Sunday at the Zoo

I went to the public session today; as usual it was a zoo. Still, I spent the full 3 hours there (minus a Z-break) and it was a very productive session. I worked on pretty much the full list of stuff, with the exception of forward crossovers. For some reason I just had a mental block where I couldn't convince myself to work on that. I decided that I'd let it go this time and work on other stuff. I was rewarded with getting my RF edges really, really solid. I realized that I had been (as usual) trying too hard, and had been putting too much weight on my right three toes, trying to force my weight to the right place. The result (as Glenn had warned a while back, but I didn't make the right connection) was that I tended to turn the front of the blade, thus always getting an inside edge. When I let go of it and just felt my weight solidly on the ball of the foot, boom! it was there. I even was able to do some nice outside RFO edges on a circle. I also briefly looked at the Mohawk against the boards, but wasn't brave enough to try one. Finally, I spent some time working on my backward left-foot glide against the boards, and had a little progress. Being able to grab the boards if I think I need 'em might be enough to get me to do what I need to do. I'll have to experiment with that soon.

While I was hanging out at center ice working on my pushoff, one of the younger figure skaters came over and started chatting with me. We introduced ourselves, and Lisa (that's her name) observed that it was hard to get much done when it's so crowded, etc. Considering that she is a much better skater than I (I'd guess she's at Freestyle 5/6, or maybe better), I felt really pleased that she accepts me as "one of the gang." It's a good feeling.

My classmate Luz was at the session and asked me some questions about stuff from class. While we were chatting she mentioned she hadn't fallen yet, which is pretty surprising. Anyway, just before the end of the session she started to skate toward the exit, tripped, and fell. It wasn't a bad fall, and she got up right away. It was pretty funny, because she was calling to her daughter (who also skates) "I fell! I fell!" like it was the greatest thing in the world. Skating does strange things to your perspective :-).