October 2002
October 1-5, 2002
Progressives
I can finally report a decent session. Many of the annoying people either did not show up or only stayed a short time. Taking full advantage of the situation, I skated for three-and-a-half hours. I also enjoyed my very first ice dance lesson.
Last season, I became interested in dance as a means of improving my overall skating and appearance on the ice. However, only a frustrating freestyle plateau combined with miserable sessions compelled me to sign up for something new. Cynthia, my coach as of last March, also teaches dance; and she was able to accommodate me. I have absolutely no dance background on ice or otherwise, unless you want to count a couple of months of an adult ballet class that was not especially productive. As further evidence of my uncoordination, I am probably the biggest klutz in my aerobics class.
Cynthia seemed surprised by my request for a dance lesson and warned me that someone who can skate at my level is likely to be bored by beginning dance patterns. Actually, my connecting moves are not strong and moves in the field always present a considerable challenge. Spinning ability does not mean I will learn basic dances quickly.
First Cynthia introduced me to some of the fundamental building blocks of ice dance. These include progressives and a few other forward steps. Progressives are essentially crossovers performed to a musical beat. In contrast to garden-variety forward crossovers, the crossing foot takes the ice alongside the skating foot and skims the ice as it crosses. Advanced freestyle skaters tend to do this anyway. Of course, I had never done a progressive before, though I have admired them from afar.
By standing beside me, Cynthia showed me how to stroke with a partner. If I continued to extend my free leg to the side, I would kick my unfortunate partner, and probably draw blood. Therefore, an ice dance stroke extends more to the back than to the side. With the free leg following a different path, it skims the ice naturally creating a graceful progressive where only a plodding crossover had existed before. I was so excited that I could do a progressive, I forgot how disgusted this sport made me feel last week. We could have stopped there; but I also learned the chassé, slide chassé, and swing roll. I could already do a cross roll, which is also known as a cross stroke in moves vernacular.
My coach strung these steps together in various training exercises, before introducing me to my first dance, the Canasta Tango. The Canasta Tango is a beginning dance that consists exclusively of forward stepping and gliding, conveniently incorporating all of the basic motions I learned. Memorizing these steps requires significant effort from one as footwork challenged as me. Cynthia gave me a booklet diagramming the pattern. After our lesson concluded, I worked though all of the steps individually, then repeated the training drills. Finally, I took the “map” in hand and struggled through my tango.
Trying to skate while reading steps from a diagram makes me dizzy. Luckily the rink was not crowded, and I could skate around with my nose in the book. After about an hour, the haze cleared and I performed a sloppy silent version of the Canasta Tango, counting all the while in my head. My moving lips testified to enormous concentration.
I enjoyed the lesson and working on the dance steps. It bolstered my confidence. After investing an hour-and-a-half in dance skills, my freestyle elements seemed noticeably improved. Pleased with dancing in its own right as well its satellite effects on the rest of my skating, I scheduled another ice dance lesson for next week.
Week of October 6, 2002
Dutch Waltz
Although I skated 3.5 hours last week, this was all in one day. I did not practice again to reinforce the new dance steps I had learned. When my coach appeared for this week’s lesson, I felt like a kid who neglected his homework and was trying to avoid eye contact with the teacher. Cynthia was sympathetic when I explained my motivational troubles this season. I have been unusually busy and cannot summon the energy to make the long drive to the rink as often as I had hoped. As a result, Cynthia reviewed the various skills she taught me last week and included a few new exercises to increase the power of my progressives.
My coach pumped around a hockey circle doing a bizarre crossover drill in which she never lifted either foot off the ice. Her legs pushed, crossed, and scissored apart again without losing blade contact with the surface. The sight of the exercise made me nervous, though I mimicked it readily, and it immediately strengthened the under-stroke of my progressives. I think years of bad axels and failed doubles has instilled a sense of self-doubt in me. Of course, I have never been a footwork genius, and learning new footwork can be intimidating. Somehow, I find dance patterns more fun than moves in the field, and my coach believes they will not only improve my basic skating and body carriage but may also lead to more control over jumps.
We reviewed the Canasta Tango before Cynthia played accompanying music. I had little hope of keeping up with the beat, but was satisfied to have learned the steps. While I could not perform the dance at the expected speed, I was not skating slowly and have demonstrated improvement, which became more significant by the end of the session.
Satisfied with my Tango, Cynthia introduced the Dutch Waltz. The Dutch Waltz is generally the first dance learned by beginners. It consists of progressives, swing rolls, and a few basic strokes. However, the progressives are done to a different beat, which Cynthia says can make it more difficult from a timing perspective. I had no problem learning the steps, though I could not keep time to the music. After an hour of independent practice, I skated this dance fairly quickly with decent edge quality. My blades made delicious grinding noises through the swing rolls, making me feel like a legitimate dancer. Weaning myself from the diagram booklet also provided a sense of accomplishment.
I have enjoyed my two dance lessons and look forward to a regular weekly appointment. In the years that I spent pummeling my body with axels and impacting my knee with cheated double salchows, I never truly held much hope of doing either skill very well. These simple dances are not the same caliber of difficulty as a multi-revolution jump, and I realize advanced dances become extremely challenging. However, a beautiful Canasta Tango is probably more within my reach than a gorgeous axel. Given a choice, I prefer a lovely basic dance with nice speed, edgework, and extension to a strangled beginner axel, the type of axel I was able to complete once in a great while.
Week of October 13, 2002
Guilt
I cannot remember the last time I missed a week of skating during the regular season without the excuse of travel or illness. Yet this week, I did not skate at all. I had planned to go at least one day, but the weather was particularly bad and predicted to worsen. Since my commute is long, requiring travel on a highly congested and rather insane freeway, I decided to forego the trip for another day. When my next opportunity came, toward the end of the week, I was already exhausted and rundown. While not blatantly sick, I simply did not feel my best as though a cold might be coming on.
An inescapable sense of guilt plagued me. I had not skated all week, nor did I especially want to skate. I was not in the mood. Previously, I have forced myself to drive to the rink in spite of various misgivings. Sometimes this effort resulted in an enjoyable session for which I was happy to have made the appropriate sacrifices. However, other occasions ended in frustration, the wrong frame of mind essentially disallowing me to tolerate the routine crap that occurs on almost every session. Lately, sessions have not been the best quality, and I believed attending one under these conditions would yield more stress than satisfaction. So I stayed home when I could have skated.
The convenience of a nearby aerobics class makes skipping skating a viable option. I used to worry that missing skating would have even more dire consequences than the deterioration of skills. Omitting precious exercise from my agenda would result (rather quickly) in weight gain. While this fear is not entirely unfounded, believing one dropped session would immediately translate into blubber around my hips is pure paranoia. Now my aerobics class completely frees me of any such concern. In just one hour, I get an intense, concentrated workout that leaves me bathed in sweat. It also requires a much smaller time investment: only five minutes each way in the car instead of forty; and an hour-and-fifteen-minutes in the gym as opposed to two, three, or more hours in the rink.
While I might not be the best fitness dancer, I thoroughly enjoy aerobics. I have begun to turn up aerobics songs when I hear them on the radio as well as picture myself interpretting various beats in tennis shoes rather than skates. Aerobics does not provide a creative personal outlet equivalent to skating (at least not for me), but I do find it somehow satisfying. Not satisfying like a gorgeous spin that rotates forever, but it is far less infuriating than watching kids pop off jumps that I know I will never get. Aerobics may not fill the psychological space occupied by skating in my life, but it does offer an exercise option when I need a break from the ice.
Week of October 20, 2002
This Beat Goes On
I felt good this week: healthy, strong, stress-free, and enthusiastic. I skated twice, which is about all I can manage this fall due to other commitments. Getting to the rink the second day was more a pleasure than a burden. Stepping on the ice and working on my dances and other skills was a joy. Dancing has relieved some of the boredom of moves in the field, exercises that I occasionally dread during the drive to the arena. While improving my basic skating, dance provides the additional stimulation of skating to a rhythm that also encourages extension and held edges.
Of course, I have no musical talent. I was not a high school band geek. My third grade flirtation with a musical instrument ended within a few weeks. I could not read music and would have flunked out of the band. Nor was I one of those teenagers who knew the name of every guitarist and could match each tune to the name of a rock group. I did not conform to whatever sound was cool at the time. I liked whatever struck my fancy, though I publicly conformed to popular trends. Freed of the cliquishness of high school, as a young adult I openly enjoyed whatever I pleased in spite of my friends’ hipper tastes. My musical ineptitude also spans the performing arts. I never took ballet lessons or jazz or tap. Previous experience with skating programs (1, 2) did not result in enormous success either.
Musical incompetence may also explain my difficulties with aerobic dancing. It goes without saying that I am an aerobics klutz, but looking around the gym, I realize I am not alone. Some of the women are even more devoid of rhythm than I am. That should be scary, but I find it comforting. When my coach, Cynthia, played music for the Dutch Waltz, she asked me to listen for the beat, a beat that governs the count of the skating strokes. I could not hear anything. At this point, I prefer to attribute this deficiency to lack of training rather than tone deafness, if such a phenomenon really exists. Cynthia told me I could develop the ability with practice. (But that’s not where the smart money is riding.)
She counted the beat as the music played then continued to count as I skated. The Canasta Tango presented a unique challenge as I struggled to complete the quick progressive into a chassé before stepping into a slower swing roll. With Cynthia’s rhythmic counting and clapping, I eventually began to skate to the correct tempo. She congratulated me on the quickness of my strokes, depth of my edges, and increased speed. Dance has greatly increased my basic skating speed. Performing a comfortable pattern, I feel safe stepping on the accelerator. After Cynthia left, I continued to count for myself, lips moving as I circled the rink. This probably makes me look like a babbling idiot. I guess I will have to buy a little tape player and headphones, assuming I learn to hear a musical beat.
Week of October 27, 2002
An “Oh, $#!+” Moment
A friend of mine openly admired the single jumps performed by a teenage skater. “I wish I could do big floating loop jump. I would be very satisfied to just accomplish that, but sometimes I think even a good single is beyond me.” She went on to explain how uncomfortable and insecure she feels when approaching a jump, any attempt at speed fizzling into tentativeness.
I believe adult skaters can learn to do beautiful basic jumps and spins. A dedicated adult skater can learn to incorporate these elements into a context of graceful skating. While a technically excellent axel may or may not be within the reach of the average adult, most adult skaters who dedicate themselves to reasonable goals can learn to skate admirably. I told my friend if she aspires to a truly good loop jump, she should communicate that ambition to her coach and spend a significant amount of practice time honing that skill.
Last season my old coach, Geoff, and I worked diligently to improve the quality of my loop and flip jumps. These efforts resulted in jumps that would be considered big by any standards and certainly huge for most adult-trained athletes. My friend seemed inspired by this story and set herself to work. Personally motivated to regain last year’s level of performance, I hit my biggest loops of the season. Thanks to ice dancing, I skated fast down the length of the rink into split jumps and flips, enjoying the freedom of speed and confidence.
Later in the session, my friend told me she did a jump that felt so big that she could not control the landing and had a moment of panic in the air. Where was the ice?
“Oh, yes, the famous ‘Oh, $#!+’ moment,” I acknowledged. “The extra airtime you can actually fill with the thought ‘oh, $#!+’, when the ice doesn’t come up to meet your blade as soon as expected.”
I have had many such moments. Most recently, last week I did a big split jump that caught an unfamiliar bit of air. I experienced an exhilarating extra fraction of a second in flight, enough time to think (or even say aloud) “Oh, $#!+”. The ‘Oh, $#!+’ moment does not have to be associated with a jump. It can occur during a perfect spin when the sweet spot glides over the ice unimpeded by a dragging toe pick. It can also be associated with a flawless footwork or dance pattern when lightness and perfect timing combine to create an effortless flow of blades and body. Many of my “Oh, $#!+s” have occurred upon landing a flying camel that rotates faster than should be physically possible for a woman my age and size.
“So this is a good thing?” the other skater asked.
“Of course. Once you get used to the bigger jump, you will learn to control it.” I climbed the same learning curve with my loop and flip.
Merely doing a skill and doing the same skill well can be completely different. Simply executing a loop jump is not the same as completing a gorgeous loop jump. In my experience, mastering a genuinely good single jump can be more challenging that simply forcing out any axel that happens. I also believe an excellent single jump looks far more impressive than a small sloppy double. A bad double looks like a pathetic mistake while a powerful single loop appears to fly over the ice.
If my friend has decided to commit herself to a good loop jump, she will not be disappointed. Since she already owns a passable version, she can develop it into a beautiful element. In one day, she graduated from assuming a respectable loop was out of the question to jumping beyond her previous capacity.
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