I have strong muscle memory, which means my body remembers how to do things. All I have to do is put my body at something the way I used to go into moves, and my body just does it - as long as I don't think about it. Like any sort of memory, it is selective.

This means that I can do the single jumps I did 20 years ago, such as waltz, toe-loop. I am struggling to regain spins. Flip remains inconsistent (haven't tried a lutz yet). I have even done some easy jump combinations, eg waltz/toe loop, toe-loop/loop - but can't do a loop on its own. We won't talk about salchows. (which reminds me, any Australians watching the pairs last night notice the highly knowledgeable commentator pronounce it sal-chow instead of salco or solco?)

As long as I learnt something right to begin with, and as long as I don't think, I can do these things, not necessarily very well, but landed solidly. This is a good thing.

Unfortunately there are things I am not doing correctly, and they need changing. Of course my muscle memory doesn't like that, so try to change one little thing, and the whole jump falls apart. This is a bad thing.

I figure that I might need to relearn everything from scratch, and perhaps even change my entries into jumps that need some corrections. Eg, instead of going into a flip from a mohawk, try it from a 3-turn, or do some sort of turn into a loop instead of jumping from crossovers.

I'm sure some of the other skaters returning after a long hiatus have struggled with muscle memory. Any tips on how to overcome it, or at least fool the muscles long enough to fix errors?

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am