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Friday, November 21, 2008

9 months after...

When I got pregnant, I wondered how long into pregnancy I would be able to skate. Not long after that, I wondered how I would get back to skating after the baby!

So now that my baby is 9 months old, here's a quick look back...

6 weeks post
I went back to skate for the first time after baby. My legs felt like jelly, and my balance seemed waay off! I managed some upright spins, and single jumps with wobbly landings...
Posts from the first month back on ice (in reverse chronoligical order)

8 weeks post
I started coaching again. Meanwhile, I was still trying to skate 1 or 2 sessions a week, and building up my strength.

10 weeks post
I was thrilled the Axel was back. Strangely enough, I was happy attempting doubles even before I dared to try the Axel. I attributed it to the fear of the forward take-off. However, in reality, I think was afraid I might find myself losing something I had, rather than something I never really had. (did that make sense)

12 weeks post
I went back to work, and skating was greatly reduced - to zero! I was still coaching on weekends, but didn't have the time to skate myself. I suppose I must have stopped blogging too...

4 months post
I can *finally* get up from the sit spin. It did take me a while before I got to trying the sit spin, and when I did, I was happily doing a pretty low sit, a nice broken leg... then oops, I couldn't get up!! I was pretty embarrassed by that when I was asked to demo the spin combo during the seminar by technical specialist Janet Born.

5 months post
I danced! Yes, it so happened one of the coaches was free, and agreed to dance with me. This was the first dance in eons!

6-7 months post
My skating schedule became regularly irregular. I would skate almost once in 3 weeks, each time trying to work on jumps, spins... sometimes thinking of choreographing a new program. There wasn't much visible progress.

8 months post
I got myself in a skating dress and skated in an exhibition! It was a group item put up by a few of us coaches, for the Fuji Ice Palace farewell party.

Now, 9 months post, and having lost my home rink and my coaching job, I am trying to get into a more regular skating schedule. The difficulty is that the other rink in this entire country is oh-so-far (don't hate me for thinking that a 20-min drive is "far"), and with the school holidays just started, the crowd makes it uncomfortable to work on anything seriously.

As for skating itself...
  • The Axel is mostly there. I'm also working on the 1A+1Lo+1T combination, which generally comes along nicely once I land the Axel.

  • the double Sal and double toe feel good when I don't pop them, *but* I am still trying to get rid of the slight 2-footed landing

  • I've been working on a potential L4 spiral sequence, and hopefully there are no more major changes to the IJS rules on this!

  • Spins are back to normal, with one big exception - my flying camel has flown away! Possibly because I have problem working on that during public sessions, but if that is the reason then it will never come back... I will have to do it sometime!

  • Recently, I have been trying to choreograph a new program... I say "trying" because this is really can't be done properly during public sessions, and without music!

That's my 9 months' of skating in a nutshell... Time to plan for my training so that I can compete next year!

1 comment:

W said...

Hey Chow!
Great to see you're back to skating regularly after you started work. Been thinking about giving up skating, but it's just too painful to think about! Deciding between skating and dance is tough esp now with no future rink/coach promise.