Brackets!

Yes, that’s right. Part of my lesson today was on forward inside and forward outside brackets. And Ari actually said that these should be easy for me, at least on the right side. What he means (aside from just being nice) is that on the forward inside bracket I have to turn in my foot, doing the pigeon-toed (as opposed to the duck-footed) free foot thing.

Poultry and avian analogies aside, I think these are going to be really fun. I’m psyched to work on something that feels new, especially if it might make use of my most excellently turned-in legs! I looked up an online explanation of bracket turns in figure skating and it said:

A three turn rotates in the natural direction of a curve, while a bracket rotates in the opposite and unnatural direction.

Unnatural rotation, that sounds like me all over!

Two other things that are new today. I started taking a group class taught by my physical therapist Sarah that emphasizes dealing with misalignments and back issues. Since starting physical therapy last year, I have let a number of things slide, so doing abdominal exercises again was challenging. It was also fun to get hooked up to the springs on the wall (I have always liked that cyborg feeling). We’ll see if the soreness tomorrow will make me rethink how much fun this is.

And finally, I made a new kind of pie.  My friend Harriet, who gave me the rhubarb cutting that is now taking over one corner of the garden, shared a recipe for rhubarb pie. I made one for Mr. Howard, who is coming over for dinner tonight. And I made another pie: chocolate fudge.

One exercise class, two kinds of pie, four skating turns. Do I detect an infinite series here?