The $900 Experiment

I needed new skates. The skates I purchased back in 2016 had been a problem from day one. There is a very good chance that I was not fitted correctly. One person said I was “over-booted”. Who knows what the issue was. All I know is that those skates never fit correctly. My feet cramped, throbbed and caused my arches to go numb. It was a mess. I thought that once they started to break down a bit, they would finally be comfortable, or at least tolerable. But no. They never felt good. Suddenly they were big and my foot would slide around in them. There was no happy medium. My favorite skates were my Klingbeils. Loved those skates. Actually, I still have them; I haven’t been able to toss them with the hopes that if necessary I could have them rebuilt. I have never found anyone who could rebuild my skates. I was able to purchase another pair of Klingbeils. As it happened, I know someone who has purchased some of the stock that wasn’t picked up. After going back and forth, I purchased a pair of boots, initially for someone named Melissa. Melissa and I had similar feet, sort of. Same size… almost. Hers were a bit narrower; a purchased shoe stretcher helped with that. Those stretchers are in those skates every day in an attempt to make those skates fit. I even had them stretched by a skate shop. For those who didn’t know, stretching skates longer make them narrower. Ater every session, I would take the skates off and wait approximately an hour before the pain in my feet subsided. I thought I had neuropathy or stress fractures in my feet because of the pain. Walking to the subway became an exercise in determination but I knew eventually, the skates would fit well. Five months later, they still don’t fit right. I should also mention that I purchased a new pair of blades that were a totally different brand from the Pattern 99s I have been using for over ten years. These new blades are good, very similar and yet different. It’s taken a bit but I have gotten used to them… sort of. The new skates are a half size smaller. Maybe that’s the problem. The new blades are a size 9 ¾; my old blades were 10 ¼. Perhaps that’s why I feel as though there should be more blade in the back. I like the blades, but haven’t felt 100% comfortable in them mostly because I can’t feel my feet. Well, five months later, I’ve given up. I’ve made an appointment to buy new boots, hopefully the blades I have will still work otherwise it’s new blades too. The pair I am currently in were $900 total before tax and I’m willing to pay that again to not lose the ability to use my feet. My last pair of custom Klingbeils, purchased when Mr. Klingbeil was still with us, were the last pair of comfortable skates that I owned. Although the company that took over the business is out there, but $1800 for a pair of boot is a bit too expensive. I learned my lesson. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to try to find the least expensive option. Sometimes your arches, toes, and nerve endings refuse to allow it. And I understand now.

I'm Back

So, how have you been? Anything new in your world? Not much happening in my world. You know, same old, same old. Still struggling with jumps. Now I have the added pleasure of breaking in new skates. They seem okay for about 30 minutes and then it's as though someone has set my feet on fire. I need to break in these skates as soon as possible because my old skates are really on their last legs. Did I mention I’m breaking in new blades too? Ah yes, good times. The North American International competition is in October; I will not be attending. As previously mentioned, I am still struggling with jumps and spins and footwork. I’m struggling with skating all together. I need to try harder and concentrate more. Plan my practices, not just show up and do whatever. Keep it simple, but not too simple. Work on the basics; the rest will follow. My goal is to take and pass my Silver Moves In The Field or Skating Skills that they are now called, by the end of the year. I’ll be able to compete at Nationals when I do pass them. Right now, my three turns have gone to visit other people. If you see them, please tell them to return home. I need them and I miss them. Quite by accident, I discovered that the back inside edge on a C step for a flip jump can easily fall over into a back outside edge and hence an edge call for the flip jump. Or it’s a Lutz. I know of other skaters who fall over to an inside edge on their Lutz, but I have never met anyone who can fall into an outside edge from an inside edge. I have MAD skills like that! 😊 Changing my music. I only competed with that program once and it was never actually finished. I like the music, but I think I should put it down for a season or two and pick it up later. The dress that I brought for that music is generic enough that I could wear it for the new music which has a slightly Spanish flare. Or I could compete in the black and red dress (typical) that I had for the program for Swan Lake. There are several competitions between November and February. I expect to compete as much as possible. I figured the more I do, the more comfortable I’ll be. Or at least I hope. I am searching for a work/life balance where I don’t work every weekend. It’s not going to happen this weekend and probably not next weekend, but it will happen. I am determined to no longer work on weekends. That’s it for now. Hope all is well with you. Stay safe out there.

Early Autumn

Well, it’s been a while. The summer has come and gone. Thoughts of warm nights walking by the shore have been replaced with cooler, wet weekends filled with rain. Gone are the days of “summer goals” and practice sessions that were relatively empty due to so many people being on vacation. In short, the brats have returned. Not all brats are kids and not all kids are brats. There are several adults at one of the rinks I frequent who are so obnoxiously bratty that they (there are two of them in particular) have caused more than one adult skater to skate elsewhere. You know who you are, and if I may be so blunt… you stink. As for me, well, please stop cutting me off. I lost my temper last week and left the ice early. I have been quietly questioning my continuance in this sport for quite some time and last week took me to the precipice and almost pushed me off. Being told that I’d be missed if I left was quite sweet, but it wasn’t really changing my mind. Another adult skater put it this way, “just knock them down.” It’s a thought. One of the things preventing me from quitting is that I don’t want to end up on My 600 Pound Life because when I get depressed, boy can I chow down. I am confident that my sisters wouldn’t allow that to happen, but as with most people, I spend a great deal of time sitting on my keester, typing on a keyboard. Most of my current exercise is skating, but I’m working on fixing that. My strange inability to step from backwards to forwards to do a waltz jump has caused me more stress than I need. I don’t know when that started, and I don’t know how to not overthink it. In truth, if I overthink anything, I am unable to do it: C steps, 3 turns, step into spins, spins in general and now inside spirals. And people wondered why I was thinking about quitting. I once mentioned that figure skating was like a boyfriend who you really loved, but he didn’t love you back. There are days like that, weeks, months even. Currently, my “boyfriend” is trying to make an effort to be a better partner, but some days it’s like I’m not even there. Too many metaphors; English major here. I had promised myself that I would compete at least once a year. Not this year. My next scheduled competition is in mid-January. By that time I expect my mental blocks to be cleared therefore allowing me to jump and spin without thinking too much. It’s been an interesting few months. From a fractured wrist to plantar fasciitis to working 50-60 hours a week to sciatica to the heat in NYC to the cooler, damp weather. Seasons change. People, not so much. Sometimes I wonder how frustrated my coaches are. Watching me struggle with the same stupid crap week after week, month after month and now year after year. You know what I mean. But you catch them sometimes, looking at their other students, wanting to correct them or tell them something, but this is your time, so they’re stuck. Maybe stuck is the wrong word. They can always drop you as a student. It has happened to me so many times I’ve lost count. I wasn’t improving fast enough, so I was handed off to another coach while my original coach kept the student who was “improving”. Yeah, she quit skating six months later. While I blame everything on my weight, I know it’s not all about my weight. Skaters heavier than I am seem to glide across the ice with ease and grace. I’m graceful, don’t get me wrong, but I’m feeling a bit “earth bound”. My jumps used to soar, now it looks as thought I’ve tripped over my toe picks. Apart from a European vacation last year, I have not taken any time off from skating. My thinking was that consistency in training is the key; maybe not. I will be practicing tomorrow, but only one session instead of two. And I may only do Moves and hold off on freestyle until Thursday during my lesson after doing off-ice jumps. Until that time, in the words of another adult skater, who is also a friend…. “Get out of my way!”

An Afterthought

The adult figure skating season has basically ended. There are some random competitions between now and August before everything starts up again with the international competition in September. However, for the most part, the competitive season is over for 2023-2024. Several things occurred this season: some good, some not so good. Personally, I could have done without fracturing my wrist (yeah, it wasn’t just a sprain, but I didn’t find out until weeks later and it was healing on its own. I did, however, find a really, really cute orthopedist, however, he’s engaged…) I could have done without plantar fasciitis, which I’m still struggling with. Or that “edge class” that wasn’t. Those are my personal items. This post is about something bigger. Did you try to watch the major adult competitions this season? Oberstdorf always does an awesome job; they are wonderful with their coverage. No, I’m talking about Sectionals. Did you see it? Could you see it? For the most part, that answer was no. Easterns, which is my neck of the woods, was available for viewing via LliveBarn, for a price. Midwesterns and Pacific Coast were not available for viewing unless you were in the arena, and you had purchased a ticket. I’m all for people making a dollar, but they couldn’t find some way to allow the folks at home to watch the competition. Not even LiveBarn? Don’t get me wrong, LiveBarn is bad, horrible, okay it stinks. Since it was made for hockey, it has a hard time following a single skater. Or that was the excuse LiveBarn gave me when I filed a complaint. It has a hard time following a single skater, but can follow a small black puck across the ice with ten skaters chasing that puck and two standing on either end of the rink? Yeah, sure. As for Nationals, well that was another joke. Again, LiveBarn, with all its problems. Skaters would disappear outside the view of the cameras. Or my favorite, the feed would just shut down in the middle of a program, only to return ten minutes later. I hope there were official videos, but since I haven’t seen any posted by the people who usually post on social media, I have my doubts. Never thought I’d say that I miss Ice Network. It’s better than last year, when there was an official videographer, but no videos. You just had to wait almost eight months to receive your video, after receiving a lot of excuses. Again, never thought I’d miss Ice Network. Would they have done this to the kids? Absolutely not. I understand the economics of running a competition. I know it’s expensive and no one ever breaks even. Making a profit is unheard of. However, if adult skaters are serious enough to put down their hard-earned money, practice for months, take off from work, fly to wherever these competitions are held and stay in a hotel, don’t we deserve recognition? Similar treatment to the kids? No, we’re not going to the Olympics (and neither are 90% of the kids), but we don’t quit until physically or financially, we just can’t do it anymore. A new boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t cause us to toss our skates into the closet and let them rust away. We don’t need our parents’ permission to continue. And we know exactly how much it costs, and we continue. Don’t we deserve to be treated better? A recent post on social media stated that the monthly USFS Figure Skating magazine would become a quarterly publication instead of monthly. I suppose it would save money because it’s a multi-color publication on slick paper. However, by making it a quarterly publication, there will be even fewer articles about adults. There was no mention of the international competitions in Italy or Nashville in the magazine. The Gold/Senior level tests are the only ones listed in the back of the magazine. However, synchro is well represented. I was informed that someone, somewhere, is trying to make synchro an Olympic sport. Bring softball back to Olympics or add roller skating (which is really popular in Europe) before bringing in synchro in. Of course, this is just a rant about the disparity regarding the ability to watch children skating at Sectionals and Nationals and adults doing the same. It will never be even; I know that. Our dollars keep our clubs and the governing bodies afloat, our volunteering keep events for the kids from shutting down, but the end result is: we only matter to ourselves. And that’s sad. I appreciate what adult skaters have because not that long ago, we had nothing. I just wish it was a little better. Maybe I’m asking for too much. Maybe the venues for next year’s Sectionals and Nationals could start looking for videographers now so they’ll be ready for March and April. Maybe LiveBarn can improve. Seriously never expected to miss Ice Network.

Seriously??

After attending a one-day workshop that was an edge class at the rink, I decided to sign up for the group edge class at the same rink. This one was four classes, eighty minutes long and in the same vein as the workshop. I liked the workshop; I enjoyed the workshop. How much different could this class be? Apparently, quite different. It started off okay. The first week was fun with various levels of adult skaters. I was still wearing my wrist brace, so everything felt somewhat awkward. After several exercises incorporating parts of the Silve MIF, we broke off into groups. I opted for the lowest level of jumpers/spinners because of my timing issues with my jumps and spins and my wrist brace. I had already knocked myself in the face with that thing (putting on my coat) and also figured that sometimes you just need to work on the basics. The group was five of us; there was another lefty (YAY!!) and we worked on waltz jumps and Salchows. I still am not a fan of Salchows. When the instructor (whose name I still don’t know) came around, he told me that the edge going into my waltz jump wasn’t being held long enough and the distance between the take-off and the landing edges weren’t long enough either. Okay, I’ll agree on the first part; not sure about the second. He had me practice them from a T position. Okay. After about twenty of them from a T position, I went back-to-back crossovers… Nope. I had to do them from a T position. That did not do much for my timing, but the jump did get better. On to a Salchow. He had the same correction. I worked on it from back crossovers… Nope. I had to do them from a T position. There was a woman in the class who had never done a Salchow before. She could do them from back crossovers; not me. Again, the jump did get better. Fast forward to my lesson with my coach. My jumps had improved. I mentioned that the instructor said the distance between my take-off and landing wasn’t long enough and his response was, “Forget about that. Concentrate on the jump.” I pay him so I’ll listen to him. Don’t get me wrong, I pay for the class too.

The next class, we’re doing Cross Rolls, also on the Silver MIF test. I don’t have a problem with them, but they weren’t good as far as the instructor was concerned. I have actual edges on that move and you hear that ripping sound that you’re supposed to hear. Not good enough. Okay… We break off into groups and again I choose the lowest level. No longer wearing the wrist brace because it just gets in the way, I am determined to get my timing back. We’re doing scratch spins. My fellow lefty is not there, but that’s okay because I’ve been doing scratch spins for years. I do two crossovers and step into my scratch spin. I’m told that I’m stopping before I step in and I should practice Bauer Threes to prevent that. Okay. I start to do another scratch spin… no wait. I have to do it from a T position. I haven’t done a spin from a T position in so long, I don’t remember how to do it. My brain is not computing how to do it and I’m not spinning at all. While the other three women in my group are spinning from back crossovers, including one woman who has never done a one-foot spin in her life, I am spinning from a T position. I would like to point out that two of the other women stopped dead in their tracks before stepping into their spins. We tried sit spins for giggles. I had to go first, and I have a pretty decent sit spin. Nope. Not low enough (okay, I’ll take that), it wasn’t centered well, the edge going into the spin wasn’t long enough and I paused before stepping in. I was back to the T position. When we worked on waltz jumps, again my edge wasn’t long enough and the space between take-off and landing wasn’t long enough. I was back to the T position while the rest of the class was doing them from back crossovers, just as badly as I was. I’m not sure what was going on here. I would hate to think that this was some crazy form of light gaslighting. Either way, there are two more classes, and I will attend and get my money’s worth. As for any “corrections”, I’ll take them with a grain of salt. I spoke to my skater friend and her response was “That sounds like Ted.” For those of you who don’t know who Ted was in my life, he was an old coach I wrote about on June 20, 2011. She hit the nail on the head with her comment; this instructor IS just like Ted and I kicked him to the curb years ago. You can’t tell me to toss out everything I already know how to do so I’ll do it the exact way you want it. That’s not how the world works. I know how to do a scratch spin, a sit spin, a waltz jump and a Salchow. Go bother someone else. Once these classes are over, I will not be returning. And don’t call it an edge class/workshop if it’s really a Learn To Skate Class wherein an instructor will tear you down for shits and giggles.

Pain

I hurt myself today... Actually, it was yesterday. The session was going well. I skated my Swing dance and didn't mess up the C step in the corner, so my coach and I were able to re-start the dance. My jumps were going well, although slowly, with a few failed attempts before they were landed. For the record, I have never liked the Salchow and I still don't. Several attempts later and it was landed to my coach's satisfaction. Then, the toe loop. The horn for the Zamboni had been sounded. The first attempt hadn't gone as planned. But I was determined. On the second attempt, left forward inside 3 turn, left arm back and then scoop down and up... the 3 turn wasn't completed, I rocked back on my heels and my feet flew up in the air. I landed squarely on my left butt cheek and my left arm, which hadn't gotten out of the way fast enough. The amount of pain was unbelievable. The fall must have been pretty decent because my coach raced over to help me up. The look in his eyes told me that the look in my eyes wasn't good. I said, "I think that's enough for today." And he replied "Yeah, yeah definitely" as he skated me off the ice, asking if I was okay. I told him I was okay and wished him a good weekend before it all hit. Suddenly I was nauseous. And weak. I walked over to my friend, who saw the fall and asked if I was okay and I replied, "I think I'm going to faint." She offered me water, told me to sit down (I had been standing) and to take my time doing eveything. Eventually, I felt well enough to get my things and head out of the rink, but I was shaky amd my left wrist really hurt. Once home, I told my sisters (one is out of town) and after some back and forth, it was decided that I should go into the Walk-In Clinic. My left arm was throbbing, I couldn't move my fingers and changing out of my skating clothes was difficult. On the pain scale, I was at a 12. At the clinic, I had x-rays, after explaining several times that I'm a figure skater and that I had not hit my head. Turns out, I had a severe sprain and was given OTC painkillers and a brace. The next day, after very littlle sleep due to pain, the pain scale was down to 8. No jumping for a few days. Once I can make a fist and tie my skates, I'll be back on the ice. The moral of this story is: if you feel yourself falling, throw your arms in the air because your butt is tronger than your wrist. This was typed with one hand. I am amazed at how many things I do with my left hand.

Ouch

Recently, I woke up in a great deal of discomfort. My knees have been giving me problems for days, playing a crazy round-robin game of which one was going to hurt. They've been taking turns, sometimes during one session, to decide which one was going to inflict pain and for how long. The rules of the game keep changing, with different skills causing a different part of my knees to reject the movement. Sometimes it's as simple as walking. My back has decided to remind me that sometimes wearing a backpack when you already have back issues is not the smartest thing in the world. Skates are heavy. To those who are saying "use a wheelie bag", you have never lugged one of those things up and down NYC subway steps whether during rush hour or not. Increase the weight of the bag, with your skates and all of your essentials, then add an additional 15% and you have the result of carrying a wheeled skate bag through the NYC subway system. And please don't suggest using the elevator. That would be an entirely different post. My neck and shoulder have been reminding me not to sit hunched over my work computer, looking slightly to the left to see the additional monitor, for hours at a time. Also, I believe a massage is in my immediate future. A heel spur has opted to live in my right heel, causing shooting pains whenever it wants to. Putting weight on my right foot is a challenge, with or without skates, shoes or even air. I have been icing it, however, I have just read that heat works better, so shy of putting my foot on my radiator for hours at a time, I am using the hand warmers and ordering more, just in case. My left foot aches from jump landings and life. On a positive note, the sinus headaches I've been waking up with usually disappear after a few hours and I am no worse for wear. It is replaced by postnasal drip, which I will accept over a headache any day. Meanwhile, I have capsaicin for my back, neck, and shoulder; ice for my left foot; heat for my right foot and ibuprofen, all of whom are becoming my best friends.