Sharrrrrrp!

I've been down with some kind of bug since Sunday, but I was feeling much better today. I took my skates in to be sharpened Monday evening and got them back today, so since there was an evening public session tonight I went with my newly sharpened skates.

Jim the sharpener was surprised by how dull my blades had gotten. I had last sharpened my blades 9/4, so it had been less than 3 months but they were "worse than rental skates!" as he said. He's suggesting every 6 weeks. I'm thinking I'll try for two months first and see how that goes. Other than their dullness Jim complimented me on taking good care of my skates -- no signs of rust etc.

The evening session was kind of a surprise since normally they've scheduled hockey for Tuesday nights -- I can only surmise that it's related to the Thanksgiving holiday throwing schedules off. Anyway, I was glad to go and work with my newly sharpened blades so that I wouldn't be experiencing that during my lesson tomorrow. The session was pretty lightly attended, a maximum of 10 people I think.

I remembered what it was like the last time I'd gone through this, which helped. They are SHARRRRP! The first hour was rather tentative but after that I relaxed a bit and spent a good amount of time working on backward skating (since it was not too crowded) and those darn forward crossovers.

The backward skating is improving slightly. I'm mostly working on the left foot, and I think I'm discovering that my weight really does have to be what seems like too far forward. At least that seems to work okay, so I think I'll have to go with it.

The crossovers are still coming along slowly. I really need to be willing to have the crossing leg touching the other leg and I did manage this a few times, so I count that as progress. I'm not even touching the backwards ones yet but I need to.

I'm still concerned about my lack of stamina. Once again, just stroking around the rink consistently for 2 minutes is pretty tiring. I'm not sure what is up with that but I suppose I just need to work on it. I'm not convinced it's not my technique though. In general I still think I should be getting more power from my stroking.

I did spend a little time on my alternating FO edges and they are a little nicer with sharp blades. Yea!

For fun I tried a lunge just before the end of the session, gliding on the left foot and putting the right foot down. It actually went okay until I tried to get up again, and then I fell (which I expected). Still, I'll have to give that some work. I should probably try it just standing still without any movement.

Tomorrow at my lesson I'm hoping to intercept Anna and try to work out a time for a trial lesson. I also want to have a trial lesson with Linda and Melinda. I'm going to go to the Saturday afternoon session so hopefully I can catch them then, otherwise I'll just call I guess.