As I was circling the rink today at lunch, I was thinking to myself how lazy I was today. I usually go at a faster pace, and get a bit of a sweat going. Today however, I found myself just doing sinuous S-curves on one skate at a time. At least I got practice out of working my "edges". That's balancing on one side/edge of one blade. Listening to John Mayer had an effect on me. When I skate, I wear my headphones and set some music to listen to for the hour. The music I listen to usually sets my mood. I guess something about his calming songs...
Anyway, when class rolled by, I had already spent an hour of so-so paced skating. I did mix in some bursts of speed along with my laziness, so I at least felt properly warmed up. The class was for "intermediate" skaters, which really meant they were still kind of awkward on ice. A few could skate backwards, but not confidently. It's a pretty good class. Even I, as an experienced skater, feel that I'm learning something everyday. What I learn is really how weak some of my skating fundamentals are. Specifically, how certain muscles in my legs are still underdeveloped. I might have to add some of these basic exercises into a warm-up routine of some sort when I do much lunch skates. I really like that we're doing a lot with stops. I'm pretty bad at stops, overall. I don't feel like I have talent to learn it, and I have to spend a lot of time practicing. Currently, I can do beautiful one skate stops on my right leg, where I stop while balancing on my right leg. I can barely stop with my left side, but I'm working on it. I think I'm getting a lot better.
So today, I ended up skating two hours, then playing two more hours of basketball at night. I'm pretty sure my legs are gonna kill me tomorrow. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day of noon skate :).
-Howitzer
0 comments