Spin span spun, swing swang swung
Mar. 1st, 2014 08:38 pmI have achieved a one-foot spin! I couldn't find a good video, but the kind I'm learning now is pretty much a two-foot spin where you happen to pick up the trailing foot after you're into the spin, and generally put it back down by the time you exit. Other types, you start out with one foot off the ground. I'm so not there yet.
Relevant detail: My right foot is off the ice for three-quarters of a revolution at the very most. This is going to require some work.
On the plus side, though, I'm actually standing up straight for most of the spin, going at a pace that resembles something slightly faster than a snail's, and getting three revolutions consistently. I think I may have actually hit four once, but by that point I was too dizzy to count accurately. I really, really wish it were possible to spot these things.
Pre-Bronze moves are coming along with varying but largely high levels of success. I'm pleased with the vast amounts of progress I've made on backward edges in the past three weeks. When I started, I couldn't even get onto an actual back outside edge, and would basically push off from the blue line and wander on a wobbly course toward the goal line until C grabbed my hand and pulled me back. Now I can actually do the whole exercise all the way down the short axis on both inside and outside edges, with a modicum of speed.
Much to my dismay, the transition between the circles of forward and backward crossovers must be done at speed, and must be an outside swing roll to a change of edge leading into an open inside mohawk. Mohawks and I, we're pretty good friends. I can do mohawks on a line or a circle all day. What I cannot do is skate them any faster than .02 miles per hour.
This is a problem, because when I'm just doing crossovers in a circle, I can get up to a pretty good clip. (Another adult skater complimented my speed today, actually.) So I finish my forward crossovers, go to make the transition, and since I'm traveling at what feels like 90 miles an hour, I go to do that mohawk and my entire body screams, "ABORT ABORT ABORT!" And I go sailing off past the other hockey circle.
Also, that change of edge is not exactly easy. My edge-changing skills, in a word, SUCK. We were actually doing a very similar exercise in edges class last night, an outside swing roll with a change of edge into an inside circle. The trick is to keep your shoulders facing the same direction until you're halfway through the circle (so, for a right outside swing roll, shoulders will angle to the left). Which is fine in theory, but my shoulders each appear to have their own brain, and those brains' sole purpose is to move exactly the opposite way they should at the moment of the edge change, because they are convinced that that's what will keep me upright. No matter how many times I tell myself to keep my shoulders in place, they disagree and move. I have no control over them whatsoever. It's truly a bizarre feeling.
So, there's that. Speaking of mohawks, in group class today C taught us outside mohawks. (Take a mohawk--forward inside edge to back inside edge--and put it on outside edges.) I, uh, didn't quite manage the second outside edge, but because I kept wandering over to an inside edge on the back, now I can do lovely choctaws. I do enjoy that everything in skating has a name, so you never actually screw up, you just do a different move than you intended. Unless you fall. I don't think that has an official name.
...Someone should name the different kinds of falls and assign them IJS point values. The buttsplat bears a base value of 1.6, while the faceplant carries a 2.4. Extra GOE points if you break a tooth!
Finally, before I close this long entry, a scheme is afoot to have an adults-only ballet for skaters class while the rink is closed for five months (WOE). I hope it happens! The person who mentioned it to me is good about getting things done, and she's already talked to the ballet teacher, who was enthusiastic about the idea. I haven't taken ballet in sixteen years, but it would be neat to take a class again.
Relevant detail: My right foot is off the ice for three-quarters of a revolution at the very most. This is going to require some work.
On the plus side, though, I'm actually standing up straight for most of the spin, going at a pace that resembles something slightly faster than a snail's, and getting three revolutions consistently. I think I may have actually hit four once, but by that point I was too dizzy to count accurately. I really, really wish it were possible to spot these things.
Pre-Bronze moves are coming along with varying but largely high levels of success. I'm pleased with the vast amounts of progress I've made on backward edges in the past three weeks. When I started, I couldn't even get onto an actual back outside edge, and would basically push off from the blue line and wander on a wobbly course toward the goal line until C grabbed my hand and pulled me back. Now I can actually do the whole exercise all the way down the short axis on both inside and outside edges, with a modicum of speed.
Much to my dismay, the transition between the circles of forward and backward crossovers must be done at speed, and must be an outside swing roll to a change of edge leading into an open inside mohawk. Mohawks and I, we're pretty good friends. I can do mohawks on a line or a circle all day. What I cannot do is skate them any faster than .02 miles per hour.
This is a problem, because when I'm just doing crossovers in a circle, I can get up to a pretty good clip. (Another adult skater complimented my speed today, actually.) So I finish my forward crossovers, go to make the transition, and since I'm traveling at what feels like 90 miles an hour, I go to do that mohawk and my entire body screams, "ABORT ABORT ABORT!" And I go sailing off past the other hockey circle.
Also, that change of edge is not exactly easy. My edge-changing skills, in a word, SUCK. We were actually doing a very similar exercise in edges class last night, an outside swing roll with a change of edge into an inside circle. The trick is to keep your shoulders facing the same direction until you're halfway through the circle (so, for a right outside swing roll, shoulders will angle to the left). Which is fine in theory, but my shoulders each appear to have their own brain, and those brains' sole purpose is to move exactly the opposite way they should at the moment of the edge change, because they are convinced that that's what will keep me upright. No matter how many times I tell myself to keep my shoulders in place, they disagree and move. I have no control over them whatsoever. It's truly a bizarre feeling.
So, there's that. Speaking of mohawks, in group class today C taught us outside mohawks. (Take a mohawk--forward inside edge to back inside edge--and put it on outside edges.) I, uh, didn't quite manage the second outside edge, but because I kept wandering over to an inside edge on the back, now I can do lovely choctaws. I do enjoy that everything in skating has a name, so you never actually screw up, you just do a different move than you intended. Unless you fall. I don't think that has an official name.
...Someone should name the different kinds of falls and assign them IJS point values. The buttsplat bears a base value of 1.6, while the faceplant carries a 2.4. Extra GOE points if you break a tooth!
Finally, before I close this long entry, a scheme is afoot to have an adults-only ballet for skaters class while the rink is closed for five months (WOE). I hope it happens! The person who mentioned it to me is good about getting things done, and she's already talked to the ballet teacher, who was enthusiastic about the idea. I haven't taken ballet in sixteen years, but it would be neat to take a class again.
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