Strange the things that happen in skating. Wondering whether others have noticed these things, or have their own observations to contribute:

Have you ever noticed:

When adjusting alignment of new blades, the left feels perfect but the right isn't. Then you get the right feeling good but the left now feels wrong. So you adjust the left, but.... you get the picture?

When you think about your feet you forget about arm position, when you think about arm position your feet are wrong?

Your left boot feels too loose compared to the right, so you tighten the left lace. Now your right boot feels too loose?

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

And why is it that when you concentrate on getting your arms and feet right, your shoulders ride up to your ears? And if you think about your shoulders or breathing you can't remmeber what you were meant to be doing with your arms and feet?

oh, you mean I'm not the only - skater that happens to?

Something else I've noticed more lately, is that absences don't erase what I've practiced before, and I can actually continue making progress... also, I'm starting to notice that my Focus & Concentration are improving, to the point - that how others 'mis'-judge me, I care less about. - I just skate for the FUN of skating... to the best of my ability at the moment. - And it's a funny thing, but I am able to appreciate my progress, & be happy with it.

Anyway, these are some of the things I enjoy noticing about my skating... - and what about you?

Yes, yes, yes

Whenever I do anything to one boot i have to do it to the other to try and get the feeling the same in both e.g. doing up laces.

I definitely agree that everything in skating is so precise that you actually have to think about what 8 or 9 different body parts are doing, think about the feeling of executing the move along with how those 8 or 9 body parts will have to move in order to execute it and remember to breathe! Overall i think i can maybe think about one or two of those things when doing the move and everything else does what it wants...usually i hold my breath too!

Also coaches instructions are often interpreted wrongly by me.

Coach says - jump up/higher = I throw my arms up in the air and scrunch up my shoulders.

Coach says keep your shoulders down = I look down at the ice (often with my shoulders scrunched up!)

Coach says hold the free leg straighter = I keep free leg bent but put it up higher!

And the list goes on and on and on...

Ant

A lecturer at College told us that he didn't want to teach us too much, because as the brain had stopped growing by the time we entered College it was already full of information. He therefore only taught what was absolutely necessary because some other bit of knowledge was going to fall out the brain and he was taking care to prevent breathing from falling out!

With skating I think he's right! I'm being careful not to forget the breathing, if it means I don't put my shoulders down or point my toes, who cares?!

Well it's always the right feeling perfect for me. But it's the same anyway lol

Ahh that is right.. probably, as far as I remember.

For me, coach says have my leg higher. And I'll lean forward. Coach says arch my back. My leg gets low.

Ah, yes!!! Coach says JUMP HIGHER so I slow down cause i freak out....so she says SPEED UP so I do that but barely take off

bwah ha ha!!!!

Then she says BEND YOUR KNEES, but my shoulders scrunch up. If I un-scrunch my shoulders my legs STRAIGHTEN and stiffen....

oh well!

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

argh, every time. coach gets my feet and hips doing the right thing, then tries to work on my arms. arms do right thing, feet promptly start wandering off on their own!

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It's all about the dress!

Every time you think you have mastered a skill, they make it harder!

(As for the body parts - I yelled at my coach the other day "I can't keep track of every body part! I don't know what my liver and kidneys are doing!" which made him laugh).

And yes, you can never relace just one boot. Those days when you can't get your boots right are dreadful.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I spent half of my ice time fixing my laces.

I saw some HOCKEY skates that you can pump up the sides & tongue....so you don't have to lace & re-lace....just pump up like Jordans....

yeah, HOCKEY skates.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Variation on a theme - coach says "Bend your (one) leg" - so you bend both. Coach says "Straighten your (one) leg" - so you straighten both. Trying to bend one and straighten the other just wasn't working today!!

Pump-up skates - cooool!!

then there is the choreography....you just get one part down, coach adds another.

Which means you promptly forget the part you already knew

"What about the part just before the new part?" says coach

"Huh?" I say (thinking to myself, did i really know it?)

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

And, of course, there is what's called the Coach Effect, when you can do the skill perfectly well in practice, but just try doing it in front of your coach....

And the Reverse Coach Effect, where you are telling your coach that you simply can't do this, whatever "this" might be (for Husband on Sunday it was bracket-3-brackets) and promptly do an almost perfect one.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Ahh, the reverse coach effect is one I know well. I'll tell my coach that I keep screwing up this jump or this spin, and can she please please PLEASE tell me what I'm doing wrong. Of course, then I do it perfectly and can get no feedback for when I inevitably start making that same mistake

Here's one that applies to me--as soon as I get comfortable doing a jump from one entrance, I stop focusing on technique and start messing the jump up. Then I switch back to the other entrance, the one that I just couldn't do the jump from anymore, and it's perfect. A few more months with that, and I have to revert again. I've done this with sal toe and flip. For a while I'll do the sal from a RBO 3, mohawk entrance. Then I switch to the LFO 3. Sometimes I'll do a toe-walley type entrance, then I'll go back to the RFI 3 (although I have stuck to that one for a long time now). Flip--mohawk, 3-turn, traveling 3s.

Oh, what about when your "bad" direction suddenly becomes your good direction?

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Youtube Videos

Yeah, what's with that? I say to practise twice on your weaker side for every once on your strong side. And eventually I forget which was the weaker side.

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

Another Law of Skating - it's those days when you're wearing a really manky old T-shirt that you get too hot and have to shed a layer. Never happens when you've got a reasonably smart/pretty one on, does it?

(Although as my coach said, it doesn't matter, as you're only going to get hot & sweaty anyway).

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I call this 'coach eyes'. As in I'm skating at the far end of the rink, my coach is teaching a lesson at the other, and she'll glance at me---and I'll fall.
Or she'll turn away from me during a lesson and I'll do something perfectly. She looks back--and I fall.
"Don't 'coach eye' me!" I say everytime.

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

Mrs. Redboots, you're making me laugh so hard that I'm close to having an asthma attack. LOL

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

ah, yes, the coach's evil eye. :):

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

My coach never worried about my breathing until I took a drink of water one day and she said, "Okay, now do that jump again," and when I came down she said, "Do you still have that mouthful of water?" I gather my cheeks were bulging out like a chipmunk's!

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

Then there's my favorite - RELAX - no I said RELAX! When I am relaxing! (well for me, anyway).

Yes i do that too. My coach will often laugh at the involuntary noises that come out of my mouth when i try things out as well. We often have to work on doing slient versions of things once i've "got them". An extension of that is also facial expressions! Apparently i pull very bizarre faces when doing certain things - especially sticking my tongue out!
When my coach points it out i'll invariably (joke) indignantly ask why it's not enoughthat i actually just complete x, y, z but i have to do it quietly and with no silly faces too?

Ant

^Funny faces! I'm sure I'll do that. Well, not making faces so much as having my mouth open like a fish...I'm a mouth breather. Can't help it. Whenever I look at pics of me dancing, I cringe, because my mouth is wide open and I look ridiculous, but if I try to breathe through my nose only, I don't get enough air, and that's just sitting here. There is no way I could pull it off during intense cardio activity without passing out! My teacher keeps telling me we have to teach me to smile during just so I'm not doing the open-mouth thing, but unless I have some stupid wide-open-mouth grin on my face (I don't know if I could close my mouth and smile and try to breathe through my teeth), it's not happening (it doesn't help that my teeth are incredibly ugly, plus I hate the way my face looks when I smile, so I try to smile with a closed-mouth whenever I do smile, which isn't possible while dancing).

So I'm sure I'll have the exact same problem with skating!! Oh boy, this is going to be fun...

Have the facial expressions (and tongue) down pat. I've also got gorilla or seagull arms depending on the movement. Personally I keep argueing that it should be gaining me extra marks for difficulty and for artistic impression, but apparently the coach thinks not...
Personally I think having the judges laughing at my facial expressions and arms should get me bonus points...