Skating Fridays

Off-Ice Lessons in Paradise

This month, my family and I spent a few weeks in paradise. Since my husband and I both had the flexibility to work remotely, we traveled our favorite place on earth – Hawaii. Unfortunately for me, the ice rink that is near Honolulu has been closed since COVID and not re-opened. That meant that I would have to continue practicing on my own off-ice.

I scheduled a few off-ice lessons to keep up with my technique. It had been a while since I’ve done a pure off-ice lesson, but thankfully I wasn’t rusty. I was able to do most of the things my coach asked me to do and thankfully did not injure myself since I was barefoot (there were no shoes allowed in our rental house).

We worked a lot on rotation exercises, since that is where I tend to have the most trouble on-ice. I’m able to get my feet and ankles pretty tight while on land, but I cannot translate this on ice. Once I have my skates on, my legs come apart like two opposing magnets, and then I rotate too slowly.

If I am able to build this into my muscle memory, I hope that it will improve my technique while I am in the air.

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