Catching up

You know how your mama told you if you don't have something nice to say, keep your yap shut? Well, that's been me the last few days... that and being a bit busy with this and that.

I believe I last reported a not so great skate on Thursday. Since then, we had the draft on Friday, a dinner party on Saturday, skating on Sunday, and yoga today.

Hip is still nasty looking and the hamstring still hurts a bit. I really aggravated it when I washed the dog on Saturday (so as to not offend our guests with his filth) and it's nagging me still, but not as badly.

Skating on Sunday was 25% great and 75% suck. As is usual when my hips are out of alignment, it takes me a good 30 minutes of skating to feel steady on my feet and comfortable in my boots. It amazes me how much that little adjustment makes a huge difference in my stability and strength. So I did a lot of rather weak swizzles of all varieties. I worked on skating backwards quite a bit. As usual, tiny improvements in confidence and skill there, though I still can't go one length of the ice without psyching myself out. But I went 3/4 of the ice several times just to try and push through the fear factor that's holding me back.

Also worked on crossovers once I got my ice legs going nicely and felt pretty good about it, but I'm sure Coach Stalin will shred me for my technique next time we work on it. And speaking of which, man am I desperate for a session with her that's not at the horrible Galleria rink. You just can't get anything done there, it's so full of newbies and rink rats and it's such a small sheet. Ugh. It's pretty much only good for keeping those skating muscles working between real skating sessions on the weekends. And for that, it's nearly essential. If I miss a mid-week skate, I suck badly on the weekend.

Anyway, I worked on stopping a bit and other little things but didn't do my shuffles and really only ended up skating for an hour, which is a very short session for weekend ice. But with my leg hurting a bit, something just told me to go home when they kicked everyone off to cut the ice. So I went home.

The yoga felt really good today and I felt particularly inspired by this note from Nolan Schaefer to Aeros fans that the team published today. He's talking about his summer goings-on and his conditioning program for the summer. He does Bikram yoga, which is done in a heated room. I see the appeal because yoga is so cleansing, and then to get a really ridiculous sweat out of the deal would just enhance that. Never mind the mental focus it must take to just perform the positions correctly, breathe correctly, etc. when you're doing this in a puddle of sweat.

Nice to hear that he does all the crazy stuff I've been told to do, like juggling, as part of his workouts. And boxing? Maybe that's where that fight came from at the beginning of last season? :)

Anyway, it sounds like we might try to skate tomorrow night if Coach gets off work in time. Our usual Thursday skate date is being overrun with apparently 400 skaters. I almost want to go to the Galleria Thursday night to see what 400 people skating on that tiny ice looks like. Must look like the I-45 at rush hour...

Other than that, I've been working on butterfly stretches a bit. Hurts the shit out of my hips. I have a feeling my b-fly is gonna be pretty narrow, but at this point, I'll be happy if I can just get up and down and not be immobilized in that awkward position while I get scored on. I can already tell I'm going to be grateful that there's only one puck on the ice at one time. Once it's in, it's in. Regroup and get 'em next time. (See, this is me working on my mental game...)

And BTW, Leininkugel's Summer Shandy is my new best friend. Try some. Just don't buy it at my Kroger here in River Oaks... that shit's mine.