I don't know where to begin! This last month has been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs and the downs have sucked big time, but still I'm skating and don't know where I'd be without it (and the people who come with it) right now.
The absolute highlight of this last month was my friends' silver wedding anniversary party on ice. Like true skaters, they celebrated their 25 years together (congratulations guys!!!) on the ice. How many people can say that? I've got to say, this kind of event is where my beautiful skatey family really shows everyone else what fun means. I do take my skating very seriously but I don't see why there shouldn't be room for a little fun too. And actually, you know what - the fun stuff really builds up your confidence on the ice. It should be mandatory IMHO.
The theme was 'silver', of course, and everyone made a real effort to go with the theme and came in all kinds of silver dress. I wore a silver skirt with black top and a silver headband. I managed to avoid the cameras mostly, but there's this one of me and a friend which I quite like and I hope she doesn't mind me posting (she's the taller one who looks like a stunning little silver fairy, and I'm on the left!):
I think it's probably the mark of a truly good ice party when you leave at the end of the night with a wet backside and ripped
tights (for all the right reasons!!). There was a lot of throwing ourselves on the floor, racing with penguins and riding on the penguins involved. Those of you with dirty minds, stop it right now. If you've never taken a ride on a penguin, I recommend you do it because it's the most fun you'll ever have. No pics of me doing it, but this is the stuff: (Nb. The only reason the person pulling the penguin is pixellated is because I didn't have chance to check if she would mind being pictured so just erring on the side of caution. It's not that she's a criminal or a famous face or something....) Minutes later, the person pulling the penguin lets go and flings you across the ice on it - muchos fun!
I love that I've made such fab friends since I started skating, and they've really shown their worth this past year when things haven't gone quite to plan (and my non-icey friends, my family and my coach have also all been awesome).
I managed to skate for a whole year with no mishaps whatsoever. A few falls that resulted in bruises but nothing worse. Then since last October when I broke my wrist, I seem to have developed clumsy-itis. Nothing major since the broken wrist, thankfully (and fingers crossed) but enough to cause skating issues, annoyingly. To be fair though, one of my issues wasn't even caused by skating, but a by-product of it.
It started off with a really bad back a couple of months ago, which lasted about 6 weeks. It's fixed now thankfully. No idea how I even did that one. Just woke up one morning with a nasty pain in the middle of my back (like, bra-strap area).
A week or so after that started to get better, a friend and I met up with a guy friend we know to do some lifts. He's ballet-trained and knows how to do all the lifts and things safely (not lifts on the ice), so said he'd teach us. We spent a whole afternoon trying different lifts in a local park, and it was one of the most fun things I've ever done. Loved it. And I was much braver than I thought I'd be actually; I surprised myself that I didn't freak out! He's got to be the strongest guy I've ever met too - unreal how easy it seemed for him to lift us. These were the kinds of things we did (and it's actually much harder for the girl than it looks - hardest work-out I've ever done!):
I would LOVE to try this kind of thing on ice someday - but I tell you something, you'd REALLY really have to trust the person lifting you (trust both their strength and ability in lifting and also their skating skills) otherwise that would be some serious scary times. Scary enough over soft grass, especially the roll-up (if that's the right name for it). This moment when you're upside down is the most disorientating thing in the world, especially the first time:
Unfortunately, even though I felt fine at the time, I clearly over-did it at some point because later that day my ribs started hurting on my right side - and didn't stop hurting for about 7 weeks (bruised ribs = not fun). The first few weeks were really bad, and I was struggling to skate at all to be honest. Luckily (I think) I have a coach who's done lots of pairs stuff, so he knew how to wrap me like a mummy in bandages while I skated to ease the pain a bit. I'm guessing he's broken a few partners in his time..... :-)
Since then I've also developed a trapped nerve in my ankle, which is loads of fun to skate on, I'm sure you can imagine. No idea how that one's happened, but it's annoying to say the least. It basically means if anything, even just a sock, is touching a certain part of my left ankle, I'm getting shooting pains and pins and needles through my foot. In one skating session recently, I had to come off after an hour because it became constant. Not only was I skating on a pins 'n' needles-y foot, but it spread up my leg to my knee too. Another weird result of this trapped nerve is a strange numb sensation in the top of my foot. If I run, say, a pencil across my foot, there are parts of it I can't actually feel at all. Very weird.
And to top all of this off, in the last three days alone, I've cut my finger on a key, sliced my calf with my blade, and dropped my skate on my foot, leaving three cute little toepick holes and a bruise. Haha! What next?? I don't think I even want to know....
Additionally, I'm also going through a pretty tough waiting game at the moment due to another health issue. It's quite a tricky one to talk about at the minute, because I have a tendency to get a little upset, but writing's not too bad, and I guess to some extent it highlights the therapy that skating really does provide, in so many ways.
Long story short, my mum noticed a lump in my neck a couple of months ago and I went to my GP. He sent for blood tests and referred me to the hospital for an ultrasound. At the ultrasound, they found that it's a mass of some sort (not a cyst) in my thyroid, and I ended up having a biopsy (fine needle biopsy) there and then. I was called back to the hospital a week later for the results (Monday gone).
It's quite complex, but as I understand it, the kind of cells the biopsy showed means they can't know anything for sure without removing the thing and doing some further histological tests.
They work on a scale of one to five apparently, and mine came back as a "Thy3f" whatever that means. The consultant explained that a "1" means they actually didn't get enough cells to test and would have to re-do the biopsy, a "2" is something definitely benign, a "3" (my result) gives me a 25% chance of it being cancerous (therefore a 75% chance it's not, to look on the bright side), a "4" reverses those 25/75 odds, and, as he said: "You don't want a 5".
So the next step for me is to, unfortunately, have surgery (which will be in a few weeks' time) to remove half of my thyroid gland along with the mass and await further tests. Then we go from there. So yes, I'm worried. But worried is better than terrified, and I would only say I was terrified for a day or two. I'm over it now (for now). What will be, will be, and all that jazz. The support and helpful words I've had from all my friends who've known about this, and from my family and my coach have kept me really positive so far, so I just have to wait with fingers crossed, and cross any other bridges when I come to them.
And this is where skating therapy comes back into play. I genuinely think that without the escape of skating I'd have gone mental with worry by now, but for those moments you're on the ice, you're so absorbed in practising whatever you're doing you actually do forget to think about anything else.
On the positive side of things, I had my silver passport signed off last week, yay! The only thing is, my coach is usually so particular about things being Olympic-standard perfect, I can't help but think he's given me an easy ride on that one because my Salchow really is not up to scratch yet. To be fair though, he said he would sign it under the understanding that it still needs a lot of work, and I had to promise to work hard to make it better. He said the technique is pretty much right, and I am at least leaving the ice every time now, but it's not consistent and not high enough and not long enough and too swingy-legged etc etc, all of which I know. And the annoying thing about it is I know exactly what to do to fix it, and that's be braver.
I actually made a deal with myself that I'm not even going to send off for the silver certificate until I feel it genuinely IS better and more consistent. Fair deal, I think.
The main things I've been working on in lessons lately are various mohawk and 3 turn exercises, spins and all the passport jumps. In my most recent lesson, Coach A decided to teach me and get me to practice a combination of 3-jump-into-toe-loop which I actually love the feel of, if only I could do it properly! I'm hesitating way too much between the two at the moment, which I can feel, but it's just that initial desire to make sure I'm balanced out of the three jump before putting my toe back.....must work on that this week!
I understand totally why he's given me that exercise to do (I think! I'm sure he'll tell me if I'm wrong....), which is to get the timing of both jumps better and quicker. When I try to do a toe loop from the standard (inside 3 turn entry), I don't get up much speed before it because I'm nervous doing the inside 3 from speed, but then my turn itself is quite big (I don't seem able to do a small inside 3!!) so then by the time I go into the jump the timing seems all wrong, if that makes sense. I suppose half the battle is knowing what you're doing wrong, and for me the only thing that will fix it is to be more gutsy! Maybe I should wrap myself in bubble wrap from head to foot then try it......
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