Summer Skating

To those of you who have normal freestyle sessions, congradulations. You post on Instagram and Facebook (and I suppose TikTok but I don't view TikTok) and I salivate while watching sessions with normal amounts of skaters on the ice. Lately, my sessions look like this:

And that's on a good day. Ice rinks still aren't open for public sessions, so some of those people have found a way around that. Purchase your own skates and skate at the Coffee Club. Being able to skate is not a prerequisite, apparently, judging from the Coffee Club session I skated. Money, your own skates and a pulse were the prerequisites. Oy vey, what a mess! It's back to mornings and only mornings. Too bad, I rather liked sleeping in two days a week. However, it is better to wake up early, actually skate and go to work, than to throw money out the window, get frustrated and spend as much time traveling 13 miles as I did skating on the ice. Once again, thank you MTA. It's such a joy to wait 28 minutes for a train down on the platform in July. On a positive note, my three turns are improving. I wasn't able to skate my moves without interruption, but the pieces are slowly coming together. Also, I found a skating club that does virtual tests that I will probably try. Not now, because I'm no where near ready, but if they keep doing virtual, I'm thinking October/November. Speaking briefly about TikTok because I just looked at it. When you put "Adult Figure Skating" into the search, the results consist of figure skating, but not adults. And everything and everyone is Russian. That's odd. I must be doing something wrong, but I'm not that interested in TikTok, so it's okay. That, of course leads me to my issue with kids on an adult skating site. Come on people. Post little Suzie and little Fred doing quad jumps somewhere else. I have off-ice to do tonight at 9:00 before bed. Apologies to my downstairs neighbors.

Yesterday's Gone

Several years ago, a man in my sign language class told me that you couldn't exercise away a bad diet. He was a personal trainer, in incredible shape and a former actor. I'm not sure what he's doing now. He left the city to go away to college as a 25 year old, and while I attempted to stay in touch with him (it was the suggestion of another person in my class, who was in touch with him), he never responded to my emails. He responded to hers and now that I think about it, it's kind of creepy because she was still in high school and he was over 25. However, he didn't play for her (or my) team and I probably just shrugged it off at the time. It was his loss because I am an interesting person. Where was I? Oh yes, bad diets and exercise... I mention Evan (I think that was his name. Maybe it wasn't... it's been a while...) because I have recently discovered that time and fat wait for no man or woman. I have engaged in some form of exercise, whether it is weight training or cardio, every day for the last 70 days. What have I discovered? If I don't change my diet or at least my portion sizes, absolutely nothing will change. My clothes fit the same. I may feel stronger, but I look the same. I fight with three pounds every week. Three pounds up, three pounds down. Does it make any difference? Absolutely none. There was a time when exercising would help my weight loss without changing my portions. "But that was yesterday,and yesterday's gone." (1) With 70 consecutive days of working out, I guess you could say it's become ahabit. First thing in the morning on non-AM skate days, I work out. If I have a migraine, I do yoga. Anything as long as I keep moving. I especially enjoy days when I skate in the evening because I workout in the morning, work and then skate. It's the best of both worlds. Except between the heat causing the sessions to be canceled (the rink is on the roof of a warehouse) and the sessions being sold-out, the combination of workout and skate hasn't happened as often as I would like. Tomorrow is another day with no mistakes on it, yet. When all else fails, brush yourself off and say, "I'll try again tomorrow." 1. "But Yesterday's Gone" written by David Stuart and Wendy Kidd.