Oh my goodness. That's definitely one brave kid, considering what was described about the condition of her chin. Serious stuff. Hope the kid gets better soon.

Ouch! That's one of the most common figure skating injuries, although this one sounds particularly severe. My older daughter has three stitches under her chin from a slip on a waltz jump landing, and Dick Button made a reference to the "camel club" meaning those who've split their chins on failed camels. I've noticed that when someone cuts their face open on the ice, they rarely seem to be aware of the severity of the injury until looking in a mirror.

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This little one has a stunning spiral, and I'm guessing her nerves may have caused her to hit the toe pick. Hopefully she'll be back soon and healed up.

By the way, dbny, I love your Bruce Jenner quote!

The chin and forehead areas split so easily because there's very little in the way of "padding." My oldest split her chin falling off her bicycle - 12 stitches. She also split her forehead at the hairline when someone jumped on top of her in the swimming pool. She earned 16 stitches on her forehead, the jumper bought herself 10 stiches under her chin.

I think the cold of an ice rink slows down the bleeding, which is why injured skaters don't realize how bad their cuts are. Cold helps cut down on swelling and pain, right?

I once had a group lesson student that showed such ambition and promise. Third lesson into the session, she showed up in really good, brand-new skates. I warned her that the blades were sharp and she should be careful. In the middle of the lesson, we were doing something and I turned to call her back to the group (she had wandered off) just in time to see her fall. Her blade heel caught her in the other shin. I figured it would be a bruise or scrape because it wasn't a big fall. Left my assistant to keep the class going, helped the kid off the ice and lifted her pant leg. I turned three shades of green when I saw the huge split and exposed bone. (No padding in the front of your shin.) Without letting her look, I calmly said "We better show this to Mom. I think you need an ice pack." and carried her off the ice. Thankfully, the mother was a nurse and immediately rushed the kid to the hospital before the bleeding started. After she left, I actually had to go in the ladies room to keep my stomach in check. Sadly, the kid never came back to skating. The rink gave her a full refund. Fortunately, the Mom was watching the class, so she knew exactly what had happened and that it was simply an accident.

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Actually, his name is "Apolo Anton Ohno" and I believe that article was a spoof considering it's in the section named "WONK." Are you a staff member, by any chance? LOL

That's the problem with the Internet - it's very hard to tell what's fact and what's fiction.

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Definitely a spoof.

"I think it’s ridiculous that figure skaters alone have to wear such skimpy outfits. What they really need are cotton outfits, maybe even blends, that will allow the judges to focus on substance, not body parts. Big logos would help too.”

"IOC officials believe that longer, perhaps even baggy clothing will protect skaters from cuts and bruises."

"Other IOC guidelines in the works include prohibitions on skating jumps, regulations requiring up to six pairs of skaters on the ice at once, and the use of nets to capture a small round object, which skaters must chase in order to score points from the judges." Yes, and they should be required to use hockey sticks, too.

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"May the wind be at your back and the sun upon your face and may the wings of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars."

Not in this case!

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Husband did it twice, on consecutive weeks - not long after he had done it falling off his bike! It's healed without a scar, though.

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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!

My boots are 2 and 1/2 sizes bigger than my shoe size.
My coach told me to get new boots and I got 1 and a 1/2 size smaller than my previous boots and I find it hard to adjust to these ones.

My coach told me Ive been used to putting pressure (for spins and jumps) at the wrong parts since my previous boots were way too big for me. I'm sure it's not a big deal to adjust to the news ones...right? *pout*

Was it "wrong" of me to get 2 sizes bigger in the first place?

x

That happened to me, too - my first pair, fitted by the skate shop, were 2 sizes bigger than my 2nd pair, which were fitted by a professional fitter!

Took awhile to adjust, but once I had, the new pair were marvellous, and far more comfortable!

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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!

ok... so after some really good sessions where I was really pleased with the slow but steady progress I was making, I went last night and had a disasterous session where I fell four times and have no idea whay or what I was doing different. My husband Ians friend was there and he's an ice hockey player so was going around like a piece of cake, and showing Ian things who hasnt fallen over once yet or anything and is learning new stuff, and I had a few things on my mind, work and things... could that be it? I just don't get what i've done differently and im beginning to think I should just get hockey skates like Ians and be done with it! I'm despairing and confused

Sometimes this just happens. Sometimes your body's not 'in the groove', and you have a crappy practice. You'll probably do better next time. Skating is almost always a 'two steps forward, one step back' kind of thing. (And I won't even begin to talk about the seemingly-endless plateaus!)

Besides...if you're not falling, you're not learning! Seriously, though, there's some truth to that. You're probably doing two things--1) being just casual enough about what you've learned that you're paying slightly less attention--this isn't a bad thing on the whole, because becoming more casual about it means that you are, in fact, learning and storing what you've learned, and 2) you may be pushing your own personal envelope--veering slightly outside your 'comfort' zone, which is also good, because that's how you acquire new knowledge.

Number one advice for you if you're falling a lot: BEND. YOUR. KNEES. It's the #1 piece of advice for any skater, at any level, because it's never done enough, you can always do it more, and/or better, and it can only help.

Don't go trading in those figure skates just yet! Give it time, you'll have an incredible practice soon to counteract the lousy one--guaranteed.

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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!

Maybe your blades have gone dull. You know how to check for sharpness right? The thumb nail light-scraping test. If your blades have gone very dull, then it could make you fall all over the place. Same thing is if the blades are too sharp...could make you fall too since easier to catch an edge.

Falling is not unusual when people are learning to skate. Although if one tries to learn too quickly ... that is, accelerate their learning, then that could sometimes lead to more falling. It's nice to just take your time and enjoy learning each skill gradually and slowly.

Once you master something, it is extremely satisfying.....but on the other hand, once you've mastered something, it then becomes nothing...although you could go on to harder and harder skills....the potentially dangerous ones which not everybody will want to do or learn. So better to just have a good time developing the basic skills slowly if you do have the time. Skating becomes more enjoyable that way.

Thanks! I am just doing basic skating, not trying anything really! As I say I just didnt know what it was I was doing... I've just checked my blades and they do seem blunt. I've had them a couple of weeks now sonce the 26th January and skated on them about 5 times which is about 10 hours I guess, should they be blunt already?
As I say i'm only doing very basics at the moment as in skating forwards and practicising stopping! So nothing spectacular and i was enjoying it and pleased with how i was going.
But well I'll keep trying I guess. I've hurt my knees again though! The bruising was just about faded and healed and now i've done it again just as bad! lol
Thanks again everyone for all your support I really do appreciate it and it really does help!
Hugs
Samantha xxx

Dont sweat a bad session. The other day, I went skating and was just skating around the rink, talking to a couple peopple, getting warmed up. All of a sudden, wham. Caught my toe pick, and fell beautifully onto my elbow and knee. Didn't skate well at all that day. Course, it could have been due to a lingering inner ear infection, but the point is, everyone has a bad practice sometimes. It happens. Learn from it and move on.

Oooh, yes, re-injuring something is the worst, eh? I finally decided to buy crash pads because I fell on my tail twice. The first time was the worst actually -- I didn't even think to turn sideways at all. The second time wasn't as bad a fall, BUT, on top of just having begun to feel better from the first, it was that much more upsetting. I bought some kneepads, too.

If I were you I'd ask one of the coaches or your pro shop folks to look at your blades with you. It could just be some nasty ice or a groove in a place you don't expect it that got you, or it could be that there's a problem with the sharpening, maybe. If you can eliminate one possibility, you may feel better about things.

Persevere! And I hope that your knees feel better, fast!

Awe Thank you! I managed to fall down more than once though lol I'm going to et my blades checked as to me they seem quite blunt!
Thanks aain for your replies!

Does anyone else know that feeling when the ice just doesn't feel right . . . I have tried working out what it is, but just occasionally I get on and think "this isn't how its supposed to feel" . . . .am I bonkers?!

Definitely..... if your skates have gone dull, or hasn't been sharpened properly, then you might feel something different than what you're normally used to. Or, if the temperature of the ice on the rink is set different than usual, it could change the feel as well, since harder is not as forgiving on dull blades, and very soft ice can make you feel very slow.

If you're used to skating on the ice at one rink, you may find that the ice at another rink may be of different hardness, which can affect performance.

So glad it's not just me and there's a possibly rational explanation for it!

I'm supposing you were young when you got your first pair? My feet aren't growing anymore so I suppose getting 2 sizes bigger wasn't a bright idea in the first place *pout*
Anyhooos, I left my previous pair in the hands of my coach and hopefull he'll find someone who's interested in buying a second hand Risport.

I thought the general rule was to get skates at least a size smaller than your shoe size, leaving variation for different brands. I can't imagine how anybody working at a skate shop would even recommend going two sizes up.

yeah....not sure. Well, I think that when we first strap the ice skates on, our feet are relatively cool. Then when you hop out to do a few things, the feet get warmer (I think) and expand, so sometime we can feel tightness around the feet after little time. But later, the longer you skate out there on the rink, I think the temperature in the boot drops again and the foot shrinks back down again. This is my guess only. Not sure if that really happens...but that's what I have felt before.

Yeah, in general, skate size (number) should be anywhere from one to two sizes (numbers) smaller than your shoe size (number). So, if you were in two sizes bigger than your shoe size, that's effectively being 3-4 sizes larger than you needed! You must have been positively swimming in them! How any 'fitter' could let you go with that, I just can't figure out.

Remember that your foot size is your foot size, no matter what you call the number. It could be 7, it could be 37, but the important part is that you get a boot that fits your foot snugly. To do that, the way skates are sized, the number's most often going to be 1-2 numbers less than your shoe 'size'.

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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!

Er - no! I didn't start skating until I was in my 40s! It was just that I bought the skates from the rink shop, who had absolutely no idea how to fit figure skates, so sold me a pair two sizes too big. When those boots wore out, I went to a trained fitter, who measured my feet and sold me a pair in the correct size.

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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!