Met my ice dance partner at his gym yesterday, which was almost empty (yay!). We are fortunate to have 65% of the total population (75% of the age-eligible population) vaccinated and a fairly isolated location, so things are starting to creep open and seem less threatening.
We both brought our spin boards and worked on spins for quite awhile, figuring out which positions we need to practice for dance spins vs solo spins. Then we worked and worked on twizzles on the spin boards. Partner is very natural at RFI twizzles and can do 8 rotations on the ice, but not as natural when it’s clockwise rotation, like LFI. I’m much more remedial, have pulled off the occasional triple on the RFI but generally can only do a double. LFI single was finally fairly consistent by the end of the season, but I struggle to get past 1.5 rotations on the left when doing twizzles sequentially. Working on these with the spin board seems to really help identify the balance and body position glitches that are harder to identify when flying across the ice. We only need to be able to do a single for our Silver test, but when we threw one in on our Bronze test, one of the judges commented that both directions were under-rotated. I am so appreciative of that comment! It didn’t matter on Bronze (we had a lift and a spin already) but it gave us some really valuable feedback. So we are planning a double RFI/single LFI for the Silver test just so we can be sure that the RFI doesn’t fall short of full rotation. Seems simple enough until you add music, speed, being synchronized, and the moves before you go into the twizzles, haha. Oh, and then there’s test stress.
Next we went through all the lifts we know and are working on, with variations, and tried a couple of simple pairs lifts we had seen online just for fun. Realized that one is illegal for dance (marks supporting arm over his head), which fortunately was the one we were worse at, and had pretty good success with the second pairs lift. Trying something new felt really good.
1.5 hours, so much fun, and both of us walked away having identified which muscles need more specific training. I can join him with a guest pass twice a month, so we are planning to do this again in June and twice in July. Meanwhile, I know what I need to work on.
Topic: Favorite off-ice training during rink closures (Read 34804 times)