Finally, time to update this website! I have finally gotten settled into my new job, and since the rink I skate at is only 2 minutes from my place of work, I should be able to attend the noon open skate once or twice a week from now on. In the meantime, I have been skating on the freestyle session before I teach "learn to skate" class on Fridays. So I am trying to convince myself, that for someone who 1.) had a baby, and 2.) hasn't really skated in 10 months, I really am not that bad. Unfortunately, all I see is how much I have regressed. All of my jumps are much more tentative than before. Even my flip, which I used to be able to do without an ounce of effort, I bail on half the time. My waltz jumps and salchows are awkward, and my toe loop hardly exists, although this jump has never felt natural for me at all. My goal is still to compete at badger state games this February. I am hoping that I can get my strength back, and re-master my jumps through the flip, as well as work on my spins. Luckily, although my freeleg isn't as high in my scratch spin, my spins haven't progressed nor regressed during my absence of skating. Basically, they are still a crapshoot, and sometime I can do them, sometimes I can't.
So the thing that I can't figure out, is why I have this tentativeness on the ice. I skated when I was pregnant, and I thought to myself, "I will be fearless when I skate after the baby is born, because I'll have my body back to myself and won't have to worry about hurting the baby if I fall." Not true at all, and I can't figure out why. Now I am still in gymnastics, and I have to say that it is my new true love, although I still enjoy skating greatly. But somebody explain why I can attempt a back handspring with no fear, yet I enter a flip jump with caution? I suppose one could say that I'm afraid of falling on the ice, but my brain knows that jumping backwards and landing on my head would hurt a lot worse than falling on the ice. Yet I can throw my body backwards with ease. I just don't understand myself. : P I just hope that more icetime will gain my confidence back.
So although I am further away from my dream of landign an axel, I can say that I am quite close to owning a back handspring, and it is just as satisfying!