Friday, May 1, 2015

2014/15 Season Wrap Up

Sixteen columns of ice pass stickers x eight rows = 128 times on the ice between July 2014 and May 2015.  It scares me to guesstimate the $ value of all those hours on the ice.  Thirty one stickers were for pricy 1 hour Free Style sessions, the remainder are from Public sessions which were either 1.5 or 2 hours long.

Bowie Ice Arena closed for its annual two month maintenance period last night.  No doubt I lost a couple of stickers here and there but those stuck on the wall of my work cubicle offer a good estimate of the amount of time I spent attempting to refine my skating.  The question I must ask myself is:  Am I any better than last year?  In a word, yes.  How much of the improvement is due to shear unsupervised practice time vs coaching inputs vs chiropractic adjustments can be debated but practice, if not making one perfect, certainly contributes to improvement.  Over time, more is better.  Ice time allows one to experiment with all the variables of free arm and leg positions, lace tension, blade position, belly button rotation--you name it.  This list is where I was two years ago.  I really should update the list and move a lot of things around.  Some items are still MIA but that's OK.  Other items such as my three prelim ice dances aren't even on that early list--not that I do them well, but two years ago I couldn't do them at all.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to a new year of ice time and stickers to prove it!