"How long can you hold you breath?"
The question was fired at me mid-spin in my latest lesson. And no there's no typo.
Whenever you read comments from Coach A, you have to imagine them in a deep voice with a sultry Russian accent to get the full impact. I LOVE having a Russian coach. It comes with many benefits - the fantabulous skating inspiration, for one, but then the accent makes the bollockings - sorry, constructive criticisms - seem so much more serious than
they probably are, while at the same time bringing his brilliant humour to every situation.
So, evidently, I hold my breath when I spin. I hadn't realised this until last lesson.
"Can you try to please breathe when you skate?"
"Breathe AND skate?? What do you think I am? Some super multi-tasking machine? You'll be telling me to relax next."
"It will be interesting to see as your spins get better and better - can you hold your breath for 20 seconds? Or even longer?"
Hmm... Good point. Maybe breathing should be on my list of things to work on this week.
I don't know ANYBODY that doesn't hold their breath while spinning. That is why we get so tired during and after a program - we hold our breaths during spins and desperately try to catch our breath afterwards! Let me know if you can figure out how to breathe while spinning... =)
ReplyDeleteHa! The interesting thing is Eva, my coach said that for professionals like him, the spin is the "chill out" moment in their routine. It's the one bit in the routine where they're not skating so it's the time when they can catch their breath and relax a bit before going again...
DeleteI can't spin more than 4 revolutions so far, but when I first started spinning, I WAS holding my breath. My coach (at the time) had me learn to take a deep breath in just before the spin, and then exhale slowly while spinning. It worked, so I still do that. My current coach has never mentioned my breathing technique while spinning (so far, anyway!) lol
DeleteI'm really not convinced at all that I would be able to concentrate on doing that. It's already too hard to think about legs, arms, posture, edges, rocker, etc....Multi-tasking really isn't my wtrong point!
DeleteI meant strong* point, of course.
ReplyDelete