Hello all,

I thought I'd share some of the horror that I've lived over the past couple of weeks. Hopefully, the following narrative will be found somewhat amusing since more or less I am still in one piece and I figured it would be a good idea to share so others could offer their own stories or advice as they deem fit.

For the past couple of weeks, while trying to adjust to new skates, I have been doing some of the most spectacular, jaw-dropping, hip-crunching, blood-curdling waxels and wowcows ever to have been done in the history of the sport. I'm using new blades and it just seems like I can't find where my body weight should go during jump take-offs consistently. Don't get me wrong. It's not always a blood bath. I have managed to stay vertical on axels and double sal attempts during practices. However, at least once a session I find myself taking off for a jump (mostly the axel and double sal attempts) and feeling that horrifying skid of the take-off edge and then all of a sudden I'm in the air, at a twenty-degree angle to the ice praying to God that the landing doesn't hurt too much. To date, I've landed on my free hip (figure that one out!), my elbow, my seat (with no contact of the ice with my skates, mind you) and have barely missed landing on my face on several of those occasions.

I tend to skate around and try to gather myself after one of these nasty falls and then I'll usually review my waltz jump or single sal. Then maybe I'll try waltz/loop or sal/loop just to try and get the feeling of being over my axis in the air and if I feel I may have exorcised the demon I may try the axel or double sal and it tends to go a little better at least.

Needless to say, after a couple of weeks of these bad waxels and wowcows I'm ready to crawl under my bed. Has anyone else had this much trouble adjusting to new blades?

Thanks,

Frank

Frank, Frank, Frank...take it easy buddy!

I'm assuming that all your other jumps are fine...loop, toe-loop, and flip are all working for you. How is your lutz? Are you noticing a slightly different take-off edge than the one you had before the new blades?

The reason I ask: It's sounds to me that the blade on your axel/salchow take-off foot is slightly out of alignment. If this is the case, you'll also feel it in the approach to your lutz, but maybe not as much.

If this is the case, you'll have to tinker with the alignment over the course of an hour or so. Talk to your coach or blade-mounting guy to assist you.

Let me know if this helps. I am well familiar with those wacky wowcows, and, yes, they can knock the wind out of you.

RX

Poor Frank! And you don't have much padding on you, either. Sending "good balance" vibes your way!

Hey RX,

Thanks for the advice. You're right. My other jumps are okay. I'm landing everything fine except for the sal and axel. The lutz felt strange when I first started jumping in these skates but it feels better now. I may talk to the guy that does my sharpening. Maybe he can put a shim under that blade to address the issue. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again,

Frank

Hey Lori,

Thanks for the "good balance" vibes and the comment about the padding! Much appreciated.

Believe me, with all the splats I've had I am now wishing there was much more junk in my trunk. Makes for softer falls!

Take care,

Frank

OMG, Frank, take it easy, bud! I'm sure your axel attempts aren't nearly as bad as MINE. I think the whole rink can hear my coach groan.

And at least you don't have a sprained right ankle ...

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Frank,
Have you tried to do MIF? Have you noticed any weird edging problems on your gold moves or any of the silver ones?

One time a while back, I couldn't hit my camel (my camel!!!), and I had the nearby skate shop readjust the blade. That seemed to have done the trick--no camel problems since then.

Good luck!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Hey Stephen,

Thanks for the advice and the encouragement. Not all of my axel attempts go array but the ones that do are totally craptacular. Let's put it this way. You wouldn't be able to hear my coach groan because the sound of my bones hitting the ice would drown out any other noise.

Regarding the moves in the field, I have noticed that I'm having a hard time getting onto a right forward outside edge. I have made an appointment with someone at the pro-shop to see if I may need a shim installed underneath the blade. I'm so hoping that this will fix the problem. Wish me luck!

Take care,

Frank

Hi, Frank!

Oh, boy! Do be careful! Last thing I need to hear (besides bones crunching) is your being carried off on a stretcher... I hope the blade alignment will fix it.

NoVa... how did you sprain your ankle?

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Hey jazzpants,

Thanks for the concern. Believe me, the last thing I want to experience is being carried off the ice on a stretcher. Hopefully, it won't come to that. I hope the shim fixes the problem as well. I'll keep you posted.

Frank,

PS: NOVA I hope you're feeling better. How did the sprain occur?

I'd rather be carried off the ice on a stretcher than off about anything else with a stretcher...

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Hey Frank,

My partner told me to check out this thread because she knows I'm having the same problem. I was in Silver Men II and we shared the warm-up with you young-uns at Nationals. I was the other lefty.

Anyway, I have pretty much the same issue since getting my new skates. I was landing Axels fairly consistently (maybe 50%) last summer, even though my technique isn't really right. But they were "real". Then I take a two-week vacation and come back to new skates and blades and can't do it to save my life. The other jumps are fine, but I have landed only about 4 axels since then (August!) Your Axels, as I remember from KC, are better than mine ever were. But still, I had it. And now I feel like I've lost the feeling and have to totally rediscover it in these new skates.

The funny thing is that I also inline skate and have the pic frames. I'm getting closer to getting it on those right now.

What's a shim? I feel like my right blade is a little out of alignment, but not sure if that's just me or not. I've also thought my right sneaker was feeling kinda wonky during tennis, too, so maybe it's my leg. LOL

Anyway, good luck and be careful. Or put some junk in that trunk before you try anymore. I have *that* problem, too. LOL

Tim

Hmmm, don't really know for sure; it was a confluence of events. While skating with Loops 2 weeks ago, I was working on fixing the axel lift. My right boot felt really weird. Only after several botched/wonky attempts, I sat down to relace my skates. As I unzipped my pant leg, I saw that my lace had been untied the whole time. So basically, I was doing many lifts while having an untied boot. Yeah, my ankle really didn't like that. To make matters worse, I tend to, uh, go to the gym *a lot* for weight training and for cardio. I also love to jog. So not realizing that my ankle was injured (I mean, I injure myself constantly), I went for an hour jog and in a few hours, my ankle was swollen, etc. I had to stop most of my cardio, but I've been back to the rink as of late. I've tried to limit my jumps, so now I get to work on my level 2 and 3 spins (yeah ... uh huh ), as well as footwork. Fortunately, my foot no longer hurts when it's in the cat-like boot, since most of the swelling has attenuated.

(Gosh, the Hackensack camp is one week away ... AND Loops and I haven't skated together in ~2weeks. )

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
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Hey Tim,

Great to hear from you! I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to chat more at KC but it was nice to meet you. It was really nice of you to come over and ask if I was okay after I hit the ice face first on that camel spin during the 30 minute warm-up. I still laugh when I think of that fall. I hope to God nobody else saw that.

When I first got my new skates, it felt as if I was pulling to the inside edge on my right foot. I mentioned this to my coaches and one of them suggested that I might need a shim. A shim, at least in the terminology I've hard where I skate, is a thin sliver of material (not really sure what material) that is inserted in between the base of the boot and the mounting of the blade. So, in my case, my coach thought that I should have gotten a shim just underneath the inside edge to tilt the blade a little bit more towards the outside edge. I've never had them before but I know my coach has used them quite a bit.

I did take my skates to the pro shop and the guy that usually takes care of my skates looked at them and didn't think that there was anything wrong with the blade. However, he thought that the heel of the boot might have been slightly leaning towards the inside. So what he ended up doing was putting in an insert inside the boot just under the inside part of my heel. He thought that this would help me set my foot more evenly inside the boot. So far, it has helped a little bit. Now it's not such a struggle to get on a forward outside edge on my right foot. However, I can defintely feel the insert inside the boot and it's still freaking me out a little. I'm hoping with some time that I'll get over it and it will feel natural.

Over the past week, things have gotten better with the axel. I'm not going into them at full speed but I figure until I feel comfortable over my feet I probably shouldn't barrel into them. I'm landing them pretty consistently now. The double sal is still a different story. I managed to land like three good ones last Saturday but it's gone AWOL since then. I've been rotating them well but then I fall outside the circle on the landing. Grr. I'm landing double toes but their toe-axeled a bit (or a lot )

Another problem I'm having with the skates now is that the tongue of my right skate is sliding over to the side. I've just noticed that this happens when I wear sneakers too. Uh-oh. Does this mean I have some strange mutant disease of the right foot? Eeek!

So that's my story as of late, Tim. Again, it was great to hear from you. Will you be at the camp next week? I hope to see you there.

Take care,

Frank

Hey Stephen,

So sorry to hear about the ankle. However, I am glad to hear that it's gotten better as of late.

Speaking of the off-ice training, I've decided it's time for me to stop being such a slacker and get to the gym. I've been meaning to do this for months but have kept putting it off. I've called the director of the gym at the Ice House and hope to set something up with him to develop a training program for me.

I'm sorry that you and Loops haven't been able to skate together for a while but it's going to be great seeing you guys again. Are you two coming up early on Friday like last year?

Take care,

Frank

I'm either driving or taking the train up on Thursday ... but I'll be in Putnam/Westchester visiting my parents. I don't think you'll see me till Sat. morning.

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Just my quick thoughts on blade alignment screwing up your jumps: since you mention issues with the right blade, and both the salchow and axel take off on the left foot (assuming your CCW? Maybe I'm wrong and then it would make sense..) it seems like the two would not be related. Be careful with how much you tweak your blade alignment...it's like trimming your bangs...sometimes, you try so hard to make it even that it ends up totally screwed up. Good luck!

Hi,

I jump and spin clockwise. That's right. I'm a lefty. Thanks for the advice. I agree. I don't want to mess with the alignment too much. Luckily, up to this point there has been no actual adjustment to the blade itself. I've just had an insert put into the boot on the inside part under my heel. That seems to have helped a bit. The axel is better behaved although the double sal still has me seeing stars.


Thanks again and take care,

Frank

OHHHHHH a lefty! That explains it. Sorry to have presumed!! You lefties always throw us boring CCW skaters for a loop.

YAAAAY!!! Another lefty skater!!!

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Ya go lefty skaters!! I always confuse my friends because they all do their jumps CCW and they can't see how I do them the other way!!

During the school year, my coach has Emily before me--she's a lefty. She has to do the immediate switch back. It's funny when she forgets--you know--"you want me to do what?" before she remembers I'm CCW, not CW. Something else for us to laugh about.

With Pairs this gets even more hilarious. I'm the lefty (CW) and my partner is righty. We do everything her way except the pairs spin. When our coach, also a righty, tries to take my place and do a spin with her (my way), it's pretty funny. Until he figures it out and does it better than me. Grrrr. :-)

Tim

Actually, you should capitalise on that - side-by-side spins and jumps in opposite directions can look fantastic, if your synchronisation is right.

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hi Frank,
It was good to see you this morning!!! It was my first lesson with edward since mountain cup as he was in germany, and as always it was a humbling experience. apparently i am much better at skating when my blades are not touching the ice, like as in when i am over jasons head or being hurled into the air by him. i still cannot do a back crossover..novaskater i feel your pain.
i hope the shim helps....i had a similiar problem with my klingbiels, and it actually caused me to stay in my old ones another year. i broke these boots in in october but had them and was using them as a $500 dollar doorstop for a year. basically my soles are not flat so i used plastic piece i cut from a water bottle as a shim. it also acts like a waterproofer...i have yet to tighten a screw!! as for the tongue sliding over...go back to klingbiel and get a hook put on...this is a common problem with his skates..i suggest 2 hooks. I snapped one on my landing leg in a throw axle at nationals and had to run around town looking for a shoe maker...i now have 2 on each side, sort of like wearing your spare tire!
nova skater.....ice the hell out of it...anti inflammatories on a consistent basis and you know the drill..keep it compressed..if all else fails we'll duct tape it on saturday. so what is it with us pairs teams? we all better shape up by saturday..i clocked J in the face with my elbow sunday morning (HARD) and somewhere in france i jammed my femur up into my hip on the landing of a throw axle...hmm, anyone see a pattern here?) i am beginning to hate that jump! Tom K is coming off an ankle injury (to say the least!) we better not all hop in there wounded.. they might think we are so bad at pairs we do this stuff all the time. ok see you all on saturday am...should be fun.
take care

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Q:If landing an axle is 3 times your body weight, then how many times your body weight is the landing of a throw axle
A: depends on whos throwing you and how much you lied about your weight on your pairs profile


a can of stickum : $5.95
the email asking "how do you get this sticky stuff off " ...priceless

those are great ideas...now what lift were we doing again?

hey Tim...i finally figured out how to get the sticky stuff off!

Missing: east coast stunt doubles poster