I Am Stupid

I had decided to try the Friday night public session, since I really need to skate three times a week and the Saturday session I attended last week was pretty crowded. Well, that was a dumb idea. Regular readers might remember I had my first bad fall at a Friday night public session. So I was fighting the it's-going-to-happen-again fear, since that was a nasty backwards fall. In addition, for some reason I had hope that since I have been skating a lot since then that somehow the lights etc. would not bother me. Well, they still do. Not as bad as back then, to be sure -- but still it was very distracting and I found it hard to do much. I could swizzle okay, but my stroking was lacking in... commitment? confidence? Certainly lacking in power and assertiveness.

It was not a total waste. First off I did manage to skate under the circumstances, which is a good thing. Secondly, there was an experienced skater there (didn't catch her name but she was doing some nice turns, crossovers, spirals, and a good Ina Bauer) so I took the opportunity to ask her about the two-foot turn. It had occurred to me that I wasn't entirely sure which direction I was supposed to wind up looking when I was done -- over my shoulder (it's front-to-back) in the direction I'm still moving, or backwards. She took a moment to run through it and said that I should be facing 'forwards', that is, over my shoulder in the direction I'm moving. I'm glad I asked since that wasn't the way I was practicing it on dry land, and I don't want to learn it wrong. I did try to practice it against the boards briefly, but not fully since I was still hanging on to the boards. I'm hoping Monday night I can be brave enough to try it for real.