Things To Do

I have so many things to do to get ready to skate!  I sold my skates while out last year, they were almost new and I really didn't want to use them again.  No, I know they weren't responsible for my accident.  I just wanted a fresh start when I finally went back.  I called the other rink and ordered a new pair of Jackson Artistes and I went up a half size.  (I don't like my skates really tight at the toe.)  They're in and I can pick them up any time.

I was thinking about going back in May, but as the year wore on I still had episodic pain in my wrist and I was thinking that when I fell on it, remember it's not if you fall in ice skating it's when, I might hurt it more and I should wait a full year to get back on the ice.  What did I miss?  The Spring Fling competition, the ice show, this year it's Cirque du Soleil.     I made a fatal mistake last year of withdrawing from the show and going back to lessons.  I promise that I will never go back on my ice skating word again, never as long as I live!

I don't want to skate until after Thanksgiving, and I think I might go to the rink tomorrow afternoon to see who is doing the ice show.  The adults practice then, and I want to chit chat with them.The show runs in early December and they've just started working on it.  This is a hard sport to leave, especially as an older person, my skills get rusty too easily!  So there is no way I could have participated in the show this year.  I would have been unable to do anything.

I am hoping for a nice surprise when I get back to skating, hoping that I get back in the groove easily.  But I was struggling to learn each new skill even then.  The other adult students who'd made it to Adult 3 and 4 also said that they'd found there were things they simply could not do.   My own coach tried to get me to risk more, and I felt that I couldn't.  I clearly was not strong enough for things like forward crossovers.  Of course, I'd been in and out of fracture boots for two years which made my legs weaker than they'd ever been before. I'm hoping to get back and get strong again and skate again!

Being an adult skater means you are your own skate mom, and things like costumes loom large on the horizon when it comes to holiday skating, or even spotlights or competitions.  I would like to do Solo Dance at the beginning level this spring.  I need to get a good grasp of what happens while on the ice.  I saw a competition this spring and the judges were telling the skaters to stop and start and suddenly I was back again at age 12 doing my Best Appearing practices!  There is a formula and to miss a beat is to fail.  Ouch!  So much to do that I don't know where to start!

Why Adult Skating Is So Hard

If you're like me, and have a big time gap between skating as a child and skating as an adult, when you first step on the ice after a long hiatus in your new or rental skates, it almost feels like being on a sheet of ice on a sidewalk.  It feels a bit dangerous at first and it takes some time to get your ice legs back.  It took me three skating sessions to be able to let go of the wall with even a modicum of confidence, but I was really determined to skate again!

There are differences between adult and child skating with both psychological and neurological aspects.  The psychological ones I'm qualified to speak of, the neurological ones you'll have to get from someone else.  First, as adults we all have responsibilities and if we injure ourselves we can't always fulfill them, so when an adult approaches the ice it's often tentative.  This makes it harder to learn.  As children, when our bones are still greensticks, we can fall and get right back up and do it again.  As adults, not always.  And if you were lucky, like me, and learned to skate as a child before age 11, you have a decent chance of getting that smooth patin a glace look back to your skating with practice.  When someone learns to skate as an adult, they keep the jerky marionette look that you see on the ice when the adults are skating.  This is perfectly normal and not considered a flaw in adult figure skating!  I notice that when I'm feeling intimidated by a skating figure, I do have the jerky marionette look and I tend to lose it when I've learned that figure.

In skating, both ice and roller, the most common injury is the wrist or hand injury as it's a natural instinct to put your hands out to break your fall.  In ice skating particularly it's easy to also injure your head, because the surface that you fall on is slipperier and your hands might not stop your fall quickly enough to prevent a bang on the ice.  You can approach this in two ways:  first, learn how to fall appropriately.  The fall sideways is easily teachable, and while you might not always be able to achieve it, it's safer if you can, and easier to do if you remember to keep your knees bent, and springy.  Second, while learning to skate and achieving some sense of security on the ice, wear a helmet!  Even as a more experienced skater it is a good safety practice to wear a helmet while in lessons or learning a new skill.  These rules are good for both adults and children.

When you skate again it feels a bit different at first and it's easy to see why, if you look at it as a physics problem.  It's easier to skate as a young person who's body weight is equally spread out over their vertical axis.  As an adult, we have added breasts and perhaps other weight issues that we did not have as children.  So your weight is distributed unevenly on the axis and you must learn to compensate for that, which means learning skills all over again.  Skating skills we could achieve with one body, we have a harder time with our new adult bodies.  Or in my case, my old one!

First Post, One Year Out Since The Accident

I take group lessons on a rink that is based on a sand layer.  This makes the ice somewhat softer when it comes to jumps.  Still you can hurt yourself, and I did.  I broke my wrist on December 1, 2010.  We were doing simple hops up and down.  I hopped once.  No problem.  Without prompting from my coach, I decided to try it moving.  That was a big mistake!  I've relived the next few seconds so many times in the last eleven months, as time, at the point I jumped into the air, seemed to go in slow motion.  I hopped up as the skates glided forward and when my skates came down, the blades whipped out from underneath me, and I fell backwards, onto my outstretched arms.  As I fell backwards I remembered my falling dream, where I was hurt on the ice.  In my dream that morning I got surgery to fix an injury, and in reality, I left the rink that very day to be told I'd be getting surgery to put my wrist put back together.  (Nothing like ignoring a warning dream, is there?)  I hit the ice hard on my right wrist, and only banged my left one a little.  I could not move my right hand at the wrist or move any of my fingers as one of my fellow classmates helped me off the ice.  Laying on the bench, feeling faint, I had to get someone to take my skates off for me as I waited for the ambulance to take me to the hospital.  Usually, it's me helping people when someone is hurt and I'm there. A kind word to them, or a phone call to get someone to come get them.  Not this time.  I had an injury that kept me off the ice for one full year, and now I'm ready to return!

Thanks to the miracle of surgery, I now have about 93 percent of my wrist motion back and full use of my hand with only minor stiffness.  So, armed with brand new ice skates, and a renewed zeal for the sport, I am going back in two weeks to try my hand at skating again!

I simply can't wait!