Back after being snowed in!

Wow - I ended up taking two weeks off from skating because of the snow and then the rink's holiday closure. Ick - double-ick... I have a lesson in two days, and not only has it been two weeks, but the rink will be closed tomorrow as well. I hope Will is patient with me.....

I can already tell that I should NEVER do that again. It was a nightmare. The good thing was I had the ice pretty much to myself, so I didn't have to worry about looking like a complete fool while I tried to remember what in the heck I was doing.

Worked a lot on progressives. My left side is so much better than my right, and I've realized it might be because one leg is actually stronger than the other. I've been meaning to ask Will if he knows a trainer who conditions skaters, and this is another reason I should remember to do it next time. After years of working out to gain muscle mass, all of the sudden I need to drop the muscle in my upper body, lose probably 20 pounds, and get my leg and butt strength back - in other words, return to my dancer body. I think having someone realign my workout program will help me get on track for those goals.

Good thing I think of the body as a malleable thing. First I needed a dancer body, then I wanted to be a hulking muscle guy, now I need to go back to the dancer. No biggie, but it will be tough. My body naturally wants to be bigger (it's the Scottish, I think) and I always had to fight it down to dancer weight. My goal is to get down to within striking distance of 200lbs by April. My dancing weight was 185-190, and I know that's never going to be possible at my age, so I think that's a reasonable goal for me to achieve.

Oddly Ironic

So we are having record cold and snow here in Seattle, and it's all but shut the city down since Thursday. Having gone to college in the mountains, I'm no stranger to driving in snow, but just as Seattlites (for some strange reason) don't know how to drive in the rain, neither do they understand how to drive safely in the snow.

So - here I am, unable to go ice skate because of snow and freezing temperatures. Weird, huh?

Weird, and terribly frustrating. With the existing holiday closure schedule at the rink, I'm going to be hard-pressed to get in a decent amount of practice time over the next two weeks, in spite of the vacation time I'm going to take...

I'll do what I can, deal with the frustration, try not to gain too much weight, and just wait it out. :)

Just me and the "Hello Kitty" brigade...

Interesting - normally the rink is pretty crowded in the mornings, but I guess the holiday season is having it's impact - today it was just me and two little girls with their matching pink skating bags with wheels that light up when they spin... How terminally cute... Makes me think of "Hello Kitty" horking up a hairball.

Haven't been able to get to the rink since my lesson on Friday, damnit. Work is kicking my butt right now, and my SAD is hitting me harder and earlier than normal this year so I'm really struggling with energy issues. Did get in today, though - worked on the swing rolls most of the time, after my normal warmup. I've got to get the rhythm of those suckers into my body - dancer-brain gets it, but skater-body is pretty clueless. For some reason, I'm really struggling with my right side moves. The left side is fine, the right side is from some OTHER body that doesn't know anything... I finally decided to JUST work on the right side and managed a reasonably spectacular wipeout at one point.

I think it's about my right side not being as strong physically for some reason. I had that problem as a dancer, as I recall. I'm going to have to really concentrate on it for a while to get it up to par.

Not a bad workout - was tired of course, but worked through it.

Who's idea was it to move to friggin' SEATTLE where the sun comes up at 10am and goes down at 4pm having not really accomplished much ALL WINTER! What was I thinking? :)

Got beaten up again, in a good way

Damn - ok, so I hadn't made as much progress and I thought. True, Will could tell I was trusting my edges more, but my body alignment had gone to hell (have I mentioned yet that I miss the mirrors?). Once he got that straightened out, he bumped my progressives up a notch and has me refining the footwork. It's complicated to explain, but when you bring in the outside leg, it actually touches the ice on the OUTSIDE first and then you bring it around to cross in front of the inside leg while it's still touching the ice - then your body weight naturally transitions, so the whole thing is a lot smoother. I get it, and can even do it once in a while - that's going to take some time. And I still can't do it for shit on my right side.

Let me explain. Most dancers have one "smart" leg and one "dumb" leg. In other words, you can turn better on one side, you jump better from one leg than the other, and for most dancers the smart leg is the right one. I've always been backwards from that (no snide comments) - my left leg is the smart one, and I really struggle with the stupid righty. So progressives to the left are AOK, and to the right I'm back doing my drunken duck imitation. I'm just going to have to start getting really disciplined during my workouts and spend at least twice as much time on my off side as my good one.

Will also gave me an exercise to do to help strengthen my forward stroking - and I can already tell I'm going to hate it - my ass hurt after just one time, and it's STILL freakin' sore. I better have the tightest, cutest ass on the planet when this is all done or I'm going to be seriously pissed.

The good news is that Will threw a step at me today - a REAL step! It's called a "swing roll", and it's one of the building blocks of the first couple of dances. It's actually a lot of fun - it's a bear to figure out how the weight changes happen though. This one is going to haunt me for a while. This is one of those things that my "dancer brain" completely and totally understands, and my body is just too stupid to follow instructions. But now that I have swing rolls, I have progressives, chasse's, and swing rolls, which are evidently all the building blocks I will need to learn my actual first dance! Woo Hoo! I gotta get control of these buggers first, though, so I have lots of incentive now!

At the end of my lesson, I showed off my T-stops (which he showed me at my lesson two weeks ago). I have them down pat and can toss them off without thinking now.

So all in all, this was an ego-positive lesson, and DAMN do I have a lot to work on now. I have to get disciplined about getting to the gym EVERY SINGLE MORNING because it's the only way I'm going to get control of this stuff so I can start learning a real dance.

Back after a week off

Four pounds lighter and four wisdom teeth missing - back to the rink today for the first time in a week.

Last time I had a layoff, I came back and not much had gotten better. This time is was WAY different. For some reason, I'm suddenly starting to trust my edges, and the progressives were much improved. I'm also able to glide backwards on one foot without too many drunken duck imitations. I spent quite a bit of time on the changes Will gave me for the forward stroking. There's something still wrong, and I can't seem to find my balance. DAMN I wish I had mirrors!

All told, it was a good workout, and the layoff time must have given my brain a chance to do some serious assimilation. Will is threatening to start teaching me some actual steps on Friday. I guess I'm not done being a drunken duck after all. Sigh - good thing I'm well acquainted with public humiliation (remember the skate guards incident?)

I don't, however, recommend tooth extraction as a diet plan. When it's chicken broth or nothing, sometimes nothing is just better...

Patience, jackass...

No skating practice since I had my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday afternoon, but I have had a wonderful email exchange with another adult ice dancer and former ballet dancer I met on the Adult Ice Dancers' Yahoo group. Jim's insight into what the transition from barre to ice was like has been a huge help to calm my frustrations about how "slow" this seems to be going for me. It's great to have someone with a very similar background (who's been skating for 15 years!) to help level-set my expectations, and help me process some of the problems I have with my dancer-brain.

Bottom line, yes - it's going to take a while to learn this; yes - you have to unlearn some stuff from dancing; and yes - the impulse is to want to start doing real dance right away! Turns out, when he made the transition, his own dancer-brain also thought "hey, this is going to be easy for me" just as mine did. I'm not alone in discovering that it's not that simple, and it's somehow comforting to know that my experience isn't unique in this respect. :)

Jim is schooling me to regain the infinite patience of the professional dancer - hours at the barre doing the same fundamentals over and over again really pay off when you try to do something worth watching - and it's exactly the same for ice. Exactly. If I don't invest in the work now, odds are anything I try to do later will be uncontrolled and sloppy. I knew that, I know that - I just forget it when I come up against the gap between what I can do right now and what I WANT to be able to do right now.

So the moral of the story is to suck it up, be willing to look bad in front of other people, forget they are there, and concentrate on your own skating. He did encourage me to start doing something to music though - and I think that's what I'm missing. I even lift weights to music, and it's a huge motivator. Will seems to be ready to start teaching me some steps, and maybe I'll start taking my ipod to the rink with me. I've told Will to not be shy about beating the crap out of me during my lessons. No point doing this if I don't go at it full-steam-ahead.

And if that means more time skating circles on one leg and dodging the kiddies, so be it.

Thanks for the great advice and encouragement, Jim!

Small gain, big frustration

Well, today wasn't as bad as the last practice session - and that's about all I can say about it. I'm really struggling with being frustrated over my seeming lack of progress. It might be that my expectations are way out of line, but my dancer-brain is going crazy because it's been two months and I'm still doing fundamentals. It's tremendously aggravating to be on the ice with 20 other people (most more than half my age), skating beautifully, working to music (albeit it's pretty cheesy sometimes) and there's me still trying to get control of the damn blades and feeling like I'm getting in everyone's way. In my head, I'm already dancing, damnit.

Sigh. This is WAY harder than I expected it was going to be.

The small bright spot today is that I think I've figured out how to glide backward on one foot and not lose my balance. That's one of the things that Will threw at me during my last lesson. Turns out, you have to commit to sort of just "sitting" on the blade and fight against wanting to come up on your toes to get your balance. That's dancer-brain again. I think I've realized that the solution to losing your balance is to actually sink deeper into the standing leg - Will says that the back part of the skate is less curved than the front, so if you go flat-foot on the ice or sit back a bit, you actually have more blade on contact with the ice and will be more stable. So in other words, my reflex to rock forward to gain balance is working against me in a big way. More differences from dance to skating.

I worked on progressives today as well - I think I'm getting the hang of how the footwork has to go, and it feels a lot more stable than it's been. Also worked on the new positioning for forward stroking - without mirrors I can't tell if I'm still in drunk duck mode or starting to look right. I wonder if more frequent coaching would help - maybe I need to go to two lessons a week for a while.

I'm going to have to talk to Will next time about my progress. He tells me that I'm learning way faster than a normal adult student, and I can't help but worry that he's just blowing smoke to build up my confidence... What I do know is that I've got to get past these blasted fundamentals pretty darn soon or I'm going to have serious attitude issues.

Oh, hold it - already there and bought the t-shirt :)

Klutz, on ice...

It was one of those practices today - after a pretty good week and a bruising, but encouraging lesson on Friday, I got to the rink today and it was like I'd never been on skates before. Total klutzville.... That is so friggin' frustrating. No balance, windmilling arms to catch my balance, and even the simplest things just didn't work. My brain is a swan, but my body was an ostrich.

I hate days like this - of course, Will (my coach) was there and he saw the whole thing. Peachy. I would be a lot happier with this whole "skating" gig if I didn't have to learn IN FRIGGIN' PUBLIC. I don't mind not knowing what I'm doing, but does everyone have to watch me? Jeez.

I remember having days like this when I was a dancer. Some times, and for some reason, the "magic" just isn't there and no matter what you do, it just doesn't seem to work. Those are the days that you fall out of your turns into a sloppy fourth position, can't remember combinations, and hate everything you see in the mirror. I guess I'm fortunate that the rink doesn't have mirrors, but I will say that I miss them, generally. After learning how to look critically at yourself and identify problems on sight, it's hard to not know what you look like when you are learning new skills. I know I probably shouldn't be so concerned with how things look just yet, but being able to see what I'm doing would be a huge help to not only improvement, but also in confidence-building. As much as I've always hated looking at video of myself (I run for the hills when someone gets out a camera) perhaps it would be helpful since I don't have mirrors.

Sigh - days like this are why more adults aren't willing to learn new things.... As a kid, you don't have the awareness to worry about feeling like you are a fool - but as adults, we get very sensitive to that - possibly because we get out of the habit of being beginners. Right now, my goal of competing at the Gay Games in a year and a half seems like a real stretch, and that's what upsets me the most.

I wonder how much it would cost to get COMPLETELY PRIVATE ice time :) Everybody OUT, lock the doors, put on music that I like for a change, and look like an idiot with only the Zamboni to see or care.

So much for thinking I had it

Had my lesson today. I showed off my progress on stroking and the crossovers. Will said it was doing well, then promptly crushed me into a powder by saying that my knees weren't bent enough. He demonstrated, and he was right. What feels like bent to me looks pretty timid when he mimics what I'm doing. He also added some new nuances to start turning this into something closer to the style that ice dancers do it.

Damn. Two steps forward, one step back.

Sigh - he said to get used to it, and I'm trying hard to keep up my spirits. This is a hell of a lot harder that I ever thought it was going to be. The bright side is, when he showed me the stylistic things I needed to do, I grasped it pretty quickly and was able to do it, although inconsistently I did get it and he was complimentary. Hit me with a stick, then make me like it :) More new stuff to work on. I'm really looking forward to the day I can get around the rink and NOT look like a bloody beginner and KNOW that I don't look like a bloody beginner. It's really unbalancing to be back to not being able to move gracefully. I've spent so long knowing that I can take any step and make it look good that now discovering that I can take any step and make it look like crap is a hard lesson.

Will also gave me some stylistic tweaks to the crossover thing today - to turn it in a "progressive". More nuances, and I've got a ton of work to do now - again. I guess it's good that he's already starting to give me more detail-y things to think about, but the day I can do something and look like an ice dancer can't come soon enough for me! Oh, I also learned how to do a T-stop today. You see ice skaters do this all the time and is tres elegant. I was able to do it right a couple of times (first windmilling my arms madly like a goose with too much Starbucks, then finally figuring it out) so that's more to work on.

Good thing I'm at the rink most mornings. He's really pushing me hard, but that's just what my middle-aged butt needs right now, so bring it on!

Everyone is bowling, and I'm the pin....

With the rush at work, I couldn't get to the rink Monday or Tuesday, so decided to really work HARD on Wednesday. Spent the morning dodging the kiddies and working on my crossovers. It's really starting to smooth out, and I feel like it's actually starting to look like something. I don't get to practice clockwise much because of the flow of traffic and the number of kids at that hour, but I got in a real solid hour's practice before I had to head to work.

Once I got to work, I discovered that nearly everyone was going to take a half-day off so thought DAMN, ME TOO! That meant I got to go to the rink that afternoon for two solid hours! Interesting - it is a completely different crowd after-school as opposed to before-school. I don't know if this is normal, but the mornings are mostly the little kids, and the afternoon seems to be the older ones. Dodging people is also different. With the little kids, you know they aren't watching, but it's OK because they aren't going very fast. In the afternoon it's more like the Indy 500.... those kids get up a huge head of steam and pretty much just expect you to get the hell out of their way. Frogger, anyone? :)

For the afternoon session, I decided to spend some time really breaking down body positions for forward stroking and the crossovers. Zeroing in on little placement things like shoulders, head, hands, etc. I used to love doing that in the dance studio - it's meditative... you just go into this weird zone where it's just you and the moves. By the end, my ass was killing me, but I felt like I'd made some serious progress... we will see what Will says on Friday - he's crushed me before (Anna crushes me all the time) :)

My first REAL dance step!

After having skipped a week (for that family trip) I really wanted to show Will some significant improvement. Our lessons have taken on a fairly standard routine - I tell him what's working and what's not. He asks me to demonstrate the stuff that's working, which I promptly mess up about 50% of the time. Then we go to the stuff that's NOT working. He deconstructs the problem, I try it a few times until I get it, then he adds a new skill. Not a bad rhythm, really. He's really good at deconstructing problems and I almost always understand it right away. Actually DOING it right may take a few times, but I academically understand what the change needs to be from his explanation.

Today it was that demon forward crossover problem - it's like my feet are too big and there's just not enough room for them to pass each other! I keep either catching a toe pick (they were invented by Satan himself) or lose my balance completely. Now from my "mental rehearsal" I realized that I needed to sort of "fall" onto the outside leg when you bring it in - in other words, lean in and trust that the skate will keep it's traction on the ice. OK - that helped a little, but there was still something wrong.

Will spotted it at once, of course. I was trying really hard to keep my hips square, sort of facing a tangent of the circle. That's very "ballet" thinking, and has gotten me into trouble before. This time, I needed to let the hips open up to face the center of the circle - low and behold, that suddenly gives your feet more room to work and voila! problem solved.

I ran into this same problem with one of the new things he threw at me today - skating on one foot in arabesque. I kept spiraling around - could keep the damn thing going straight forward (no snide comments, please). Turns out, it's that damn hip placement thing again. In ballet, you keep your hips square to the front and parallel to the floor as much as you can. In skating, you HAVE to open up your hip a little as you reach back with the free leg - that takes the pressure off your standing leg and you can hold it straight. Duh. I need to try hip placement as my first solution to problems from now on....

The exciting news today is that Will taught me my first real dance step!!!!! It's a chasse, which is both dance and skating is a connecting step that shows up all over the place. You practice this in a circle (I spend a LOT of time skating in circles right now) and the one time I actually did it right today it felt like I was actually DANCING for the first time! I can't wait to work on this when I get to the rink Monday morning!!!

.... oh, and I didn't step onto the ice with my friggin' blade guards on.

First time after a long layoff

I spend last weekend (actually more like 5 days) with my brother's family, then had to catch up at work, so this is my first session after a week-long layoff. From my dance and weightlifting experience, this was going to mean one of two things - either I would be a complete train wreck, or some of the training will have had time to sink in and things will be surprisingly easier. I've had both experiences, and can never anticipate which one will show up, so when I got to the rink this morning, it wasn't without a little hesitation.

So the good news is that it was the latter. I've spent a lot of time over the past week running the forward crossovers in my head and trying to figure out why my feet keep getting tangled up - it's like there's just not enough room to execute the step. I had some ideas to try out, and for the most part they worked. Still having the problem of not enough space (is it just that my feet are more like FLIPPERS, or is it something else I'm missing) but at least I can get around a circle without messing up. I've been told by friends that are athletes that this sort of "mental rehearsal" is actually quite beneficial - almost as much as actual practice. Something about your body understanding the mental rehearsal as very much like the real thing - I've had this happen with dance before when I'm trying to remember a particularly hard or complex combination, so it's not a completely alien concept. It was nice to see that it does work, though.

All in all, it was a good session. The goal right now is to have more GOOD sessions than BAD. A few of the adults came up and chatted - which is always nice. The "Shawn" guy introduced me to his dance partner and we commiserated about the poor state of the ice that morning. It's a common gripe for skaters, and now that I have some experience I can see why - the Zamboni operator really has a lot of control over how that machine resurfaces the ice - I've seen it smooth and wonderful, and I've also seen it more like a gravel driveway. This morning, there were actual puddles of water at both hockey goal areas (never seen that before) and the ice was... well... mushy is the only word I can give it. No idea what happened, but everyone just avoided the puddles and continued to work. I guess part of this learning process is learning how to skate on crappy ice.

At least this time I didn't step onto the ice with my friggin' blade guards on...

Stupid, Stupid, STOOOPID!

Oh my god, I did perhaps the most klutzy, inane move of my life this morning... and that's saying something.

As is common, my coach and his skating partner were at the rink this morning while I was there. For some reason, that always makes me a little nervous, particularly her being there as she's brutally exacting and always has corrections for me. At any rate, I finished my stretch and went to step onto the ice, proud that I can now do it without holding on to the wall. So I rounded the corner, stepped onto the ice.... and promptly fell on my ass.

Note to self - take the skateguards off before you step onto the ice.

Will and his partner were kind about it - they said it happens to everyone - but right then, it had happened to ME, in front of my coach, god and everyone. So much for feeling like I am finally getting this!!!

That being said, I did have a good workout. Spent more time on the edge exercises (I actually like them, and I can already tell they are giving me more control) and then started working on forward crossovers. Funny thing - I can sort of do them to the left, and sort of NOT to the right. I guess one leg is just stupid or something.

It's in good company.

Where are all the kids today?

Weird - normally at 6am, the rink is crowded with kids - all doing things I can only dream about right now - but there. This morning, nada. Just a few adults. The one little girl that was there took a spectacular fall just as she was doing warm-up laps. The ice is really rough today, and I guess she caught an edge. When she didn't get up, I skated over to her and discovered that she'd really hurt herself and was crying. Normally, I'm the first to step in when things like this happen, but I don't really know what to do for a skating accident. Fortunately, one of the adults came up right after me and took charge. The little girl had hit her knee pretty bad. The other adult and I helped the kid off the ice where her mother was waiting for her. She was back on the ice doing laps to work it out about 20 minutes later, so I am guessing no lasting damage.

Partway through my practice, while I was working on forward crossovers (it was nice to not be in peoples' way today!!) one of the adults came over to offer some helpful tips - I must really REALLY look clueless sometimes - I'm growing an increasing set of informal coaches! Actually, I appreciate the help - all I can get!

At any rate, Windy ("like the wind", she said) was correcting my form - once again, I'm not bending my knees enough... Sigh. I asked her what happened to the kids, and she said she didn't know, but that one of the local competitions might be starting today. Turns out, she's been skating since she was a kid herself - I would guess she's about my age now. She mentioned that she didn't like to be here by herself because if she falls, there won't be anyone to help. She'd be the other adult who helped me with the kid earlier.

I can really feel for the kid - as I have said in an earlier post, ice is hard.

10 times faster!

Things seems to be working out well. I had my third lesson today and Will was pleased with my progress. I actually spent nearly three hours at the rink this morning - mostly to make up for missing Tuesday and Thursday due to work stuff, and yes my ass is killing me. At the end of the lesson, I asked Will to tell me whether I'm picking this stuff up at an appropriate pace. Never having seen anyone ELSE learn how to skate, I don't have a way of judging whether I'm completely clueless and taking forever, or doing about how I should. His response was that I was learning at probably 10 times the rate of a normal adult student! Damn - I feel like it's taking me forever to get control of these exercises - I couldn't imaging having to slog 10 times longer than THAT! I guess I'm just impatient. Anyone who knows me is, at this moment, saying "duh". :)

I will say that it's nice to have a coach who has a background in dance. He's able to break things down for me in dancer-terms, and when he has to help me adjust what I'm doing, he's able to communicate it clearly. For instance, at the end of the lesson, we were working on forward crossovers and evidently I was bringing in my outside leg leading with the inside of my foot rather than the toe. A dancer's instinct would be to bring the leg forward leading with the instep because that's how you do a tendu in ballet. Yet another difference to skating - you have to lead with your toe or you can't keep your feet close together - which is important in ice dance since your feet and those of your partner are so close together. The cool thing is he spotted what I was doing, knew exactly why I was doing it, and was able to tell me quickly how to change it and I got it immediately. I really lucked out with my selection of coach.

When my lesson was over (and I'd heard the "10 times" assessment - WHOOPEE!), I confessed to Will that my goal is to compete at the Gay Games in 2010. He not only was supportive, but said he's always wanted to coach a male/male ice dance team! I told him he would get his chance, but we have to find me a partner when the time is right. Woo Hoo! I think this is actually gonna happen!!!

At the end of my session today, I got to watch my doppleganger practice jumps again. It's still amazing to see someone my size (ok - and 20 pounds lighter and 30 years younger - I found out he's a high school senior) get into the air like that.

Damn I feel old.

Ice is HARD...

No I really mean it - ICE IS HARD. I got to the rink this morning (WOO HOO OBAMA!) and resolved to put my crappy practice session on Monday behind me and focus. After about 10 minutes of laps around the rink (in what felt like good form), I settled in to the far side where there is a hockey goal line on the ice to practice edge control. For over half an hour, I did a half circle one way on my right, then across the line and the other way on my right - over and over and over and.. well, you get it. Actually I felt like after 30 minutes it was finally starting to sink in. There are some body placement differences between dance and skating that I'm really struggling to over come. For instance, in dance you always have your pelvis square to the floor - you never raise a hip because you've raised a leg... but in skating you HAVE to do that or you are off balance and won't go where you want to.... stuff like that.

Of course, about 6:30am, my coach and his dance partner showed up, and he immediately started harping on my strokng not being with a deep enough knee bend. Damn. He said to just keep the knees bent all the time for now to get used to the prosition, and don't try to do the graceful "swooping" motion that I worked so hard on this morning.

Think for a moment - if you have been practicing this so that your legs are straight when you change feet, and you now keep your knees bent the entire time, that means you need to bend your knee when you bring the free leg in to switch, right? Well, I didn't, was going way too fast, and caught not one but BOTH toe picks on the ice (those things were invented by the devil). This time, I was treated to a full-forward face plant, turned at the last minute and took it on my hipbone.... bone to skin to ice. Ouch. Ice is hard.

The good news is that I feel like I am getting control of the edge exercises. I'll be working on them more tomorrow, and will hopefully get to working on the forward crossover exercise Will gave me last Friday as well. That will undoubtedly lead to more face plants - I can just see them coming.

Remember that comment from the first lesson about "curling up into a fetal position when you start to fall". Yes, it is because of how much it's going to hurt....

The slog begins today...

OK - so the honeymoon is over - I just had my first practice that didn't go well, hurt a lot, and was really frustrating. In other words, the hard work is beginning.

I spent the morning working on evening out my stroking and then doing the edge control exercises. I discovered almost immediately that my hips hurt, my shins hurt, and pretty much everything was harder because of that. The ice was really crowded this morning too, which hyped up my already overactive intimidation gene. Sigh - I knew this wouldn't be all hearts-and-flowers... I just didn't expect reality to hit so soon! Hell, it's only been a little over a week!!!

For some reason, I just couldn't find my center of balance today on the stroking exercises. The effortless smooth skating from Friday last week devolved into windmilling arms, poor posture, and a lot of embarrassing moments. Of course, the most logical thing to do when you are having balance issues is to do those finicky edge control exercises (NOT) so after half an hour of unsatisfying skating, I switched over the the edge exercises... and didn't have much more luck. The ruptured duck was back on the ice, in spades.

I guess this is just one of those mornings where the magic doesn't happen. I want to chalk it up to everything hurting and making me respond strangely... at least I hope it's that and not that I just had a lucky week last week and the reality of my cluelessness is returning. We will see - but I can tell that the honeymoon is over and the real work has begun.

Second lesson with Will

Had my second lesson this morning, and the early returns are positive! Will complimented my control in forward stroking, and said that it normally takes students weeks to get to the point I'm already at. That's the dance training kicking in, and a validation that I should be able to learn this stuff! Good news all around.

At the last minute, I got pulled into an early morning meeting at work yesterday, which meant I couldn't go to the rink for my normal practice time. To make up for it, I went early today and put in a full hour before my lesson. And yes, my ass is killing me, and likely to stay that way for some time. Oh, and I had my first technicolor, windmilling wipeout today :0 Glad that's over finally.

After working on my forward stroking and doing some fine tuning (more work to do!) he started me in on a second way to stop, and on edge control exercises. The new stop was the classic hockey stop (the one that kicks up a spray of snow). I get how it's supposed to work, but I've got some ground to cover to get confident enough to actually commit to the movement. That wipeout came when I tried it the first time. SkitSkitSkitSkitBOOM! Quick check to see if I'm a)still breathing, b)still in one piece and c)whether anyone saw me do it. Yes, yes, and (sigh) yes.

Edge control is going to be fun, once I get control of it. Basically, you do half circles first on one skate, then on the other, using just one of the edges on the blade to support you and lead you around the curve. The one time I did it right this morning, I actually felt like a real skater! Will said I have to do this like I would do a barre exercise - just do it over and over and over. I told him that's the way I approached the whole week, and he said that's why I am making such good progress. The discipline from all those years of dance very much translates. I "get" that you have to do a lot of piddly shit exercises over and over to develop the fine control, and am used to it. Dance is hours of mind-numbing boredom that leads to a triumphant 15 minutes on stage. Skating is turning out to be no different.

I took a break between my workout and my lesson and got to watch a high school guy figure skater work on his short program. It really took me back to watch him. He's tall and decidedly NOT willowy - in other words, built just like me, and he has very much the same body I had at the height of my dance career, right down to the thinly developed upper body and the hemispheric butt. In spite of this, he was landing double-double jump combinations that look all the more dramatic simply because he's so big - that's that powerful ass making it possible, just as it was for me as a dancer. It was a pleasure to watch him and not a little slice of nostalgia. It also made me rethink not learning to figure skate - maybe I could do jumps after all. Plenty of time for that - I'm just going to enjoy learning the fine control for now and watching my younger doppleganger skate.

So after a week, I think I'm really going to enjoy this. I am getting back into the swing of the physical discipline and enjoying that laser-beam focus that I used to get when doing ballet exercises - where the whole world goes away and it's just you and the mirror and the pool of sweat... and a smile.

I think I actually have TWO coaches....

Had my second practice session today. As I had hoped, giving my brain a day to assimilate what I'd practiced yesterday was very productive - you really do need to sleep after new learning, whether it's academic or physical. There's something that happens overnight in the brain, and you wake up the next morning with a better command of what you learned. It was that way for me. Stopping (which I spend half an hour on the previous day) came back well and I had pretty good control of it - so much so that I really didn't have to focus much on it. Instead, I worked more on my forward stroking (that bend-the-knee-glide-forward thing).

The difference this morning was that my coach and his dance partner were there doing their own workout. Will came over, said HI, and complimented me on my stops (I'd been doing some to warm up). Later as I was working on my forward stroking, his partner came up and said "this was driving her crazy and she HAD to fix it".... in other words, I think I've just grown a second coach. :) She told me I was killing my forward momentum by not bending my standing leg enough, then proceeded to grab my arm, press down on my shoulder and keep it there while I tried to move.... it worked, of course- I got the difference immediately. She allowed as how she's "not as nice as Will" as a coach - I think I'm caught in the middle of a "good cop, bad cop" thing - which isn't bad at all. I just hope she doesn't feel obligated, and that she's doing it because she wants to help. :) I very much appreciated the correction.

After just going back and forth on one end of the rink the whole morning, at the end I decided to take a risk and try to connect strokes together and make it around the rink... Remember, the place is FULL of people who know exactly what they are doing, and I live in terror of running into one of them in my inexperience. When you do this right, you spend most of your time on one foot or the other gliding, and one mis-step and I catch a toe pick and barrel into some unsuspecting kid in the middle of a spin. Kind of like bowling, except I'm the ball.

Here's where my acting training came in handy. I just put my courage together, remembered how I'd seen skaters all my life lift their chins, reach out with their arms, an just GO - and that's what I did.... and it felt right. IT FELT RIGHT!!!! I got all the way around the rink, stopped in a controlled fashion at the gate, stepped off the ice, and nearly screamed for joy!

By the way - it's amazing how much sweat you can generate standing on a block of ice. Counter-intuitive, I know... just one more weird thing to get used to. I have to start wearing layers that I can peel off during a practice. By the end, I could feel the sweat trickling down my back - but didn't care because it was well earned :)

New definition for the word "intimidation"

in-ti-mi-da-tion, (n) The act of walking into a skating rink for your first practice session and seeing a couple step onto the ice and proceed to do the most breathtaking dance combinations together.... and they are 14 years old.

So I figured out over the weekend that, if I'm going to be serious about this, I need to plan on getting to the rink every morning for an hour's practice. I have a lot of ground to cover and it's going to take that kind of focus to get me there. So at 6am, I was at the rink pulling on my skates for only the second time, trying to remember what Will taught me last Friday, and screwing up my courage to actually get out and do this. Surrounding me were about 15 other skaters, about half adults and half kids, who quite obviously knew exactly what they were doing and had the confidence that I can only dream about right now.

I decided today that I should probably concentrate on practicing stopping. With people whizzing by me in every direction, I hugged the wall and starting working on my snowplow stops. Lap after lap after lap, dodging people doing double-axels, little girls with their coaches practicing spins, and two sets of couples (including the middle-schoolers), I skated forward and stopped, skated forward and stopped. First on the left, then on the right. Like a baby giraffe learning how to walk on newborn stilt-like legs, I circled the rink - ungainly and feeling very VERY self-conscious.

I have to tell you - that was one of the bravest things I've ever done.

Partway through my laps, a guy about my age came up and introduced himself. Shawn. He's one of those couples (ice dancers) out on the ice this morning, but I have to tell you, it really helped have one of "them" notice me and take the time to welcome an obvious neophyte to the rink.

The good news is that, after 30 minutes of stopping, my body started to figure it out and it became a lot easier. As I'd hoped, my dancer instincts are kicking in. I stepped off the ice for a quick stretch (oh my god, my hips are going to be sore tomorrow) and then decided to switch to forward stroking. This was a little eaiser. I know what the position should feel like, and my dance instincts give me good information about what I need to be correcting (arch the back, square the shoulders, squeeze the buttcheek, etc.) so this went a little better. I still have a tendancy to drift to the right when on my left leg, and I have to remind myself to extend the backleg out toward the side more than I'm used to - but all in all, this worked out better than I expected.

The 45 minutes went by really fast. That's how long the first block of time was for - you pay for each block of time on the schedule. I left the ice (stopping quite nicely at the gate - no more running into walls for me!) and went to change back into my street shoes feeling like I'd made a good start.

Still intimidated as all hell, but at least I've gotten past my first practice session without making a spectacle of myself - and there was some noticable progress.

And those middle-schoolers were still whizzing around the rink when I left. I found out they are on the USFSA development team. They are damn good. I guess it's OK to be intimidated by a kid after all.

First lesson today! 644 Days to the Gay Games.

How weird is this - I'm a middle-aged, male software geek and this morning at 7am, I was at an ice rink for my first ice dancing lesson. Yes, I said ice dancing. I have this silly idea of training to compete in the next Gay Games. I have a lot of friends who have been, and they've all come back with amazing stories - I want that experience for myself. The good news is that, at the Games, you compete at your skill level and within your age bracket. It's all about participation anyway, so they've set it up where you can be a beginner and still be involved. Kinda nice that way. I don't have a lot of time (the next games are in Cologne, Germany in 2010) but I should be OK enough to compete in a beginning bracket and not make an ass of myself. Of course, I EXCEL at making an ass out of myself, so this may be harder than I thought.

Plus, there's that little matter of a partner.... and I want to compete in the same-sex partner category if I can. They have both categories, so I could go with a female (you don't have to be gay to compete) and I'm told it's not hard for a guy to find a partner - there is no dearth of men in the sport, I'm told - but I'd rather do a male/male competition. Perhaps I'll find both a male and a female partner to train with eventually. They encourage you to compete in more than one event when you are there. That might be fun.

So let's do the math - I have to find a guy, who is a beginning ice dancer, who is near to my height (6'3"), and willing to be a bit of a spectacle at the rink when we practice together. Hm - that narrows the field just a bit.

We will see. Gotta have a goal, right? Maybe the games after that (when I'm 50) will be better, and a nice 50th birthday present to myself. 644 days to the Games - opening ceremonies are July 31, 2010.

I'm going to keep a journal of this strange little journey - both for myself, and for you - the person with not much else to do but read about me :)

Actually, this morning wasn't as much of a train wreck as I thought it would be. I'm a retired professional dancer, and I had hoped that my prior dance training would give me an "edge" (pun intended - sorry) in learning how to translate all of that to ice.

Yes, and no.

Yes, in that knowing my body well, and having the instincts that help me understand what's going on and what's not right, was a real asset this morning.

No, in that there are a LOT of differences, and in some cases I have to unlearn a bunch of things if this is going to work out. For starters, rising up onto your toes is second nature to a dancer - and will lead to an inevitable face plant on the ice when your toe pick catches. Been there, done that. Also, you spend nearly all your time with your knees bent... which means I'm either going to get back my killer thighs or just be in pain all the time.

My poor coach. When Will and I talked via email, I gave him full disclosure on what he should expect - that is to say, a train wreck in slow motion. :) He seemed game, so no surprises!

The good news is that things actually went better today than I expected they would. He threw a lot of stuff at me today, and after a few tries, I at least understand what it's SUPPOSED to feel like, so I can practice on my own this week - and practice I will have to do. A lot.

Here's what we covered in the first lesson:
1. Falling down without hurting yourself. The key is, the moment you feel yourself about to take a tumble, curl up in a fetal position (once the pain hits, you are going to do that anyway, so I guess the theory is that you get there sooner). It's designed to keep you from breaking a wrist, I guess, but it does look pretty silly on me. Note to self - don't fall too much. Note to self - who are you kidding.

2. Stopping. I've been rollerblading for years, and actually can already get around a rink on ice skates pretty well, but somehow I never learned how to stop... or rather, stop without running into a wall. So as it turns out, when a skate blade is flat to the ice (both edges down) it actually doesn't have much traction (how counterintuitive is THAT?) and it will slide sideways, kicking up a snowcone in the process. I'm going to have to work on that one, because all my instincts tell me it will lead to a face plant...

3. Forward stroking. OK guys - I have to tell you - even just skating forward like an ice dancer is hard - REALLY hard. There's the whole bend-your-knee-the-extend-the-other-leg-back-and-then-straighten-the-knee thing that takes a while to figure out. I can do that just fine, but doing it without looking like a ruptured chicken is another matter altogether. That one is going to take some time. On top of that, the position is really different from how you would do it in dance. In arabesque, the toe of the back leg should be in line with the heel of the supporting leg (sort of "six o'clock"). In ice dancing, it's more like 5 o'clock, a little to the side. I get why (tried is both ways) but WOW is that going to be hard to unlearn.

4. Curves. OK - this one is really weird. If you've ridden a motorcycle, you know that you have to lean into the turns. You don't fall over because of the centrifugal force you have in that turn. Curves is exactly like that. You are on one leg, then you lean to the outside and the skate takes you around in a circle - but it only works if you lean away from your center of gravity and sort of trust that the curve will happen and the force will keep you upright. My initial response? HELL NO. ICE IS HARD! I finally got it down, after a fashion, but I think that's what I'm going to have to spend the most time on this week. It was a couple of weeks before I was comfortable leaning into a corner on my motorcycle, and it's probably going to be the same way on skates. I will keep you posted.