Skating on the Planet

[yuzuangel]

On 3/18/2019 at 3:46 PM, shanshani said:

I really do need to practice looking behind me, even when the rink is empty  I have a terrible habit of looking at my feet when I feel unsteady, which is always like the first 30 min of the session. Today I was warming up with backwards half swizzles and accidentally bumped into a coach. The coach was a huge jerk about it though, he threatened to sue me if I knocked him over. Like lol you're a Worlds medalist, aren't you? You're not going to get knocked over by a beginner going 2mph. Sorry that I have some bad habits I need to fix, and I should have been watching where I was going, but that was uncalled for.

 

So that kind of distracted me for the first hour of my session. But I did some successful choctaws (which are easier than mohawks for some reason??? my mohawks still suck lol. unless I literally don't know what a choctaw is. I stepped RBI to LFO, that's a choctaw, right?), RBOs, and overall felt super steady. Waiting for the ice to be zamboni-ed now--hopefully I can be more focused the second session.

 

edit: lol someone is playing seimei music in the waiting area. I feel you, that's why I skate too 

Whoa that coach was a huge jerk. People make mistakes, geez! Tell them to look where they're going and move on!

 

Haha re. choctaws, they are...well there are a lot of them. Some of them are really easy and others are insanely difficult 

[utsukushii3A]

@shanshani, that's a shame that you don't have freestyle sessions!

 

Uh, wow, um, at least you can say you touched a Worlds medalist?   That's so cool about the Seimei music!

[shanshani]

8 hours ago, yuzuangel said:

Whoa that coach was a huge jerk. People make mistakes, geez! Tell them to look where they're going and move on!

 

Haha re. choctaws, they are...well there are a lot of them. Some of them are really easy and others are insanely difficult 

Haha, well I guess RBI to LFO isn't very difficult.

 

I'm always so taken aback when people are randomly a huge jerk to me. Like, why? I don't think I've ever behaved that way to a random person (well, not outside the internet anyway ), certainly not on so little provocation (I literally just brushed him with my hand!). What makes people do it?

 

2 hours ago, utsukushii3A said:

@shanshani, that's a shame that you don't have freestyle sessions!

 

Uh, wow, um, at least you can say you touched a Worlds medalist?   That's so cool about the Seimei music!

Haha true, too bad he was such a jerk about it.

 

Speaking of Seimei, my coach is asking me to start practicing crossrolls. Somehow picturing Yuzu doing them isn't helping me much

[jinxxoo]

4 hours ago, shanshani said:

Haha, well I guess RBI to LFO isn't very difficult.

 

I'm always so taken aback when people are randomly a huge jerk to me. Like, why? I don't think I've ever behaved that way to a random person (well, not outside the internet anyway ), certainly not on so little provocation (I literally just brushed him with my hand!). What makes people do it?

 

Haha true, too bad he was such a jerk about it.

 

Speaking of Seimei, my coach is asking me to start practicing crossrolls. Somehow picturing Yuzu doing them isn't helping me much

I got the hang of forward cross rolls after some tips here and from my coach, try to point your toe away, so you're automatically on outside edge.  And channel sassy girl walk.

[jinxxoo]

Had a good skating session today. Hope this is good omen 

[shanshani]

I did figure out cross rolls! Turns out they weren’t so hard after all, just had to get over the initial fear/work on it a bit on my own. They aren’t good—the curves are very shallow, my upper body control is bad and I need to shift my weight more, but I can do many steps in a row so I’ll count that as a success for now. They’re actually less scary than forward crossovers, since I don’t wind up going a bajillion miles an hour by accident. 

 

Speaking of fear, my coach is now having me do backwards mini-powerpulls. My backwards 1 foot glides are only now starting to get kind of decent and you want me to change edges back and forth? I still have to concentrate to get on a backward outside edge!

 

Step/turn progress:

 

Get:

LFO 3 turn

RFO 3 turn (although I was having a bit of trouble with this today randomly. Bleh)

RBI-LFO choctaw (lol this is my best step)

RFI-LBI mohawk

RBI-LFI mohawk (only figured this one out after the choctaw and have barely practiced it, but it’s already better than my forward mohawks. go figure)

 

Work in progress:

LFI-RBI mohawk (I hate these, I practice them so much and they still suck)

LBI-RFO choctaw (don’t practice this a lot but it went okay the last few times I tried, not great)

LBI-RFI mohawk

moving two foot turn, all directions (how am I still so awful at these 😂 I think it’s a psychological block at this point, for some reason I find them terrifying, therefore I don’t practice them, therefore I don’t get better)

 

Nope:

Everything else. Maybe I’ll try forward inside 3 turns soon. 

 

Turns out I don’t like turning clockwise.

[utsukushii3A]

Well, I guess the sword cuts both ways with how I always feel like I'm bending my knees more and hydroblading much lower than I really am.

 

I also always feel like I'm leaning forward too much on cross rolls and inside Ina Bauers and spread eagles. Well... I'm not. At all. I'm almost perfectly straight, and it looks so much better than I thought it would. Also, my jump landings have gotten so pretty, OMG, I can't believe that's me in the videos. Now I just need to get the rest of the jump to the same quality. And stop two-footing and nearly underrotating my loops and prerotating my toe loops and Salchows. And bend my !#@%$@^# knees.

 

And whatever that thing is called where Yuzu bends low on one knee and folds his other leg on top of the knee? I can totally do that. 

 

...Yeah, if you can't tell, a large part of my practice sessions consist of just copying Yuzu.  (The rest consists of refining my edge control and depth and jump technique so I can... copy Yuzu's technical and skating skills as well as his moves. ) But I do have some of my own little trademarks, too. Those are a secret, in case anyone I might compete against in the future is reading this. 

[Coquelicot]

Just got back from my first skating session, and here are my two main takeaways: 1) Skating is FUN.  2) Rental skates HURT.  I decided to go with a private coach, because where I live, the group lessons are almost the same price as private lessons, so I’d rather pay a couple dollars more for one-on-one instruction.

 

I got to the rink an hour before my lesson (I was too excited!), so I hopped on the ice early to get warmed up.  Per advice from YouTube tutorials, I started by doing some marching with my hands in front of me.  It felt a little wobbly, and any time I felt like I was rocking forwards and backwards, I’d stop for a moment, regain my center of balance, and then continue.  I made a point of not holding onto the boards, but stayed close to them anyways.  I did multiple laps and felt pretty comfortable with it, so I then tried to do some forward swizzles.  I had taken a couple of lessons when I was little, so it wasn’t too difficult to pick them back up (backward swizzles are another story).

 

Then I met with my coach, and we practiced more marching, two-foot glides, and sets with swizzles.  We also practiced the rocking horse.  My coach was really nice, and she gave me lots of good tips.

 

Afterwards, I stayed for another hour or so and just went around the rink doing march, march, glide, swizzles.  March, march, glide, swizzles.  I also practiced the rocking horse over and over.  But I can’t seem to do more than three back-to-back, and my backward swizzles are an eyesore.  I tried practicing multiple backward swizzles, and they’re not very good.  I think part of it is my nonexistent leg muscles, but another part is wondering where my balance is supposed to be for each part of the swizzle.  I can usually start going backwards, but then my feet just keep getting farther apart and I can’t bring them back into a V position.  Toward the end of the session, I practiced doing them while visualizing what I wanted to happen, and that helped a lot, but I still don’t feel 100% with it.

 

I also actually didn’t fall at all during the entire session, which I was happy about, but isn’t that something I should practice?

 

Already have my next lesson set up, and excited to be going back soon!

[shanshani]

Some guy complimented my skating today, but then he started asking what time I skate and whether I would give him lessons and I got a bit weirded out. I haven't even been doing this for half a year and the rink has clearly designated instructors? Felt like he was trying to creep on me

 

All the backward outside edge drilling is finally starting to pay off. They're getting better! ^{I will be able to do backwards outside edge glides with a straight free leg with perfect consistency out of crossovers without thinking by the end of the week. I WILL}  

 

I learned bunny hops this session. They are surprisingly non-scary, although I'm currently hopping only about half a centimeter off the ice (Yuzu jumps 140x higher than me ). My coach is having me do them out of lunges (to emphasize the bent knees) and owwwww my thighs. They buuuuurn. Looks like I need to start doing off ice exercise so my muscles don't wear out

 

On 4/1/2019 at 6:28 AM, Coquelicot said:

Afterwards, I stayed for another hour or so and just went around the rink doing march, march, glide, swizzles.  March, march, glide, swizzles.  I also practiced the rocking horse over and over.  But I can’t seem to do more than three back-to-back, and my backward swizzles are an eyesore.  I tried practicing multiple backward swizzles, and they’re not very good.  I think part of it is my nonexistent leg muscles, but another part is wondering where my balance is supposed to be for each part of the swizzle.  I can usually start going backwards, but then my feet just keep getting farther apart and I can’t bring them back into a V position.  Toward the end of the session, I practiced doing them while visualizing what I wanted to happen, and that helped a lot, but I still don’t feel 100% with it.

 

I also actually didn’t fall at all during the entire session, which I was happy about, but isn’t that something I should practice?

 

Sometimes it's just practice--it just takes a couple of weeks for the motion to become smooth. Getting real skates helps too--my swizzles became 200% better once I switched to my own skates because they actually have sharpened edges. Rental skates are truly horrible on many levels.

 

I've never practiced falling and my coach has never brought it up, so I'm not sure it's something that you have to do. I haven't had any disaster falls yet so...*fingers crossed* I think falling might be kind of hard to practice because different falls are caused by different things, and you have to adjust your body differently depending on what happened.

[utsukushii3A]

I got to learn camel spins at my lesson today!  I had no idea that they were even safe to try at my level. And I was pretty good at them for a first try!

 

I'm getting pretty good at the entries to all the spins I've learned. I just have to work on, you know, actually revolving more than once or twice.  

[utsukushii3A]

On 3/31/2019 at 6:28 PM, Coquelicot said:

I also actually didn’t fall at all during the entire session, which I was happy about, but isn’t that something I should practice?

 

On 4/8/2019 at 10:39 AM, shanshani said:

I've never practiced falling and my coach has never brought it up, so I'm not sure it's something that you have to do. I haven't had any disaster falls yet so...*fingers crossed* I think falling might be kind of hard to practice because different falls are caused by different things, and you have to adjust your body differently depending on what happened.

 

We're supposed to practice in Basic Skills 1, but I tested out of it, so I never did. I rarely fall on anything but hydroblading, but no coach has ever said anything about needing to practice. You can and probably should ask about it, but you might not need to practice. I don't know, I looked it up out of curiosity, and all it said was things like "try to fall on somewhere more padded like your butt or thigh" and "put your arms out to break your fall," and I was just thinking, "Doesn't everyone do that?" I guess some people go limp when they fall or something?

 

And yes, rental skates hurt.

 

Spoiler

And caused an elite ice dancer to mistake me for a lost public skater when wearing them in a freestyle session because I didn't know I'd be near a rink full of elites and didn't bring my skates. I'm working on loops and couldn't even do a waltz jump in them. At least they were Jacksons, so I didn't lose feeling in my pinkie toes like I do with Riedell rental skates. (Jacksons are much, much wider than Riedells, if you don't know.)  

 

[shanshani]

Me starting to work on jumping: I HAVE NO FEAR 

 

Me attempting an inside 3-turn: *giant scaredycat* These things are terrifying

 

Anyway, trying to add a hop in the middle of RBO glides to imitate landing. Landing on the correct edge is harder than it looks Bunny hop is ezpz though, although my right leg could be straighter. I'm jumping them with a good bit more entry speed and height than when I first learned them last week though.

 

I also think I badly need my blades sharpened. My coach said they were fine a couple of weeks ago, but in the interim it feels like part of my right outside edge has disappeared. My RFO is awful as of late and all my edges seem more difficult in general. Plus I've never had my skates sharpened but they must have around 100 hours of ice time by now at least. Unfortunately I have to give up my skates for a week, but I can't practice for most of the upcoming week anyway.

 

Petty: Saw someone who I'm pretty sure was the person who was mean to me when I was a total newbie trying to learn backwards swizzles. I am now a better skater than her. Revenge 

[axelnojutsu]

 

 

1

1 minute ago, shanshani said:

Me starting to work on jumping: I HAVE NO FEAR 

 

Me attempting an inside 3-turn: *giant scaredycat* These things are terrifying

listen, left inside 3 turns are for demons and you can't convince me otherwise, I'll rather attempt an axel 

(the right side is fine, I'm actually getting quite good at double 3turns on that side but the other way is just impossible. body says no )

[Xen]

11 hours ago, shanshani said:

Me starting to work on jumping: I HAVE NO FEAR 

 

Me attempting an inside 3-turn: *giant scaredycat* These things are terrifying

 

Anyway, trying to add a hop in the middle of RBO glides to imitate landing. Landing on the correct edge is harder than it looks Bunny hop is ezpz though, although my right leg could be straighter. I'm jumping them with a good bit more entry speed and height than when I first learned them last week though.

 

I also think I badly need my blades sharpened. My coach said they were fine a couple of weeks ago, but in the interim it feels like part of my right outside edge has disappeared. My RFO is awful as of late and all my edges seem more difficult in general. Plus I've never had my skates sharpened but they must have around 100 hours of ice time by now at least. Unfortunately I have to give up my skates for a week, but I can't practice for most of the upcoming week anyway.

 

OMG please get your blades sharpened, for the love of all things Yuzu. How do you guys manage to jump on flat blades? O_O last time I tried, I kept on landing on my arse because the edge just slipped on the loop take off.  And it would affect your 3-turns, it just feels funny to turn on worn down edges.

*I normally sharpen around every 50-60 or so hours of practice, roughly every 3 months or so. The guy I send to recommends every 40-50 hours.

[shanshani]

1 hour ago, Xen said:

 

OMG please get your blades sharpened, for the love of all things Yuzu. How do you guys manage to jump on flat blades? O_O last time I tried, I kept on landing on my arse because the edge just slipped on the loop take off.  And it would affect your 3-turns, it just feels funny to turn on worn down edges.

*I normally sharpen around every 50-60 or so hours of practice, roughly every 3 months or so. The guy I send to recommends every 40-50 hours.

last time I tried to get them sharpened the skate shop just handed the skates back to me after a week and told me it didn't need it, so I've been feeling kind of sheepish about going back without my coach's say sowhen I asked two weeks ago he told me they were fine and beginners don't need to sharpen as often as more advanced skaters, but they really don't feel fine any more. Plus I don't think he's noticed my habit of doing t-stops from high speeds, which I imagine is part of why my right outside edge in particular feels like it's starting to go. I guess I'll suck it up, bring them in today or tomorrow and make sure the shop actually sharpens them this time.