Starting my classes

Last night was my first figure skating lesson. The teacher told me that she would be evaluating the students and move any up that needed to be moved up after the first class. We spent the first part off ice, learning to fall without getting hurt and then learning how to get up after a fall. Then we marched in place, and across the ice, then we added a one foot glide in there, then the other foot. We worked on learning to stop, doing rocking horses and swizzles. I was pretty bored and afraid I'd be stuck in this class. But when we did one foot glides, she told me I passed. So after class was finished, she took me over to the other teacher and introduced me. I'll be in her class. There are supposed to be 4 different adult classes but since there aren't enough aduts, there are two groups. For whatever reason, they said that it's 1 & 3 together and 2 & 4 together. Well, they didn't concentrate on anything other than the very basic stuff so even if I'm only in the two class, it doesn't matter because I'm with people at about my level and I can learn things that don't have to do with staying upright...which is still important to do but I already know how.
After the lesson was a public session that we got to stay and practice at. I was skating around and one of the ladies from the class came up to me and asked me why I was in their class because there was another lady that couldn't do a three turn, and I could, and she was a level 2. I told her they already moved me up.

But the fun part came when the two teachers from my new class level stayed at the session and started working with us. At first, I kept my distance. I didn't want to bother them on their own time but as they continued, I joined in. Marcy and Rob are the teachers' names. Marcy was showing us how to do a spiral. I was having a lot of trouble with it at first but got it to be ok by the time we moved on. One of the girls had the wrong position on it so we went over to the wall so Marcy could show her the right position. Her response was, "Oh, that burns!" I just laughed. Yes, it does burn! You're bending your back in the wrong direction.


You're supposed to get it up to hip level for it to count, like she has. I can get it up there when I can hang onto the wall for balance support but when I am actually moving, and dealing with trying to keep my balance, it doesn't get very high. All the elite skaters can almost do the splits like this...and then they can grab their skate up over their head...crazy stuff!

Then Marcy left and I was just messing around when Rob came over to us and asked who wanted to learn something...me, me, me! So he got his book and started seeing what we could and couldn't do. He took us through a number of different things which I was catching onto pretty quickly. The last thing he worked on with us was a lunge. It looks like a lunge you would do during a workout except that you're moving when you do it. You have to get the inside of your back boot to scrape along the ice or else you start spinning out to the side. Try it on the ground for about 10 minutes. That burns too! But when he told me it was the boot that had to touch the ice, it made a bunch of difference. Weird how such small things makes such a big difference in control.


My lunges didn't look so good, of course.

After the session ended, we were all sitting near each other getting back into shoes and he told me that at the rate I am learning things, I'll probably be skipping a class or two. :o) I guess I shouldn't be in a hurry to skip classes though since there are only 4 basic adult classes and then 4 freeskate classes. Freeskate is where you learn jumps and one foot spins. After that, your option is to stay in freeskate 4 or get a private coach which sounds expensive to me.

Anyway, I had a great time and got to start to learn lots of different things which I can continue to practice at my practice sessions (which are included with my lessons). :o)