Goth on Ice: 200927 weekend practice

Working on the new techniques of Forward Outside Edges, Backward Outside Edges, and Forward Outside Three Turns while still trying to nail down Backward Crossovers. This was the last practice session before Sunday afternoon's class.

One challenge I was facing this weekend is that I noticed that my skates had gotten pretty dull. This really isn't an excuse for the difficulties I was having but it did not help.

When I had class after these videos were taken, my instructor went over some of the mistakes I was making. On the forward edges, I was keeping my weight too far forward on the blade. It should be just back of the middle of the blade. Another problem was letting my leading arm (that's the arm in the direction of travel, not the direction you're body is facing) droop too low and the other arm rise to high. Also, I needed to keep my palms facing downward. That helps keep the shoulders "closed" and prevents overrotation.

On the three-turns I was letting my lifted foot get too far forward. It should stay behind the gliding foot. Also keep the knee of the lifted foot turned outward and the ship should be raised as you complete the turn. I did much better once I did that. We'll see how that works in next week's practice.

The big thing this weekend, though, was that I spent a total of just over 6 hours skating: 1 hr 15 minutes Friday night. 1 hr 30 minutes Saturday afternoon and 1 hr 20 minutes Saturday evening. Then 1 hour Sunday afternoon followed by a half hour "practice time" right before class in which I worked light just to stay loose followed by the half hour class time. Six hours and five minutes of skating. The maximum time available using just the weekend public skate sessions is 8 hours total. Unfortunately, things like work mean I can't do weekday sessions. Oh, if only...