The year I started this blog, 2010, I had a project that required lots of discipline around time. That year I did a new thing every week for a year -- 52 in all -- which also meant that I did at least one entry every week. Having that level of accountability kept me on track, and this time is much harder. So, I'm trying a couple of new things, namely a book (my skating journal) and some videoing.
Like most of my good ideas, these ideas aren't really mine at all. The journal was my friend Jackye's and the videoing was Melody's. Almost exactly a year ago I went around to various skaters -- all of them much better than me -- to ask their advice on how to improve. From Annie I learned that I needed to make the commitment to skate at least three times a week; Joe told me to embrace the parts that scare me most and tell myself that actually I like them; one of my coaches, Melody, told me to look up and work on having "ta-dah!" posture; and Jackye told me to keep a journal and to pick one or two things to focus on each week (like looking up, bending my knees more or better posture). After a particularly discouraging lesson a few weeks ago Melody shared a video with me made by a skater who tracked her progress on some jumps and spins over a five-year period. It was inspiring to see how far she came, and made me decide that, frustrated as I may feel now, hopefully someday, I too will have progress to show and will wish for a baseline to compare it with. So, I am going to start trying to use my journal to chart regularly what it is I am working particularly hard on, and hopefully also some video to show how it's going.
Right now, in ice dance, I'm working on two dances in the "Pre-Bronze" sequence -- the Swing Dance and and the Fiesta Tango. They introduce some new skills I've still got a long way to go on -- like backward swing rolls, outside three turns, and mohawk turns at the same time with a partner. Hopefully at a later point I'll be write another post about those, and maybe some video to show what they are.
In the Free Skate realm I am definitely moving much, much more slowly than I would like. I had hoped to take my first test -- the Pre-Bronze Free Skate --in early May, but I won't be ready. The test includes two-footed and one-footed spins (the former I could probably pass, the latter, I couldn't) and two jumps. For the jumps I'll be doing the very simplest jump -- the waltz jump -- and a second jump -- either a Salchow or toe loop. With some trepidation, I'm posting this video that was taken last week(and hoping that a few months from now, will post another that is appreciably faster, higher and more fully rotated). But everyone starts somewhere, so here is step one in the quest to learn to jump and spin.
Like most of my good ideas, these ideas aren't really mine at all. The journal was my friend Jackye's and the videoing was Melody's. Almost exactly a year ago I went around to various skaters -- all of them much better than me -- to ask their advice on how to improve. From Annie I learned that I needed to make the commitment to skate at least three times a week; Joe told me to embrace the parts that scare me most and tell myself that actually I like them; one of my coaches, Melody, told me to look up and work on having "ta-dah!" posture; and Jackye told me to keep a journal and to pick one or two things to focus on each week (like looking up, bending my knees more or better posture). After a particularly discouraging lesson a few weeks ago Melody shared a video with me made by a skater who tracked her progress on some jumps and spins over a five-year period. It was inspiring to see how far she came, and made me decide that, frustrated as I may feel now, hopefully someday, I too will have progress to show and will wish for a baseline to compare it with. So, I am going to start trying to use my journal to chart regularly what it is I am working particularly hard on, and hopefully also some video to show how it's going.
Right now, in ice dance, I'm working on two dances in the "Pre-Bronze" sequence -- the Swing Dance and and the Fiesta Tango. They introduce some new skills I've still got a long way to go on -- like backward swing rolls, outside three turns, and mohawk turns at the same time with a partner. Hopefully at a later point I'll be write another post about those, and maybe some video to show what they are.
In the Free Skate realm I am definitely moving much, much more slowly than I would like. I had hoped to take my first test -- the Pre-Bronze Free Skate --in early May, but I won't be ready. The test includes two-footed and one-footed spins (the former I could probably pass, the latter, I couldn't) and two jumps. For the jumps I'll be doing the very simplest jump -- the waltz jump -- and a second jump -- either a Salchow or toe loop. With some trepidation, I'm posting this video that was taken last week(and hoping that a few months from now, will post another that is appreciably faster, higher and more fully rotated). But everyone starts somewhere, so here is step one in the quest to learn to jump and spin.
No comments:
Post a Comment