Foreign Ice

As I hoped, I had some time this afternoon up in Phoenix, so I went skating at Polar Ice in Chandler. I skated for about 2 hrs. 45 minutes. It was a reasonably good skate. I don't like the ice there much though, at least not on the rink they use for public sessions there. It seems thinner and colder than my home ice, and I could have sworn when I was out on it at first (after the Zamboni) that I heard it actually cracking underneath my skates. Maybe it's a figment of my imagination.

I worked on the usual stuff. The session started out uncrowded so I did some backward skating, but then it filled up. I worked on crossovers, my lunge, 2-foot spin, general stuff. I spent a fair amount of time on my LFO3. One of the instructors had drawn a small half circle with the top marked, so, remember what Linda had suggested about trying a deeper edge, I tried it on that. It helped a bit! I'll have to try working on them on the hockey goal circle at Gateway tomorrow. It wasn't until I was driving home that I remembered what Anna was saying, that I'm pushing it too much. In my dream I know how it should feel, but in real life I can't get my hips to do that quick flip-reverse thing. Hmm. I'll have to think about that tomorrow.

There was a young boy there taking a lesson at the beginning of the session. He was Asian, about 10 or 11. He was very good. In particular I saw him do some of the most amazing spirals I've ever seen a male do -- really nice extension and height on the free leg, good arch in the back and head up. Really nice!

I was a little amused to look around during the thick of the session to realize that there were maybe 30 kids on the ice, and maybe 6 adults -- and I was the only one adult who was neither a parent nor an instructor. Hmmph.