Skating chimp

December 6, 2017 by Joskates 4 Comments

Okay, so I feel like my life is full of skating epiphanies these days. These usually have to do with realizing that I’m not really on an edge, or not really pushing, or not transferring weight in the right way.  Oh, and not really using my free leg as an effective counter to my skating leg (but that’s another story).

This means that the correction is pretty basic-level stuff. But at the same time the “aha!” moment of each of these realizations feels quite profound; to be honest, I sometimes feel like my head will explode because everything just feels so darn different from what I’ve been doing in the past. Every week there’s some new cosmic shift in the way my skating body feels.

It is just a little hard to get my head around. An added issue is that that’s the end of the semester, and I am just tired to the bone. Not a lot of brain-space these days, which is why this blog entry is somewhat late.

I’m supposed to let go of thinking about these things quite so much. This past week, I was telling Laurie how much less effort it takes to skate on edges and with the proper lean (duh!). And she told me that her big break-through moment was when she was in the ice show and saw skating chimps. She realized then that skating just isn’t that complicated.

I just had to find some videos of skating chimps. So now I’m jealous–so agile! So versatile! So fearless!

Lots of lesson notes! Much less entertaining than the skating chimps, but too bad, that’s my world these days.

• Shaffer push off. Make sure you set your edge, and use entire blade (especially the back part, the forward part spins. Use push to send hips over blade (rather than just extending foot forward), steady upper body position.
• European threes. Push onto flexed ankle, use free leg as counter to rotation of forward outside edge. Make sure you push onto the back outside edge, then rise and allow the head to lead. Really accentuate the positions on the outside edges (both forwards and backwards) before releasing to rise and rotate).
• Inside rockers. Practice maintaining inside edge during ankle flexion (bend, rise, bend). Exit edge is “forced.”
• Reverse Kilian and Starlight patterns.
• Inside mohawk, back three. Don’t “tick tock” on the mohawk.
• Inside three, back three. Accentuate the fully extended leg after the push back; this will ensure that your weight is fully committed to the new skating leg.
• Outside mohawk, back outside three.
• Outside edge into either three turn or mohawk (skating edge feel like it describes a “J” shape)
• Inside edges. Carry free leg in a more neutral position; use glutes.
• Forward inside threes. Allow rotation to happen.
• Back outside threes. There are three different possible positions with the lean and upper body. Mine is more forced (leaning out of circle); I should move towards the “middle” with body upright. Engage the foot and ankle, don’t break at waist to deepen edge.
• Forward outside threes. Make sure you send your hips forward powerfully.