the photos, and she was at our rink today! But more on that shortly...

I arrived at the rink at touch late this morning (9am), so I quickly headed up the back to do my warm up. My warm up consists of running up and down the stairs about 10 times, then doing some sprints, star jumps, push ups and a few quick turns on each leg. Then I stretch as many muscles as I can think of and head back to my skate bag and lace up my skates. By the time I hit the ice I feel a lot less clumsy than I used to feel by just jumping straight on. I also don't need to wear my big jacket because I'm already toasty!

The lesson was really good, as it went over some stuff I'm still having issues with (forward and backward crossovers in the clockwise direction), as well as introducing some brand new stuff. Today we learnt 3-turns on each foot. A 3-turn is how you turn from forwards to backwards (or backwards to forwards) on one skate. It is so called because the tracing left in the ice is shaped like a big '3'. For an RFO 3-turn, you push off forwards on the right skate's outside edge, hold it, bend your knee, turn your upper body to your right, flip your right skate from forwards to backwards and skate away on a backwards inside edge. The trick is to be able to balance well enough to not put your other foot down! I did a few okay 3 turns on my right foot, with my left foot lagging behind in the performance stakes a bit.

After the lesson I wanted to practise my left foot work, as I'm worried about it falling behind. So I practised a bunch of left foot spread eagles, and tried to then do a few left foot mohawks (glide forward on your left skate inside edge, then put down your right foot on a backwards inside edge and lift up your left skate simultaneously). One of these attempts caused me to have a cracking fall about 10 minutes into the session. My naughty right skate decided it didn't want to do as it was told and just stood there, causing my feet to go out from under me and launch me backwards onto the ice, spraining my wrist in the process. I also landed with such an almighty 'splat' that about half the rink turned and looked. While the fall didn't hurt much, the thousand eyes boring into my skull sure did. I half wished the ice would crack and swallow me up, allowing me to be perfectly preserved like a 2000 year-old woolly mammoth. Children on school excursions would be able to point and 'ooh' and 'ahh' at my majesty. Unfortunately, no such thing happened and I just had to suck it up.

The rest of the session went better, as I continued to practise things on my left foot. It's coming along okay now, and with a couple more weeks of targetted practise it should be fine.

Georgina was still missing! However, Linda was there to show off her awesome forearm bruise from last week. I swear that thing is alive. And angry. She mentioned that Georgina hurt her leg in a fall last week and so that's why she hasn't been coming. Apparently she should be back on Wednesday night. Linda wasn't happy with her new second-hand skates and returned them. They were not giving her enough ankle support it seems. She's going to just stick with rentals for a while before buying another pair.

Anna was there and was skating well. She has the most beautiful lunge, and lately she has been working on turning the lunge into a kind of kneeling position. She managed to nail it perfectly a few times during the session, much to her pleasure.

At about 11am we had our first celebrity experience! Reggie, the winner of Big Brother season 3, and one of the stars of the Channel Nine reality show 'Skating on Thin Ice' turned up to try out the rink. She had her own skates and skated very well indeed, even showing off a few backward crossovers for the kiddies. I took her photo and chatted to her for a while about her experiences on the ice. She said that this was the first time she'd been on the ice since the show, and that she missed skating. I of course tried to convince her to come more often, mentioning the lessons timetable and whatnot, and she did say that she would try to come tomorrow morning for the 9:15 lesson and session. She was concerned at how rough the ice was (at 11am it's pretty darn roughed up), but I reassured her that the ice is freshly Zamboni'd at 9am, so if she wanted good ice she should come then. I hope she starts coming regularly! She was just lovely to chat to and a totally sweet person, talking to everyone and smiling all the time. Her partner (I assume) was there too, and he was a really sweet guy named Cam. While lacking her grace on the ice, he was determined to get out there and mix it up. He told me that he had last skated about 2 years ago, and was having trouble adjusting to this rough ice and dull rental skates. I empathised with him and showed him my boots that I purchased as soon as I couldn't handle those crappy rentals anymore!

Will Reggie be there again tomorrow morning? Will she start skating regularly at the rink? I hope so! If she does come more often, I'll see if I can organise an interview with her about her ice skating experience and post it up here. I'm sure she has lots of funny stories to share!

Blood on the Ice

Well, my blister didn't cause me any issues last night at all. The bandaid cushioned it nicely.

However, it was 'fall down day' at the rink. I've not seen so many people take a dive since a world championship wrestling match. The night started out innocuously enough; I was very cold so I felt a little wobbly on my skates. I decided to just skate simply for a while until I warmed up, and not to try anything tricky for a while. About 5 minutes into the session a newbie to the left of me loses control and splats on the ice like a sack of spuds. He lands flat on his back and his head almost touches. He is very dazed. Me and a few others skate over to help him out and he's really out of it. We lift him and skate him over to the barrier and he's okay but shaken and dizzy. Later in the night I see him skating again fine.

Then about 10 minutes after that a 10 year old boy goes down near a group of his buddies. He smacks his head on the ice really hard, right above his left eye. It opens up immediately and blood pours out on to the ice and down his face. Anna helps him off the ice and he gets some help from the guys who run the rink. He looks badly shaken and very woozy. That's the worst I've seen on the ice since I've started. He left a trail of blood over the ice which a staff member attempts to shovel away. It's quite eerie skating past the blood drops for the rest of the night. A little reminder to be careful.

For the rest of the evening I see people going down pretty hard -- more falls than I've ever seen in one session. There's nothing especially wrong with the ice... it's pretty smooth and the only bumps are near the outside edges. It's just a 'fall down day'! One dude was obviously trying to do a cool hockey stop (a two foot skid stop) into the corner, as he raced past me at a million miles an hour. I was a little concerned as I knew the ice was roughest in that corner -- I'd done some stops there and it was the bumpiest in the rink. He starts his skid and his skates catch on a bump and he flips forward on to his knees, his head flying towards the solid barrier. He manages to throw his arms out in the nick of time and soften the blow, but his head still hits the barrier just before the rest of his body smacks into it loudly. I skate over to him to make sure he's okay. He seems fine, just a bit shaken up. I told him he was pretty lucky 'cos I thought he was gonna put his head right through the wall!

I succumbed to 'fall down day' a few times as well. Near the end of the session I noticed my feet were getting tired, and my ankles were starting to roll (I had played an hour of squash before skating), so I decided to practise my spins in a corner. I did some okay spins, and some shockers. Fell over a few times, but at that speed it didn't hurt at all.

Anna, Michelle and Pat were there practising tonight, but Georgina was still missing. It's very odd. She's normally there for sure. Hopefully she'll be there this weekend so I can find out what's going on.

My skating was pretty average overall, probably because I was feeling the cold. I don't think I made any progress, but at least I kept my basic level of skill alive by skating during the week. If I only skated on the weekends I fear I'd never get anywhere.

I hope that little kid's okay.

Blister

Well, I managed to get a blister on my toe last night from Ballroom Dancing. My fault -- I was jumping around like a lunatic during the Jive!

But it does bring up an important skating-related issue. Blisters or sores developed from skating should be dealt with straight away; don't wait. I keep a box of bandaids in my skate bag ready to go at all times. Put the bandaid over the blister or sore area and clean and change it daily. If you need to skate on it, be mindful of any pain and stop if it's getting worse. Never just put your sore foot back into the boot without any protection!

Tonight my foot should be okay for skating as there's my usual Wednesday session on. I've got a bandaid on it now and it feels okay. Fingers crossed!

King of Wishful Rinking

A great weekend of skating!

Saturday morning's lesson was with Lee, and we covered the basics again: forward and backward crossovers, one foot glides, t-stops, backward wiggles and finishing up with spins. I was having a good day and was skating quite well.

I then really enjoyed the two hour general session following the lesson, and skated with Linda and Georgina a bit. Linda was trying her new (but second-hand) skates, and was unaccustomed to the toe-pick. Naturally, she went over badly and sustained a nasty injury. He right forearm had a massive purple and black bruise on it which swelled up very quickly. They put some ice on it to stop the swelling. She was a bit reticent to continue skating after that, but I skated as her escort for a few laps with arms linked, and she seemed to feel better.

Georgina's skates are finally getting duller. Her right skate is still very sharp, and makes a horrible scratching noise as it traverses the ice, but at least her left skate isn't gripping like a crocodile in a death roll anymore. As such, she is able to do some hockey stops, if only using one skate. You could see the frustration written across her face about her sharpening; who needs that kind of hindrance when you are trying to learn to skate? I feel for her.

After skating I enjoyed a hot chocolate with Anna and Pat. Anna entertained us with some skating jumps in the parking lot, and then told us the incredibly complicated story about her on-again off-again boyfriend. One of the old guys at the rink, Jim, told us that if he won the lottery he would set up an ice rink in Darwin. Darwin of all places!

On Saturday afternoon I went to Borders on Chapel Street to look for books on skating. I bought "Conditioning for Figure Skating" which outlines strength, flexibility and fitness training specific to skating. It was an interesting read, and I plan to incorporate some of the training into my daily routine. Specifically the stretching; I am very inflexible, which is something I need to change if I ever want to have a decent spiral or camel.

Sunday morning was lesson time again, and this time (using the knowledge from the book) I did a good 10 minute warm up and 5 minutes of stretching before I laced up my skates at the rink. This helped a great deal on the ice, as my body and muscles were already warm by the time they let us on the ice. As a result, I felt more competent in my lesson. I will always warm up from now on.

The lesson was with Trevor, and he's a great teacher. He skates so neatly and with so much control. We worked on forward and backward crossovers, t-stops, hockey stops, and the spread eagle. He said that my backward crossovers had improved. Unfortunately, they are improving noticeably in one direction -- counter-clockwise, as this is the direction we usually skate around the rink. I still have difficulty in finding a gap in the centre section to work on my opposite direction crossovers.

Georgina and Linda were missing on Sunday, which was unusual. I don't have Georgina's number so I couldn't sms her and find out what was going on. I guess I'll find out next week. Anna and Pat were there but Anna was tired from Saturday, and didn't skate her best.

Late in the session Anna, Pat and I were goofing around pretending to do programmes, by moving our arms with a flourish and skating in a very balletic way. I was really enjoying this until my toepick caught the ice and I somersaulted onto the ice! I hit more body parts then I knew I owned. Ow! That'll teach me for being an idiot!

I had a chat with Tanya who has the cutest daughter called Casey... she is just gorgeous! Tiny thing - about 4 years old I think. Anyway, it got me thinking about how cool it would be to have a little ice princess for a daughter. Ahhh, one day!

Late on Sunday I really wanted to skate again, but couldn't as there weren't any more public sessions available. That's when I thought how wonderful it would be to have my own rink, so I could skate whenever the desire struck me, instead of only when a session is scheduled. A lovely dream, but ultimately impossible to achieve without millions and millions of dollars. Until then, I'm stuck with making sure I utilise all available sessions at the rink, because I can't just skate when I feel like it.

Progress wise, I'm getting a lot more confident on my skates. While my forwards and backwards crossovers in a clockwise direction are still remedial, my backwards skating speed has improved, and my mohawk is getting better. I see no reason why I will not be able to do big jumps and fast spins one day. I think the natural talent is there ready to be exploited! Just need to keep practising!

Guts Day

Well, last night I finally managed to get some guts and skate in the centre area of the rink so I could practise my woeful clockwise crossovers. It wasn't as difficult as I thought to get in there; you just had to be sure that a space was not being used for a lesson and then just try to use as small an area as possible. This was easy considering I was just skating in small circles trying to get the feel of my edges as I did these pitiful excuses for crossovers.

Most of the gang were there -- Georgina was there dulling her skates as usual. The left skate seems to be okay now, but the right skate is still so sharp that it makes a lot of noise travelling over the ice. She was practising hockey stops (two-foot skids) with just one skate, as the sharp one refused to skid! Her skating has come along well though, and her gliding is looking nice and controlled. I think once she gets someone who actually knows what they are doing to sharpen her skates, she'll be in business. It's frustrating that something like that can hinder your progress when it's hard enough to learn skating as it is.

Anna was there too -- she was working on a maneouvre that looked a bit like "shooting the duck", but everytime she did it she would gracefully slide back off her skate onto her butt. She laughed about it though, and told me later that it didn't hurt -- it was just a bit wet after a while! Still, you have to admire her persistence... she practised that move all night!

Michelle was the last of the 'gang' present. I've said before that I love the way Michelle skates. She may not be doing jumps or fast spins, but her control and elegance is really inspiring. I was watching her do backward crossovers last night and I swear her balance was so perfect that the back of her blade stayed exactly the same height above the ice the whole time. When I go backwards I rock back and forth on the blade trying to stay balanced -- not so for her! I told her this and she was surprised and pleased. While I definitely want to be able to do big jumps and fast spins in skating, my goal is to have as much control over the rest of my skating as Michelle does. She is also an incredibly sweet person.

I worked on spins a little too. At some stages I thought I was improving. Then I would regress to a terrible spin. It's so hard to tell -- skating is slow progress most of the time. Still, it was fun. The only issue was I was only doing around 3 or 4 revolutions and yet was getting incredibly dizzy. I would have to stand still for about 10 to 15 seconds after each spin attempt to regain my head. Anna says that this will go away in time. I wish it would go away now!

Got a nice compliment from Georgina tonight... she said "your crossovers are beautiful". I got this after doing some pretty decent forward crossovers in my preferred counter-clockwise direction around the rink. The thing is, that's my best crossover... she would retract that statement immediately if she saw my other feeble attempts. Still, it felt good.

The movement of my left blade seemed to help my balance a bit. Or perhaps it's just that I'm getting better. Hard to tell really. Either way, it definitely did not make my balance worse, so it's staying. I also laced my boots up to the very top last night -- something I've not done before (I usually leave the top loop open). It felt very constrictive, and much more difficult to bend my knees. Still, it's what the pros do, so I've got to get used to it. By the end of the night it felt okay.

Next scheduled skate is Saturday morning for my group lesson. Can't wait!

Scott: "I can't wait to have figure skating dreams."
Michelle: "Oh I have those. They are wonderful. You'll get them."

Skate Bag

Once you get your own skates, you need a skate bag. Anything will do (I'm using an old backpack), but the contents are the most important thing. You'll need:

- your skates (obviously)
- hard guards (when walking around the complex but not on the ice)
- soakers (after skating)
- towel (or chamois)
- screwdriver (for adjusting blade screws)

Optional extras:

- water bottle
- other clothing (like gloves or whatever)
- snacks

It's important to look after your blades or they'll rust from the constant exposure to ice and water. As soon as you get off the ice you put your hard guards on to walk over to wear your bag is kept. This will stop bits of dirt and grains of sand etc from chipping away your blade edges. When you are done for the session, remove your hard guards and wipe down your blades with the towel or chamois. Spend time making sure to really dry them off well, and also dry off the boot, paying attention to the bottom. After each skate is dry, put the soaker over the blade and put it in your bag. When you get home immediately take your skates out of your bag and remove the soakers; put your skates somewhere airy that they can dry, and really open up the tongue -- undo those laces! Get plenty of air into it so it doesn't start to grow it's own biological factory. Before you go to the rink next time, put the hard guards on, put your skates back in your bag and off you go. Note: if you are living in a cold climate (like Melbourne is at the moment), your skate towel may not dry completely even if left out on the line. If you have access to a tumble dryer (as I do), put the towel in there for a while to really dry it off. Nothing worse than trying to dry a blade with a wet towel!

Somersault

I fell hard on the Sunday session after my 4th group lesson. I was getting a bit tired (I had been skating for 2 and a half hours) and lazily lifted my right leg for my next stroke, but I caught the toe pick and went down hard on my left knee and somersaulted right over. It hurt a great deal, but was really embarrassing too as I did it right in front of my friends. Oh well -- it's part of skating to accept that even the professionals fall over, and quite often too. You can't learn to do anything cool if you don't push yourself, so a fall is basically inevitable.

I saw one girl have a spectacular stack once, and she got up again straight away laughing. I said "are you okay?" and she gave me the big thumbs up and kept skating. I said "that's the spirit!" and she said "I'm always pushing my limits!". That pretty much sums up skating. Don't fear the ice. Don't fear the pain of the fall. Get out there and push hard. That's how you get better. I think everyone is guilty of letting fear stop them from trying something, and I'm no exception.

Left skate

I'm having difficult balancing on my left skate. I'm not sure if this is just because I'm not used to doing it, or because of some fundamental balance issue. For example, perhaps my ankle pronates inwards slightly and I'm not compensating enough. Or perhaps my left foot is slightly narrower at the heel (I think it is a bit) which means that my heel slips a bit to the inside and ruins the balance point. Either way, when I skate on my left foot it has a tendency to go towards the inside edge, and when I apply pressure to the outside of my foot to counteract this, the skate has a tendency to slip away from me a bit.

I tried moving my blade a bit on the left skate. It was only moved about 1 or 2 millimeters, but I'm hoping that it will centre my balance a bit better on that foot. We'll see when I test it out on Wednesday night. I always take my screwdriver with me in my skate bag so I can adjust it back if necessary.

Another option (if this doesn't work) is to put a slanted insole into my skate, so that it alters the pressure of my foot to the outside slightly. I'm not even sure where I could get something like that, but I could always make it myself if need be. It's a pity that my left foot is so unco, because my right foot balance is really fantastic. I can glide the length of the rink with no issues.

Of course, backwards is another matter! I'm still leaning a bit too far forward on my skates when going backwards, causing me to drag my bottom toe pick across the ice a bit. With practise and confidence I will learn to balance at the right spot.

Lessons and Practise

On Saturday I had my next group lesson, once again in the intermediate class, where I was taught by Trevor instead of Lee, which was a nice change as he focused on different things. Both are great teachers but with their own unique styles.

Trevor got us working on our edges again, and we did more crossovers forwards and backwards (which believe me -- I cannot practise TOO much as they suck), and he also introduced us to the 3 turn. The three turn is a very important turn in skating, as it opens the door to jumps and spins. It is used very often to set up another move. Basically, it involves staying on one skate, gliding forwards along one edge (let's say inside) along the curve of a circle, then flipping the skate around to face backwards and skating along the OUTSIDE edge. This makes a distinctive '3' tracing in the ice; hence the name. The balance required to go from forwards to backwards and one edge to the other on ONE skate is quite demanding! As such, we started doing this by holding on the barrier with one hand. Then we were to move away from the barrier and practise. I think I'll be practising this for some time -- it's really difficult!

After the great lesson I continued to practise for another two hours. However, I've noticed that I'm a shy practiser (a term I've just coined). The ice rink works like a Daytona circuit. Almost all the skaters skate in one direction around the edges of the ice. That's the main group. In the middle of the ice there is some space there for people to have lessons with their coaches, and work on spins, jumps, footwork - whatever. This area can oftentimes be quite crowded with people learning and practising. I don't feel comfortable invading this space to practise my crossovers in a circle there. I feel kind of low taking away the space that people with lessons need. Other people do it all the time, and I know that it's okay, but I'm still too uncomfortable doing it unless there is plenty of room available. Hence, I really don't work on my crossovers in the opposite direction (to the normal counter clockwise skating direction) except in lessons. Hence, they are not progressing as fast as my counter clockwise crossovers. Somehow I know I need to summon the courage and conviction to get in there and practise them, or I'll never improve. I must do this tomorrow night in the Wednesday session. MUST!

Friends on Ice

There's some really lovely people at the rink who I have become good friends with. They are all adult skaters, and some of them have kids who are also skating. Anna is the same age as me and is really sweet; she has been helping me with my three turns and edge work. Xenia is a good skater who learned as a kid, and is now revisiting her passion as an adult. She's got great control and beautiful crossovers. She can also land single jumps. Michelle is the mother of a child skater, and has an elegant grace in her moves that is very inspiring. Pat is still learning and has the distinguished reputation of having dragged her skating teacher down on top of her when she fell once. Georgina is a good buddy who is learning how to skate so she can be an ice hockey player. She has a pair of hockey skates that the guy at the skate shop over-sharpened. She has spent the last week trying to dull the blades on the ice.

It's quite odd in that Georgina as a female has no interest whatsoever in figure skating, yet is excited by the thought of playing ice hockey. And I, as a male, have no interest whatsoever in ice hockey and am thrilled by the thought of figure skating. Talk about going against the grain!

Friday night disco

Because I'm a new addict, I decided going along to Friday night's disco session would be another good opportunity to get in some practise before Saturday's group lesson.

It wasn't such a great idea.

The girls were all glammed up with makeup and wearing midriff-baring tops (on the ice? What the?), and the guys were all playing chasey and throwing ice at each other. In short, it was a crazy teenage hormone party, and it made practising quite tricky. I even saw one girl skating around while talking on her mobile phone. Disturbing considering she was a bad skater and prone to falling!

I practised my crossovers at the corners of the rink, so at least I got something constructive done, but I won't be going to that session anymore.

New Skates

On Sunday after skating I went immediately to Bladeworx in Hawthorn to buy some ice skates. The rental ones were awful and were really hurting my feet, so there was no point in dallying around. Unfortunately, due to ice skating not being popular in Australia, and also due to figure skating being even less popular than ice hockey, there wasn't a lot to choose from. Worse still, male figure skating is at the bottom of the ladder in terms of popularity. The owner of the store told me he sold about 60 pairs of girls skates for every 1 pair of boys skates. Hence, when I tried sizes there were none in the store in my size. He ordered a pair of men's skates in my size and I came back on Tuesday afternoon to pick them up. They were jet black Risport RF-4's with a MK Club 2000 blade.

They sure were tight. Being leather and not yet broken in, I knew they would give a bit as I wore them, but that first day I was very close to asking them to order in the next size up. The owner assured me that they would stretch a bit though, so I took them and also bought some soakers (soft blade covers that soak up water) and hard guards (hard blade covers to protect the blade when walking in the boots).

I wore my skates for the first time on the Wednesday night, and they started to loosen up a bit. However, I wasn't used to having such a noticeable toe pick -- the rental skates' toe picks were very much worn down and barely there. As a result, I hit that toe pick about once every 10 seconds. It took a long, LONG time to adjust my skating style to avoid the pick. I still catch it occasionally and it's been almost a week! I fell over for the first time unintentionally in that session when I caught my toe pick yet again, and it didn't feel real good! However, my skates were a million times better than those awful rental skates, so I knew I would get used to them. At least they did not hurt my feet. I could now wear nice thin socks instead of the really thick ones I needed with the rental skates.

Week Ending 31st July, 2005

I started ice skating on Saturday the 30th of July, 2005, so this entry covers my first two days of skating. It's important to note that I rollerskated a bit as a child, and so forward stroking was not a skill I had to learn from scratch. My balance has always been pretty good too, and I'm fairly competent at sports like tennis, so I didn't foresee myself struggling too much with learning how to ice skate. I'm an adult male, 32 years of age and weigh about 63 kilos. Being lighter helps on the ice, as you have less weight to move around.

My first lesson on the Saturday morning introduced me to edges -- something that is just about the most important thing in ice skating. Each blade has two edges; an outside edge and an inside edge. Most of your ice skating time will be spent on one or the other, and sometimes on both. On Saturday I was skating in rental skates, and the edges were very dull and would not grip the ice. If you tried to skate hard on one edge you would likely feel it slip from under you making you stumble. To get around this problem I would need to get my own skates, which I could then get sharpened to hold the edge properly.

The first lesson was very basic and helped me gain confidence on the ice. One of the earliest things we learned was falling over. Yes, I'm serious! It's important to understand that falling over is a very real part of ice skating, and a skater cannot fear it, lest it limit their progress. So the teacher (her name is Lee) made us crouch down on our skates, and then fall over to the side. A couple of the girls in the class really didn't want to fall over, but when Lee told them she would have to push them over if they didn't, they decided to comply! Falling over is momentarily painful, as the ice is hard, but the pain wears off very quickly. Since that first fall I've had a couple of nasty ones that were NOT on purpose, and it does hurt -- but more than that it seems to be the shock factor that impacts the most. You feel yourself falling and when you hit the ice you sort of freak out a bit with a strange kind of panic. After the fall you feel okay -- a bit of a sting here and there, but the embarrassment and shock kind of hangs with you a while, making you a bit anxious on the ice. I'm assuming that after I've fallen for the 500th time I won't have that same feeling anymore! :)

The teacher then taught us how to safely get up off the ice, which is vitally important based on how many people I've seen in general sessions just sitting there on their butts and laughing with their hands splayed out behind them. Ice skating blades are pretty sharp, and you could take someone's finger off if you're not careful. Hence, it's important to bring your hands in straight away, get onto one knee and stand up nice and quickly. No sense in staying a target for any longer than is necessary!

We were taught a few things like forward stroking and the snowplow stop, and at the end she taught us how to do a basic two-foot spin. This is really tricky, and involves generating momentum with your arms and then snapping them tightly into your body to accelerate. The spinning sensation is very strange, and you get very dizzy from it. It's also extraordinarly difficult to stay balanced while spinning on one spot, as the body has a tendency to constantly overcompensate when it starts falling in one direction or the other. I practised all my newly learned skills in the general session after the lesson.

The second lesson was on Sunday morning. I moved up to the intermediate class, where my teacher Lee said I belonged anyway. She proceeded to teach us backward skating, forward and backward spirals, t-stops, and crossovers both forwards and backwards. This was the first time I'd skated backwards since my pathetic attempts on rollerskates as a kid, but I picked it up fairly quickly. The crossovers, however, were another story. It involves skating in a circle, forwards or backwards, and crossing one foot over the other to build speed and stay in the circle. This was really difficult and I spent a lot of time practising this after the lesson.

One thing I noticed was my lack of flexibility. Being flexible is a key thing for an ice skater, male or female. A good spiral involves gliding on one skate while the other leg is as far up in the air behind you as possible. Minimum height is hip-height. I could barely get my leg up that high! So I really need to start stretching and getting more flexibility into my skating. I expect that it will become more and more important as my skills progress.

Welcome!

I have no idea if anyone besides me will ever read this blog, but I just felt a need to talk to somebody (anybody!) about my progression in learning how to figure skate as an adult. It's not a real popular sport in Australia, and where I live in Melbourne there is only one ice rink in the whole city.

Still, I will use this place a central location for my thoughts on my own skating, and skating related topics. It's a bit like a progress log for my own reference, but put out on the web just in case another adult is thinking about learning how to ice skate and wants to know what is involved. Might as well help people out, right?

Please feel free to make comments on any post at any time!