Positive Thinking

There is hope for me yet! Today I made a smidge of progress on a couple of different fronts.

Front 1: Crossovers
So I'm not exactly Michelle Kwan yet but I feel like now that I seem to have gotten past the not wanting to do crossovers thing that they improve by leaps and bounds each practice. I was trying to do them on every lap around the track today and they felt even more comfortable than they did on Thursday last week.

That gives me hope that, provided I can get the balance thing down, that I'll be able to pass my ones the next time around.

Front 2: Transitions
Ok, I'm not really there yet on these either but I at least got over my hesitation of trying them while rolling. I did three or four rolling transitions without falling over. I certainly windmilled all over the place but I started rolling forward and ended rolling backward which is the objective.

I made myself dizzy practicing transitions standing in one place. They got easier by the end and felt less clunky, which is a good start. I have a long way to go with these but I was pretty proud of myself that I managed a few without falling.

This week is a blocking week. Not being cleared for contact I had to tweak some of the drills, lean instead of hit, etc... I was having some foot and shin/calf cramping pain (which I suspect is caused by me scrunching my toes subconsciously). Empress stopped by and helped me stretch it out. She also recommended that I crank down the strap on my skates a bit more (it's been pretty loose).

I don't know how much the stretching did but the change in the skates was amazing. It felt a lot more like I had wheels growing out of my feet than wearing some shoes with wheels on them. Everything felt so much more precise and that I had more control. My toes went numb pretty quicky so I'll have to play with my lacing but ya learn something new every day.

So while the steps I took today were only baby steps but the fact that I was able to take the steps at all gives me hope for future progress :-)