No Ice is Fine… For Now.

Howdy partners. Before COVID-19 decided to take over the world and lock us up in quarantine, I had been thinking about starting a youtube channel. It would have been about my figure skating journey. My journey with the different spins, jumps, hops, etc. that I will learn. I was looking forward to it, too. I was going to start recording myself during my practice and my training sessions with my coach. But without a moment’s notice, we were put on quarantine. Now instead of being able to practice all of these moves, stretches, and jumps on the ice, I only have the opportunity to practice them in my family room or back/front yard. It’s tough. One of the spin positions that I have been able to master this week is the Chinese Spiral. It is honestly not as easy as it looks, and it takes a lot back flexibility, strength, and gracefulness. When I was preparing to do this, I watched a video by one of my favorite coaches, Michelle Hong, that was about how to do the Chinese Spiral. I had to do a whole bunch of stretches for my back. They were absolutely insane, but after a couple of days of watching that video and doing some super hardcore stretches, I was finally able to do the Chinese Spiral. Although it is not as perfect as I would want it to be, I am slowly but surely getting there and can’t wait to finally be able to do it without any support. When it comes to figure skating jumps, you have to have a whole lot of strength, agility, speed, and most importantly it has got to be graceful. I know what you’re probably thinking right now, “What? How can you be both graceful and strong at the same time?” Well let me just tell you, it is one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. But at the end of the day, when you land your first Waltz Jump on the ice, you will be more than thankful for combining opposites into one to make a beautiful move. I still haven’t been able to land the jump on ice since the rink I go to temporarily closed down just when I was about to try it. Still, I have been doing tons of training here at home to get my Waltz Jump perfect so that I can have a better chance at landing it when I finally can go to the ice rink. I have been working on my form and landing for this jump. This is because once I can land this jump perfectly, all of the other jumps will fall into place one after the other. Although I wish that I could be practicing all of the jumps and spins at the ice skating rink, I guess my family room and backyard will just have to do for the time being.