Best Skating Days Ever

[Casey]

Sometimes you come home from the rink mad because you did absolutely horrible, or had to deal with b/s at the rink.

Other times, you come home feeling like maybe you're just maintaining your skating level without making any improvement.

Yet other times, you come home feeling like you progressed and are learning.

On other, more rare times, you feel like you really made some significant progress on your skating, and you're quite happy about it.

Every now and again, once in a blue moon, you have the quintessential day that feels better than any previous day in your skating career EVER. Maybe it's when you land a new jump, or push yourself into skating faster than ever, or finally managed that elusive spin or move. Maybe, you can't even pinpoint it to a single thing. On such days, posting about it in the weekly progress threads seems too little. You want to shout it from the rooftops.

Well, I had such a day today, and I thought I would create a thread specifically for posting such tales, to try to contain as much happiness as possible in one place. ;) So, whenever you have one of those fantastic days, regardless of why, post about it here!

(mine is forthcoming)

[Casey]

Today started off working on freestyle stuff at the daytime session at my usual rink, along with pairs stuff with sk8pdx who happened to be in town, and a bunch of friends, including some that were new to me (at least, that I had not met though I have seen skating). I was worried that I'd be kind of tired after skating 6 hours yesterday, but after fueling myself with a big breakfast, I was quite energized. I was pretty happy with my skating in general from the beginning, but then I landed a couple big loops that felt *really* good. I didn't get them on tape, but I did get a later, more tired couple on tape and I was pretty happy with the way one of them looked.

I can really feel better control from dance practice in all of my skating...well when I actually think about it anyways. I'm very happy with how ice dance is coming along with my new dance partner. It's hard to believe we've only skated together twice because of how much I've learned in that time. It's especially effective if I practice a bunch of dance stuff right before freestyle, but I'll get to that later in the story.

A couple of our friends who are a local pairs team showed us how to to a thing (dunno what it's called) where the man does a pivot as in a death spiral, but the woman instead simply does a back spiral. I managed to get the hang of it fairly quickly with our friend, and then practiced with sk8pdx. Every attempt was a bit better than the last, and I was really happy with how that felt. I would have liked to work on more pairs stuff, but we didn't focus on it too much, and that's probably the best thing for my still-healing finger anyways. I had to sit down and watch the off-ice practice because of said injrury...but well...there's always next time.

I copied another of our friends who went directly into a back sit from a forward inside edge entry just like I practice regular backspins with. Though I can't do a very good backspin, I was actually able to do a better back sit than I can manage either a forward sit or regular backspin, so that was pretty exciting. It wasn't consistent but on the good attempts I'd get about 5 revolutions.

Sometimes it's amazing how you realize something only when you see it. All of this time for various moves I've been trying to think of holding my shoulders back more to get a more square torso. But when I saw another trying the same thing upon suggestion, I realized that you don't want to pull the shoulders back, but rather to think of pulling the center of your chest back, because your shoulders should remain in a fairly natural position while your torso being more upright will carry them into the correct spot. I started concentrating more on that thought later on, and it really helped in a lot of ways. The same seems to go for improving jumps and spins - instead of pulling the right shoulder back unnaturally, the chest should turn and carry the shoulders into the correct position. So simple, but simply thinking about it that way made so many little improvements...

Most of that learning actually happened after a quick break from the rink to eat lunch, and return for the night time session. I met my oldest skating friend to practice with, and another friend with an ankle injury showed up to try skating again...it wasn't successful but it was good to see her, and we had the opportunity to chat for a while. She complimented my form saying it was the best she'd seen it. The other friend has just started skating again a bit after not for a long time, but she's making a strong comeback and it's a lot of fun to skate with her because we constantly make fun of each other's skating in a mocking, challenging, purely humorous sort of way. There's not many who will give me a taste of my own medicine back like that (I'm like that fairly often).

After they left, I practiced the Dutch Waltz dance pattern a whole bunch until it became pretty drilled in - I think I can remember the whole thing now even next time I skate. Still working out a couple kinks with step timing but it's coming along very nicely. The rink got fairly empty so I worked on progressives a lot, forward at first and then backward (which were especially challenging). I did the same thing I seem to do with most things...did them inconsistently for a while, then slowed them down and did them in time to a count to get control, then gradually speed it up and push it as fast as I can. I got to where I could do them very fast, especially the backwards CCW ones. So fast that later when I went back to practicing freestyle stuff, I was throwing them in where I would otherwise have done back crossovers randomly.

About 15 minutes until midnight, the rink emptied out and I had private ice for the remainder of the session. So I started skating as fast as I possibly could and was really moving...I don't think I've ever skated that fast overall, and I tend to skate pretty fast... I tried some loops at full speed and wow, soooo big... I also had the same thing happen as I did Friday morning after dance practice - with my body in a more correct position I found myself overrotating the loop and had to pop out a bit to get the rotation correct. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'll be doing a double anytime soon, but it is really exciting to overrotate my best jump and have to correct it in the same way people who do do doubles cancel a double attempt and do a single instead. I'm hoping I can harness it and get a proper lutz back but am still having difficulty getting over my fear and leaning back more in that jump...

So overall, the only new thing I learned was the back sitspin, but that isn't even the most exciting part. What really sealed the deal and made this the best skating day to date was all the little noticeable improvements in all sorts of different parts of my skating. I'm really ecstatic about it now. :D :D And well, it was really great to skate with sk8pdx again and also all the other friends I got an opportunity to skate with today.

[mikawendy]

Casey, great thread idea!

I had a great skating day on Thursday. The session was not packed, but it was full of enough people on lesson that I had to watch for traffic quite a bit. However, I was practicing parts of my program and really trying to push on the speed, edge quality, and ice coverage on one part, and it was going really well. The harder I pushed, the faster (well, for me at least!) I went, and the more secure I felt going into the hardest jump combo in my program. I'm trying to store that feeling of the deep pushing and good knee bend in my muscle memory so that I can call on it when I compete soon and just for my stroking power in general.

[Hannah]

A few days ago I was skating in the morning session and struggled through a half hour of CRUD- I checked a few times to make sure my blades weren't loose or something strange. I was nearly wiping out just stroking.

So I went off the ice and sat at a picnic table and watched the other skaters for a few minutes, and once I was calm I went back and had a Best Skating Day Ever. Everything was solid! I think I was just in a bad feedback loop or something.

If only that would work every time I start out roughly... :??

[Sk8pdx]

...

...What really ...made this the best skating day to date was all the little noticeable improvements in all sorts of different parts of my skating. I'm really ecstatic about it now. :D :D And well, it was really great to skate with sk8pdx again and also all the other friends I got an opportunity to skate with today.

:D What a wonderful day it was, indeed!

[Skate@Delaware]

You know, it's those kind of day that make up for the crappy ones! When you can't tell where you end and the ice begins....it's the Zen of Skating type of feeling. No toepicks, No uneasiness, No uncertainty, just you and the ice and it's soooo smooth and beautiful!!!

[TimDavidSkate]

Lately I have been having a good time during practices. Since competition time is next week, my nerves-adrenaline is starting to form in my body. Jumps are getting in control, spins are coming along-so far I've done backscratch & flying camels. Next are combo spins :halo:

[doubletoe]

Great thread! Actually it's good to asked to recall your best skating days ever when you haven't had one in awhile! It's a reminder of what makes it all worthwhile. . .

[Sonic]

Great thread! Actually it's good to asked to recall your best skating days ever when you haven't had one in awhile! It's a reminder of what makes it all worthwhile. . .

Very true - and in my case very lucky timing, as today for once in ages I feel I've had a great skating day! YIPPEEEEEEEEEE!

S xxx