Things We Need to Work On

No, this list will not be everything that T and I need to work on, just the most immediate couple of things I can see right now.  There’s not enough room on the interweb for the complete list. 

One thing I’ve noticed observing both the kids’ and adults’ learn-to-play classes is that they concentrate on different things.  The kids are combining learning to skate (crossovers, backwards, etc.) with hockey drills, while the adults are assumed to know all the skating maneuvers.  As a mediocre skater, I’m a bit miffed by this, but oh well.

So T’s list is more hockey related, while mine is more skating in general.  Sucks to be me. :(

T

• Situational awareness.  He’s focusing on the puck, especially when he has it, and not looking around at all.
• Passing.  Sort of like the first one – he looks at the puck as he’s getting ready to pass, not at where he wants the pass to go, so they tend to go wide or he misses the target if it’s moved.
• Practicing. He needs to start taking new things he learns in class into his regular skating.  For instance, last class they taught crossovers, but he spent the next public session without doing it at all.

Me

• Trust the Ice. A lot of my problems boil down to this – someone once told me to get better I had to trust the ice. I can see this in other skaters, the way they’ll turn and slide with ease and confidence.  I have it with certain maneuvers, but not with others, and I think it needs to be more of a general attitude.
• Backwards. Awkward as it feels, I need to get a lot better at skating backwards.
• Clockwise. Why don’t they reverse direction periodically in the public skating sessions?  I can’t do a damn thing turning to the right.
• Shooting.  It’s not that I have a weak shot … it’s that I have no shot.  Not to speak of, anyway.  I think I need to not practice shooting until I have a class where they tell me how, otherwise I’ll be reinforcing a technique that clearly sucks.
• Balance.  I need to get the Wii set back up and start doing yoga in Wii Fit.  If I had stronger core muscles a lot of this would be easier.