3-Turns And Sharp Blades At The Zoo

As usual I attended the Saturday public session, arriving around 1 and staying until the end (4:30), so with the Z-break etc. probably 3 hours of solid skating.

Although the ice was not so great, it was a fun session. Most of my little (and not so little) buddies were there. I had a fun time with Rebecca, in particular, as we got into this little diatribe a couple of times:

Gordon: You're mental!
Rebecca: You're mental!
Gordon: Oh yeah? You're mental!
Rebecca: Bring it on!
Gordon: Talk to the hand, girl!
Rebecca: Oh yeah, well, I can do a back spiral! Can you do a back spiral? Didn't think so!

She had me with that, I've not yet tried a back spiral. Maybe tomorrow, but I wasn't about to try one at a public session.

I had some solid improvement in my 3-turns. On Tuesday, Anna had mentioned to me that I should try to think of it as keeping my calves together, not my knees. I finally really tried this and wow! what a difference it makes. Much more control on the exit edge. On one of the LFO3s I was able to do a step-forward, albeit to an RFI not an RFO. Still, very exciting.

As I was taking my skates off and drying the blades as usual, I managed somehow to get my left index finger caught between the towel and the blade. The result was that I basically pressed and drew the blade down my finger. OWW! I got a very nasty cut. And this is when my blades have not been sharpened for 4 weeks already. Sheesh. Very dumb, but instructive I guess. Anyway it bled like a son of a gun for a while. Note to self: throwing some Band-Aids in the skating bag wouldn't be such a bad idea.