Jason says Lean

This week we had another lesson from the excellent Jason, who taught us the essentials of backwards skating and crossovers.  I've been hankering to learn crossovers for weeks now and I DID SOME!!  I PUT MY FOOT OVER MY OTHER FOOT AND DIDN'T FALL DOWN AND DID IT ABOUT TEN TIMES AND IT WAS AMAZING!!!  I FEEL LIKE A BALLERINA!!!

Now to do it in the other direction -_-


Backwards skating was also nifty, since we started looking at transitions last week and can now maybe start tying the two together.  It was also very encouraging for me since most of the lesson involved us putting our weight over our support leg in order to free up our action leg, which is something I've had a lot of trouble with due to my weird gimpy feet.  When going backwards you lean over one leg to push out with the other, then switch sides.  It may have something to do with having my action leg touching the floor, giving me that extra little bit of stability, but with a lot of grimmacing and effort and twisting of my ankle I was able to go backwards in a straight line!

I'll be honest, it flipping hurt.  Especially with the weight on my left foot which was killing me by the end of the session, and I had to use the painted lines on the floor or the sports hall to keep adjusting myself, but the fact that I was able to do it at all was a big confidence boost and encourages me that it is possible to sort out this one-footed gliding thing.  I'm just going to have to get very good at using my edges (that is, leaning my foot left and right in my skate boots.  That motion will get passed onto my trucks, which in turn will change the alignment of my wheels).  It sounds complicated, but it's an idea I'm comfortable with from going on a few skiing holidays with my family.  When skiing over an icy patch I would dig the uphill edge of my ski into the snow for some extra grip, and simply flexing my big toe was enough to cause that edge to dig in.  Thinking about it this way seems much more achievable.

Jason is a great teacher, and has a real knack for breaking down techniques into little steps and drills, but one point he keeps coming back to is leaning.  You have to have ALL your weight on your support leg before your action leg can do anything.  This means moving your head, and thus all your weight, over and then past the knee of your support leg.  All through the lesson we thought we'd leaned far enough, but he'd come past and tell us to lean even further.  It seems pretty integral, so it's something I really want to think about all the time, whatever moves we're doing.  I want to check myself and see if my weight is over far enough.  If I feel like it is, it could probably do with being about 50% more!

 To that end I have made myself this pair of fabulous motivational posters for when Jason can't be there in person.  Ta-Dah!