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Backchatting the Tammasaurus

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From my lesson today... Tammasaurus : Backwards outside 3 turns. Me : Sure. I've never taken the time to detail in my blog what these are, but, essentially, they're your bog standard 3 turns done backwards instead of forwards - the post I linked to mentions them towards the end as there was a time when I thought of backwards 3 turns in horror... In truth, I'm still mostly terrified of them. The key difference to the backwards version is that instead of using the front part of the blade (the rocker) to do the turn then you have to use the considerably spicier  heel section of the blade. Much like the rocker, the heel part of the blade minimises the amount of blade contact with the ice so that rotating your foot is easier. The spicy part comes in that you have to sort of lean back into the turn, put all your weight in your heel (with its deliciously minuscule amount of blade contact) and just hope you don't go over backwards onto all manner of delicate body part
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Unorthodox breakthroughs

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Upright spin . The most basic and trivial of spin techniques, yet one I stubbornly continue to struggle with a year and a half into my skating career. It seems so odd that I can be practising to do the hardest single jump and yet still completely floundering on the basics of spinning, but hey ho. Lately, the Tammasaurus has been pulling all sorts of tricks out of her playbook in order to get me to make some semblance of progress at spins - I strongly smell the air of desperation, though more from myself than her. She remains as professional as ever, despite my string of floundering attempts at spinning. Something I've noticed with learning spins is that every time we try a new method then I immediately do it fairly well first time round. Fantastic. Of course, I am then completely incapable of repeating my beautiful first execution ever again. It's almost as if the thrill of the new drives me forward and then my body has a taste and is like " we've done that now, gi
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Rink Notoriety Achieved!

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This story comes courtesy of a conversation I had with one of the excellent, lovely, talented, senior-level ice dancers that is now turning his hand towards coaching at our rink. Why include so many praising adjectives about this wonderful young man? Well, because of him, I now know that I have achieved a degree of notoriety at the rink, and I LOVE  that fact. Gaining notoriety means I'm now officially a badass, right? I'm well known at my rink for throwing myself into the jumping aspect of free skating with rather more zeal than is strictly necessary at my level of learning - you could say that in my quest for bigger and better then I compensate for a lack of skill with misguided effort. Scenes of me smashing into the ice are relatively common, so I often hear jokes from my friends and the rink staff about how I'm going to injure myself next. I haven't done any real damage to myself until relatively recently , but no need to worry about that! Not to be deter
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Skating 101 - Skating jumps explained through "everyday" activities: Salchow

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Disclaimer:  I've written a small disclaimer for these articles on jumping  over on this link . Reading it isn't obligatory, but it does cover a lot of ugliness that I don't want to type every time I write one of these, so if you're about to pick me up on the finer points of jump execution then please read that first! The Salchow You have a beloved, imaginary friend called Lorenzo. Lorenzo is a human-sized teddy bear with the classic posture of a sitting teddy bear: both arms and legs open in a welcoming embrace. He's accompanied you through many of the big occasions in your life: first day at school; first relationship; first drunken escapade when you stole a traffic cone; your wedding/civil ceremony of choice; your first kid; etc. etc. However, Lorenzo's a  needy , imaginary friend, he wants to be hugged every so often, which would be simple enough, except he's only happy if you employ his preferred patented hug technique, which is a hug whilst swing
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Skating 101 - Skating jumps explained through "everyday" activities: Toe Loop

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Disclaimer:  I've written a small disclaimer for these articles on jumping over on this link . Reading it isn't obligatory, but it does cover a lot of ugliness that I don't want to type every time I write one of these, so if you're about to pick me up on the finer points of jump execution then please read that first! The Toe Loop You run a money laundering operation, I keep telling you not to, but that hasn't stopped you yet. It's a  typical day for you as a money launderer (whatever that looks like, you tell me) and you're just on your way out of the house to pick up some ill-gotten gains. You step your right leg forward and raise your left foot heel off the floor so just your toes are touching the ground. In this position, you suddenly realise you've forgotten your keys, you clutz! Still facing forwards, you push down through your left toes into the floor behind you, with the intention to pivot to the left on them so that you can reach your keys
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Skating 101 - Jumping, The Disclaimer

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Personally, I think all skating progression carries a degree of risk and, in the pursuit of jumping perfection, then you fall a lot . I literally cannot emphasise how much falling you do. However, I don't want anyone doing themselves a mischief because of the insanity I'm going to be spewing in the upcoming articles, so I am putting together a little disclaimer that goes a little something like this... I am not a trained skating coach and I strongly recommend that you learn any and all skating elements with assistance from a coach. That said, attempting the jumps isn't THAT dangerous at all unless you're a total maniac, so while the below can all be attempted off ice, no liability is accepted for your own fooling around when attempting any of them, whether on or off ice. Watch out for any objects nearby. Furthermore, none of my jumping explanations are intended as a comprehensive primer on jump execution, they're largely intended as a simplified, jokey versio
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Straight Up Pain

Previously in my quest for the vaunted single Axel , I experienced an unpleasant series of injuries and MY GOODNESS did those injuries become the bane of my skating pretty much over the course of the last two months. It turns out that you can't drop hard on your hip as an adult, twice, without repercussions, which is a shame, because like all reckless, young men (I'm not sure I can keep claiming I'm 'young' but hey ho), I like to think of myself as indestructible. In the weeks following my injuries, I endured pain in my hip whenever I climbed stairs or tried to do basic stroking on the ice. Life was sad and skating was making me miserable. I had no motivation to try anything because I was in pain and not trying anything meant I wasn't progressing, which made me not want to come in and practise, which set my progress back even more. I confess that the reason my blog's posting rate suffered lately is almost entirely because I just haven't been in the
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