January 2008
Early January 2008
The Thing on My Toe
At first, I thought it was a blister, and maybe it initially was a blister, but it would not heal. Then it got painful. True to form, I sucked it up. It’s only a toe. This worked temporarily. I would shove my foot in the skate and endure until it either went numb or I simply got used to the discomfort. This has been going on for a while, maybe even back to late December. It apparently originated from the toe seam of my sock rubbing on my pinky toe. I wear thin polypropylene socks that are intended for athletic use to wick moisture away from the skin. I have used this type of sock for over ten years without incident. I have even recommended them to other skaters. Obviously, I never had a problem before with my socks or boots. Still, I do not entirely blame the hosiery. I think it was an unfortunate coincidence of the seam being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus I am on the ice more often, not necessarily for a more overall hours, as a coach. My feet are in and out of those boots almost daily. Sometimes, I skate at one rink then drive to another to teach. Sometimes I teach at two rinks in one day. Skates on, skates off, skates back on again. My poor feet don’t get much of a break. The abrasion never had sufficient time to heal.
The situation came to an unbearable head one evening as I carefully laced up my boots to teach group lessons at Ice Castle. I expected my toe to hurt; it had been hurting for days. But I did not expect it to hurt that much. I became nauseous and faint. Willpower got me through those classes, though I don’t know how I demonstrated crossovers. Completing an inside three-turn was simply impossible. I had to walk though it. Fortunately coaches do lots of walk-throughs, so I did not look unusually lame. The nausea and dizziness continued throughout my drive home. I could not let this agony continue. This was no ordinary blister.
The next morning I called a podiatrist. Fortunately, he could see me in a couple of hours. I got there early. He looked at it and mentioned “corn” and “hammertoe”. I have never had foot problems and did not even know what these terms meant. Fortunately, informational posters of disfigured feet hung all over the examination room walls and I had studied them prior to his arrival. He took an x-ray of my foot. I have a bony growth on my pinky toe, hence the wrong place for my stocking seam to align. The pressure between bony growth, seam, and skating boot resulted in a blister that did not burst but developed a callus and became infected. The toe was red and hot.
The podiatrist scraped off the dead, thickened skin with a razor blade and opened the nucleus beneath. He drained the infection and sent a swab to the lab for analysis. Then he bathed the wound with a cool refreshing saline solution. Results were immediate. The redness and swelling went away. He applied an antibiotic cream, wrapped the toe and gave me a prescription to kill the infection. None of this procedure was the least bit painful. I was so glad I finally took care of this problem.
I went to the rink that evening and put my skate on without hesitation, dread, or pain. I taught comfortably and was able to skate with my students.
Week of January 13, 2008
Skating for Me
Between being sick, holiday crowds, and the sore on my toe; I have done very little skating for myself lately. Getting back on the ice and staying in good shape is important to me both as a skater and as a coach. I finally felt well enough to go to a rink and skate for my own pleasure. What did I do other than have a good time? Not much, really. I warmed up with stroking, swing rolls, crossovers and various other basic skills. I did a lot of spins. I did a lot of jumps. I basically just went out on the ice and had fun. My only focused efforts concentrated on centering spins, hooking my camels immediately, and taking off for a lutz from a clean back outside edge.
I can tell I am out of practice when my camel slips off the toe pick and travels for a couple of sloppy three-turns before settling down to centered rotations. Forward camels are difficult spins. I use a short entry edge and rise to the toe while pressing down into the ice. In the space of the first rotation, I attain the camel position. Although I have observed many coaches teaching a long entry edge to the camel, I cannot remember ever doing this myself. I think the prolonged edge encourages the skater to keep her free leg held behind the body so it can conveniently achieve camel extension. Maybe I did do this as a beginning camel spinner. That was a long time ago, and I really don’t remember. However, I had a hard time learning the camel. Now that I can do a camel spin competently most of the time, I find the short entry maintains speed and more quickly and completely converts linear motion to angular motion. In plain English: the spin is faster. However, it requires precise technique to control. In general, skills executed at speed are more challenging to control than those done slowly. Therefore, skating fast is an important criterion in competition. A fast skater has thoroughly mastered his elements and completes them without hesitation.
As for the clean-edged lutz. The infamous “flutz” (a lutz that switches to an inside edge at the moment before take-off, thus becoming flip-like) is no longer slipping through the cracks of eligible competition. Television commentators will point out flutzes and talk through the replay detailing the grievous error of edge change. A lot of people flutz. That doesn’t necessarily make it okay. I don’t like flutzing. I want a clean lutz, even if it is just a single. Exercises I use to correct flutzing focus almost entirely on the preparatory edge and take-off. Usually I do not even complete the jump. I practice half-lutzes that land on the picking foot, as does the 360-degree lutz. I also do traditional half-lutzes that land on the opposite foot and step forward. A third valuable exercise involves reaching back, picking, and vaulting straight up without turning at all. Finally, I practice lutzes in slow-motion, picking the toe in and jumping off of it. Remember what I wrote in the last paragraph about skating fast? When I skate fast into a lutz, I tend to flutz. I want to correct that problem.
So that was my personal skate. By the end of the session, my toe ached. I thought I escaped from toe pain. Not yet.
Mid to Late January 2008
Letter of Resignation
I hoped to be out of Elite Arena by the beginning of the new year. Well, that deadline came a went without a letter of resignation. Actually, I wrote the letter and planned to email it to the director after a particularly annoying incident. Concurrent to the annoying incident that almost put me over the edge (no pun intended), I was offered a part-time job at a college. I need the money, so I took the job. This further encouraged me to hit “send”. Yet, I could not bring myself to quit a coaching job; not after wanting to coach for virtually all of my adult skating life. I decided to stick it out a little longer, telling myself I need the money.
Also at the beginning of the year, a third rink called and recruited me to teach a couple of classes. I have never seen a Zamboni driven faster than before groups at Rink 3. Hockey skaters are still on the ice when the Zamboni comes out and it literally chases them off of their practice. Groups always started late and the ice was always bad. Does a rink have to carry Zamboni drivers’ insurance? I was just waiting for the re-surfacer to slide out of control in a effort to clear off hockey slush faster than sanely possible. The situation was pretty disorganized, but nothing like a weekend at Elite. I took the chaos in stride while others around me panicked. The office was locked. We couldn’t get the cones. We didn’t have our roll sheets. Heck, I never have a roll sheet at Elite. Just teach your classes, pros. When in doubt, improvise. My cage did not rattle.
This would have made me an on-going asset to Rink 3 except the commute would have killed me first. I had to drive to Rink 3 after my college job then drive home in hideous traffic. Rush hour madness transformed a thirty-five minute drive into close to an hour. I was not making enough money to justify this. Plus, I needed extra time for my new job. Instead of resigning from Elite, I resigned from Rink 3. I still hated to leave a coaching job, but when a commute from hell is part of the deal, my priorities shift, especially with the rising price of gasoline. Don’t laugh, Europeans. Three bucks a gallon is outrageous by US standards, especially when driving to Rink 3 to teach for a single hour. It hardly pays to invest my commute time and fuel.
Amazingly, the atmosphere at Elite has calmed. Sheila, the Old Crone, has even become friendly. Although parents complain about the lack of organization, I am consistently teaching the same level class after class, week after week. It gets boring, but the students are getting to know me and I received a compliment from a parent. I guess I will continue to work at Elite until they don’t need me anymore or a better coaching opportunity arises.
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