A 3-turn Epiphany

Off to Ally Pally today, for the first of three "day off skates".

It didn't start promisingly. There was about 3 school parties there, and the rink was full of kids. They were fairly well behaved, just difficult to find a space to practice. I mostly did some stroking, some edges, forwards crossovers and FO3's when I could find the room. I didn't mind too much as I quite enjoy watching the public skate.

Then for the last half hour, the rink was practically deserted, with about four other people on it, and I did lots of the stuff that takes up space - forward continuous curves, cross rolls, some backward crossovers (yes, still near the barrier, but persevering) and I started on the FI3's.

Now, these FI3's have been bugging me for a while. Weird skiddy bits happening, being on such a deep inside edge that I couldn't work out how to transfer over to the outside edge while turning and being so concerned with the prerotation, and the turn, and everything else that my mind and body was getting rather confused.

As I held onto the barrier, I noticed that if I started the three turn and just thought about the edge transfer, the turn seemed to take care of itself. So I set myself up - forward inside edge, did the usual prerotation, and just lifted up and over onto my outside edge. And yes! The turn happened all by itself! And best of all, it wasn't a fluke - I managed it a few times (on the right side at least)!!!! They are a little wobbly as I need to work out my balance coming out on that backward outside edge, but I'll get used to it.

I was so thrilled, I had to text Stacey who was away at a conference today to tell her the good news. Isn't it a wonderful feeling when you finally "get" something? It seems that it doesn't matter how much someone says "Turn your shoulders", "Keep your hips closed", "Turn your head", etc, etc, it is not till you actually do one that you finally understand. Once you have that and know what it is actually meant to feel like, you can build on it. Anyway, after that I was skating around with a big grin on my face - I must have looked like a loon . . .

Another thing that helped me "get" my FI3's, was a tip from another coach last week - she advised that we held the leg slightly extended behind us, rather than tight against our skating foot. Then as you turn, actually push that free foot further behind you - just to get a nice turn. And with my new "method" of thinking about changing edge rather than the turn, everything feels so much more controlled.

Yay, I'm so happy! Can't wait to go and try them out again tomorrow morning. At this rate, if I nail backward crossovers as well, I might actually pass Level 7 and move onto Level 8 officially before I start with private lessons!