Lesson, practice, and an injured back

Yesterday a back muscle spasm sent me to bed early and I got terrible sleep. In the morning I wasn’t sure if I should go skating or not because the my nerves from my lower back down were still twinging quite painfully. Anyways, I rode a bike to the rink and did the lesson and practice – I was very stiff with any twists in my upper body so that got in the way a bit, but oh well.

So, power stroking – my coach drew the points at which to do the crossovers and where the lobes were in the ice. I was crossing over too early in the introductory back cross overs, so I needed to hold the stroke longer after the into crosses in order to get to the starting point. This was also true of the forward into crossovers - I needed to hold the cross over for a bit longer in order to make it to the starting point. Also I needed to stretch and point the non-skating foot to make it more graceful. Once coach left I practised more of these - I’m slowly getting the hang of them again, but I need to practice them more to make them more graceful and figure out where to do the cross over and how long to hold for.

Inside 3 turns - start with left foot. Do a left stroke, a right stroke, step on to Right Inside edge with left arm forward, right arm straight across backward, as though I were holding a hockey stick. Point the chest into the circle while looking forward. When you get to the middle, bend down at the knee in order to do the turn. Twist, rise up and check to do 3 turn. Right arm which was behind becomes the forward arm, and left arm becomes leading but backward arm, look forward down over the left arm.

Progressives - Put the foot down between 1 and 2 of the clock face before taking it over the left foot. For counter clockwise, put the foot down between 10 and 11. You can also practise without taking the foot off the ice at all at first to get comfortable with the motion.

Two foot spin entry - Stay on the rocker of the right foot for spin entry. Think about doing the pivot before pulling the left foot in. Point left foot in when spinning. How to find the rocker? Put your bottom-most spike into the ice: the point on the blade that the touches the ice is the rocker.

I stayed and practised until the end of the session until coach left. I got a bit better about the backwards power stroking although my crossovers still don’t know when they’re supposed to happen – my body doesn’t know anyways! And I practised spinning a bit – it was a little bit better but not much. I couldn’t twist very well with my lower back twinging the way it was any time my torse was twisted (which is essential for every move I was practising) so that was sad.