Misplaced Skills

I hate back pain. Lately, my back pain has been bad, really bad. Back brace all the time bad. Popping pain pills back. Sit with a heating pad on it bad. Trouble bending forward bad. Even with all of that, I skated on Wednesday. I decided to attend because I had to cancel last Wednesday and last Saturday's lessons, due to a migraine and a fashion show. I was excited, even though Wednesday night sessions are stupidly expensive ($42.00 to guest an 80 minute session; or $33.00 if you subscribe), I see other adult skaters and I get a lesson from Amy. The lesson started off well. My stroking and crossovers were good. The first two moves were pretty solid, but the transition from forward to backward was awkward (I prefer a right forward outside 3 turn; remember I'm a lefty and Amy wants a left forward outside 3 turn), but passable. Then we worked on the dreaded forward outside mohawks. My body does not like a right forward outside mohawk. My brain doesn't like them. I know it's very close to a waltz jump for me (right forward outside edge, left back outside edge), but that doesn't seem to help. I had these bad boys about a year ago and then they decided to go visit other skaters. Come back Shane! Come back! (Obscure old movie reference. Look it up.) Also, due to my history in figures, I only seem to be able to do a decent 3 turn on a circle. When I do them in my MIF, they are all over the place. On Wednesday, the left forward outside 3 to right back inside 3 somehow ended up in the middle of the ice. And I had only done two! When I almost bumped into a friend about to step into a spin, we looked at one another and giggled. Amy asked me where I was going. I wish I knew. She suggested practicing the 3s as a figure and then moving on from there. Freestyle was a mess. I squeezed out one good waltz jump. One. The rest of them got away from me. Apologies to the new skater I accidentally hit on the shoulder when my arms got away from me. And to his coach, who I nearly slapped across the face. When you're 5'6", you usually have long arms. Mine are a little longer than others; family trait. We tried spins, but my balance seemed to be totally off and after nose diving into a scratch spin, we figured spirals would be an easier option. They didn't quite work either. But by then, my back totally refused to bend and my lesson was over. Thank goodness! Dear Mother Nature: Please make the rain stop. My body is okay with cold, but it really hates the rain. Thank you. "Tomorrow is another day with no mistakes on it. No mistakes, yet." Anne of Green Gables.

Balance and Core Strength and Practice

Apparently, I am lacking all three. On Friday, my office closed early for Columbus Day. I took that opportunity to go to the local rink in Bethpage to skate the 2:45pm freestyle. It was wonderful!!! No, not my skating. What was wonderful was the number of skaters on the ice. Three. That's right, three skaters. Somehow, we still managed to get in one another's way, but that's not important. What is important is the number three. Since it was only one hour long, I decided to concentrate on my Moves in the Field. I got through two of them. I found myself struggling with crossrolls, my favorite move on the test, going forward anyway. Going backwards, I am usually a little "steppy", rather than allowing the edges to just flow. On Friday I was extremely "steppy" both forward and backward. And slow. I really struggled with this usually easy move. After working on that move for ten minutes, I figured it would be best to work on something else. Knee pumps (that's my name for them because I can never remember what the real name is) is another move I perform fairly well, but on Friday, they too seemed to elude me. I seemed unable to get my feet underneath me going forward and kept rocking backwards. Performing the move backward, I nearly face planted when I rocked up onto my toe picks. Undaunted, I blamed it on my back which was really painful that day. Did it stop me? No. So, Saturday morning, I asked Amy to help me with them. After forcing my body into an upright position (back issues still), we worked on the move, unfortunately with much the same result. Amy's verdict: my balance is off because I have no core strength. This saddens but doesn't surprise me. I have only half-heartedly tried to lose weight and work out. I was juicing, but stopped; it can get quite expensive. I also must thank those wonderful people who schedule meetings or conference calls between 12:00-2:00, ruining everyone's lunch hour. And I haven't made it to the gym or the rink in the morning yet, therefore I am not surprised. I need to get off my ass. That being said, a recent trip to the doctor has revealed that on top of my high blood pressure (controlled with medication), I have elevated levels of sugar, cholesterol and triglycerides. Add in my constant pain from my back, shoulder and knees and it's safe to say that my body is rebelling. It's all fixable. Saturday morning, Coach M said to Amy that I was a good skater. Not just a good adult skater, but a good skater who could be so much better if I practiced more. Coach M (who I don't work with, but know) was amazed that I could maintain what I have based on the fact that I don't practice enough. Frankly, so am I.

Full Circle

Many years ago, when the world and I were young, I used to skate very, very early in the morning. I began skating during the last years of figures and would get up to practice. Back then, I lived in what was called a "two-fare" zone; meaning, you had to take a bus to get to the closest subway. So, I did. I awoke at 3:30am to get ready to go to the rink. I would catch a bus at 4:15am to the subway, then travel on the E train to 34th Street and walk 3 NYC blocks to the rink for a 5:45 patch session. Afterwards, I either went to school or work or sometimes both. I did this three times a week for about four years. Then I had a fight with my then coach (she called me a talentless, hopeless case) and I started skating in Long Island. That brought with it a whole different group of travel problems which included taking the Long Island Railroad, taking a cab from the station and getting mugged. I mention this because I now skate on Saturday mornings at 7:00am. That means, thanks to NYC MTA, in order to arrive at the rink on time, I have to leave home at 5:30. There goes my Friday night social life. Oh wait, I didn't have a social life. I had been skating the 10:00 session, but it was cancelled. Last week, I tried the 9:00 session. I swear there were 40 skaters on the ice and then coaches. It was a zoo and that's an insult to the local zoos! So, this morning, still half asleep and dealing wih early morning coughing jags, there I was, back on the ice at an un-holy hour. I must love this sport to take the subway at 6:00am and have to stand up and then run 4 blocks from to subway to the rink because the crosstown bus wasn't coming. Highlight of the trip? The homeless man who did a strip for no partcular reason. Highlight of the skate? Moves in the Field are moving along nicely. Slowly, but nicely. Now, I have 4 hours to kill before class. Oh well... I initially began this posting while killing time. Now, in the light of day and after several cups of coffee AND a nap, I will continue. I was hoping there would be some place to take a quiet nap. Apparently, I had forgotten about one very important feature in all skating rinks: hockey parents. Wow, are they loud. One man keep trying to pump up his sleepy daughter and his reluctant son to "go out there and kick some butt". The daughter was maybe nine and the reluctant son (who kept saying "I wanna go home!") was maybe six. And I thought skating parents were nuts.

US Open, Hackers and Schedule Changes

Funny how something you don't expect to concern or involve you does just the opposite. A few weeks ago, NYC, Flushing Queens, actually, was the host (as it is every year) to the US Open Tennis Tournament. No big deal for me since I gave up tennis years ago. The tennis stadium is in the same park as World Ice Arena. Still, no big deal for me. Or so I thought... For reasons I still can't comprehend, all of the parking areas in the park were on lock-down. If you didn't have a season pass to the tennis matches, you were not permitted to park in the park. As I drove through the park to the rink, I watched several motorcades fly past (the speed limit on the park drive is 15 miles per hour, so doing 30 seemed like speeding) I wondered what was going on, thinking it couldn't possibly be because of the tennis. WRONG! As I drove to my usual parking spot, a man asked me for my pass. I was reminded of being in high school and being asked for the same thing by the Hall Monitor. I think I got through HS without EVER having a hall pass. When I told him I was going to the rink, he said "Oh no you're not." Huh? He informed me that to park there, I would need a pass and suggested I try further down the park drive. Off I went. I passed a cop who asked where I was going. To the rink, I replied. She shook her head and told me it had been torn down. "That's the old rink. There's a new one." Nope, she was positive. I pointed to her left, to the big silver/gray building NEXT to her. "That's the rink." She told me that it was a swimming pool. "It's BOTH!" It didn't matter; I couldn't park there anyway. When I thought I had found a parking spot, a different cop told me no and suggested that I just go home. I decided to go home, but couldn't leave the park my usual way. I only know ONE way to exit the park. Thirty minutes, two highways I had never been on in my life and didn't know they were that close to the park and one trip on a highway I did know, but headed in the wrong direction later, I was on my way home without skating. For two weeks! Of course this brings me to my issue with AOL and my email getting hacked twice in less than six weeks. Dear AOL: You suck. I am dropping you and your terrible service. I will find someone else, who has (hopefully) a Help Desk in the US so the Representative will STOP calling me MISTER. As it turns out, World Ice Arena has eliminated ALL of their evening sessions, as has their sister rink City Ice Pavilion. Dear Rink Manager: Thank you so much for hating figure skaters. Your schedule sucks. With that, I bid you all good night; unless you're reading this in the morning. If so; good morning.

With Apologies

It has come to my attention recently that I complain about my job a lot. You would too if your job caused you to have two bouts of Bells Palsy. However, in an effort at being positive, I will try to curtail my rants about my job and keep this blog focused on the art of figure skating. Also, I cannot move away from NYC. I am a proud native New Yorker. This is where I was born, raised, educated and almost died at least three times (walked into the middle of a drug bust with guns a-blazing; fell off the subway platform; 9-11). This is where what remains of my family (all 3 of them) live. Yes, I said 3; two sisters and a brother are all that remain of my family. We are extremely close to one another and the thought of moving away from them breaks my heart. On to skating. A funny thing happened at the rink on Saturday, and not the usual "I was spinning and snot started to fly out my nose" funny. Okay, that happened too, but I was practicing sans Amy, the Wonder Coach and "it" happened. Everything worked. Shhh.... Don't say it too loud. I can't figure out why, no matter how early I get to the rink, I get on the ice 3 minutes late. Be that as it may, I stroked around, did crossovers on the ends and launched into my warm-up. My warm-up is: 1. Forward inside edges with crossovers, alternating feet. 2. Backward inside edges with crossovers, alternating feet. 3. Backward outside edges with crossovers, alternating feet. 4. Cross rolls 5. Power pulls 6. Spirals, inside and outside - forward only. (I hate back spirals) 7. Twizzles (or at least my attempt at twizzles - can only go around once - working on that). After that, it's off to the other MIF since I've already done 3 of them (#4, 5 & 6). Three turns and I are now on speaking terms and well that outside mohawk occasionally has a mind of its own, but I'm working on it. When I went on to jumps, I started with the usual: waltz jump. No problems there. Followed by salchows, toe loops, and then loop jumps. THAT was when it happened. I tried a different entrance and it worked the first time. Then the second and third and fourth... I decided to stop at eight, since I had landed six out of eight attempts. Yeah me! Spinning hasn't been a problem lately; it all really depends on how much pain I'm in. Sometimes sit spins are just a memory, other times, I can perform them without a care in the world. Saturday was one of those days. After a series of spins, I decided to try for the back spin. Amy had given me a tip; keep my right arm bent in front of my chest going into the spin. And, it WORKED! My back spin spun like no body's business. Sometimes it's good to be the Queen (twist on Mel Brooks' "History of the World - Part 2" Off to the rink in a few minutes for a practice at a different rink. The nice thing about Saturday mornings is that there are plenty of adults around, so the parents don't give us the "stink eye" that adults sometimes get at other rinks. Not so much at other rinks. I suppose they think we adults are taking away ice from their children. So happy I'm child-less. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to video tape myself using my phone and end up in the right spot. Wish me luck! Say, does anyone know how to add photos to this blog? I've seen others do it. Wonder if it's in the owner's manual that I never read. And what happened to the spell check??

Back In Action

Time flies way too fast. I had started an entry about a month ago, but never finished it. However, this was one of those rare occasions where I actually saved the entry before logging out. Imagine my surprise! So, as of July 4th, I had only skated once since May. The main reason was because my ASL class orginally scheduled for Tuesdays was changed to Wednesdays because Hofstra University neglected to hire an instructor for the advance level class. My previous instructor stepped in to teach the class. I am in her debt because I now have my certificate and never have to return to Hofstra University again. Another reason was because I was hard at work at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC for the first two weeks of July. That was an intense two week program in American Sign Language. I foolishly signed up for 3 classes, which meant I was in school for approximately 11 hours a day. Usually, I dragged my exhausted butt to bed at 12:30, only to get up again at 6:15am. Didn't sleep much, ate too many potatoes, gained 8 pounds. The best part about the entire experience was being part of the Deaf Community for 2 weeks. It was wonderful just signing and turning off my voice. My signing improved ten-fold. I've started to save up to go again next summer. Now that I'm back home, I've returned to skating. A funny thing has happened: I've improved. Even without being on the ice for two months, somehow, I've improved. My staminia could use a kick in the pants, but I've returned to the gym and taking spin classes. I love spin class; you burn a lot of calories and you feel as though you're about to collapse, yet, you don't...usually. Even my practice sessions have improved. I mention that because I always feared I was one of those "great lesson" skaters. You know the type, the ones who can only bring the goods when in lesson, but come competition time, they fall flat. Speaking of competiton, the Adult Figure Skating National Championships will be held in April 2013 in Scottsdale, AZ. Never been to AZ (although I was hoping for Colorado, but I was told the air is very thin there...) so I've been working hard on my Moves In the Field in hopes to take that test by the end of the year. I know, it's already August, so I really have to get moving. With the exception of my job, I am very optimistic about things. I'll be returning to my favorite ASL classes in another month, as well as another school for ASL. I'm back at the gym and back on the ice, trying to skate 4-8 hours a week. I'm also attending Deaf Social Events, alone. I'm not really good in social situations, although family would beg to differ; it's an act, so attending alone is a big deal for me. As for work; it is my own private hell. For reasons I cannot comprehend, I have been sentenced to endure the torture and madness of a job I hate, with a commute I hate, working with people I dislike and for people I wouldn't cross the street to help. And that says a lot, because I am the type of person who WOULD cross the street to help anyone. It doesn't help that I listen to people complain all day long; it's getting to me. You never want to be in the car with me as I drive to work because every other word out of my mouth is a four-letter word. Every other word. Upon my return to Hell, I made a note to myself to stop talking. Mostly it's because no one listens to me anyway, but it's also because my boss and co-worker constantly tell me that I'm wrong. Every day, regardless of the subject. Several years ago, while running for the subway, I slipped off the platform into the gap between the car and the platform. My co-worker, who of course was NOT there when it happened said, "That never happened." REALLY????? That did it for me; I have nothing to say. But, back to skating. My backspin is slowly getting stronger. My Moves are slowly coming together; all I need is some confidence. And more speed. And a new job.

Skating Rinks, Why Do You Hate Adults??

It's summer. It's hot. I want to skate. Can I? Well, the answer is relative, based entirely on whether I'm having a good skate or not, but I digress. My question is more of time. I have time to skate, but what I don't have is location. I was hoping that the rink closest to that hell-hole I call a job would have one or two evening sessions I could make, but no. They consider 4:00 evening; making the session perfect for kids, people who are teachers and those who stay at home. For those of us who work a 9-5 gig, you are "SOOL" (s^&t out of luck). Just trying to curb my swearing to when I'm driving in the car. Okay. There's City Ice Pavilion, a lovely rink, but about 30 miles from my job and the session begins at 5:30. Even if I leave work at 4:30, I still wouldn't make it on time. Thank you for the evening sessions City Ice. Why couldn't you have had the brat hockey skaters at 5:30 instead of 7:00? World Ice Arena happily has 7:00 session. Right now I can do one day; this will change in 3 weeks when my Wednesday class is over. Yeah! My coach can't come to World Ice. Boo! What I really don't understand is the reluctance to have honest to goodness evening ice sessions. City Ice, when it first opened had real evening sessions three days a week. Usually, I skated two of them. They were happy to have us and our money, but now, I suppose our money doesn't generate enough revenue. Too bad; I really like that rink and the people who skate there. That leaves me with good old Chelsea Piers on Saturday mornings before ASL classes on Saturday afternoons. Nothing is more fun than running around Manhattan like a crazy person in the summertime. Ah, New York in the summer. Please insert your favorite heat related song here. Mine is "Summer in the City". Sadly, I don't remember who sings it.