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! :)