Coffee Club Plus

I had the day off from work, so I slept quite late and then went to coffee club, and stayed after and skated 'til 3:30. All in all I was on the ice for about 3 hours, which is a lot for me.

For the coffee club lesson today, Cecilia had us work on two-foot turns for a bit. She says that I'm tending to drop my right shoulder as I turn, which is part of the reason I am sometimes off balance. I need to work on that. Next we worked on forward slaloms, which I had taught myself a week ago or so. She said I'm doing them fine, except (surprise!) I need to bend my knees more. From there we went to look at some backward skating issues. I worked on doing backward 1/2 swizzle pumps some more. Before I'd done them on a circle, but this was in a straight line. I think this exercise really helps me feel where my weight is a bit better, and I think with some more work on them I will finally get my back edges. Finally we were mostly done and she asked if we had any questions, so I asked her about my problems with my push-off. She had us (there were 3 of us) do a pushoff and she confirmed that I am tending to lunge forward. She had us practice bending our knees more from the pushoff "T" position -- basically a plié. It helped a bit.

After coffee club I skated for a bit, then had a lunch break and then skated some more. I worked a lot on backward skating, especially doing the backward 1/2 swizzle pumps in a straight line. I also spent quite a lot of time working on my right foot glide and my pushoff. Finally I decided I really needed to work on my left foot because it tends not to turn in very well. In particular my snowplow stops tend to be mostly my right foot, whether I'm doing them forward or backward. So I spent about ten minutes just practicing snowplow stops forward and backward, using only my left foot. It helped a lot. I'm going to try to remember to use only my left foot for a while to build up my strength and dexterity on that foot.

Today was pretty good, although I was pretty tired by the time I left. I think I probably need to think more about how I use my practice time and what I work on so that I am more effective. At the end of the regular coffee club session I was talking with Nicole (I'd been calling her Nikki but apparently she prefers either Nicole or Coli) and she complimented me on how much progress I have made and how much more confident I am skating. That was really nice to hear, and particularly right now. I sometimes have doubts about this whole thing -- standard issues like "I'm too old, I'm too klutzy and uncoordinated, I'm not athletic or flexible enough". So it helps sometimes to look through another's eyes to remind myself that I have made a lot of progress and there's every reason to think that if I keep working I will continue to improve. I don't know what my limits are but I suspect they are a ways off still.