Light at the end of the tunnel

Managed a whole hour solid in my new skates today!! I was happy to rip 'em off by the end as the bones in my arches are still giving me some grief, but it is improving. If I keep moving, it almost wears off!! I can highly recommend Scholl Party Feet as a cheaper alternative to Bunga Pads though :)

My confidence is definitely increasing now. Today I did lots of basic fast(ish) forward stroking, slaloming and swizzles, stroking, Russian stroking, Level 1 FM edges (getting much better now) and more stroking! And a little bit of backward swizzles/slaloming/stroking as well.

I started experimenting with mohawks and 3-turns. Albeit gently, they are happening. FI3's are a little dodgy, but mohawks and FO3's are getting there. In her latest missive from the States, D advised I started spinning on my new blades ASAP. Now my spinning is in its infancy, and I was beginning to manage 2-3 revs fairly consistently on my old blades. It took me a little while to adapt to new blades, but just a couple of times, I hit the sweet spot sooooo easily!!! And did 3 revs straight off!! I think spinning might be taking on a new dimension with these blades, with their lovely larger rocker :)

I also did some forward crossrolls - one side feels okay, the other side feels a bit toe-y, but it will get better I'm sure. And I did my first spiral in my new blades as well, which felt very nice :)

Lastly, I did my first dance in my dance-y blades. Just a slow-ish runthrough of a Dutch Waltz. The swingrolls feel really nice and secure but the progressives feel a bit odd and clunky. For some reason I was catching the tail of the blade (even though its about a foot shorter than my old blades!) but when I started pointing my foot a little, it got rid of the problem. I did half a runthrough of a Canasta Tango as well (had to stop as midgets in the way). I was a bit worried about the slip chasse's on shorter blades, but so far, it feels okay. In fact, I haven't really noticed the shortness of the blades at all yet, which is great.

The only thing I haven't got my head round yet is backward crossovers. I have done a few strokes, but drawing the foot across the front feels very peculiar. Something to tackle next time I skate.

And then I took in a bit of culture and went to see two exhibitions at the Tate Modern with my brother - Mark Rothko who I just love, and Cildo Meireles - a Brazilian installation artist, which was really interesting. I recommend both exhibitions if you fancy an afternoon pottering around the TM!