That Explains Everything

I stopped by the rink today to have some lunch and catch up with my fellow adult skaters. I got to see my skating buddy Nicole, and got a big hug from Anna. It was nice to see folks; I spent some time watching Nicole's lesson since she is testing APB MITF in 3 weeks. It was good to watch the patterns and see how some of them go. It was kind of weird to be there and not be on the ice, and it was somewhat bittersweet.

I took some time to pull out my posts for each lesson I've had; it's at bottom right now from most recent to oldest. In looking them over I have to say that I really have come a long way just since January. Clearly the combination of Anna's talent in coaching and my own stubbornness and perseverance in practice have had a salutary effect.

Two things struck me as spooky. First, the Wednesday before my fall I had told Anna how grateful I am to have her as a coach -- almost as if I was dying or something! Eeep! And secondly, the fact that explains everything -- my lesson the day before the fall was lucky #13. Figures... :-)

New Cast

I went to the orthopedist this morning for a followup. He pulled my splint off and looked at my wrist, said it's healing nicely. So nice, in fact, that he went ahead and gave me a half cast instead of the 3/4 (upper arm) cast I'd had before. Yea! It's a lot nicer, believe me. I got to see my pins, both on the x-ray and when the splint came off. It's very Frankensteiny.

I go back May 11th to get the pins out, then I should have another cast for 3 weeks after that. Tentatively I should be back on the ice the first week in June. I can't wait.

New Management

Yesterday was the grand opening for the new Polar Ice Tucson. There were a lot of people at the rink. In checking out the info available it appears there are some good changes and some less so; others I'm not sure about.

Good:

• Public sessions are $6 instead of $7
  
• Coffee club is 5 days a week and $6 instead of $8
  
• Freestyle sessions are $6/hr, down from $9 (punch card) or $12 drop-in) (!)
  
• They are offering a yearly public session pass for $250 for adults
  
• They are offering early morning freestyle sessions at 6, 7:10 and 8:20 a.m. Mon - Thurs.
  
• Skate school will be only $60 instead of $96 (!)
  

Less Good:

• They will only have evening public sessions Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
  

Not sure:

• They are switching the learn-to-skate curriculum from USFSA to ISI. Granted, this doesn't directly affect me since I'm not in skate school anyway.
  

I'm not sure about the ISI thing. I've only found the basic curriculum online and it seems considerably weaker than the USFSA Basic 8s, but I suspect the other stuff is in the freestyle curriculum, which I'm told goes all the way to triples. I'm not sure how much difference that makes; are people expecting to be learning triples in a group lesson setting? That seems a bit much to me.

The management did say that the TSFC will still be USFSA and there will still be USFSA testing available. That's important.

I've been told that they will begin doing extensive renovations on the ice surfaces; I'm rather hoping that at least some of that will happen while I'm on my "vacation" but that is probably asking too much. Anyway since there are plenty of cracks and bad spots, it's a good thing.

I noticed that the ice surface looked different after Zamboni-ing and I asked one of the staff about it; he said that he'd been told to use a cold-water flush for public sessions and reserve the usual warm-water flush for freestyle sessions. The explanation given is that the warm-water flush we're used to, which gives a nice, smooth, glassy finish, is "too slippery" for beginners. Well, it's certainly true that it's less smooth anyway.

There's a lot to think about in the New Regime. For the most part the changes seem quite positive. It will be interesting to see which will win, my laziness or my desire to skate, when it comes time to consider those weekday morning freestyle sessions. I suspect the 8:20 one won't be too crowded during the school year.

Polar Ice

As I blogged previously, Polar Ice has taken over our rink. Here's the blurb from their webpage:

Polar Ice Expands to Tucson

Polar Ice Entertainment, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, has added Gateway Ice Center in Tucson to its growing list of entertainment facilities across the United States.

Gateway Ice Center, a 76,000-square-foot family entertainment facility that features twin National Hockey League sized ice rinks, opened in 1995 at 7333 Rosewood Street in Tucson. The ownership of the facility is scheduled to change hands on April 15, 2004, at which point the facility will become “Polar Ice Tucson” through a long-term lease agreement between the new owners and Polar Ice Entertainment, Inc.

The addition of Gateway Ice Center to the Polar Ice Entertainment is the third such facility in Arizona. Polar Ice Entertainment owns and operates the Desert Schools Coyotes Centers in Chandler and Peoria.

In addition, Polar Ice Entertainment owns and or operates four additional entertainment venues across the United States, including facilities in New York, Illinois and Texas.

Polar Ice Entertainment, Inc. is the only privately owned corporation that has working partnerships with two National Hockey League teams; the Phoenix Coyotes in Phoenix, Arizona and the Dallas Stars in Texas. The Polar Ice Entertainment, Inc. owned facilities in Phoenix are branded Desert Schools Coyotes Centers while in Dallas the owned facility is branded Dr. Pepper Star Center.

The Polar Ice Tucson website is scheduled to come online shortly after the opening.

Hardware

I had my surgery today. It went very well, no problems to report. My arm hurts... I can feel the pins in my arm, but I can't see them as they are covered by the splint on my arm. I am supposed to get it changed out to a regular hard cast on Monday, and I assume I'll see them then.

Not much else to report, except that people have been really kind and supportive. Anna called and asked how I'm doing and was very kind and supportive. It really cheered me to hear from her.

Update

I am scheduled to have surgery this Thursday 4/22 at 11:30 a.m. MST. Dr. Jabczenski will insert some pins in my right wrist to hold the bone in place while it heals to ensure that it comes together correctly. It's an outpatient surgery but it does require general anesthesia.

After that the estimate is 3 weeks with a large (full-arm) cast, and then 3 more weeks with just a smaller cast. It's not clear whether I'll need to be off the ice for that whole time or not but at this point I'm assuming so. When the pins are removed I should be okay to go back. There should only be a couple of small scars.

Thanks to all who've written w/support, it's greatly appreciated.

OUCH!

I attended the public session today. It was crowded. I worked my turns a lot, plus crossovers and spins. I worked my RB glides and discovered that overnight they had greatly improved. I was so pleased!

Alas, at 3:55 p.m., 5 minutes before the end of the session, I was doing back crossovers around the end of the rink when I collided with a kid with an EZ-Skater. I don't know how since I was looking where I was going; all I know was that I heard one of my little buddies (Tate, I think) yell "Gordon, look out" and saw an EZ-Skater coming at me from the side. I never actually saw the kid, before or after. Anyway, I fell over the kid and the EZ-Skater and landed on my right wrist, heard it go "Crunch", and had incredible pain.

I went to the emergency room. My wrist is broken; I will need to wear a cast for 6 weeks and it may require surgery. I have a lot of emotions going on, especially bitterness toward this kid's parents. I hope the kid is okay. Anyway, I'd write more but typing with one hand is very tiring. I probably won't blog for a while.

LFI3!

I had my usual Friday lesson today at coffee club. The new management has lowered the CC price to $6, at least for now.

I had a good warmup and then started my lesson. Anna asked me what she needed to see, and I told her I assumed we'd work on moves. So I suggested we start on the LFI3. I tried a few and they were kind of where I left them last -- a bit scrapey and scratchy and tentative. Still, Anna thought they were not bad and actually better than my RFI3. We worked them a bit and found a key point is that when I would start my entrance edge and then balk, I was leaning back. She suggested more pressure (I think of it more as "tension") from the leading hand. We also tried some RFI3s and this advice helped them too.

Next we looked at Mohawks. These are okay; the main problem areas are dropping the free hip (a persistent problem) and looking down (also a persistent problem).

Having spent almost half the lesson on turns, we next looked at back crossovers. Anna thinks they are looking better; she said I should try to get more bend at the ankles, and she suggested thinking of it as putting the back of my calf over my ankle. I assume that will help avoid scraping my toepicks, which I am getting a little of. We looked at both the CW (pretty good) and CCW (not too bad). Anna was surprised that my CCW crossovers are as good as they are. That was nice.

Next Anna wanted to look at more backward stuff, so we looked at alternating back edges/landing position; just pushing onto a back edge with the free leg extended behind in the landing position. These weren't too bad, but Anna suggested pressing the free shoulder forward just a little, and of course to watch out not to drop the free hip.

We were pretty much out of time at that point, but we nevertheless spent another 5 or 8 minutes looking at spirals and lunges. The spirals are not too bad but Anna reminded me to keep the head up! Yes, I was looking at the ice again. Other than that she was pleased. We did them on a flat and then also on an outside edge. In working on them I briefly fell onto an inside edge. Anna said the inside spiral is harder because you have to work harder to keep the free hip up. She also suggested that I try to turn my free hip out a little more in general.

On the lunge, my left foot lunge looks nice. Anna says the problem I'm having with the right foot lunge is because I'm dropping the free side (I heard a lot of that today). I'll have to work on that.

All in all I thought it was a terrific lesson and I thought we accomplished a lot. I'm really happy to think that I am more-or-less in the position to have all 4 of my forward 3-turns in place. Yea!

For next week, Anna said we will look once more at the forward perimeter crossovers. As we were leaving one of the rink employees was handing out free t-shirts to everyone -- very cool. They say "Polar Ice Tucson -- April 15th, 2004". Neat!

Changes

I stopped by the rink on my lunch hour, and found it a construction zone. The new management was present with a bunch of workmen busily remaking the lobby. The picture I mentioned earlier was gone :-) and they were busily preparing to paint the lobby. It was a picture of a work in progress.

I went back at 7:30 to see if I could skate, and while it was still a mess, the ice was open and they said I could skate for free -- they didn't have anyone available to take money anyway. I thought that was a nice gesture. They were just finishing a Zamboni break when I walked in. It was a very lightly attended session, perhaps 8 people tops and I was alone for the last 45 minutes or so!

I worked pretty hard on a lot of stuff, but I concentrated mostly on moves, especially crossovers and turns; and also spins. I worked my forward crossovers, but probably not as much as I should have. I find myself lacking in enthusiasm for them... but I need to work through that. I worked most of my turns but no real breakthroughs.

I worked for 15 or 20 minutes on spins and had some pretty good ones. In particular I had another nice one-footed spin for about 1.5 revolutions I think. It was exhilarating! If you really think about it, the idea of spinning at any speed at all on one foot, one blade about .1 inches thick, it's pretty amazing really. I caught myself dropping my right shoulder as Anna had said; so I tried to correct that by thinking not just of lifting my right foot, but my entire right side. That seemed to help a bit.

I also worked a bit on my RB glide, and it seems slightly improved.

All in all it was a good session, especially considering I was a little tired from skating the night before. I have my lesson tomorrow too.

Jumps

I arrived at the rink at about 7:10 or so to warm up for my 7:30 make-up lesson. After a good warmup, I skated up to Anna at 7:28 to start my lesson, and we had just started working when at 7:30 they decided to have a Zamboni break. Amazing, because usually on Wednesdays they either don't bother at all or they wait a bit. So we took a break.

After that interruption (at least we had nice fresh ice!) we went back to where we were, which was power pulls. While I'm able to get closer to this I still can't do it. Anna did confirm my impression that a power pull is basically a slalom on one foot. She suggested that I try doing a regular slalom and then picking up one foot. I can do that with the inside edge, but switching to the outside edge -- it's not happening yet.

Next we went to look at my spin. It's definitely improved from the last time she saw it, and we worked on a few of the two-footed variety before we went on to work on picking up the right foot. That went with varying success; some were quite good and others less so. I'm having a problem (particularly when picking the foot up) of dropping the right shoulder and/or letting my head drift to the right. She also emphasized (again) that I need to stand up straight (core strength) and keep my shoulders back/down. Also it seems to work better not to pick up the foot too quickly; when I pick it up too quickly I tend to throw off my balance, whereas slower seems to be not so disturbing. Anyway I made some good progress and I was happy with it. Anna says I'm being more aggressive, which she is pleased with.

Anna had asked me at the start of the lesson something along the lines of whether I was willing to try some new stuff. I answered in my usual idiotically brave fashion (:-)) that I was willing to try anything she wanted. Ha! She smiled.

So... we went on to re-visit the bunny hop. We did a number of them. I tend to be a little skittish of them, in part because I can quickly get moving pretty darn fast (thank you, Mr. Newton :-)). Anna emphasized a smooth motion of kicking the right foot forward and springing from the left toe-pick. I have a tendency to make it not so much a spring as a push, even turning my left foot out a bit. Bad, bad, bad.

From there we started walking through the waltz jump. I'd seen these once a long time ago but not in any depth. I've never done one (still). She basically showed me the jump, the entry and the exit. She also gave me a number of exercises to work to help prepare myself. One is to do the entry up to the spring from the left toepick straight into the boards (which is not as alarming as it sounds). The other is to start at the boards and do the exit onto the RBO by jumping onto the right toe-pick and then coming down on it (toe-->ball-->heel) and onto the RBO exit edge. Of course the problem in part is that my RBO is my weakest edge (which I supposed it probably is for everybody at this stage of development).

And with that we were out of time. We have another lesson (our usual one) on Friday, and Anna said we'd work some more usual stuff then -- which I take to mean turns, crossovers, etc. As she was leaving, for some reason I felt a welling-up of gratitude for what we've accomplished even in this brief time we've worked together, so I walked over and just told her that I think she's a terrific coach and I'm really, really thankful to have her. That seemed to take her aback (in a good way) and she smiled a big grin and gave me a hug. I'm glad I took the time to say that. Readers of this blog are probably aware that I think the world of my coach but it's good for her to know it once in a while...

After my lesson it was pretty late with the delay and all, almost 8:30. I skated the remaining hour mostly working on old stuff, althought I did do a few bunny hops. I worked a fair amount on back crossovers; they are really starting to get more convincing. I also worked on spins a bit and then turns. The RFI3 is improving still, I just need to work it more. I tried a few spirals too; of course I can't really see how they look but my balance was good, I just get in the position and just STREEEETCH that leg. I think I did a couple on the left foot and one on the right just for grins.

I feel really positive and happy, it was a good lesson and a good skate and I felt really good about it. As I was leaving I saw that the staff were cleaning up and throwing stuff out in preparation for the changeover tomorrow. No one seems to know what to expect so they are all nervous and concerned. It's too bad, they are good folks and shouldn't have to worry like that.

Rink Changing Hands

There has been a lot of talk about the sale of our rink and its future. The employees have basically said they have no idea what to expect when the new owners take over, which is tomorrow (April 15th). I finally found some info about it in the local tabloid, the Tucson Weekly:


BIG CHILL

Political socialite Rodney Glassman is streamlining his Tucson operations with the sale (by his super-rich Fresno farming family) of the Gateway Ice Center to David Williamson, of the super-rich Alberta oil and land family.
The key question is whether Williamson will replace the huge Glassman portrait that hangs above the rink entrance like some make-believe Commissioner of Hockey.

Williamson is scheduled to take over in mid-April. Glassman used his ice palace to curry favor with pols, dishing out tickets to their favorite groups. Williamson is no stranger to the same pols, having sucked up to each and every one while threatening to blade and grade the Canoa Ranch, south of Green Valley. He intimidated Pima County enough to get Raúl Grijalva, who asserts an ancestral claim to the land because he dad once worked there, to spend $6 million to buy up a big portion of the ranch. Williamson and Fairfield Homes were left with a big chunk to develop. And he and his dad have continued to feed Grijalva's congressional campaign bank.

We have picked on Glassman a few times, and even bestowed a special Get out of Town honor on him late last year. But we must salute the boy. First, we noticed that the Weekly was still available at Gateway Ice Center at a recent visit to the rink. And second, he has remained polite.

Still, few employees or skaters will shed tears when Rodney skates off the ice.

They are right about the picture... I hope that the new owners have some idea how to run a rink and will make more ice time available.

Almost A Year

I realized the other day that in about 3 weeks I'll be celebrating my 1-year anniversary on the ice. Since it's a Friday (May 7th), I'll have a lesson that day. I'm wondering how I should celebrate.... suggestions, anyone?

Perseverance

I got out of rehearsal early, so I headed to catch the last part of the public session. It was a great session! Not at all crowded, about 6-8 people tops the whole time, and the ice had been resurfaced and was pretty nice.

I had a pretty good workout. I spent a goodly amount of time in my spin, and got it to be more consistent. I didn't make much progress on lifting the right foot though. I also spent a lot of time on the RFI3 and improved it somewhat; I'm still coming out of it almost on a flat, but I did manage to get a little bit of edge on it the last few I did. I tried a few LFI3s but I think I have some weird thing going on with my free foot where it gets in my way. I'll have to work it with Anna and see what she can figure out.

No great breakthroughs tonight, but some good solid work on crossovers (front and back), also the LBO Mohawk and FI Mohawks. I really like that LBO Mohawk, it weirds me out but I think I'm so excited at having a back-to-front turn that I want to practice it a lot. I also spent a fair amount of time on my RB glide and edges and I'm making some progress there too. I've been feeling very frustrated about that whole thing, but if there's one thing I should have figured out it's that perseverance is important. My LB glide took a long time to show up and it's still not on a par with the LF or RF glides but it's fairly solid, so I should take from that the knowledge that if I keep working it the RB ones will also come. The emphasis is that I have to keep working on it. Fortunately I'm pretty stubborn.

Speaking of perseverance, I did try some spirals tonight. They are not the hardest move as far as balance or those sorts of things that usually cause me trouble, but they are the most physically demanding move I have so far. I'll be glad when I can get back to yoga in a couple of weeks, I really need it. I also worked on my lunge. My left foot lunge is terrific, so I worked on the right foot one a little. Eeep! I keep catching the edge on the free foot when I put it down. Bad, bad, bad.

There's so much to work on and so little practice time! It's very frustrating. I have two lessons this week (Wednesday, a make-up for last Friday; and the usual Friday slot) and I was hoping to have more progress to show for the interval. Oh well, there is at least some progress anyway. I will skate Wednesday night, Friday at coffee club, Saturday afternoon (the "zoo") and the Sunday morning freestyle session, so there's a lot of skating in my future.

Adult Pre-Bronze MITF

I was reading some postings on USFSA testing, and one included the description of the Adult Pre-Bronze Moves In The Field test:

Forward Perimeter Stroking - one full lap of arena (4 to 8 straight strokes with crossovers at ends)

Basic Consecutive Edges - execute four to six half circles on alternating feet across width or arena. All FI's one way, then all FO's, and then BI, and BO.

Forward and Backward Crossovers - Crossovers twice around in a figure eight pattern (ex. two hockey circles). One pattern all forward, one pattern all backwards.

Alternating Forward 3-turns - execute alternating forward 3 turns for width of arena. Two patterns - alternate FI threes across one width, alternate FO threes across one width.

I have read these several times in the link on the right, but while I was pretty sure that was the description I'd never actually seen it written out. Anyway, that's probably the first goal I'm working toward. It's a ways off still. I can't do the backward edges at all yet, and while I can sort of do the 3s I certainly am a long way from doing them as well as I'd need to pass the test. The stroking and crossovers I could probably manage but not with the polish they should have. It's good to look ahead some times.

Saturday Zoo

I got to the Saturday public session a bit late due to losing my car keys (still haven't found 'em :-(). It was what I would describe as moderately crowded, not that bad for a Saturday. I worked three areas mostly: spins, back crossovers, and turns.

I spent a good amount of time (probably 20 minutes or more) on spins. I had a couple of really good ones, including one that was nicely centered and probably 5 (count 'em, 5) revolutions! For me that's pretty amazing. I think the thing that made the difference is a bit hard to describe, but it's a certain sort of snap when the left foot comes off the pivot that is just synchronized with bringing the arms in. I was pretty happy with it.

I mostly worked my CCW back crossovers, a.k.a. the weak side. They are getting better but still have a long way to go. The key for now seems to mind Anna's advice not to rush them but just be deliberate. That back foot still is a bit reluctant to do its thing. I did a few forward crossovers, they are slightly improved.

I worked pretty much all my turns. I especially spent some time on the LBO back Mohawk. That still feels a bit scary, but it's more of a "rush" scary almost than an absolute terror scary, if that makes sense. My other turns are about where they were Wednesday -- the LFI3 (I managed two attempts) still scratchy and approximate, the RFI3 still not quite rotated. My LFO3 is turning out quite nicely these days, I usually manage to hold the edge for a while and it's generally pretty good. RFO3 is somewhat inconsistent.

All in all it was not bad for a public session. My new observation for today is that I don't stroke forward enough. A few months ago when that was pretty much all I could do, I did a lot of it. I don't do very much of it and I'm thinking that's not a good thing; I think my forward stroking is a little tentative these days. I'd much rather go backward it seems..

LFI3 Progress!

I managed to escape to coffee club today. I worked a fair amount on spins, with some improvement. I also worked on front and back crossovers, and a little bit on spirals. The issue with spirals doesn't seem to be balance at all -- I'm able to really focus on putting my weight on my heel so I don't feel like I'm going to face-plant on this. The main issue is just trying to get stretch and get my torso down low. I'll keep working on it but since I've had schedule conflicts that have prevented me from going to yoga, it's going to take a lot of work.

I spent most of my time working on 3-turns and Mohawks. Just before the end of the session (why does that happen so often) I was working on LFI3s and I finally managed to get myself to attempt them. I think I did about 4. They were very scratchy and I immediately put my foot down, and on one of them I fell, but still, I count it as great progress since I've not previously been able to get myself to even really try this. I'm very excited about this! The real question will be whether I can get myself to try this again the next time I skate. I sure hope so.

Is There A Zamboni In The House?

I got out of choir practice early, so went for the last 75 minutes of the evening public session tonight. However, the ice was extremely horrid; clearly it had not been Zamboni'd since, probably, 3 p.m. Just horrible. I asked at the desk about it but of course nothing was done.

For some reason crappy ice makes one unenthusiastic about practicing, and somewhat selective about what one wants to attempt. I did work a fair amount on my spin, and some time on back crossovers. All in all it was not a very productive skate.

I spent some time talking with a newbie skater, an adult male named John. Apparently he's been teaching himself to skate, and he's been at it for a few months. I showed him how to do a snowplow stop and talked to him for probably 10 minutes or more about skating. I encouraged him to sign up for skate school. He seems fairly brave and willing to try. It was interesting to see myself through his eyes -- I guess it's easy for me to forget how far I've come and how few adults do this kind of thing. I hope he perseveres, it would be nice to have another male around for company!

I'm A Wimp

I had intended to go to the freestyle session this morning to skate with classmate Nicole. I got to bed *very* late though (2 a.m.) and couldn't sleep for several hours, so I wimped out and called Nicole at 8 a.m. and told her I wasn't coming. Then I went back to bed and slept 'til 2 p.m. Bleah.

Spirals and Lunges

I had a very, very bad day at work, so by the time I got to the rink for my lesson and got my skates on it was only 20 minutes before my lesson and I wasn't in a great frame of mind. Nevertheless I got warmed up and ready to go. When Anna asked me how I was I told her I was having a really bad day, so she suggested we work on whatever I wanted to. We started off with spins, and we worked on them for about 10 minutes. No great breakthroughs, just a lot of corrections in posture. She also mentioned that I'm dropping my left foot out of the pivot too quickly; she also suggested I think of bringing my pivot foot in rather than bringing my feet together. These together resulted in some progress. Also she's concerned that I'm hunching my shoulders a bit (a persistent problem).

From there I asked if we could look at the back Mohawk (step forward). We worked on these for a few minutes. The biggest problem seems to be to make the movement of rotation/looking over my shoulder more smooth and flowing; also to have my weight more on my heel and to make it more of a push than just a step. Overall she seemed relatively pleased with it at this point, though clearly I need to get more comfortable.

Next she asked if we'd ever looked at lunges and spirals, and I said we had not but that I'd done them in group. We went into looking at the left foot lunge (that is, left foot = skating foot) and she made some corrections on that, mostly to get the lunging foot straight back and not to drop the free shoulder/hip. Next we tried some on the right foot; these were not as good. I tend to let the free hip creep forward and then it drags the leg with it. More work!

Finally we did some stretching and then tried some spirals. We tried both the left and the right foot. Anna seemed quite pleased and said she didn't really have much to say other than to keep working to get the leg higher, which will undoubtedly take a lot of practice, stretching and exercise. She suggested that I keep working on strength in the legs and stretching to be more flexible, but she thinks I can have a decent spiral.

All in all this lesson was just what I needed; I got to work on some new stuff and felt like I accomplished something and I wasn't frustrated. I won't have a lesson next week due to Holy Week but I'll pick up again with two lessons the following week so I'll be ready to go back and keep working on my moves.