Kate: Progress!

Whew! Y'all, March was quite a month! April promises to be just as busy, too. School is kicking my butt, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Someday I will finish this program and become a Superstar Paralegal. Just gotta keep my nose to the grindstone and keep on keepin' on.

Who cares about school, though, am I right? This blog is about SKATING! My last entry was fairly serious, so I figured I'd treat you few loyal readers to an upbeat entry. I've been working hard on the salchow, and I really feel like I'm making progress! I am actually completing the jump consistently! Now, it's a tiny baby jump. You could almost call it a step, it's so small. Rome wasn't built in a day, though, and the amount of progress I've made is hugely encouraging to me. My last three skate practices were all very uplifting. I'm planning to work on making all my jumps bigger over the next couple of weeks - I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to putting power behind my jumps because I'm scared of falling. The hilarious thing is, the only fall I've had recently was on a spin and it was pretty painless- the only thing hurt was my pride. Hey, if you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough.

Speaking of spins, I don't have the scratch spin at all, but I'm almost back to where I was before I had surgery with spins - I'm consistently getting at least three rotations and the ultimate thrill happened in my lesson on Saturday - I managed to do a great spin in front of my coach! One of the annoying things about figure skating is often people (at least the people I skate with) will get something in practice and then the minute someone is watching just beef it, so getting it right was quite a triumph. I even felt confident enough to start practicing winding up into spins again instead of just going into it from a standstill. My wind-up is actually better than it was before surgery, but it still has a long way to go.

My footwork is a mess, but with all this concentration on jumps and spins I just haven't been practicing it enough. I have a lesson tomorrow and I'm planning to stay after and do some work on footwork type stuff, so we'll see how that goes.

Another exciting piece of news - my weight loss attempts are going well. I've lost a little and am feeling great about my progress with getting back in shape.

Basically, things are going very well for me in the skating world. Personally, I've had a few setbacks recently, but life is all about how you handle it and I'm pretty good at handling difficult things. I'm just going to keep moving forward and thinking positively, and hopefully things will continue to get better and better from here on out.

Kate: Serious Business

Warning: There will be frank discussion of weight/eating issues in this post. If you feel that is triggery, go check out one of our more lighthearted posts. I promise, sometimes this blog is very funny!

Lately, I've been trying to lose weight. Thanks to skating and generally trying to do more physical activity, I'm in good shape, but I'm still overweight.

Yep. I admit it. My BMI is high and y'all, I'm not going to share any numbers here, but let's just say I'm not overly thrilled with what said numbers are. Building muscle/getting in shape is not a big struggle for me, which is nice, but losing weight is an uphill battle that is not helped any by my deep and passionate love of good food and wine. I have difficulty saying no to things that make me feel good and a tendency to overdo it when I'm indulging.

I was always a very thin, but uncoordinated child. Athletics didn't really come naturally to me (other than skating - apparently when balanced on thin blades on the ice, I am very coordinated. If only I could skate my way through life in general!), but I was still fairly active. I rode my bike around, I climbed trees, I wandered around our yard and neighborhood playing all sorts of pretend games where I was a pioneer woman or a fairy or a mermaid or whatever. I could eat whatever I wanted back then.

Puberty hit early, and I was granted a woman's body immediately. Everyone who knows me in real life knows that I am a curvy lady, and it was pretty much that way from the start. I, like many other teenaged girls, thought I was fat, and with the stresses of being a teenager who struggled with depression and very low self-esteem, I eventually developed an eating disorder.

I was very lucky, in the end. I had friends who supported me (and two who went to a school counselor when they realized I was beyond their help). I got into therapy and spent years trying to overcome the control issues and build self-esteem. I struggled with food and weight issues for most of my teens and early twenties, but I can say that my friends forcing me to confront these things early may have quite literally saved my life.

Eventually, I did build self-esteem. I also gained a LOT of weight in my mid-twenties, and have spent years trying to lose it in a healthy way. Part of the struggle there is I worried about backsliding and ending up with my same unhealthy habits I had in my youth and losing the self-worth I had fought so hard for. This led me to develop new unhealthy habits - I'd tell myself that it was okay to eat what I wanted, because the weight loss wasn't a big deal. I'm still pretty, guys are still into me, I am a worthwhile person at any weight. Pass the fried avocado, done and done.

Well. I am pretty. I am a worthwhile person. I am a good friend, a loving daughter, and a smart and dedicated student. I also am now trying to lose the weight to help me be even healthier, even better at the athletics I do. I'm writing this blog entry to give me accountability in this journey. I'm sure I will have nights where I go out and drink wine with my girlfriends and indulge in that cheese plate, but for now I am trying to think of the diet as something that is not to be feared or resented for taking away one of life's pleasures. Eating healthy does not have to be a chore.

I recently told some friends that the greatest gift of my late 20's is that every time I look in the mirror, I see someone who is beautiful. I also have looked back over the last two and a half years of my life, years in which I have lost so much, but I have also gained. The inner strength I have found since my mother's death and the peace I've found with myself will make this journey easier, I think.

I think I'm going to wind this blog entry down, and finish it off with saying that I hope the work I'm putting in to weight loss and my health will also make me a better skater. I know I'll definitely be going to the rink more often to help me get into better shape. Hopefully my next entry will be all about how I've gotten the scratch spin and the slachow jump!

Kate-Triumphant Return

Another blog update! I know, it's very exciting. It's going to be all about what you've been waiting to hear about - my triumphant return to the ice. And triumphant it was!

I have a long and storied history of not taking proper care of myself after surgery and ending up back in bed, weak and worn-out. This always makes my recovery take longer, and yet, every time I try to get up and get back to business too soon. This time, however, I resolved to actually rest and recovery properly. I spent a lot of time reading and lounging about and generally letting my body actually heal. I took six weeks off the ice, and when I returned I was really nervous and convinced I would have lost all of my skills.

Well, there was some backsliding, clearly. My first day back I was very shaky on things I had been doing well on before - I got busted back down to a one foot spin (I was learning scratch spins and backspins before) and baby jumps. But I've been practicing a lot and doing strength training off-ice, and I am very quickly returning to where I was before. It's true that practice makes perfect.

The most exciting news about all this practice is I am now learning the salchow jump. It's incredibly frustrating because it's taking me a long time to get it, but I'm practicing. In class, I could not seem to get it, but then when I went to practice on Sunday I just worked on jumps for an hour and fifteen minutes, and by the end of practice I had had a few successful tries! The amazing thing about figure skating is the feeling you get when you finally manage something that you've struggled with.

I'm still on one-footed spins - I've reverted to some bad habits that we need to correct (going into it from two feet, for example). I also need to get over my fear of gaining momentum - speed is what you WANT in a spin, and it always makes me panic. This week I plan to practice just that - gaining momentum and not being afraid to fall.

I was really frustrated with the changes at the rink and with skating in general, and during my time off I considered quitting. But now that I have returned to skating, I honestly can't imagine leaving it behind. No matter how hard it is, no matter the problems at the rink, it's worth it to be able to do something I love so much.

Kate: Did You Miss Me?

I'm sure you did, three loyal readers. Well! Four months after my last entry, I figured it was time to start updating our skating blog again. So much has happened in the last four months both on and off the ice - I will try to condense it for you.

The last time I posted, I was on the eve of my 28th birthday. I predicted 28 would be a pretty good year for me, and so far, that prediction has been true minus a few bumps along the way. I rocked my first semester in the paralegal program and earned myself a 4.0 for the first time in my academic life. In high school, one of my teachers once commented to me that I was very smart, I was just lazy. WELL, Mr. Risinger, you were correct. I do, in fact, do quite well when I apply myself.

My personal life continues to bop along, full of friends and good things. It's nice to have a life that is full of good, loving people who I love spending time with.

Enough about stuff that isn't skating! I'll get on to what you're just dying to hear about - what's happening on the ice? Well, currently, the answer is nothing. I had another surgery in December, and my recovery time was somewhat slow. Before the surgery, though, exciting things were happening. I finally became more comfortable with the half-flip and was beginning to learn both a scratch spin and a backspin! I was working hard and seeing tons of improvement. My triumphant return to the ice is next week and honestly, I'm just hoping that I can manage to stay on my feet.

Another big issue with skating is one of the rinks in town closed, so all of the programs are down to one sheet of ice. I haven't really been affected by the changes yet since I've been recovering, so I will allow Candice to tell you about that. You will not be surprised to hear she has a lot to say.

I was really upset about becoming ill again and having to have another surgery, but I know I'll regain my strength. I've started strength training and running again in addition to skating, and it's pretty cool how the human body can bounce back. I have handled this surgery emotionally much better than last year's, and in some ways that's thanks to skating. I know my body has limitations, but I am also often amazed by what it can do despite them.

There you go! The shortest version of the last four months possible. My goal is not to let four months pass between this entry and the next. In fact, I promise I'll update again after I go back to skating next week and let y'all know how it goes!

Everything! What?

Due to a tragic rope swing plus alcohol leading to stupid choices incident this weekend, I am off the ice for a few days while I allow my poor sad muscles to recover. The lesson here, people, is you should not assume you can do things you did at 21 and recover immediately. UGH.

Anyways! On to talking about skating. I went to class on Saturday and it was one of those days where everything is just wrong. In Power Skating I was slow and I had trouble doing power three turns, which, come on. I learned how to do those more than six months ago. It was ridiculous. Then, in Adult Workshop, I was just a frustrated mess.

Then: random breakthrough. Our coach was helping me with spins, and he was like "Focus on that arm! Now your core! Let's work on your balance!". There were one million small things in each element I was trying that I needed to think about, so we just took it back down to basics and I concentrated on technique, not speed. After months of frustration with spins, I finally, FINALLY am spinning on one foot again. Success! I'm not quite up to the four revolutions that Coach Yoda wants me to be at, but I'll get there.

The thing about learning skating is there are so many things you have to think about when you learn something new. Your arms need to be held the right way, your core strong, turning your head often helps. I tend to drop my right shoulder a lot which is part of why I'm having trouble with basics. Sometimes Candice and I just stand and shout "ARMS!" at each other or stare each other in the face so we remember to keep our heads up and not look at our feet.

This is such a fun sport, but at the same time it's incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I suspect we're all a bunch of crazy people, but hey. Figure skating is a GREAT thing to brag about at parties. I think I'll stick with it.

Kate: I Return!

Hello! Did you miss me? I know you did, crying into your pillow every night, wondering why I wasn't nattering about skating on the internet. I haven't posted much lately because my head is currently swimming with many feelings. My grandmother, Doris Spurlock, who was my mother's mother, passed away on June 5th very suddenly. So a lot of those feelings swimming around are grief, sadness, and a deep longing to hug my mom (who, for readers new to this blog, is also dead - she passed away in September 2009). The month of June has not been the kindest to me emotionally.

Skating, however, has been mostly kind to me. I was briefly feeling very frustrated and angry with myself because I've been struggling with some of the same old things (backwards edges FOREVER), but I joined this team at the rink that allows me to take unlimited classes. I am currently taking five classes and am thinking about taking even more next session. These are split between Saturday morning and Wednesday night and let me tell you what, taking all these classes is kicking my ass. I walked out of my last class this morning feeling like I'd been wrung out and hung to dry.

What I also felt was clearheaded for the first time in weeks. When I woke up this morning, I was feeling super grumpy and off-kilter, as I had all week. "Why even go to class?" I asked myself. "I'll just be the worst ever on the ice and it will suck". I reminded myself that I pay for these damn classes and so I best get up and get to the rink. I wasn't great at everything - we practiced 3-turns (both inside and outside) in my adult workshop class and I'm pretty sure mine were the shakiest, but I did them. When I did the right inside three turn into the left outside three turn, the only criticism the coach had was the my lobes could be bigger. That's a big thing! I did the turns correctly! My left inside was the saddest thing on earth, but I managed to do the turn at least once. Power skating was a killer - I felt like I was the slowest in the class, but I kept going. I left the rink feeling strong and accomplished.

This is why I skate. I do want to compete someday and I hope that eventually I won't be in the "slow group" in the adult workshop class, but that takes time and work. I refuse to quit skating because even on days where I'm frustrated and flustered, I still always manage to find something good in a practice. In times where my personal life has difficulties, I can go and skate it out at the rink and walk out feeling better.

I may not be the best or the fastest skater, but I really love doing it, and in the end, that's all that matters.

Kate: Tears Dry On Their Own

Putting it out on the front street: I cried after skating class today.

Thankfully not at the rink. I may not have much dignity, but my pride allowed me to keep a stiff upper lip and talk to my fellow classmates and not bawl into my disgusting smelling skate bag like a little kid that had dropped her ice cream. No, I waited till I was in the car with Candice and she forced me to talk to her, and that's when the weeping began.

See, we've been skating together for a year, but I am suddenly very, very far behind her in skill level. Today we were working on jumps and the coach made me practice my bunny hops and waltz jumps (jumps I learned months ago) because they need improvement. Candice was doing much more complicated stuff. I spent the whole class feeling like a frustrated failure.

Here's the truth though: I was not a failure. I finally mastered the 8-step, which is a step sequence that we learned two weeks ago that's basically this:

- 2 crossovers
- forward inside mohawk
- back-step
- backward crossover
- backward inside mohawk

I was having so much trouble with it and today I finally got it. I was doing it fast, too! My jumps were much improved, my footwork is suddenly developing much more rapidly. The reason for all of this improvement is happening is that I got new skates. New skates that fit right - my old ones were a FULL SIZE too big, which was part of what was holding me back. Lack of practice also held me back, I'll admit it, but the change between the skates is huge. The feeling is totally different. I feel much more in control of my feet with these skates.

So, why was I crying like a big old baby after class?

I've had a lot more time off the ice than Candice due to health problems and travel issues, but I feel like if I had taken care of this six months ago, maybe I'd be at the skill level I feel like I should be at. I talked to coaches a little about my skates and was generally told "Oh, don't waste the money to buy new skates, just get some insoles and you should be fine". That was also a big part of why I was so upset - I felt a little betrayed by the crappy advice and frustrated with myself for not being more assertive. I have a long history of not being assertive, and this time it really came back to bite me. I could tell something was very wrong about my skates and I wish I had listened to my body instead of outside commentary from people who could not experience what I was feeling.

You can't go back and change the past, however, so I am going to take another round of Adult Workshop and work these skates like a BOSS. I hope that in eight weeks I can report that I have mastered the elements for the pre-bronze test and am on my way to actual competing. Cross your fingers, my beloved three readers.

Kate: Ice Castles

I'm going to take a break from nattering about skating classes because, frankly, I've been off the ice for two weeks due to travel. Today was supposed to be my triumphant return to the ice, but I appear to be developing an upper respiratory infection, so instead the plan for today is to take it easy, then go skating for three hours tomorrow.

Moving on! Last night Candice and I decided to watch Ice Castles, a delightful movie from 1978 about a girl overcoming adversity to become awesome at skating. OR SO WE THOUGHT. Warning: there will be spoilers in this post, though I kind of feel like getting angry about spoilers from a movie that is THIRTY-THREE years old is a little silly.

We expected the movie to be bad because it was 1.) about ice skating and 2.) made in the 70's. What we did not expect was the movie to be BALLS TO THE WALL CRAZY. We were tweeting throughout the movie, and here are some examples of our feelings as the movie went from "Wow, everyone in this movie is just here to cash a paycheck" to "Um, the main character appears to now be an attic-lurking zombie wearing her dead mother's clothes. What?"

"So Ice Castles is as schlocky as I hoped but everyone is napping through this movie. Also lololol a full house at Regionals."

"Apparently triples were just crowd pleasing acrobatics back in the 70s. Why would anyone want to do them? #icecastles"

"I'm already tired of watching split jumps holy crap. #icecastles"

If you've seen Showgirls know how hilarious it is when everyone is practically salivating over Nomi Malone's "abilities." That's pretty much what was going on with this movie. At one point this character is so over-awed by the main character's "natural" "talent" that she has like a meltdown... at a Christmas Special. Where apparently the main character qualifies for Regionals? WTF, Ice Castles?

And at first it seems like family fun (well, not that Showgirls was ever family fun, the comparison ends with the amazement over "talent"), and then suddenly the main character is playing with her nipples in front of a mirror. And that, my friends, is where the movie really veers off into insanity. We were tweeting away sarcastically about dated ideas about jumps and hilariously full houses at lame competitions, and then:

"She's had one glass of wine and now she's molesting an ice sculpture. #icecastles"

"Let that be a lesson to you all. Don't skate after drinking champagne. It leads to blurred tantrums about how you CAN'T SEE! #icecastles"

"Oh my god now she's a blind zombie wearing her dead mother's clothes. This movie is 900% more crazier than anticipated. #icecastles"

Yup. SPOILERS: She tries a double axel at a party, falls, hits her head on a table and goes blind. She then spends the next half hour lurking in the attic at her dad's house, wearing her dead mom's clothes and refusing to shower. You should watch this movie for the scene where her ice skating mentor kicks her ass up there, it's totally just like "The Miracle Worker". EVEN EXTRA SPOILERS: The miracle is she learns to skate while quasi-blind and comes back to kick ass at... Sectionals. Not exactly a Rocky Balboa triumph over the best the Soviets has to offer. More like a mild triumph over the the best a portion of America has to offer. But the point is it took pluck, I guess.

They remade this movie in 2010. Oh, yeah, they did. Clearly, Candice and I must watch it to see how they deal with this whole "doing triples is a parlor trick!" issue. And also if the 2010 version is just as crazy, with the attic lurking and the blind ass kicking and the random nipple touching.

So there you have it. If you've ever wondered "Hmmm, should I watch Ice Castles?", the answer is clearly a giant Y-E-S. Just make sure you have strong drinks and a good friend to commentate with, otherwise it's going to be two hours of bafflement. Don't worry. We'll let you know if the 2010 version is just as amazing. We're here for you, my dear four readers. We've got your back.

Kate: Falling Is Like This

So! In my last post, I was all like "la-di-da, I am amazing at skating despite being out of it for a month, I am so awesome, 2011 is the BEST EVAH, what is up ladies and gents?" Well, 2011 is still going pretty well - I'm behaving like a responsible adult on a pretty regular basis. Somehow I have still managed not to fulfill most of my resolutions, but whatever. The bathroom is clean and my to-do list is being taken care of. I go to bed at a reasonable hour every night and get up at the same time every day. These are all wins.

You know what wasn't a win? Going to skating class last week and getting a slap of reality by falling on my face not once, but TWICE. The first time we were doing crossovers in a figure eight and I went too deep on my edge and BAM, down on my hip. I was so embarrassed - the other girls in this class are doing, like, rotational jumps and camel spins and I fell on a freaking crossover. I got back up, gathered my tattered pride around me and kept going. A few minutes later, our teacher made us do lunges and spirals for warm-ups. OF COURSE the higher level girls are doing better than me, but I managed to do some respectable lunges and spirals without falling, so I was feeling pretty good.

Then. Oh, then. Our teacher is like "So, everyone knows how to do bunny hops, right?" Bunny hops are the easiest of jumps. So we're all like "Yeah, of course, duh" and she's like "Okay! Final warm-up! Do bunny hops across to the other line!" Everyone takes off, bunny hopping away (which looks ridiculous, the jump looks like you've tripped and are stumbling along) and I go, take off, and land.....on my kneecap. And then flop to my stomach, my left arm taking my weight as I collapse completely and slide across the ice, penguin-style.

Why do I always do that?

Our teacher was horrified and rushed over, all like "are you okay?" and I didn't even bother gathering my tattered pride this time because I had none left. I just got up as gracefully as I could manage (which was not gracefully at all) and said I was fine and kept going. The rest of class was pretty demoralizing - I was super shaky, even practicing easy things, and I could not seem to get up the courage to jump again. The worst part was I had spent almost two hours at the rink the day before practicing my jumps and turns and stuff, so I came into class ready to be a bad-ass and was pretty thoroughly demoralized by my complete lack of bad-assed-ness.

Here's hoping this weekend's class is better and kinder to both my knees and my dignity.

Kate: No Time For Losers

Well, here's an update on my resolutions: not a single one has been taken care of. Passing the pre-bronze test has been advanced towards...sort of? In that I'm skating again? But cooking, off-ice training, and buying cowboy boots? None of these things have happened.

IN MY DEFENSE, I had surgery less than a month ago and my recovery has been slower than when I was younger, which my doctor teased me about when I was like "what's up with that?" Surprise, everyone! You don't bounce back from ANYTHING as fast when you get older! Sigh.

I am recovering, though, and am trying to make plans that involve getting back on that resolution train. Candice and I have named 2011 "The Year of Not Fucking Around Anymore, Seriously This Time". I have been stretching after I skate and trying to remember to take anti-inflammatory drugs before I go on the ice to help with pain.

So, on to the skating. I went back a week or so ago, and was really nervous. I was convinced that I had forgotten everything and would slide around like Bambi, weeping about my lack of muscle tone and embarrassing myself in front of the other skaters.

THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. In fact, I improved on some things! My inside 3-turns are a lot better and I'm jumping better, too! Yeah, that's RIGHT, people. I went back on the ice less than three weeks after surgery and mothereffing JUMPED. I felt like the biggest badass ever until my abs and thighs were like "We hate you" and got so shaky I had to get off and rest. I'm still rebuilding muscle, and I can't skate as long as I could before I stopped, but I'm doing really well. Plus, as a final braggy note, we signed up for Adult Basic 4 again, figuring we needed to really get the skills for it down before moving up to "Adult Workshop", which is where you learn the really fun and harder stuff.

Well! We have been moved up to workshop! We're too good for Adult Basic 4! I was so excited when the workshop teacher (who used to teach our Basic 4 class before we took a break) pulled me aside after class and was like "Um, you need to move up" and the Basic 4 teacher agreed.

Everything is going well. 2011, for real. It's all about not screwing around.

Kate - Reminding Yourself to Breathe In And Out

Well, I’ve had another break from skating thanks to the surgery. I’m waiting until my post-op appointment to go back to it and we resume classes on the 22^nd, so this blog should be a lot more active then. We’ll have new things we’re learning and exciting stuff to talk about.

My surgery included some Very Bad News, which I am somewhat uncomfortable discussing here despite having discussed it elsewhere on the internet. Listen, I’m weird this stuff. So, let’s just say it’s going to take me some time to come to grips with it. It’s also kicking up the grief I have over losing my mother. I wish she were here so I could talk to her and get some advice.

She isn’t, though, and I can’t change the Bad News. I can only move forward, and I am going to start that by actually posting in this thing. I’m going to document my New Year’s resolutions. I used to not really make them, figuring I was just setting myself up for failure, but then last year I made one and it was “find a physical activity I actually enjoy and stick with it” and I DID! So, inspired by that, I made more than one resolution this year:

1. Pass the Adult Pre-Bronze test before December 2011 so I can start competing.

2. Start cooking at least twice a week like a goddamn adult.

3. Actually do off-ice training instead of waking up and being like "Oh, I suddenly...don't....want to." and then being lazy.

4. Finally stop dithering and buy a pair of cowboy boots. Seriously, I've been thinking about this for like four years. It's time.

Wish me luck! Hopefully I’ll be able to keep at least three out of four!

Kate: I Wanna Taste The Tastes And Fix The Problems

I haven’t been skating recently. Today I am going back on the ice after an almost two-week hiatus, despite having had copious amounts of time off from work recently. I should have used that time to go skating and practice so that I don’t lose my mad skillz (by which I mean ability to sometimes do stuff and not fall), but instead I chose to spend my time in my PJs either on the internet, reading, or staring out the window feeling sorry for myself.

Why did I do this, you ask? I love skating! Skating makes me happy! It’s the only physical activity that I’ll willingly go do! What’s the problem?

The problem is this: I have to have surgery again.

Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I’ve talked about that before on this blog, briefly, but today I am going to talk about it a little more. I had five surgeries in six years and was on unpleasant drugs that made me miserable, but didn’t really do much to fix the problem. I spent my late teens/early twenties always worried about pain. By the time I had my last surgery, my doctor was worriedly telling me that he really, really didn’t want to do this, but if things kept on like they had been, I would have a hysterectomy by the time I was thirty.

Then, something crazy happened. I got better.

My last surgery was in January 2006 and they found NO endometriosis. I still had ovarian cysts, but those are more manageable. I was even able to stop taking hormonal birth control for a while and have totally normal cycles. I barely even had to take painkillers! I had a couple of scares, but everything has been fine for four years.

Recently, though, things have gotten a lot more painful. I knew that something was wrong, but ignored it for a while, hoping against hope that it would go away. Finally, though, I realized I had to face it and I went to the doctor. I described what’s been happening, he did an exam, we sat and talked for a long time about my options and my medical history. We even went back through my file to see what things had been like in the past. This surgery is not a choice I made lightly, but it’s what needs to be done. I was really sad and basically retreated for a couple of weeks, going back to old escapism habits (reading, internet, cookies) and avoiding skating because the pain interferes with it sometimes and I find that really upsetting.

I’m going skating this afternoon, though. It’s time to stop sitting around feeling sorry for myself and go back to doing things that make me feel good physically as well as mentally. Things might be getting tough with my health, but that’s all the more reason to stick with something that helps me be healthier. I am on a break from lessons right now, but I’m going back to skating at least three times a week. It will help me to feel better about myself and the current stresses life is throwing at me.

Kate- Evaluations

On the last day of skating classes, we have evaluations. I went into class on Saturday very nervous for mine because I am not strong yet on some of the elements. I figured I would fail the evaluation and be in Adult Basic 4 for another eight weeks.

WELL I PASSED. I am going to reproduce my evaluation complete with hilarious comments here, and then talk about what exactly this means.

So, here is a list of the elements I had to try and my teacher’s comments:

A. Forward 3-turns: outside & inside, R & L – “R- alright! L- oh lefty. :) getting close”

B. Perimeter stroking with crossover end patterns – “wonderful strokes – great position”

C. Forward inside to ouside change of edge sequence –“ great control, consistent size & shape, vert est. & stable on both edges”

D. Alternate backward crossovers with two-foot transition – “good! Great transitions – work on arms straight and look behind ALWAYS”

E. Footwork Sequence

1. 3-5 forward crossovers to an inside mohawk, 3-5 backward crossovers, step forward inside the circle and repeat.

“Good crossovers! Experiment with power. Try moving mohawks!”

F. Power three turns, one direction only – “R- :). Good directon and transition!”

So, basically, what all of that business and commentary means is I got a big fat gold star in skating class for being awesome and now I have to figure out what I want to do next. My choices are: stay in basic 4 until I feel comfortable, move up to “Adult Workshop” where they learn much more complicated business, or go to private lessons. The decision needs to be made quickly as the next round of classes start this week, so clearly we will be keeping you, our five beloved readers, posted about where we go from here. Things are about to REALLY get interesting in our world of figure skating.

Kate: Work Your Way Out

Yesterday at the rink, I was practicing power three turns, which basically meant I was doing an s-pattern on the ice – I would do a three-turn, then glide into a backwards crossover, then step back out into a three-turn. I’m not very good at it yet, but I was really getting the hang of it when I noticed that my left foot was hurting a lot. I tend to ignore pain in that foot because I broke it a year and a half ago and it’s been troublesome ever since. This pain, however, was deep and intense.

I thought I’d just take a break and try some Mohawks because I’m finally starting to master them and I wanted to practice some more. That’s when everything really went south. See, doing the mohawk, I flipped from going forwards and my left foot was like “AW NAW HELL NAW” and the pain was suddenly really intense. I tried doing several more elements, and it got to the point where even skating with any weight on ol’ lefty was painful.

I try to be kind to my foot (and the rest of my body) and remember to take anti-inflammatory drugs and take breaks to massage it when it gets really painful. Yesterday, though, I just fought through because I got really upset and frustrated. There’s nothing more annoying than something as simple as pain holding you back. It’s just not something you can control.

When I got really angry, I decided to do lunges (literally, you lunge forward into a deep knee bend with one leg while dragging the other behind you. The goal is to get your back foot parallel to the ice.) until I wasn’t angry anymore. So I did. For ten minutes, I did lunge after lunge and complained to Candice about the pain in my foot. Finally, when my legs were shaking and I had finally run out of curse words, I stopped, took a breath, and realized it had worked. I wasn’t angry anymore, I was just exhausted. So I got back to practicing what I was doing, and worked through the pain.

I’ve spent a lot of years struggling with chronic pain. I have endometriosis (don't know what that is? Try google or wikipedia!), which used to cause That Time of the Month to be so painful I couldn’t get out of bed. I’ve had five surgeries and unpleasant drug therapies that have long-term effects. After my last surgery, my doctor told me that if things kept on the way they were, I would have a hysterectomy before I was thirty.

Since then, I have had a marked improvement in my health and have managed to lead a quite normal life, despite a couple of scares and some ongoing pain issues. I spent years learning to manage pain, how to live with it. I have always firmly believed that if I just keep moving ahead, eventually I’ll work past the pain or figure out how to work around it. This is why I kept skating, even when my foot was hurting so badly I had trouble putting weight on it. Pain isn’t something I give in to. Pain is something I push into the background so I can get on with my business.

This story is not to illustrate what a badass I am. It’s to illustrate what a moron I can be sometimes. Skating isn’t easy. It’s not just hard to learn, it’s really hard on your body. When you’re a kid it’s much easier to deal with falls and muscle exhaustion and pain from old injuries, but as an adult you have to be much more careful with yourself. After I got off the ice yesterday I was in pain for the rest of the afternoon. We ran errands and I could just feel all the bad things I had done to myself.

Eventually, we stopped and went back to Candice’s apartment to stretch, and that took care of a lot of the problems. What we SHOULD have done was stretch immediately after skating, and what I personally should have done was get off the ice and give cranky ol’ left foot a break. It’s hard to remember sometimes that if you push yourself too far, you’ll regret it. We’re both strong and have a lot of endurance, so we’re often like “No, no, it’s no problem! I GOT THIS” and then three hours later we’re both weeping about muscle pain.

So, lesson learned. Be nicer to myself and stretch, for goodness sake.