The past week we’ve had some sunny days in the UK and I’ve practiced lessons 7-9 of Asha’s “How to Skate for Fitness” Beginner Course and thrown in a bit of the previous lessons as well, like Toe Roll.
Lesson 7 is new because it is all about the Regroup – gliding on both skates with your knees touching when you change feet. That is actually very good for working on stability.
It was really windy the first time I tried and I was knackered in no time. Getting lower is much harder on the thighs and butt and I really struggled to keep a centre edge and stay straight on the weight bearing leg, especially my weaker side.
I was really clunking the tapping leg or not putting it down straight. I actually stopped by a park bench for a bit and just practiced it standing still with the bench for a sneaky hold. I know Asha encourages static practice.
Plenty of lactic acid build up, so I took a gentle skate home the long way – I did notice I’m getting more stable snaking across the camber to control my speed on the little downhills.
Then yesterday was a good breakthrough on the tapping. I got the hang of transferring the weight to my weaker leg, then thrusting for the scoot and holding the thrust muscles firmly in my butt while I just did three light taps. Much much more control. On the way home I was able to use that control to do other things like T-Stop style gliding to control my speed or quick strides to accelerate. I was thrilled with my progress.
I think the big thing about these 9 lessons in the Online Beginner Course “How to Skate for Fitness” is they are the basics so in one way you can say I could already skate so I didn’t need them. But they are actually the foundations, so in some ways, I’ll always need them. Asha says something in one of the videos about how you are training your neural pathways so that the body gains automatic/reflexive responses to adjust to terrain and the different moves you want to do. I am a big believer in that because I’ve done a lot of different sports and they are all about the body having a repertoire of things it just ‘knows’ how to do.
If I can get my body to just “know” how to hold weight and stay low on one skate, it will be able to recover or adapt fast to all the new things I want to do. Also, if I can already do all that…why do I find it so physically demanding to do once I had to get lower?
I’m definitely going to need to keep practising these for a few month more, and they are all basic things I can just throw into a street skate or a recreational skate (especially anywhere there is a line on the ground).
Here’s some pictures of me in training.
I think I’m starting to look a bit like a Skater Girl – I love how skater girls look. So strong and body confident and in control of their movement! It’s my little brain vision for Berlin – a Skater Girl version of Me for my age.