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.
ooh, Eva, I like that tight rotation! I hope you had a splendid time in beautiful Hawai’i!
Author
Sadly, I still rotate realllly slowly. Sigh. But yes, we had an amazing time in Hawaii! Too bad the rink here has been closed since 2020.