First of all, Xīn Nián Kuài Lè and Happy New Year of the Rat! I was born in the Year of the Rat, so I’m looking forward to some good luck and financial gain in the months to come.

I hope that luck and money will mean that I also have another good skating year. In the past few months, I feel like I’ve finally turned a corner in terms of actually improving the quality of my body alignment. While I know I still have quite a ways to go (as my lessons this week showed), I feel like I’m closer than I’ve ever been to keeping my edges real (rather than faking edges).

Jeff and Jo

Our semester has started up, and this past week was a bit touch and go. But I did manage to get some quality practice as well as a few lessons in. It was super fun to run into my friend Jeff, who I haven’t seen in a while. And while not all of my plans came to fruition, I did make some excellent cheesy biscuits (rats like cheese!) and found this incredibly catchy piece of music.

Lesson notes:

• Push on forward progressives and back chassés: engage hip muscles for stability and proper (easy) “grip” on the inside edge.
• Swing rolls with methodical arm positions, make sure your hip is under you.
• One basic principle: your skating hip should always be slightly towards the inside of the circle you are making (not stuck out either way).
• Back inside three, inside choctaw (forward inside to back outside), back cross, front in front to inside, repeat on other side. Start this pattern with a back crossover to a back inside edge.
• Inside rocker, back inside, step forward onto forward outside edge, repeat on other side.
• Mini swing roll, outside rocker, two back cross strokes, step forward and repeat on other side.
• Practice back outside edges, checking posture in boards: use “flat front of hip” and correct pelvic tilt on skating side in order to stay over the correct part of blade.

Scientists have been studying the way people learn new skills, and some believe that practicing different variations on a task, rather than just repeating the same task over and over, helps you learn better. This is due, they think, to the ways in which the brain recalls and processes its memories.

If any scientists out there has funding to study this with adult skaters and needs a test subject–I hereby volunteer!

So at my lesson last week, Laurie told me that my upper body is still moving around in rather random ways. She told me that I should avoid being one of those inflatable figures they use to advertise car dealerships and mobile phone stores. You know, the kind of thing that attracts your attention through flopping around in unpredictable ways.

Inflatable man?

Or pillar of the community?

Some of this unwanted motion was definitely in response to being uncertain about my edges as well as alignment. I’ve been working on getting a much more solid connection between what’s going on in my blades and what I’m doing with the rest of my body.

Yesterday I went to a rather crazy public session and spent most of my time trying to figure out the optimal spot on my blade for edges.

Today I was inspired by Mary’s post at FitandFed reminding me of Ben Agosto‘s term, “glankles,” in which bending your ankles also fires the gluteal muscles.

This “theme and variations” strategy seems to be working. I’m feeling way more stable this week. Hopefully this will last through the upcoming holiday season.

Some Bach–even with all the times this has been repeated, it’s still beautiful.

Lesson notes:

• Outer edges from push back: don’t scrunch left side of torso.
• Lunges: practice basic positions. Also practice just deep knee bend on two feet with feet parallel and not allowing knees to fall inwards.
• Outside edges: think about where your ribcage is. Turn in new skating foot slightly to grab edge from the beginning.
• Back inside edge: make sure you are on the correct part of the blade.
• Progressives: think about what is going on in the skating hip (slight turning in, turn out as the free leg elongates, then the action of the free leg coming in makes it turn in again)
• Edge pulls, generating speed as you go.
• Inside and outside mohawk: allow hips to “soften” when the free leg comes in. Work on exit edge
• Swing roll with edge pull, change edge mohawk: continuous action. Don’t touch down! Do swing roll into skating arm; then arm stays in same place to allow mohawk to turn.
• Extra work on right swing roll: allow free leg to come around (not directly in or kicking through). Use the straightening of the skating leg to put pressure into edge. Keep hips under.
• Inside mohawk, push back, toe to heel, back outside three; alternating: foot immediately in front on back edge, mini-edge pull.
• Inside Mohawk, triple three
• Three turn, change edge, cross in front, change edge, step forward and repeat on other side: use that back inside edge power pull!
• Inside counter, back choctaw: work on just allowing the back edge to come around on the back choctaw and just “sliding” off it.
• Rocker, immediate back three (flat).

A few weeks ago I went on vacation (the beautiful island of Kauai), and the day I got back to skating was pretty rough. I had been off the ice for nearly two weeks and went to the rink only a few hours after  a long flight back. When I started my feet were all swollen, and I could barely get my skates on, let alone feel my edges.

But as the week went on and I gradually got over jet lag and back into the skating groove, I’ve been realizing how much my skating has improved in the past few years.

To begin with, I am much more in control of my edges. Instead of a brief delay every time I got on a new edge (this was often very brief, but I still could feel it), I feel like I know how to get right on the edge. What’s more, I can actually deepen and accelerate edges at will. While I’m not able to use every edge to generate power (you’ll see from my lesson notes how much this is a priority!) I’m getting better at this.

Aside from post-vacation euphoria, what is going on? Well, several things that seem to be working in my favor.

One is a postural correction. In my Pilates class, PT Sarah has been telling me to “bend your knees without really bending your knees”: imagining that my thighs are moving forward as if my knees were starting to bend, but not actually bending at the knees. This makes my lower abdominals and glutes engage as if I were tucking my hips under (posterior pelvic tilt). But the important thing is that I’m not actually changing my hip position that radically.

Instead, I’m trying to learn how to turn those stabilizing muscles on without allowing the hips to go out from under me, whether forwards or backward.

Another is that this improved posture actually allows me some more mobility in the hip joints. I am actually figuring out how to use the hip joint not only for stability, but also to do turns and deepen existing edges.

Laurie suggested that on cross strokes and progressives, I think about my free leg as folding in and helping to deepen the edge. This seems like a small change, but it makes a world of difference.

So just (a) the right amount of sunshine and snorkeling, plus (b) better posture through the hips, plus (c) hip movement and mobility, plus (d) free leg helpfulness equals one happy skater! Add some friendly skating buddies and there you go! You don’t need to ask me what I’m grateful for this year.

Awesome semi-private ice.

Maggie at Mariucci.

Friends and post-skating food!

I’m usually a “glass half empty” kinda gal, but I can’t resist.

Lesson notes:

• Progressives. Be aware of movement in the hip joint.
• Powerpulls. Watch position of free leg on inside edge (not too far over in front of skating leg).
• Back chassès. Work on the direction and stability of the inside edge push. Connect this to the action in the hip joint (leg turns in but then moves back to neutral or even turns out).
• 3-step pattern with inside mohawks. Work on establishing third position before the back inside to forward inside. Stronger forward inside edge.
• Forward cross strokes. Bend free knee to allow weight to deepen into the skating foot. This is also important on forward progressives; make sure you do this on both the outside and inside edges.
• Forward inside three, cross over front, back inside threes (in circle).  Work on establishing a stronger inside edge into the three, rotate in hip joint, try to get rid of the skid, hold back outside edge longer before crossing.
• Creepers.
• Swing roll (try to get a power pull), change edge, inside mohawk, quick step to change feet, push forward to repeat on other side.
• Inside three, back cross, outside three-mohawk (continuous action), repeat on other side.
• Different entry edges twizzles. Keep skating hip slightly open, skating side leads on entry (rather than letting body swinging around), ankles together.
• Inside counters. Use inside edge pressure to “jump” the turn.
• Forward power pulls (inside, outside, inside), inside mohawk, back power pulls (inside, outside, inside), step forward, repeat on other side.
• Swing roll, (try to get a power pull), change edge, inside mohawk, power pull, step forward on outside edge on other side, repeat.
• Outside rocker, cross in front to back outside (change arms at the same time), back cross stroke.
• Forward choctaw, power pull, step forward, tuck behind, repeat on other side.
• Three step outside-outside mohawk. Do this on pattern. Make sure your free side stays elongated.
• Inside mohawk, power pull, back outside to forward inside (choctaw).

So I am finally back from my last road trip of the summer and have gotten in a couple of sessions on the ice. And the weather has been just beautiful, so I have been working on trying to get my yard looking a little more presentable. Between those two activities, I am pretty much wiped out at the end of the day.

I haven’t done any skating lessons for a while, but have been focusing on getting back in shape. It’s surprising how many of these muscles I don’t use on a regular basis, and how quickly my hard-won alignment has gone wonky.

My right ankle is especially stiff, even though I was pretty good about stretching it out while I was away. I’ve been trying to get more mobility using my handy red rubber ball. It’s pretty excruciating, especially right in front of the heel.

In much the same way, it will take a while to get the bushes and weeds under control. While I was away, we apparently had a lot of rain. That and the long days of light here up north means lots of plants do very well. Sadly, the only plants that have not done well are the four varieties of heritage cherry tomato plants that I put in. I’m not sure if it’s something I did, but only one grew to any respectable height, and the rest are pretty much done for after producing just a few little tomatoes.

On the other hand, this wild vine that was trying to strangle one of my trees became enormous. I cut it down, but I’m sure it will be back next year unless I am super-vigilant and get to it earlier in the season.

So while I am super happy to be back home and on the ice again, part of me is thinking about how rusty I feel and how overgrown everything is. I definitely have my work cut out for me over the next few weeks!

However, here’s some encouragement.

The first day I was back on the ice I spent quite a bit of time at the beginning and end of the session on forward progressives and back crossovers, just trying to feel like I was aligned and connected, pushing through the right part of my blade, and using my gluten-free muscles. It was excruciating, particularly at the end of the session.

But as I was retrieving my jacket from the boards, a little girl came up to me in her beginning skater way and said “You are so good!” This made me just about fall down with surprise and gratitude!

Likewise, yesterday as I was loading up a big bag of branches (after an hour trying to pretend I was Edward Scissorhands going at the shrubbery), a woman stopped by and remarked, “Your house is so beautiful.”

Maybe something is making people unusually cheery and empathetic in Minneapolis? At any rate, I’ll take it! Sometimes just a simple message is about all you need to keep in mind. Here’s Bruno Mars with muppets!