I need to start with a friendly picture.

That’s so the most notable thing about this post isn’t the set of spectacular falls that I have had in the past few days.

One was yesterday, when I caught my pick on the ice and did a nice body slam onto the ice. The entire rink reverberated, then went totally silent. And then I heard a voice say, “Are you okay?”

Actually, due to my entire body’s contacting the ice at once, the impact was spread out pretty evenly. Aside from a bruise on my knee, only my pride was hurt. And these days I have little pride left, so it’s okay.

Today I was putting away groceries in my kitchen and I stepped on the shopping bag, slipped on a loose jar of hoisin sauce, and went flying. Kaboom! Okay, it was the elbows this time.

I think an excess of gardening might be making me klutzy. I got a little carried away relocating a number of hosta plants around the yard, and letting my inner weed-control-freak make its yearly appearance. So now whatever isn’t bruised is officially sore.

And it’s only Tuesday!

But on the bright side, I found some great music to pull weeds by. How could you not like three clarinetists all named Ottensamer?

And even with all that, I had a great lesson today!

• back crossovers: send force back into (outside) ribs/back rather than (outside) hip, upper body slightly into circle
• underpush exercise: from standing, push under using just the outside edge (back) skate.
• Viennese mohawk set up: left outside, right outside, left outside into mohawk. Use change of edge to direct edges, not upper body. Lean of upper body should follow feet
• back outside to outside push: don’t use too much upper body and hip motion–just flip skating heel out to push.