Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Another Day, Another Owie.

Let's cut straight to the chase: I went down hard at the rink last night. My dancing partner is still "on retreat" so coach K. and I were working on pre-bronze Moves stuff.  My Waltz 8 is improving but my "swingy" CCW 3-turn still leaves a lot to be desired.  Towards the end of the lesson my coach, probably in a moment of desperation (do you ever cause moments of desperation for your coach?) introduced me to alternating 3-turns.  She told me to work on them, saying "These are part of a higher MIF level than what you're trying to do but if you can manage to master them you'll be able to hold the edge coming out of that messy 3-turn of yours." And as our time was up, she then skated off to coach her next student.

What are alternating 3-turns you might ask?  I'll do my best to describe them:  draw a line on a piece of paper.  On one side of the line draw a cursive number 3 keeping the beginning, the cusp and the exit tracing all on one side of the line.  That's your first 3-turn.  Upon coming to the line with the exit edge, step over the line with your free foot and carve the opposite 3-turn, again keeping everything on that side of the line.  Continue doing this alternating pattern until you run out of space.  Since a video clip is worth a thousand words I'll let "geowench" demonstrate.  Impatience alert: things don't get moving on this clip for the first 15 seconds or so.




I was sort of getting the hang of this and mentally patting myself on the shoulder when I screwed up big time.

It was not one of those falls where your life flashes before your eyes in slo-mo and you have time to think about rolling up into a ball and protecting yourself.  It was more like one minute I was skating, and then--I wasn't.

I went down like a ton of bricks, smack dab on the trochanter of my right hip. Thankfully I had on my d3o padded shorts, etc.  Still hurt.  Can't imagine taking that fall without the ballistic padding.  Of course everyone on the ice skated over to see if the old man had shattered like a tea cup on a concrete floor.  Staggering back to my haunches I thanked them for their concern and toughed it out to the end of the session (yeah, I'm one of those puritanical guys:  if I've paid for a 2 hour session, by damn I'm gonna skate every minute of it even if it kills me) and then went home to lick my wounds.  I had a glass of wine and an aspirin and went to directly to bed.  Every time I rolled in my sleep that damn hip woke me up.  This morning I'm not only painful but sleep deprived and thus even snarkier than usual.  Say a prayer for my co-workers and pass me the Ben-Gue.

7 comments:

  1. Skating after a fall helps circulate the blood to the boo-boo. Getting in the car and driving home after a boo-boo means you seize up.

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  2. Yes, I agree Babbette. It's better to shake it off than sit in a corner moaning. Tonight's yoga seemed to help. I also recommend the restorative powers of reasonably priced (aka: cardboard boxed) red wine. I'll find out whether or not I can skate, without restrictions, on it tomorrow. I think perimeter skating should not be a problem. We shall see how much torque I can apply when attempting those alternating 3-turns.

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    1. Pain fades like fog in the noon sun when faced with a half and half mixture of diet 7up and burgundy.

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  3. A 1:1 ratio of 7up and red wine--now that's a combo I haven't tried! My lesson tonight was OK pain-wise. My alternating three turns were worse that those I'd done on Tuesday. But that's OK. I was happy just to be able to get through a right OF 3 tonight.

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  4. Alternating 3-turns were one of those...I am never going to get these. Until I did. And now they're kind of fun. I do them as a warm up now. My horrible fall story was learning a bracket turn. *shudder* I still haven't completely gotten over my fear.

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  5. Alternating 3s are coming along, as is the waltz 8 pattern. I've discovered that elements tend to happen on their schedule not mine!

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  6. Alternating 3s were on the Adult Pre-Bronze MIF when I first was learning them but fortunately were removed before I tested.

    The hardest part for me of that move wasn't the 3, it was the back Choctaw afterward (that's what it is).

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