Sk8mommy: Welcome to AOSS!!! If you keep up the good work in skating, that swooshing sound of your mind wondering will someday be the same sound as you going around the rink faster!!!

Enjoy your new skates!!!!

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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!!!

It's a peeve of mine, too, but the real peeve is that it seems no one (coaches, etc) bothers to tell newbies (of any age) the 'rules' of a freestyle session. You see beginners out there just trying their best to stay upright and out of the way, not realizing that what normally passes for 'out of the way' in a public session is quite often smack-dab IN the way for a freestyle session.

Depending on how busy your rink is (both public sessions and freestyles), it may be more profitable for you to practice on low/open freestyles, if you have the option. Busy public sessions are rotten for learning the basics on, but busy freestyles are dangerous. Watch a couple of freestyle sessions before you skate on one, to get a bit of an idea how the flow of traffic goes. You should learn to anticipate (for example) that if a skater moves this way around the corner, they'll likely move that way down the center. Skating is done on curves, so even if you're directly in a straight path in front of a skater, you may not really be in the way--but if you move, you'll find yourself at risk of being mowed over.

Basic rules: Stay OUT of the corners (unless the session is VERY empty, or VERY low). Lutz jumps are done in the corners, and you'll get evil glares from anyone trying to practice them. Don't linger in the center--that's usually reserved for spins. Emphasis on linger--newbies are often given a break here, and they're also often working on edges on the center line or circle. Skaters doing their program are given the right-of-way...if someone's skating to their music, watch to get a feel for where their program puts its elements, and stay OUT of the way if at all possible. (Many clubs give the program skater an identifying mark, like an orange vest or sash to wear.) Lessons are given second priority for right-of-way. It's best to keep moving if at all possible--standing in one spot for a while is frowned upon. This is really the trick with brand-new beginners--you often really aren't moving all that much, and what you're working on tends not to go much of anywhere. That's what makes it a poor fit for freestyles, unless they're rather empty, or most of the skaters aren't very advanced. But it can be so hard to practice on public ice without getting constantly cut off by bratty kids and hockey skaters, that as long as you're paying attention and trying to be polite, most freestyle skaters will cut you a break--they were once there too. Oh--but don't defer too much...you also need to stand your ground a little bit. Some freestyle kids look down on adults, and will try to intimidate them. If you can make friends with the kids, though, you've got it made.

Welcome to the addiction - er - sport! And congrats on having such a wonderful hubby. (Now, the secret plan commences to turn him into a skater as well...da dum da dum da dum.... )

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!

I developed a one-page (front and back) sheet for newbies and the parents of newbies to cover the progression of skating. You can find it at:

http://www.gafsc.org/forms/new-to-skating.pdf

It covers the group lesson, private lesson, freestyle/private ice, testing etc.

Rob

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Geriatric Figure Skating Crew - President for Life!
Georgia Figure Skating Club - President (again)
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"I'm too old to die young, and too smart to be happy" - Kinky Friedman, The Mile High Club

2010 Adult Nationals - earning a gold - "Priceless"
2009 Adult Nationals - competing with a cold is not much fun.
2008 Adult Nationals - Too little sleep, too much vodka!

Wow! What a wealth of information I'm getting here....thanks!

I have my first group lesson (adult learn to skate) at another rink tomorrow morning, 8:15 bright and early. It's about an hour away from my house, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get some practice in at the closer rink in between lessons.
Wish me luck. I can't wait to get back on the ice.

Kathy

I forgot to add...

Hubby is going to be a tough sell...I don't see him on the ice ever! He is worse than me about being afraid of getting hurt, and I am pretty bad.

Now, my kids are another story. My son is already interested, but he is just now turning 4 (next week). I thought I'd check both rinks out first and see which might be better suited to him for lessons. My daughter is only one, but she loves to balance on things already, so who knows, maybe she's a natural...she scares me, though, she has no fear....turned my back for two seconds the other day and found her on the 4th rung of a ladder. Yikes!

I know at one of the rinks I skate at, they have different classes going on at the same time, each class gets a section of the ice. So the kids could be on the ice at the same time as adults, so that way you can avoid making two trips and the two of you can practice together.

For me personally, some of my favorite memories involve me and my dad skating together. Although he did accidently dislocate my shoulder once, but he sees his baby falling backwards, got scared, and pulled too hard on my arm. But still, it's a lot of fun for a kid to skate with a parent.

Ok...I've officially survived my first lesson.
It was basically me and 2 other skaters wth one coach and about 8-10 other skaters who are a synchro team and practice during the adult learn to skate.
I started with double and single swizzles, stopping snowplow style, short one foot glides and a little bit of skating backwards.

Gotta build that leg strength up! Also I need to find some off ice exercise that will help me with my flexibility (where did it go?....don't answer that...I think I know)

Overall, I'm happy with what I was able to accomplish, considering it's only my 2nd time on the ice ever. The swizzles took a while to get momentum, but by the end of the lesson, I was doing pretty good with them and didn't have to rely on other strokes to keep me at a fair speed.

Stopping is tricky for me. I can't get my darn right foot to work...I'm not sure if I'm just not bending inward enough or if it' s the "push", but it just kind of stays there and lets my left foot do all the work...hmm.

Again, short glides are better on my left than my right. I'm trying to remember if the ankle I sprained years ago was the left or right. I'm thinking right, but really can't remember.

The coach asked me how my backward skating was, and I was like "what backward skating?" So she showed me how to start. This one is going to take a while. Again, toes don't like to turn in enough, or I lose the side to side weight shifting. I'll get there, it's definitely a different feeling altogether than frontward.

Even though it was hard, and I was really challenged by some of the stuff, I had so much fun...I was not ready to get off the ice! Going back to the closer rink for public skate in a couple hours. Wish there was something during the week, but I guess I'll just have to deal with weekends until I get better and can reap the benefits of the freestyle ice time.

Kathy

Know all about the flexibility thing that I USED to have. There's a kid at our rink who can do Beillmann spins like crazy...he just lifts his leg until it's sticking straight up. Disgusting!!!

The trick to a good snowplow stop is to STRAIGHTEN the blade (relative to the ice) as you slide it out, then dig it into the ice. If you still have some problems. you might check with your shaprener to find out how deep (or shallow...at this point in your skating career you want the hollow on your blades to be somewhat shallow. See the stickey at the top of the list for more information!) I had my skates originally sharpened to a 3/8" radius...fairly agressive...and I wasn't anywhere that agressive a skater, but the sharpener never asked me as to my abilities, he just sharpened them. This has been since corrected...

And you might want to try stopping with your left foot next time...

This exact thing happened to me...about 20 or so years ago I severly sprained my right ankle (and spent a couple of months in a cast!). Then in the early 90's I broke the 5th metatarsal in my right foot...and AGAIN spent a month or so on crutches and in a cast. And yes, I'm better on my left foot than on my right (and I'm right handed)...but on further thought, I've always been a bit clumsy when it came to learning movement...so I might have always been a little "mixed up" that way and the sprained ankle/broken foot may well have had nothing to do with that. The upshot is that some moves will take a little more work to master...but so what else is new?

Yes it is...when you skate backwards you always want your weight to be on the ball of the foot. And it's an alien feeling... but again, with some work it'll happen.

Addicting, isn't it? And fun as well. Here's to a whole new world that's just opening up to you. Frustrations, falls, and flying...it's all part of the sport.

... and not to mention the adrenaline rushes when you learn and succeed at new things... skating is so addicting that one soon might relate to their private coach as a "drug dealer" ... Please! just one more 1/2 hour of lessons! .

A word of caution on the snowplow stop. Be sure to keep your arms low, hands at waist level, and bend your knees! Just last week I was teaching an adult class with another coach who sent the skaters out to do snowplow stops with their arms high and no reminder to bend knees. Of course, one leaned back and fell, hitting her head. I don't mean to scare you, and you sound like you are making a lot of progress very quickly, but just want you to be safe.

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I had my 2nd lesson today. Overall, I would say I'm progressing faster than I thought I would. I can see myself fighting practicing those elements that are toughest for me already, though. I have a feeling I'll learn a lot about myself in the process of learning to skate.

We practiced briefly the things we learned last week...double front swizzles, backward skating, short alternating one foot glides and snowplow stop.
Backward skating still needs a LOT more practice, but I had more good moments with it than bad this time. I surprised myself with the double front swizzles today during warm up. I was doing them and I suddenly realized "Hey, I'm DOING them and it actually seems kind of easy"....not like I was forcefully squeeeezzzzingg my legs together or losing control....very cool!

Then our coach had us working on backward swizzles....welllll, at first I couldn't even get my legs to move! I was like, " do I even have muscles there??!!" Finally did it well a couple of times (strokes, not laps!) though and after a while was at least moving along the ice, although painfully slow.

After this we practiced one foot swizzles around a circle and the coach drew little arcs on the ice outside the perimeter of the circle where our "swizzling" blade should be. It did help to have a line to follow. I did pretty good with these. After doing a million of these each way, she had us start doing one foot glides around the circle on our outside edge of the inside foot. That was tricky! I think that I overestimate the foot movement needed to find the edge....let's just say there was a lot of scraping going on! But the few times I did find the edge were awesome...even though short-lived. And I found that I could actually balance on one foot longer while doing this. I'm finding so much of this a mind thing....not that it's not physical....my legs will be screaming tomorrow. It's just amazing how much the mind can affect the simplest things.

Final thing we learned was forward crossovers, which we practiced around the circle. Let me tell you, that circle was well etched by lesson end! Fear is a big one for me here....I need to get over the fear of picking up my foot and the fear that I might trip myself....both of these hold me back on this move. I got about 3-4 ok ones in, but this will take a lot of practice due to the fear factor. I have the move and weight shift figured out, it's my mind that is holding me back.

Kathy

Happy skating:]

Final thing we learned was forward crossovers, which we practiced around the circle. Let me tell you, that circle was well etched by lesson end! Fear is a big one for me here....I need to get over the fear of picking up my foot and the fear that I might trip myself....both of these hold me back on this move. I got about 3-4 ok ones in, but this will take a lot of practice due to the fear factor. I have the move and weight shift figured out, it's my mind that is holding me back.

Kathy

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Kathy,

You are doing great. I just picked up the sport with any level of seriousness a couple of months ago. I am wondering however, about how quickly you are being moved from basic one-foot glides into cross-overs. Maybe it is just that my coach is pretty conservative, but he has hammered me for weeks and weeks just working on posture, knee-bend, appropriate weight-shifting in terms of timing and how it relates to balance, focusing on exact perpendicularity of the blade to the ice for glides, of course as long as we aren't addressing edging.

My point is that without the appropriate amount of ice-time to hone those skills jumping into cross-overs might cause you to plateau there or worse develop bad habits. You haven't mentioned anything about outside-edge work (or I missed it) which really should be a pre-req for crossovers. I am taking group classes and private lessons. The ISI Alpha throws you right into cross-overs without pre-req work on outside edge "comfort".

And you may have already worked on all of this above and have it mastered. I am tall (6-3) and posture is a problem for me (tendency to lean forward).

I was really interested in how you were doing with outside-edge work, not only as it relates to cross-overs but also, for example, how it relates to a 3-turn, which is where I am just getting to ... Effective outside edging has been my hardest to develop skill so far.

But, I REALLY do understand the interest and passion that you clearly are experiencing. Keep up the efforts. We're all in this together.

Joe

This brings back fond memories, I didnt start that late, I was in my late teens but enough so I remember how it was my first few times on the ice. It is an amazing thing you sound like you are doing really great! Keep it up!

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Tidesong

I feel for you!
I was just a year youner than you when I started figure skating about 2 years ago and I have to say fear was one of my biggest enemies in the beginning... fortunately it lost out to ambition and drive, not to mention determination!

My first hurdle came right in the beginning with backward cross-overs... having had a bit of skating time on hockey skates I wasn't used to having a toe-pick and got caught more than a couple of times in the beginning, making my heart race like you wouldn't believe. But I was determined not to let those darned little picks get the better of me and one day spend an entire 2 hour session just doing back cross-overs... I finally got it!!! Now I help others figuring out how to do them properly.

Fear is not really an issue any more though I am still at times a bit on the cautious side, I am no longer afraid to try and try hard!
Now, if I could just get those pesky nerves during competitions under better control....

Joe,
I left out some of the details. Leading up to crossovers, we spent time going CW and CCW around a circle, first doing a half swizzle with the outside leg and putting weight on the inside leg, trying to get the outside edge of the inside leg. Then we progressed to short one foot glides on the inside leg, outside edge...focusing on leaning into the circle and putting weight over inside leg. After a many, many circles around in each direction, we moved to crossovers.
I do feel we are moving fast, but really just enough to be challenging. As I learn about how edges and balance and weight distribution all work together, (along with bent knees!), I spend more and more time during my practice just gliding and bending my knees, shifting my weight ever so slightly, repositioning my hips, torso, etc. I'm definitely not in any big hurry...I'm thrilled to be able to do backward swizzles fairly well after this week's practice sessions. I spend a fair amount of each practice time on the first stuff I learned (even stops), and I find that each time I am incrementally improving even those skills, paying more attention to my posture, balance, arm position, knee bend, edges, etc. That is really what I like best about skating. The fact that I can get "lost" in practicing a skill --- and be so focused....it really is almost a form of meditation in a way....and very relaxing for me.
Kathy