Skating on the Planet

[shanshani]

I fell trying to spin on my off ice spinner today ouch, falling on land hurts. I should probably go more slowly since I'm totally new at this. It's fun feeling the speed up when you pull your arms in though.

 

4 hours ago, robin said:

I finally managed to get some height on my flips and clean up my technique a bit and I managed to get a clear outside edge on my lutzes soooo now I am scared to skate again because I feel like I can’t recreate that next time. Lol skating is giving me trust issues bc 1-2 good skates are usually followed by weeks of bad skates? I am nervous as I have been having too many good skates lately. I had a bad skate this tuesday and thought, well, I had a good run, the long due slump is here. But then yesterday’s skate was good again and it’s making me nervous to skate bc I am expecting the slump to creep back any time.... I don’t trust this peace....

I'm a skating noob but I've noticed this too. Still not as good at forward crossovers (at least in some ways) as I was at one session a few weeks ago. My success rate on 3-turns is also not as high as it was a few sessions back...why.

[robin]

6 hours ago, shanshani said:

I fell trying to spin on my off ice spinner today ouch, falling on land hurts. I should probably go more slowly since I'm totally new at this. It's fun feeling the speed up when you pull your arms in though.

 

I'm a skating noob but I've noticed this too. Still not as good at forward crossovers (at least in some ways) as I was at one session a few weeks ago. My success rate on 3-turns is also not as high as it was a few sessions back...why.

 

ooooh be careful with off ice spinning. I used to do it in my cramped room all the time which resulted in many painful encounters with my furniture...

 

Well. I figured there’s a lot of factors playing into it. Sore muscles, how long the session is, ice condition, degree of sharpness of blades, what socks I am wearing, my overall mood and also my attitude and expectations of myself.

 

When I start learning something I am more forgiving of myself and accept that not every attempt is going to be successful... but that changes very quickly for me and my patience gets thinner. I think it’s a matter of perception. As in, maybe your success rate of 3turns wasn’t better a few sessions back but because it was still a new element you felt that any success was a lot more significant and now you expect more of yourself so just getting a 3turn done doesn’t feel all that special anymore? It may influence the way you define “successful” 3turn but also may make you feel like you used to be able to do more of them. 

 

Also re. patience: sometimes I just have to warm up to an element first. So when I am first learning something i give myself that time. But say I ended last session with a bunch of landed Lzs. During the next session I feel like that’s where I need to pick up and don’t give myself enough time to warm and start despairing too early on. I judge the success of a session too early on which ruins my mood and really turns the session into a bad one. I’ve been trying to remind myself of this but it’s not always easy. 

 

Maybe I should start journaling. With numbers and success rates... and how many attempts it took me to get a first successful element. But who has the time lol...

[river]

I'm off the ice for three weeks (doctor's orders!) recovering from illness, which is so frustrating since I just got new skates and blades that I loved the one time I've gotten to use them! Edges were way more secure and jumps (well, waltz jumps and mazurkas, let's not get too fancy) were easier to do.

 

Ironically, the day I get to start skating again is the day of the Men's SP at Worlds.

[shanshani]

I officially learned 3 turns yesterday! Turns out when I was doing them before, I was waiting too long to turn, which put me on the wrong part of the blade. My coach told me to do them quicker and they're much more successful now. I even did a few pretty good ones, where I had a pretty strong backwards glide that I actually held for a couple of seconds. Yay! My coach was very impressed with me haha ^{except I'd already been practicing them for a couple of weeks in order to avoid practicing two foot turns, which I still hate even though I've improved on them. For some reason they're much scarier than 3-turns.}

My coach also seemed impressed with my backwards crossovers, especially my ability to hold the edge going out for a decent amount of time for my level. Considering that's the element I practice most consistently, that's reassuring. I was actually feeling kinda crummy going into that class, so that was a needed confidence boost.

 

But uh, does anyone have any tips for going...slower...on alternating forward crossovers? I always speed up too much so I keep having to stop and start over after like, 4 or so. I think I get into a cycle where the faster I go, the more I feel like I have to dig into my outside edge in order to maintain stability, but then that just causes me to go even faster. But other than that I'm stroking as lightly as I can

 

Other progress/lack of progress (lol I'm starting to realize I basically use this place as a practice journal).

• Mohawks still aren't happening, not without completely losing momentum anyway. I maybe kind of did a backwards to forwards one. Now that I think about it, starting with back to forwards inside mohawks might be the key. I could do a crossover, hold the BI edge, and step into the mohawk. Hmm, maybe I'll try that out.
• My coach seems to be prepping me for spinning, which I'm super excited about (hence the spinner practice). I did a few mini-spins (like, around half a revolution) that were mostly about finding the spin rocker and I notice it getting easier, so yay! Especially since my blades are supposed to be hard to spin on. I think I'll be able to get two foot spins fairly easily too, since I can already sort of do a really slow one.
• Working on backwards two foot slaloms. My backwards alternating half-swizzles are decent enough but it's sure hard to get my knees and feet to move at the same time for these. They're pretty fun though.
• Finally sort of able to get a little bit of a one foot glide out of backwards stroking/backwards two foot glides. It's so hard to shift my weight onto one foot, especially away from the boards. It's kind of weird how much more difficult this is than backwards glides out of crossovers. I also really need to work on RBO and LBO glides--I did a baby RBO glide near the boards, but it's so much effort. I'm starting to become convinced you use a different set of muscles for backwards glides than forwards glides--I swear my legs have been more sore since I've started to seriously work on this.

[yuzuangel]

1 hour ago, shanshani said:

I officially learned 3 turns yesterday! Turns out when I was doing them before, I was waiting too long to turn, which put me on the wrong part of the blade. My coach told me to do them quicker and they're much more successful now. I even did a few pretty good ones, where I had a pretty strong backwards glide that I actually held for a couple of seconds. Yay! My coach was very impressed with me haha ^{except I'd already been practicing them for a couple of weeks in order to avoid practicing two foot turns, which I still hate even though I've improved on them. For some reason they're much scarier than 3-turns.}

My coach also seemed impressed with my backwards crossovers, especially my ability to hold the edge going out for a decent amount of time for my level. Considering that's the element I practice most consistently, that's reassuring. I was actually feeling kinda crummy going into that class, so that was a needed confidence boost.

 

But uh, does anyone have any tips for going...slower...on alternating forward crossovers? I always speed up too much so I keep having to stop and start over after like, 4 or so. I think I get into a cycle where the faster I go, the more I feel like I have to dig into my outside edge in order to maintain stability, but then that just causes me to go even faster. But other than that I'm stroking as lightly as I can

 

Other progress/lack of progress (lol I'm starting to realize I basically use this place as a practice journal).

• Mohawks still aren't happening, not without completely losing momentum anyway. I maybe kind of did a backwards to forwards one. Now that I think about it, starting with back to forwards inside mohawks might be the key. I could do a crossover, hold the BI edge, and step into the mohawk. Hmm, maybe I'll try that out.
• My coach seems to be prepping me for spinning, which I'm super excited about (hence the spinner practice). I did a few mini-spins (like, around half a revolution) that were mostly about finding the spin rocker and I notice it getting easier, so yay! Especially since my blades are supposed to be hard to spin on. I think I'll be able to get two foot spins fairly easily too, since I can already sort of do a really slow one.
• Working on backwards two foot slaloms. My backwards alternating half-swizzles are decent enough but it's sure hard to get my knees and feet to move at the same time for these. They're pretty fun though.
• Finally sort of able to get a little bit of a one foot glide out of backwards stroking/backwards two foot glides. It's so hard to shift my weight onto one foot, especially away from the boards. It's kind of weird how much more difficult this is than backwards glides out of crossovers. I also really need to work on RBO and LBO glides--I did a baby RBO glide near the boards, but it's so much effort. I'm starting to become convinced you use a different set of muscles for backwards glides than forwards glides--I swear my legs have been more sore since I've started to seriously work on this.

 

Congrats! 3-turns are really hard (for me) haha. Learning them is a continuous process but you're forced to do it to go into jumps and spins etc. I'm actually looking forward to the Bronze Silver MitF test which trains your 3-turns so I'll be forced to work on them.

 

Crossovers are sooo much harder than they look especially for something you learn in like, Skating 101. Like it's easy to speed up and when you do it's one of the most terrifying things ever? To control the speed just do fewer of them...like make sure your rhythm is the same but just reduce the tempo I guess. So you aren't pumping as much. But for "correct" crossovers you do want to complete your pumps instead of just doing the motions without pushing. Eventually you'll feel comfortable getting faster!

 

I think I finally can do power pulls on my right leg? Now that was another slow process. I learned to do them really fast on my left leg but my right leg took literally forever! My right blade is a bit less aligned than my left and it can't be moved any further unless we take the whole blade off and drill new holes. Which tbh they're not misaligned enough to do. But glad to know that, while small, improvements can still be made 

[hoodie axel]

17 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

I'm actually looking forward to the Bronze Silver MitF test which trains your 3-turns so I'll be forced to work on them.

Do you have to skate a program? If so, do you have to cut your own music?

[guitarist]

15 minutes ago, hoodie axel said:

Do you have to skate a program? If so, do you have to cut your own music?

MitF tests only test for specific moves (i.e. crossovers in a figure 8 pattern). Each test has a set of moves you do in a certain order, but there is no music. Freestyle tests include music. Generally, people take MitF before Freestyle because you have to compete at your freestyle level, but MitF doesn't affect the competition level. This allows young skaters to stay in a category for a bit longer, which makes it more likely to do well in competition. 

[hoodie axel]

5 minutes ago, guitarist said:

MitF tests only test for specific moves (i.e. crossovers in a figure 8 pattern). Each test has a set of moves you do in a certain order, but there is no music. Freestyle tests include music. Generally, people take MitF before Freestyle because you have to compete at your freestyle level, but MitF doesn't affect the competition level. This allows young skaters to stay in a category for a bit longer, which makes it more likely to do well in competition. 

Generally though, do the test-takers cut their own music for a test that requires a program?

[guitarist]

3 minutes ago, hoodie axel said:

Generally though, do the test-takers cut their own music for a test that requires a program?

I don't know any skaters who do the cuts themselves because for the most part, I only know kids, but technically, you can, since you provide the music. At my rink a lot of kids have one of the coaches do the cuts for a small fee.

[shanshani]

21 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

 

Congrats! 3-turns are really hard (for me) haha. Learning them is a continuous process but you're forced to do it to go into jumps and spins etc. I'm actually looking forward to the Bronze Silver MitF test which trains your 3-turns so I'll be forced to work on them.

 

Crossovers are sooo much harder than they look especially for something you learn in like, Skating 101. Like it's easy to speed up and when you do it's one of the most terrifying things ever? To control the speed just do fewer of them...like make sure your rhythm is the same but just reduce the tempo I guess. So you aren't pumping as much. But for "correct" crossovers you do want to complete your pumps instead of just doing the motions without pushing. Eventually you'll feel comfortable getting faster!

 

I think I finally can do power pulls on my right leg? Now that was another slow process. I learned to do them really fast on my left leg but my right leg took literally forever! My right blade is a bit less aligned than my left and it can't be moved any further unless we take the whole blade off and drill new holes. Which tbh they're not misaligned enough to do. But glad to know that, while small, improvements can still be made 

Yeah, I figure I should just hold each part of the sequence longer, which will help train control which is what I need anyway. The funny thing is I know how pump with both edges in the crossover—like I can stroke fairly powerfully with the outside edge (at least it feels pretty powerful to me haha)—but I don’t really have the control to manage the speed yet (plus it’s kind of exhausting and my stamina is still shot after my month long cold). I have to put both feet down and adjust afterwards, so I don’t really try it that often and am mostly just riding the edges right now rather than actively stroking. But it’s still too much acceleration!  Plus my coach keeps telling me to do things more slowly with more control, so I’m trying to follow his wishes.

 

But honestly this makes me want to try stroking the crossovers again next session. Even though it was terrifying and exhausting, it was also really fun and I felt super badass haha. 

 

How do you learn power pulls? My coach has me do these like, forward one foot wiggle things and I’ve been trying to slowly increase the lobe size, but it’s going veryyyy slowly, plus I am very bad at coordinating knee action with the lobes. Did you start from wiggles as well? At what point does it legitimately become a power pull?

[hoodie axel]

9 minutes ago, guitarist said:

I don't know any skaters who do the cuts themselves because for the most part, I only know kids, but technically, you can, since you provide the music. At my rink a lot of kids have one of the coaches do the cuts for a small fee.

Cool, thanks. It's a hard task thinking about proper skating music cuts, and so I wondered if anyone tries to do it themselves. No everyone would be able to afford a sound engineer after all.

[yuzuangel]

34 minutes ago, hoodie axel said:

Do you have to skate a program? If so, do you have to cut your own music?

 

Like guitarist said, you do for Freestyle tests but not for MitF which is a lot more like figures/skating skills. Like the first (pre-bronze) test has all 4 edges (forward, backwards, inside, outside) on a line, crossovers in a figure 8, waltz 8 pattern, forward spirals on a line, and perimeter stroking. I'm doing my pre-bronze test in...10 days?   I hope to pass the Silver test by the end of this year and start working on the Gold!  

 

And maybe do the first Freestyle test 

 

8 minutes ago, hoodie axel said:

Generally though, do the test-takers cut their own music for a test that requires a program?

 

I'm definitely thinking of cutting my own music! But that's because I've been thinking about my music/choreo for a long time haha. I imagine not every skater wants to spend time thinking about that stuff so they get their choreographer or coach to do it for a fee. 

[hoodie axel]

1 minute ago, yuzuangel said:

I imagine not every skater wants to spend time thinking about that stuff so they get their choreographer or coach to do it for a fee.  

Choreographer is something else IDK about, strictly talking about non-elite skaters. I doubt most of them have the money to afford a coach AND a choreographer, so I assumed the coach + skaters work together for it.

[yuzuangel]

12 minutes ago, shanshani said:

Yeah, I figure I should just hold each part of the sequence longer, which will help train control which is what I need anyway. The funny thing is I know how pump with both edges in the crossover—like I can stroke fairly powerfully with the outside edge (at least it feels pretty powerful to me haha)—but I don’t really have the control to manage the speed yet (plus it’s kind of exhausting and my stamina is still shot after my month long cold). I have to put both feet down and adjust afterwards, so I don’t really try it that often and am mostly just riding the edges right now rather than actively stroking. But it’s still too much acceleration!  Plus my coach keeps telling me to do things more slowly with more control, so I’m trying to follow his wishes.

 

But honestly this makes me want to try stroking the crossovers again next session. Even though it was terrifying and exhausting, it was also really fun and I felt super badass haha. 

 

Haha so I've been taught (aka corrected) recently that even when doing crossovers you don't ever spend that much time with both feet on the ice. When you cross your front foot you should be pushing your underpush at the same time and the amt of time you spend with both feet on ice is only a half second or so. You could try to glide longer in the underpush position if you're going to fast. I also can't manage the speed which is why I'm scared to do crossovers on a crowded rink because it would be hard for me to stop suddenly (especially with feet crossed) or change directions. So I try to push very little 

 

12 minutes ago, shanshani said:

How do you learn power pulls? My coach has me do these like, forward one foot wiggle things and I’ve been trying to slowly increase the lobe size, but it’s going veryyyy slowly, plus I am very bad at coordinating knee action with the lobes. Did you start from wiggles as well? At what point does it legitimately become a power pull?

 

I first worked on single pulls on one of the hockey dots for a while. Basically you just slide on one foot towards the dot and do one single pull around the dot and come back where you came. So you do a 180 degree lobe basically, or half circle. And power pulls are just...many of these single pulls connected together alternating inside and outside edge. 

[yuzuangel]

5 minutes ago, hoodie axel said:

Choreographer is something else IDK about, strictly talking about non-elite skaters. I doubt most of them have the money to afford a coach AND a choreographer, so I assumed the coach + skaters work together for it.

Yeah most of the time coach IS the choreographer. But tbh choreographers aren't unusual with non-elite skaters since many of them have a separate coach for jumps, spins, moves, etc. so a choreographer could just be another coach you see less frequently. So instead of seeing one coach X number of times a month you see them less frequently but work with more coaches.