Back to Basics
I feel like every year after Sectionals is over, Coach has me going back to basics. I don’t blame her. My presentation and skating skills still need a lot of improvement, even though the progress there has been slow. She wants to see my technical and presentation scores even out so I’m not stronger in one or the other.
This week, Coach gave me a list of ~50 warmup exercises to do. While this may seem like a lot, they don’t take much time to execute. I’m reallocating my practice time so that most of it is spent on skating skills. I’m confident in my technical abilities and need a lot more help and practice on the skating part.
Here’s a sampling of what Coach has me doing:
- Forward outside cross rolls
- Backward outside cross rolls
- Forward outside swing rolls
- Backward outside swing rolls
- Forward chasses
- Backward chasses
- Forward inside slide chasses
As you can see, many of these warmup exercises come from ice dances. She’s borrowing a few pages from our ice dancing friends to help me strengthen my basic edges and skating. Maybe it’s time to take up ice dancing too?
