Skating progress report, with added nerdery
Today I accomplished what must be the most ridiculously-named skating move, twizzles on one foot. Huzzah! BF has done a twizzle exercise in each of the three Curry classes I've taken with him, and this was the first time I didn't have to do it on two feet.
I also accidentally did back three turns on one foot. Well, really cruddy ones that were way too far forward on the blade. I didn't actually realize that's what I was doing until I was halfway down the ice on an exercise that consisted of a forward inside three to an immediate back outside three, and by that point it was too late to freak out. Yay?
P was pleased with my brackets that I discovered on Tuesday that I can do. I can still only do the forward ones, inside on both feet and outside on the right foot. I'm not doing them on a figure like in that video, just on a hockey circle or a line. We moved on to counters (same caveats as above) and revisited rockers (forwards only, etc.).
You may be wondering exactly what the difference is between all these turns. ALLOW ME TO ELUCIDATE! There are four kinds of turns on one foot, the three turn, the rocker, the counter, and the bracket. All of them can be done eight different ways (forwards or backwards entering on an inside or outside edge on either the left or right foot), but for example, let's say you start all of them going forwards on the right foot on an inside edge. At that point, the difference becomes whether you stay on the same edge after the turn or not (and consequently whether you change circles) and if you have to couterrotate your upper body or not.
Three turns are the easiest because you change edges (thus staying on the same imaginary circle) and you turn your upper body in the direction of the rotation. Your tracing looks like the number 3, with the first rounded part your entry edge, the point in the middle the turn, and the second rounded bit the exit edge, hence the name.
For a rocker, you still get to turn your upper body the direction you're going, but now you have to stay on the same edge. This will put you on a new imaginary circle, which is harder than it looks. Do you see in the videos how the bracket turn keeps the woman going in the same direction back around to the point on the line she started on, while the rockers and counters send her off to a new area of the line? If you don't change edges when you turn, you have to start a new circle.
A counter is like a rocker in that you'll stay on the same edge/start a new circle, but this time you have to turn your upper body against the direction of your rotation. Trust me when I say that bit of trickery takes months to learn. It's kind of cool in that you bounce a bit when you do the turn, and your hips and shoulders flip so much that it looks a little like magic when you watch one done, in a way that the non-counterrotated turns don't. (To their credit, they look smoother.) You don't really expect someone to turn that way out of that position, so you can easily blink and miss it.
Finally, a bracket is like a three turn because you change edges and stay on the same circle. Or, if you're me, sometimes your inside brackets will turn into inside counters because you didn't change edges and wandered off the circle. Uh. Anyway. You can also do cool stuff because of the counterrotation and edge change, such as this thing I am very far from getting up the skill or bravery to do.
Well, that was fun. P and I also worked on loops, as in the figure, not the jump, which I cannot find a video to show you because YouTube makes it impossible to filter out the jump videos, which are far more numerous. I...think I hate loops, actually. The less time spent on them, the better.
We also did loop jump, which I would also prefer not to think about. She says I have exactly the right entrance and just need to jump the damn thing instead of going all fetal and doing barely a half loop. I think I grind to too much of a stop to do much of anything. I suppose it will be a work in progress for some time.
Finally, my left foot power pulls have gotten almost as good as my right foot ones, both forwards and backwards.
I wore my new SI belt for part of this morning's practice and then for the Curry class this afternoon. I think it helped a little? I suspect it will do better for walking, when I sometimes have to press my hands against my hips to keep from (feeling like they're) trying to fly apart on me, or like they're grinding against my spine at the attachment point. I'll have to walk the dog tomorrow and experiment.
It also seems to help my (re)current bladder issues, which leads me to suspect I'm now one of the 10% who gets urinary troubles with SI joint dysfunction, which happens because your bladder nerves run through that area and can get irritated. I have my cortisone shots next Monday and an appointment with a urogynecologist the following afternoon, so SOMEBODY is going to fix this, by God. I'm hoping that if the cortisone doesn't take care of it, then at least being able to go back to doing all my back exercises will. Or maybe there will be drugs. Ones that work instead of making it worse, like the gabapentin that I discontinued after a week because I kept having horrible nightmares and then waking up to pee two or three times a night.
...This surgery. It's the gift that keeps on giving. I'd do it again, because having a reproductive system like mine was completely unlivable, but I could do without the problems it has caused.
This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/993486.html. It has
comments over there.
I also accidentally did back three turns on one foot. Well, really cruddy ones that were way too far forward on the blade. I didn't actually realize that's what I was doing until I was halfway down the ice on an exercise that consisted of a forward inside three to an immediate back outside three, and by that point it was too late to freak out. Yay?
P was pleased with my brackets that I discovered on Tuesday that I can do. I can still only do the forward ones, inside on both feet and outside on the right foot. I'm not doing them on a figure like in that video, just on a hockey circle or a line. We moved on to counters (same caveats as above) and revisited rockers (forwards only, etc.).
You may be wondering exactly what the difference is between all these turns. ALLOW ME TO ELUCIDATE! There are four kinds of turns on one foot, the three turn, the rocker, the counter, and the bracket. All of them can be done eight different ways (forwards or backwards entering on an inside or outside edge on either the left or right foot), but for example, let's say you start all of them going forwards on the right foot on an inside edge. At that point, the difference becomes whether you stay on the same edge after the turn or not (and consequently whether you change circles) and if you have to couterrotate your upper body or not.
Three turns are the easiest because you change edges (thus staying on the same imaginary circle) and you turn your upper body in the direction of the rotation. Your tracing looks like the number 3, with the first rounded part your entry edge, the point in the middle the turn, and the second rounded bit the exit edge, hence the name.
For a rocker, you still get to turn your upper body the direction you're going, but now you have to stay on the same edge. This will put you on a new imaginary circle, which is harder than it looks. Do you see in the videos how the bracket turn keeps the woman going in the same direction back around to the point on the line she started on, while the rockers and counters send her off to a new area of the line? If you don't change edges when you turn, you have to start a new circle.
A counter is like a rocker in that you'll stay on the same edge/start a new circle, but this time you have to turn your upper body against the direction of your rotation. Trust me when I say that bit of trickery takes months to learn. It's kind of cool in that you bounce a bit when you do the turn, and your hips and shoulders flip so much that it looks a little like magic when you watch one done, in a way that the non-counterrotated turns don't. (To their credit, they look smoother.) You don't really expect someone to turn that way out of that position, so you can easily blink and miss it.
Finally, a bracket is like a three turn because you change edges and stay on the same circle. Or, if you're me, sometimes your inside brackets will turn into inside counters because you didn't change edges and wandered off the circle. Uh. Anyway. You can also do cool stuff because of the counterrotation and edge change, such as this thing I am very far from getting up the skill or bravery to do.
Well, that was fun. P and I also worked on loops, as in the figure, not the jump, which I cannot find a video to show you because YouTube makes it impossible to filter out the jump videos, which are far more numerous. I...think I hate loops, actually. The less time spent on them, the better.
We also did loop jump, which I would also prefer not to think about. She says I have exactly the right entrance and just need to jump the damn thing instead of going all fetal and doing barely a half loop. I think I grind to too much of a stop to do much of anything. I suppose it will be a work in progress for some time.
Finally, my left foot power pulls have gotten almost as good as my right foot ones, both forwards and backwards.
I wore my new SI belt for part of this morning's practice and then for the Curry class this afternoon. I think it helped a little? I suspect it will do better for walking, when I sometimes have to press my hands against my hips to keep from (feeling like they're) trying to fly apart on me, or like they're grinding against my spine at the attachment point. I'll have to walk the dog tomorrow and experiment.
It also seems to help my (re)current bladder issues, which leads me to suspect I'm now one of the 10% who gets urinary troubles with SI joint dysfunction, which happens because your bladder nerves run through that area and can get irritated. I have my cortisone shots next Monday and an appointment with a urogynecologist the following afternoon, so SOMEBODY is going to fix this, by God. I'm hoping that if the cortisone doesn't take care of it, then at least being able to go back to doing all my back exercises will. Or maybe there will be drugs. Ones that work instead of making it worse, like the gabapentin that I discontinued after a week because I kept having horrible nightmares and then waking up to pee two or three times a night.
...This surgery. It's the gift that keeps on giving. I'd do it again, because having a reproductive system like mine was completely unlivable, but I could do without the problems it has caused.
This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/993486.html. It has
comments over there.