And so it begins

The 2017/18 skating season at Bowie Ice Arena finally got underway this past Saturday after replacing one compressor and repairing the cooling tower.  Better late than never.  As per usual, I was otherwise engaged on Saturday and so the beginning of my new season had to wait a day.  Better late than never.  At the start of a new season I like to look back, one last time, at the old year.  How many times did I skate?  What, if anything, was achieved for the money spent and time invested?  The number of times I skated is easy because I keep track of each session I skate by sticking the ice pass to the wall of my cube at work:

NB: my desk is rarely this tidy.  Thirteen columns x 9 rows = 117 times on the ice.  The lion's share took place on home ice, the remainder were at two other rinks  My high water mark is the 2014/15 season.

The last time I posted this picture was at the end of the 2014/15 season. I managed to skate 128 times that year.  The 2015/16 season was the one that included my recovery from a bad fall and so wasn't even half the total of the benchmark skating season.  In hindsight I should have posted that year's sticker wall.  Just returning to the ice was the major accomplishment.  But, as impressive (at least to me) as my great wall of ice passes may seem, if one divides the totals from either "good" year by 52 it comes out to less than three times per week.  Three times per week would require 156 outings on the ice. Three times a week for a guy who has to cram skating into his work schedule--can I sustain it?  Don't know, but something to aim at.

The 2017/18 season begins.  Will this little fellow find 155 friends before they melt the ice in June?

 

Along with "quantity" one must include "quality", i.e. whatever "progress" was made.  In my case, last season's major milestone was that I managed to stagger past a USFS judge well enough to complete my Prelim ice dances.  Goals for this year?  I keep them modest.  I'd like to pass the Cha Cha, which seems like a reasonable goal.  But what about the Swing Dance and the Fiesta Tango?  The goal here is to finally conquer my wonky CC forward inside Mohawk required of both dances and clean up my back edges so that the back chasse and back swing roll steps are good enough to at least practice those dances in their entirety.  If Coach A. thinks that they're test worthy by spring that will be icing on the cake. 

Almost back up and running

The photos that follow show different stages of repainting the rink's hockey lines, face-off dots and circles before building the new sheet of ice.  This is where the rink staff were roughly a month ago, before the cooling tower failure.  Current thinking is that the rink might reopen by this coming weekend.  Fingers crossed!  Meanwhile, Coach A. and I have a lesson planned for tonight's Free Style session over at Piney Orchard.  I haven't had a lesson since the end of April.  We'll see if I remember anything.  Let's review some notes from the last lesson: "TGIF".  Humm what's all that then?  Oh yes--I remember: "Toes Go In First"!

For the want of a fan, the kingdom was lost

So close...  (photo credit:  Derek Rabold, BIA)

The above photo is what a newly formed sheet of ice looks like after a cooling tower failure.  Our rink has been closed for annual maintenance since the beginning of May.  It was due to reopen this coming Saturday.  The cause of the meltdown is hoped to be a relatively inexpensive fan.  But even it that's the case, it will take at minimum, an additional week to clean up, repaint all the hockey lines, dots, etc. and build the sheet again.  So, your old diarist is still in ice tourist mode.  Sigh...

A matter of alignment

Long suffering readers of this blog may recall that my skate tech and I have invested a fair amount of energy over the years tweaking the geometry of my left skate blade in an attempt to get me and my aged spine/hip/carcass in an alignment that had some hope of me being able to do things with my left leg that could be identified by the casual observer as "figure skating".  That all worked well until I climbed high enough up the ice dance ladder to need a decently controlled CC inside front Mohawk and solid, confidence inspiring left inside and outside edges.  Edges for back swing rolls, back progressives, back chassés; you get the point--anything requiring a solid back left edge. My blade alignment was not optimized for these new demands.  I was like an old car that had been driven carelessly down one too many pothole-filled roads.  After struggling with limited progress I decided that it was time for a change.  Perhaps as a skater, my left side was now strong enough to get by without the crutch of an abnormal blade setting.

Nearly useless factoid:  chasse, without the accent aigu, means casket or reliquary in French.  Hopefully an improving back chassé will keep me out of a "box" and if any "elevation" is required, then perhaps it will be up on the podium...

So, let us look at some before and after pictures of what transpired.

Before repositioning.  Note how far the front of the blade is "toed in".  Two years ago I complained that I couldn't hold a single-foot straight line flat on my left side without veering off on one edge or the other.  This extreme positioning cured that but did so at a terrible cost to my left foot elements.

It's hard to see, but the heel of the blade was also positioned well inboard.

After repositioning, the toe of the blade is now in a more "neutral" orientation.  Compare this photo with the first pix.  It might not seem like much of a change but trust me, this is big.

The heel of the blade was also moved more towards the center of the boot's heel.

He also added a shim under the outside edge of the front stanchion.  One can just see the white cross weave of the shim material peaking through the unoccupied screw holes.  After all these changes I expected my skates to feel rather alien but much to my relief, when he put me out on the ice for a test skate, they actually felt reassuring and familiar rather than evil and back-bitey.  And I could still skate a single foot flat as well as get over the outside edge on the left skate. After a brief consultation at the boards, the decision was made to stop where we were.  I got off the ice and he gave the blades a sharpening, which also they needed.  There was a FS session on the rink's schedule starting a half hour after I paid my bill.  I decided to stick around and get some ice time on my newly adjusted and sharpened blades.  It seemed like a better bet than launching into the thicket of cars which is homeward bound rush hour traffic on route 301.  Besides, with Coach A. off visiting relatives in another state, coupled with various rink maintenance closures I hadn't had any ice time in two weeks.   By the end of the session I knew that my left forward outside 3 and my CC forward inside Mohawk, while not perfect were much better controlled.  I even got a compliment from a coach with a free style pupil on the ice; she leaned in as I went by and said  "It's nice to see an ice dancer out  here for a change."  I was instantly gratified to hear that whatever it was that I was doing, when she happened to watch, was recognizable as "dance"!  How good is that?!  By the time I left, the rush hour traffic had rushed away and the drive home was peaceful.  Hopefully I'll be able to find some more ice time somewhere before my rink reopens on the 8th of July. 

HD Ice Halo: A preliminary report

Hello, and thank-you for attending today's briefing.   I've now worn my new Ice Halo HD during a pair of public sessions, and I must say that it certainly seems to be more comfortable than the standard model with the Velcro closure (ie: my head didn't ache and I wasn't fooling with the head gear at the mid-way point of the session in an attempt to make it feel better).  In fact, today I forgot to remove my green beanie until I was outside the rink at the end of the session, heading for the car.  I contrast, the standard version of the Ice Halo is the first thing I remove after getting off the ice--usually I can't wait to take it off.

Nor did it slip out of place at any time during my warm-up, lesson, or apres-lesson practice. Full disclosure:  I don't do triple or double or even single jumps.  Jumping, on the part of your diarist, is strictly limited by SWMBO to half-rotational jumps--at the most (think Waltz jump and half-flip).  So, big impressive jumpers--your mileage may vary (but unless you're doing Surla Bonaly back flips, I doubt it).

Obviously, more wearings will be required before stepping up to the microphone to make a definitive statement, but  I think this is going to be a relatively short-lived trial, sort of like a medical intervention that's is so overwhelmingly positive during the early stages that the researchers are compelled to suspend the trial early for the ethical benefit of the placebo group.

The unresolved  $64 dollar $95 (well, that's Canadian, so roughly $70) question is: is it as safe as or, better yet, safer than the standard version?   I just don't know.

My ice dance coach immediately (and positively) commented on the sea foam green aspect.  "That color's coming back", she opined.  Alert the press: your old diarist (and big bands) are coming back.

So, at first blush we can tick off three out of five of the big questions: Comfort, (yes) Fit, (yes) and Style (yes!) are all in the plus column.

The unanswered questions of durability and safety are ones which are resolvable only by time for the former and misadventure for the latter.  As we say in the biological sciences, or when taste testing something yummy in a relative's kitchen, "while current results are highly promising, more research is required".

Of course, independent confirmation by other current standard edition Ice Halo wearers would strengthen these observations.  Any stepper-uppers in the on-deck circle?

Sea Foam Green is the new Black.

Ice Halo has two versions of their head protective gear.  there's the standard model which comes as a flat strap with a Velcro closure that one wraps around one's head.  The Velcro permits size adjustment within a given range.  A newer model called the "HD" for the high(er) density foam material comes as circular or donut shape that one slips on like a ball cap.  The HD model requires slightly more careful head measurement prior to ordering.  I wondered if the HD would be more comfortable, less prone to slip and offer a tad more protection.  I posted these questions to  http://skatingforums.com and while I did get some feedback I didn't get a definitive answer since nobody owned both versions and so a direct comparison could not be made.  There was nothing in it but to bite the bullet and order one.  So I did.

The HD comes in a range of colors.  Being a child of the 1940s/50s I'm a sucker for Sea Foam Green.  As can be seen, the HD really isn't one-piece construction but rather two pieces joined in the middle on either side  I'm not sure how the sections are joined.  It would take a bit of deconstruction to find out.  Maybe my curiosity will overcome my resistance after it's not brand new.  For now that aspect will remain a little mystery.  Note that the back part of the HD kicks up slightly in the part which protects the back of the head.

The Ice Halo company really wants you to know which part is back and which side is up.  Like all things Canadian, this product is bi-lingual.  I can now spell Spandex in French--bonus!

One difference between the standard and HD models is that one can request the standard version with the company logo hidden away on the inside.  When you wear an HD you become a billboard for Ice Halo.  At least the logo button is discrete.

Standard (black) and HD ice halos.  The red band around the Velcro closure on the standard edition is an old ice rink wrist band which wasn't long enough to go around my wrist guards. In this photo the wrist band suggests that the Velcro has become worn.  In actuality, the Velcro, after two years of constant use, is as good as new.

I plan to wear the HD for the first time today when I have my next ice dance lesson.  One reason for buying the HD is to see if it is more comfortable to wear than the standard model.  If I get the Velcro closure snug enough to keep the original ice halo from slipping it tends to become uncomfortable mid-way through a two hour public.  Will the HD go the distance?  We shall see.  As for the relative merits of safety, it may be a while before I can report on that.  I have "crash tested" the standard model twice and both times the ice halo spared me another ride in an ambulance.  Hopefully the HD will be as good if not a tad better.  While I don't plan to go out of my way to "test" it, one never knows when the next head slamming fall will occur. Stay tuned.

Kids!

Has anyone experienced this?

I skated the mid-afternoon public yesterday.  The ice was just crowded enough that you could only sneak in a complete dance pattern every now and then--which by it's self is not that unusual.  So anyway I retreated to a corner to work on stuff that one does in the corner (Mohawks, 3-turns, a few back swing rolls,  alternating back chasses down the red line, etc.).  After a while I noticed that I had two kids shadowing me: I'd do a Mohawk and they'd attempt to do one,  I'd do a 3-turn, they'd attempt to mimic it in an untutored kid kinda way.  It was a little humorous but at the same time a little frustrating because they were right. on. my. heel! Often only about a blade length or two away.  The ice was heavily rutted from the hockey match that preceded the public and I was a little concerned that if I caught an edge I'd flatten a kid!  I skated away from them to the opposite end of the rink and set up camp in one of those corners.  Quick as a flash, my two little disciples were right there!  I decided to skate laps doing alternating forward progressives in the hopes that I could wear 'em out or at least make them bored, but nope, they trailed along hot on my tail like sea gulls following a fishing boat.  My strategy didn't work--well actually it did--they wore me out!  I got off the ice a half hour early.  They were too funny but I hope I never see 'em again!