A surprisingly good practice

It wasn't a good start today. I've been tired all day after being repeatedly woken up by rain lashing against my bedroom window, the weather is getting me down (please Summer, you must be out there somewhere?!) and the thought of dragging myself out to the rink after getting home from work really didn't appeal.

But as often happens when you least expect it, I had a really good practice session! I skated for two hours, and I had already decided to just focus on a couple of things, instead of randomly throwing myself around the rink :) And of course, the ice was heavenly compared to the gravel I had to skate on last night!

First thing I really, really concentrated on was FO3's. As I said before, these have been very sadly neglected of late and I decided that I wanted these to be nice and strong. So today I did them, over and over and over again. I didn't even touch FI3's. And they feel good for it. The turn is happening smoothly, my arms are controlled, the free foot is tucked neatly behind behind my skating foot and I have for the most part sorted out where my weight should be on the backward inside edge, so I stay on it, and not fall onto my free leg. The BI edge is still a little steep but I believe it is one of the hardest edges to learn to control and as long as I am actually staying on it for the time being, that's good enough for me. Very pleased at my progress on these today.

I did a lot on mohawks today as well. I did some at the barrier, after finding some nice tips on the net today. And then I took a deep breath and stepped away from the barrier. The right ones are happening - yay! I have to do them veeerrry slowly, but they ARE HAPPENING! D might just be right when she said I would prefer them to 3-turns, as I am certainly getting the hang of them much quicker. The left ones are lagging - but one side always does, doesn't it? I did manage just one on the left, so I know they are hiding in there, but I will carry on devoting time to these in my practice sessions. If anyone is interested, as I know a couple of my readers are around my level, the tip that really helped with mohawks is to put the free foot down toe first (just behind the toepick). Apparently a common error is due to concentrating on getting the heel of the free foot against the instep of the skating foot and beginners tend to put the weight on the heel of the blade first, resulting in a skiddy mess. This is the full page.

Managed to do some forward crossovers, stroking and a few cross-rolls but a bit limited due to the adult hockey goblins trying to dance in a way similar to Justin Timberlake on their hockey skates in the middle of the rink, and looking all very serious about it. I promise I wasn't sniggering - well, perhaps just a little bit . . . :)

Few days off the ice now, which is probably a good thing. It feels a little like I have done nothing but skate and blog for the last four days! On Sunday, I am going to go over my FO3's for 10 minutes or so, and then focus on FI3's and mohawks again - especially left mohawks.

I did have a couple of nice compliments this evening as well, which is always nice! One gentleman, who I gave a couple of tips for beginner backward skating asked me if I was a professional skater. And one girl about my age came up to me and said "I just had to come and tell you, the turns you are practicing look really good!". I had been practicing 3-turns :) Not strictly true of course, but good for the confidence!