Weekly Skate

Nothing earth-shaking in skating this week.  T had his regular lesson today and I went to the public skate – after his lesson, he joined me and I had him work on his crossover and backward skating a little bit.

I didn’t start the four-week skating lessons yesterday.  I spent Friday paddling in the Gulf and just couldn’t get up the ambition to skate on Saturday.  No energy until about 8:00 PM, when I got a wild hair to go buy a bicycle – bought the cheapest mountain bike Wal-Mart had ($89) and rode three miles last night around 9:30.

I ordered an attachment for running dogs for the bike from Amazon and as soon as that arrives we’ll see if the Big Bad Wolf …

… gets the concept or if she’ll just wait for an opportune moment to dump me on my head.  Odds are currently 6-to-5 against and pick ‘em.

Really-good-skater-guy wasn’t at the public skate today, so no comments were made about my backward-practice.  I expanded things today, going from blue line to blue line.

Something odd: When skating forward, my right leg is dominant, but backward, my left-leg winds up doing the stronger stroke.

I was able to get more comfortable with a semi-crouched position going backward today and kept my head up more – alternating between looking behind (ahead of?) me and ahead of (behind?) me. 

I started practicing keeping my eye on skaters coming toward me, since that’s what I’ll need to do when I start playing.  Unfortunately, since my backward speed is, shall we say, sub-optimal, this means that I’m mostly watching people skate toward and by me.

On the other hand, if someone gives that little five-year old along the boards a stick and a puck, I’m pretty sure I can take her.

I need to get my skates sharpened again and change back to a deeper hollow, I think.  Last time I had them put their “normal” hollow on them and for some reason I’m just not getting enough bite on the edge to feel comfortable – it slides more than digging in.  This is affecting my stop and turns. 

Or maybe I should keep it as-is and try to get used to it, since the deeper hollow will slow me down and, god knows, there’s enough of that already.