Asleep at the switch.

This is what happens at my home ice the morning after Xmas when I decide to sleep in and bag the 7am Free Style session:  "Three time US National Champion and Olympian Ashley Wagner stopped by the Bowie Ice Arena today! Pictured here with Bowie ISI team member Alexa Cruz and her coach Rebecca Robertson."  Photo credit:  BIA.  Can U believe it?!  Sigh...truer words where never spoken--Ya snooze, ya lose.

 

Skating 101 with Meryl and Charlie

Skating 101!  Freshman intro to ice dance lifts?  Ha, this seems more like Skating 604--a graduate level seminar, but that's just me talking.  The two kids, Alina Letova and Dakota Delcamp, are not your typical birthday party kid skaters.  These two are obviously battle hardened veterans who probably started skating seriously at, oh, age four or so.  Having said all that, this little video is fun to watch and has some useful coaching tips for lunkheads like me to think about.  A little Xmas Bon-Bon.  Enjoy!

 

Ice Halo update

In the recent past when I visited the Ice Halo website I could not find mention of their products complying with any test standards.  People told me that this statement of fact was buried somewhere on the site, but try as I might, I could never find it.  The other day I went back to the Ice Halo site and there it was right on the page which describes the standard Halo: "All our Ice Halo Products are tested in one of the top impact testing facilities in the world, using the Hockey Helmet Standard (CSA Z262.1-09 (April 2009) Annex A, Impact Drop Testing). Our products pass the standard requirements for front, side and back impact."  I guess enough others must have voiced their hesitation such that the manufacturer of the Ice Halo decided to place the test statement in a more prominent position.  But don't take my word for it, see it yourself.  

CSA stands for Canadian Standards Association which is a non-profit organization dedicated to product testing for consumer safety and protection.  The CSA is much like the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials.

Knowing that the Ice Halo complies with a reasonable standard (one deemed appropriate for hockey helmets) gives me a little more confidence to try out this product.  As I pointed out in an earlier post my current skateboarding helmet while adequate does tend to draw my eyes towards the ice rather than ahead and one must cinch the chinstrap fairly tightly in order for the helmet not to move around on the head.  So, I will now place an order for an Ice Halo and see if I like that any better than the  Bern Watts helmet.  Stay tuned.

And we figure skaters think getting a good fit in boots is important...

Principal Dancer Megan Fairchild discusses the importance of good fit for pointe shoes.

Bern Watts helmet update

So I've skated five busy public sessions while wearing my green beanie and can comment on its suitability for figure skating.  It does stay in place while skating if the chin strap is properly adjusted.  This includes during single foot spins.  I have not tested jumping while wearing the helmet but my expectation is that the helmet will be fine when I do start jumping again.

One thing that surprised me is that I don't get sweaty while wearing the helmet.  The sessions I've skated are two hours long so that's another check on the plus column.  Lightness is another positive feature of the Bern Watts.  Weight-wise I'm barely aware that I'm wearing it. 

The short visor which my helmet came with is perhaps the only point that I don't like.  The little brim does have the tendency to direct one's eyes down rather than ahead.  Where the eyes go, the head follows, so this is not a good thing while skating.  If I could hit the rewind button I'd order a Bern helmet, without the visor.  They offer them.

Last Sunday while skating I bumped into a father-daughter combo whom I know and the daughter was wearing the standard version of the Ice Halo.  This was the first time I got to see and touch one up close.  Basically, it's high density foam covered with a synthetic cloth and it comes as a flat strip with a velcro closure which one can adjust for head size when placing the halo around one's noggin. 

The daughter didn't like it at first (she's about ten years old) but now no longer notices it when skating.  I must admit, the Ice Halo looks a lot less geeky than my helmet.  I may order one although I'm a little reluctant to wear safety equipment solely based on appearances.  I'd really like to see some test data or learn if the Ice Halo actually complies with a pertinent safety standard--I can't afford another TBI at this point in my skating career.  

Back on the ice.

Last weekend diaristdaughter and I decided to return to the scene of my crime, the Bowie Ice Arena, for the Sunday 2 to 4 pm public session.  I went to my bedroom closet and dug out the two tote bags which held my skates and various bits of gear.  I hadn't looked at this stuff since the 7th of July: padded shorts, knee pads, bunga sleeves, elbow pads, wrist guards.  It all seemed so alien, so disconnected from my recent existence which featured emergency rooms, CT scans, operating rooms and IC units.  I found myself wondering if I really wanted to do this.  I didn't seem to have the same drive that I had after recovering from breaking my radius three years earlier.  I idly wondered if since my latest injuries included my brain, that perhaps my brain was making me hesitant in the attempt to protect itself from further injury.  Sort of like HAL trying to prevent Dave from interfering with the mission in 2001, a space odyssey.   I also struggled with the inertia from a wife who was not keen on having me resume skating.  After getting dressed I paused at the door for one bit of new kit: a green skateboard helmet.

We arrived at the rink later than I normally would since I normally like to get in every possible minute of ice time.  Value for money kind of thinking.  This time I figured I might have the gumption to skate for a half hour, so a few lost minutes wouldn't matter.  Was this my brain still trying to influence the outcome?

But once I walked into the lobby it seemed like every other person I saw was a skating pal and I'd taken them quite pleasantly by surprise--sort of like a surprise visit from a minor celebrity like the Keebler Elf.  I must admit it was good seeing some of my familiar peeps.  My hesitation started to evaporate.  The young woman at the counter smiled, gave me an ice pass and refused my money.  One of the rink directors came out of the office and half joking, asked me if I'd brought a release form from the surgeon clearing me to skate.  I told him I'd already given that form to the HR folks at work.  He asked me to not louse up his ice with blood again as he returned to his office.  It was good to be back!  I took my skates out of the bag and laced them up.  The session had started five minutes earlier and it was time to find out what skills I had retained before the ice got too chewed up.  I removed the terry cloth soakers from my blades and stepped through the entrance.

The first few glides told me that I hadn't lost everything.  After perimeter skating for five minutes I started to explore t-stops, 3-turns and inside Mohawks.  I still could do them and still had the annoying bias against left side/CW direction elements. For some reason inside forward 3s didn't want to happen at all (I eventually got them to work) and I also couldn't remember how to enter a single foot spin from an outside forward 3.  Little by little things started to come back.  Forward edge pulls were weak even on my normally good side. As I mentally took stock I decided to leave jumps to another day.  I finally remembered the entry for a single foot spin and after doing a couple, I fell out of a awkward slow spin and I think the entire ice rink exhaled as I quickly got back up on my skates. 

Mid way through the session I spied my dance coach.  We briefly exchanged hellos and she said she'd been watching me and I didn't look too wobbly.  Since she had another student in lesson I told her I'd be in touch about lessons once I'd knocked some of the rust off.  I tried to skate a couple of the low level pattern dances that I had known well only to discover that I couldn't recall the entire series of steps--most annoying since just before the fall that took me off the ice, I'd been very close to testing those dances.  Another thing to add to the "they'll come back"  department. 

After the session ended (I skated the entire session rather than the thirty minutes I'd planned) I called my wife to ask if we needed a bottle of wine for dinner.  I think she appreciated the call.  It served two purposes: she didn't have to wonder if she'd get a call from an emergency room, and we did need some wine.  No doubt about it, living with me leads a woman to strong drink.

A Favorable Outcome.

So, where am I?  Back on the 10th of September I had my two weeks post-op look-see.  I was hoping to be permitted to drive again and to be told that I could return to work--actually I had already gone back to work, being driven to and picked up afterwards since the Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday.  I was taken aback when I was told that it would be another 4 weeks before I could do either!  I decided not to reveal the fact that, in the absence of a spelled out restriction, I'd already been back to the lab.  I was told that the brain heals very slowly.  On the positive side I could stop wearing the compression stockings, that I could readopt my old habit of crossing my legs and that I could have a small glass of wine or a beer with dinner.

Last Thursday, the 8th of October, I had my six week post-op examination and this time both the driving and work restrictions were lifted.  This is a good thing since I've blown through all my accumulated sick leave and have been covering my absence from work with annual leave (Fed Gov speak for vacation) for the last two weeks.  I can tell you sitting around watching day time TV and going for short walks makes for a lousy vacation!  I can now add back activities as tolerated, including skating.  A session with the Chiropractor revealed that my balance is OK but not as good as before my fall.  Reintroduction of skating will be slow.  I know I've gone backwards skill and ability-wise.  Yesterday I went back to my yoga group for the first time and was able to hang in for the entire hour rather than just camp out on the floor in corpse pose after the first ten minutes.

This leads me to thoughts about protective headgear for skating.  As some readers know, there are no industry or government standards for ice skating protective headgear.  I contacted the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and they stated a need to be impartial and wouldn't name brands or models.  They suggested that I contact the manufacturers in question and ask if a given product is compliant with the following voluntary standards:  ASTM F1447,Snell B-90A, Snell B-95, Snell N-942.  

The ASTM info (which one must pay for) can be found here: http://www.astm.org/Standards/F1447.htm

The info for Snell (free) can be found here: http://www.smf.org/stds

I had previously purchased a Bern (Watts model) helmet with an EPS foam liner.  I planned to wear it when my skating got to the point where I was doing more demanding elements such as back threes.  In hindsight that was a huge mistake!  The EPS foam liner is good for one impact (which includes being careless and dropping the helmet on a hard floor) after which the helmet must be retired.  Although the Bern Watts EPS doesn't comply with the standards mentioned by the CPSC above, it does comply with the following standards:  ASTM F2040 and EN 1077 (for snow and ski sports) and EN 1078 (for bike and skate). The "skate" refers to skateboarding not ice skating but at least we're talking a standard which is deemed adequate for concrete sports.  More about EN 1078 can be read here 

This is what I plan to wear until I can learn more about the headgear which is marketed to figure skaters, like the Ice Halo and Crasche Middie.  So far I have found no mention of any of those products complying with with any standards at all.  If this is not so, please leave a comment with a link directing me to the standard(s) with which these products comply.