New coaches

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Coach A, moves in the field, private lessons, skating costs, spins

Coach A is going to be out for the rest of the year, which means that while she’s gone she’s arranged for other coaches to take on her students. I know some of her students are taking a break from lessons while she’s away (injury, mostly) and others were already working with the other coaches. As for me, I’ve gone from one 30-minute lesson a week to three lessons with three different coaches – a spin coach, a moves coach, and a jumps coach. Ha! Suddenly I feel like a serious teenage competitor in training mode, not a shaky adult who’s skating as a hobby.

It’s kind of nice, actually. Not that I ever took skating lightly — I think this is a sport where you hit a point of no return, and after that you’re emotionally committed. So I have been pretty serious about improving my skating even though I’d call myself a recreational skater, even before this latest change. It’s just that there’s a definite increase in commitment level when you’re upping lesson time and working with specialized coaches.

I think I could’ve (should’ve?) increased lesson time with Coach A sooner, but I was hesitating on pulling that trigger because I felt I was progressing at a nice rate and had plenty to work on even with just one weekly lesson. And we would double up anyway when there were specific events to prepare for, like tests or competitions. But committing to extra fixed lessons seemed like a big jump, and most importantly a significant financial decision. On the other hand, while I don’t think I could afford this indefinitely, three months of increased bills seems less onerous.

I’ve just started working with these coaches, two of whom I’d had a passing acquaintance with from seeing them around the rink. My moves coach is a former elite ice dancer (and pretty pricey), and we’ve just started working on the silver moves test; Coach A suggested learning both silver and gold. My 8-step mohawk and spiral patterns are coming along, but everything else is far from ready. Especially back threes.

Spin Coach is the most expensive and thus I’m only doing 15-minute lessons with her, but I do think she’s worth it. She hasn’t said anything completely mind-blowing that I didn’t already know about spinning, but she explains how to fix things in a very clear way. We’re working on basic scratch, back scratch, sit spin, and camel. I’ve had two lessons with her and I feel all of those spins improving already, which is encouraging. It could also be that I’m at a place now where a specialized coach can actually do some good — no use wasting that kind of money if I didn’t know how to spin at all, I suppose.

Jump Coach isn’t strictly confined to just jumps, since she’s the coach who’ll be doing everything aside from spins and moves. But she likes working on jumps and has been tweaking mine, so I look forward to working with her more. Mostly I find it helpful to hear how other people teach a skill, because while nobody’s contradicting each other, things can souns different when worded a different way. I’m happy with Coach A, who’s also very good at explaining things, but in the meantime it’s a bit of an eye-opener to get taught by others. And I’ll be much better when she gets back (fingers crossed)!

Testing Adult Bronze moves

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Coach A, moves in the field, testing

I’m testing my bronze moves in the field in under two weeks, which suddenly feels soon, though not so soon that I’m worried about not passing. It’s just that when I tested pre-bronze back in March I felt super prepared. I could have tested sooner, say in January, but I was focusing all my efforts on my first program performance in December. Right now I feel optimistic about the bronze test but I do still have a few things to polish up before test day.

Coach A and I have gone through the test book and worked out every step. I was amazed at how much work it took to actually incorporate intro steps and end patterns the last time (and nerves didn’t help) — I thought I had the pattern down, but doing a full mock test with end patterns got me all turned around. Often literally.

Here’s where I stand currently:

Forward and backward perimeter power stroking. Forward feels good. Coach A reminds me to push on every stroke, and the first time that clicked for me I went, “Ohhh. So that’s why they call it power stroking.” When I get that solid push I feel a burst of speed and it’s a little intoxicating. (I know, it’s just power stroking! But anytime I feel a little wind in my hair, I feel a rush of energy.) Going backward I just need to remember to step onto an obvious inside edge rather than a flat.

Forward power 3-turns. Maybe my weakest element. The first side of the pattern is usually fine, because I’m comfortable with doing LFO3s at speed (thanks to salchow and flip jumps) and the step forward is also usually fine (thanks to the waltz jump). Then I get to the second half and I lose a lot of power on the RFO3. I also have a bad habit of scraping my left toepick on the step forward. This is the element I’ll have to work hardest to clean up, and to get it up to speed with the left side. Otherwise the disparity is so obvious.

Alternating backward crossovers to backward outside edges. The problem with this pattern is that I don’t cover the rink enough and I still have a lot of space left at the end, though not enough to squeeze in an extra lobe. I’m testing at an Olympic size rink so I’ll need to generate more power on my intro steps, then keep up the speed throughout. Also, I have to remember to PUSH onto the backward edge instead of just stepping into it.

Forward circle eight. Pretty good. I wouldn’t have worried about this at all because I’ve been nailing this every time I do it, only today in lesson I totally screwed it up and had to start over. So I just need to make sure I’m confident and calm and get a good initial push.

Five-step mohawk sequence. Make sure to get the cadence quick and even. Coach A wants me to make every step crisper, bringing the free foot to instep before each step. Otherwise okay.

Fingers crossed, I’ll pass my bronze moves this month, and then we’ll start on silver and gold moves, while also getting my pre-bronze program ready to use as my bronze freestyle test. Coach A actually suggested that I try testing the bronze freestyle with the moves, until we both remembered my backspin has yet to fully show up. So we’ll work on backspin, and test once it’s ready.

Competition goals

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Coach A, competition, goals, programs

The competition is fast approaching, and in lesson this week Coach A asked what my goals were for it. I had to stop and think, because I hadn’t really thought to set any — not other than having a generally good skate and not humiliating myself in public. But those are universal goals, right? They aren’t specific to anyone or thing.

It’s hard to know what to expect since I don’t even know how many other adults are competing, if any at all. I suspect I may be the only one in my category — perhaps there’ll be one other skater, but it won’t be a lot. There’s really no point in setting a goal of placement since there may not be any competition to speak of.

But even if there are other skaters, I really don’t care about placement at all. I’m a pretty competitive person by nature, but with regards to skating I can honestly say that all I can hope for is to do the best I can, and leave it at that. Plus, ever since Coach A mentioned a tendency toward sandbagging, I’ve just naturally expected to be at the bottom and I’m okay with that.

So specific competition goals would be:

• a clean skate, no falls or trips
• specifically, a clean landing on the loop with a nice exit edge, instead of the toe pick scrape I get half the time that kills my flow
• a sit spin that is as low as I can manage (mine are embarrassingly high, but some are worse than others)
• a combo spin with 3 revolutions in each position (I’m able to hit two positions to my satisfaction, but damn if I can get all three in one single spin attempt)

If I manage those points, I’ll be very pleased with my skate. Coach A took a more holistic approach to the goals question, suggesting that when I watch myself on video later she wants me see that I was “present” the whole way through — not zoned out or on autopilot. I also want to show some sense of musicality, of interpreting the music with more than just an arm wave or pose, but a full-body dancer-like movement. It’s not going to be easily achieved, but I love the artistic expression of skating and want that to be a key part of any performing experience.

Deciding program elements

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camel spin, Coach A, jumps, loop jump, programs, sit spin, spins

We started working on the program this week, although not yet to music. Coach A wanted to run down the list of potential elements and figure out what good options might be, so we tested out various spins and jumps, starting with the more manageable elements and ending with Uh, NO. My body doesn’t do that yet. There was a lot of wide-eyed staring on my part, because I really have very little assurance that anything beyond a simple spin or a solo jump is a viable option. Coach A, on the other hand…

“Let me see your camel-sit.”

Okay, I can’t really DO one, but I can maybe eke out one revolution each. I scratch my way through a lot of awkward attempts.

“Now try camel-attitude-backspin.”

O_O (But… I can barely do a backspin on its own!) I gamely give it a go.

“Or we can do camel-backspin-forward attitude.”

O_O (Um… same problem!) I squeak through an attempt. It is not pretty.

“How’s your sit-back sit?”

O_O Well, now she’s just getting ambitious.

“Let’s figure out what jumping passes you want to do. Loop for sure. How about a loop-toe?”

O_O

“If you’re going to be going for one loop, you may as well do two of them.”

Me: “Or… I could have two falls.”

At least she laughs at that. Though she still makes me try tacking on a toe loop to the end of my tiny loop. “For your sequence, let’s try waltz-half loop-salchow-toe.”

O_O

“Now let’s see salchow-loop.”

O_O

So. Let’s just say that many, if not all, of those elements won’t make it into my program. I think Coach A was feeling extra ambitious this week, and sometimes I think she thinks I’m more capable than I am. I’m the type of skater who would rather skate a simpler program very well, but she wants me to challenge myself with harder skills so I’m never just doing the easy stuff.

One thing I do appreciate about her coaching style is that she doesn’t coddle my “Oh my god that’s so HARD” reactions, and just says, “Nah, you’ll be fine.” I don’t always manage to pull off what she asks but it gets me trying them, and the mere act of trying them makes them feel not quite so terrifying. I tend to think, “But am I supposed to be able to do that? Shouldn’t I wait till I’m better? Isn’t there an order and timetable that I should be following?” While her attitude is, “Try it.”

The jump sequence might be doable with lots of work, and although I dislike how the half-loop looks, I suppose I like it better than a side toe hop or other sequence connecting elements. (But seriously, I feel like the half-loop looks like a mistake or a trip when skaters who are not elites perform them, even if they are done cleanly.) Putting in a solo loop is a challenge on its own so I think a loop-toe is overshooting (as is a jump + loop combo), but if that doesn’t work we can swap it with a waltz-toe.

The spins are the real challenge. There are only two allowed in pre-bronze, so I think Coach A wants to maximize them. I’d be content do a scratch and a sit, because those seem safe, but she really wants me to try a combo of some sort. I think I may be able to barely pull off a camel-upright or camel-sit, but I’m giving anything with a backspin the big ole side eye.

My first adult figure skating performance

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Coach A, costumes, figure skating, freestyle skating, programs, shows

Oy, an overdue post, I know. So my first performance EVAR was over a week ago, but I didn’t have time to sit down and process it since I went out of town Christmas week. Now I’m finally back to normal life (though not yet back to skating). Phew!

So, the show. I don’t have video because the rink wants us to buy from the professional company that taped it. So hopefully video will become available at a future date. It’s too bad the dress rehearsal didn’t quite work out as planned, because I’d wanted to get video then. But those public crowds just weren’t going to allow that.

I had a number of apprehensions going into the ice show, partly because it was my first skating performance, but also partly because I tend to get way inside my head analyzing everything to bits before The Thing happens, all in the name of preparation but really just freaking myself out. First off, I found out that the holiday show was HUGE. I was hoping for a nice dinky little rink show with a handful of skaters and two handfuls of their parents. But no, the organizer emails told us that there were EIGHTY skaters in all, most of them doing solos, making the show approximately three hours long. I KNOW.