Gordon's Sk8er Boi Blog

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

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Push!

My figures lesson with Danette on the 8:30 a.m. FS at Chandler.  Just 3 skaters, ice was kind of beat up as you'd expect.

I warmed up with edges and FO8, FI8 and scribed some circles.

For today's lesson we focused on improving my push.  As I told Danette, when I watch "good" figures, the initial push is much more aggressive and confident than mine.  When the ice is less than ideal (like today) I sometimes struggle to make it all the way around the circle, much less do the 1.5 circles of a serpentine.

So, we worked on it.  Danette had me do a number of things:

  • Be sure the pushing foot is turned out at 90 degrees, not 60 or whatever I was doing :-)
  • Bend the pushing foot at the ankle to really push the blade into the ice
  • Plie'!  Like, really bend the knees.  When this is right I can feel my ankle pushing against the boot, and some torque in my knee
  • Weight just be almost entirely on the pushing foot, not the soon-to-be-skating foot
  • Push hard!
  • Pick up the back foot, starting at the heel.
  • Stand up straight!

All in all I think we made some progress.  I need time to practice!

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