June 1999
Week of June 20, 1999
Summer School
This was the last week of the regular season at my rink. Next week marks the beginning of summer school. I considered signing up for the rigorous summer school program which includes 3 hours per day on ice, an on-ice training class each day, plus exercise and swimming at a health spa. This sounds fantastic and I was truly tempted. However, the thought of going to a swimming class with a group of prepubescent children was the deciding factor. I think I could skate with them, because skating with children is often part of the adult figure skating experience. I might not even mind the on-ice training with a group of kids, but I could not take water-aerobics with them. Maybe if I were twenty years old or petite I might not feel so uncomfortable. I asked in the skating school office if other adults had signed up for the program. While other women, who the manager called "die hards", did register in recent years; none of these brave souls had made the commitment this year. I guess that makes me a border-line "die hard" because I wanted to register but couldn't bring myself to take that big step into a low level freestyle program populated by elementary school and early-adolescent children.
Instead, I signed up for three afternoon sessions per week for four weeks. After that, I will re-evaluate my situation. The afternoon sessions are the choice of the adult skaters who skate freestyle rather than ice dance. There is a considerable group of adult skaters who ice dance at my rink. They made plans for the summer at other rinks which support adult ice dancing, which has never been a passion of mine. Generally, I prefer to skate more than three times per week. However, I was reluctant to pre-pay for sessions when I don't know how crowded they will be. I believe I can always look for another place to skate once or twice more per week.
Week of June 28, 1999
Hockey and Axels in the Afternoon
With the beginning of summer school came a change in my skating schedule. Instead of skating in the morning, I had to wait all day before going to the rink. I started skating while my husband was already commuting home. This change threw off my internal rhythm. I found myself watching TV most of the day waiting to leave for the rink. By the time I got in the car, I felt disoriented from lack of activity. Unfortunately, the session was not worth the inconvenience. I stood by the entrance to the ice while the Zamboni made its final rounds. Boys in hockey skates with sticks, gloves and pucks entered the arena. Someone had warned me that hockey boys were on this session last year. However, I thought it might not be too bad. I was certainly wrong.
These kids were taking lessons and darting from one end of the rink to the other and aggressively racing around the hockey circles. This was the only time of day hockey skaters were allowed on the ice. I don’t begrudge them an opportunity to practice; however, the situation was not conducive to practice for the few figure skaters with whom they shared the ice. After their lessons, they began to play tag and throw their gloves on the ice. This I found discourteous and unacceptable. In spite of a figure skating coach’s demand that they cease to throw their gloves, the boys continued. Rather than being a troublemaker, I decided I might have to change my schedule and join the young girls in the low-level freestyle sessions. Since I would have to skate with children anyway, I would prefer girls in figure skates to boys in hockey skates.
The Tuesday session was uneventful. I hoped Wednesday would be less crowded. The hockey boys left a half-hour early, and I continued to practice my axels. I had run through all of the warm-up exercises including waltz-loop and waltz-backspin. A couple of weeks before I landed a few close calls. One was a quarter rotation short, but I saved the jump by hopping out of the landing. I could regularly land forward, or a little past forward and do a three-turn to exit the jump. This alone was a tremendous improvement over the axels I had being trying with my previous coach. With him, I never got beyond landing on the wrong foot, throwing my leg around to achieve rotation and missing the backspin position entirely.
Without warning, I jumped up into the backspin position and felt my body rotate as a column around the correct axis. My landing foot (I’m a lefty) connected with the ice. I was a fraction of a rotation short of gliding out easily. I heard my coach repeating in my mind, “No matter what you do, finish with the correct landing position”. My free leg unwound and stretched pulling my body to the left back outside edge. I gasped dramatically and covered my mouth in surprise. I skated toward the back of the rink as tears of triumph stung in my eyes. That was an axel. It was my first. I did them over and over. None of them were perfect, but they were decent.
In my excitement and self-absorption I didn’t notice that everyone had left the ice. The session was over. I could hardly wait to do more axels - better axels - the next day. There was something in the combination of the lateness of the afternoon, the soreness in my body and the cold humidity of the rink that I found discomforting the next day. It was an effort to perform back camels (which are one of my best moves). My thighs were tight and screaming in pain with every stretch. My over-thirty body was in shock from jumping everyday and landing axels. There were no axels the next day. But I had landed them and I know I will land them again. They will get better and more consistent. Now I must take the Fourth of July weekend to heal.
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