Lending a hand

After bashing both my wrists simultaneously on Monday, I gave patch a miss last night as I was achey ALL OVER! My neck, forearms, bruised bits on my hands, etc. and also under my ribs (although that could be from the 3-turns). Honestly, why do I get attracted to dangerous pastimes? Why can't I want to do something like t'ai chi?!

I was a little apprehensive tonight about the lesson, but my coach was great. She took me through backwards crossovers holding two hands then one, and I can see how they should feel now. She did tell me that there is nothing wrong with them, I just need to make sure I am lifting the toe first when bringing the underneath leg back to neutral, so I don't catch the toepick. I also spent some time just doing one at a time, and bringing my feet together and feeling centred on them while gliding backwards, rather than trying to rush into the next one. So yes, I am feeling a little happier now!

Forward Inside 3-turns were their usual frustrating self. I am doing the turn on a couple of occasions, but it is very scrapy and I stop dead. Other times, my blade is making a circle rather than pivoting! I am getting the hang now of pushing my free hip right forward while rotating from the waist, but the feet aren't quite working. The coach has told me that I need to have my weight further forward on the blade, and then work on that "down, up, down" to actually get the turn. However, I feel like a tiny touch of progress was made on them!

Apart from that, we just did some continuous forward curves (inside and outside edges) which i always enjoy - although I do need to work on getting a bigger push into the first one and also making sure I don't push off with my toepick, and some slaloming which is always fun.

Someone also boosted my confidence on the way out of the rink. She was with me back on Level 3 in October, and had to take some time out due to a car accident. She was impressed I was now on Level 7 and said she was going to use me as inspiration! I think I blushed a little bit . . . I'm terrible at receiving compliments.

So I am feeling a bit better about skating than I was on Monday! However, my wrists aren't great - I think I may have mildly sprained both of them. The base of my left thumb is black and blue and I can still see the imprint of my gloves!