Assorted thoughts, mostly skating-related

We've hit the point of the year where, in the evenings, the smell of honeysuckle hangs over the streets and lawns of the neighborhood like a veil. It's delicious. It's also finally warmed up, which is nice. Less nice is that it shot from 60s to almost 90 overnight, but that's typical for here. Sigh.

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Skating class was good this weekend, although harder than last time. It turns out I was doing my swizzles less than perfectly--fast, but not touching my toes or heels together, or for that matter, bending my knees enough. (Though I think deep knee bend AND touching toes together is a lost cause. There's too much thigh there for that to physically happen.) So I worked on making them right, and lost all my speed. Sigh.

(Speaking of swizzles, that sounds like such a Seussian word. "He swizzled and swizzled, till his swizzler was sore! He swizzled until he could swizzle no more!")

We also learned zig-zags/wiggles, which are great fun, and if I'm correct in my thinking of how a three-turn is supposed to go, they probably teach the correct checking position for it. That's one thing I like about skating that ballroom dance doesn't always have—the way the moves build on each other. I'm sure it's partially the effect of a national standardized curriculum (well, okay, two competing curricula), but still.

As well, we did one-foot glides, which are exactly what they sound like. Alas, they are not done as a push-then-glide, which I'm rather good at, but more of a push-into-two-foot-glide-then-pick-up-one-foot-glide, which I'm less good at. (Not to the point that I fall over or anything, I just can't do them as fast.) Oh, well. That's what practice is for.

I've taught myself a one-foot snowplow stop now as well, largely because at the practice session after my class, I staked out a lane at one end and spent the entire half hour going back and forth along the horizontal axis, and I got tired of stopping by running into the boards.

We don't meet next week because of Memorial Day, but I'm crossing my fingers that the next class will include forward crossovers. I may give them a go at one of the public sessions this week, just because I've always wanted to figure out how to do them.

My knees chose this week to politely inform me that they were not consulted when I was signing up for this, and also, could I please remember that I am much, much closer to 30 than to 5? I'm currently telling them to hush.