Gordon's Sk8er Boi Blog

My adventures as an adult male figure skater in Tucson, Arizona Portland, Oregon Chandler, Arizona.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

FO8/FI8

I had my first figures lesson in 7 months today on the Chandler Ice CafĂ©.  I had about 30 minutes to warmup and scribe circles. I mostly worked on forward edges.

Today's lesson:

  • FI8 -- about half the lesson on these.  RFI is a bit not so great, LFI was better.  Relearning to sit back on the blade, and not to rock forward when I push.  
  • FO8 -- similar to FI, but not nearly as good.  Mostly same issues though, plus struggling to keep the free shoulder back on the RFO.  Ugh.  Not quite making it around the circle at this point.
All in all, about what I expected. I've lost a lot of ground and there's a lot of relearning to do.


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Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Perseverance Part 2

I skated the 5:30 FS at Chandler today.  I had bought this session for most of the month so even though I skated earlier I still went.  I was a bit tired, but I had a good skate.  I worked most of the same stuff but also managed a two-foot spin and a couple of LFO3s.  So that was worthwhile.

Perseverance

I skated the Gilbert adult skate today for an hour.  I was supposed to have a lesson (date changed due to schedule issues) but we had a miscommunication.

I worked on mostly the same stuff.  Forward stroking, edges, some crossovers.  It's getting better but I tire easily and I'm not confident.  Yuck.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

New Coach, New Me

Today I had my first lesson since June 14th!

It's time to announce that I've made a coaching change: my new freestyle coach is Holly Harrington. After 7 years with JJ it's hard to make a change but it was necessary for several reasons... not at all a reflection on him or me as I am extremely grateful for all we accomplished together. No hard feelings between us (quite the opposite, actually).  We are and will remain friends.

We just had a 20 minute lesson today, next week we'll bump it up to 30.

Today's lesson:

  • swizzles -- a lap of swizzles.  Tiring, but not bad.  Clearly my stamina ain't what it used to be, though.
  • half-swizzles -- another lap of half swizzles, trying to bend into my knees more.
  • stroking -- not too bad. 
  • slaloms -- ugh.  These got a lot better though.
  • two-foot spin/pivots -- these were a bit scary at first, and I had my first fall since 6/14.  I'm fine, lol.  Glad to get it over with though!  Some pivots and then a two-foot spin that was... just okay.  I'll take it though.
  • FXOs -- I was pretty scared about these but we went after them and I was able to do some decent ones, actually.  I was glad to get over that hump of fear though.
  • BXOs -- not bad.  A little scratchy at times but actually not really much worse than before.
  • one-foot glides -- just kind of a check, gliding for about half a rink length or so on each foot.  It was okay.
  • short edges -- down the line alternating FI edges.  Okay.
All in all I was pretty pleased with how this went and Holly was too.  Good stuff.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Perseverance

I skated the 5:30 p.m. FS at Chandler.  Ice a little torn up, but only 12 skaters and like 5 coaches, and I know most of them, so a nice session.

I continued working on getting back into the groove.  I worked a lot on forward stroking, including overcoming my reluctance to skate on my right foot (what's up with that?).  Also some time on edges and some backward stroking and even some backward crossovers. Hmm.  All in all it's slowly getting better, which is all I ask for.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Eeep

I skated the 5:30 p.m. FS at Chandler this evening.  Yikes.  Since it had been almost a month since I last skated (life has been crazy, it's a long story) I didn't expect much.  Pretty much the same as the last time I was on the ice... trying to get used to my boots, just stroking and doing swizzles.  All in all it was pretty yucky, but it did get better.  Ugh.  I did see a lot of folks so that part was nice.