Training on the Ice Again!

I have had a few passions in my twenty-something years, but ice-skating has always been at the top of my list. It is athleticism, dance, fashion. It is a glorious sport!

Here I am doing a show just weeks before getting pregnant!

  How I got into it, as well as my training schedule, will be in another post (remind me to get on that!), but needless to say, I was quite conflicted when I had to stop my training while I was expecting. I was scared I would never get back into it the same, or that my body would change so much that I wouldn't be able to do what I did before, or that I would be "old" and people would say to give up already.

But today when I got back on the ice for my first lesson in over a year, it was like I had never left. I began to stroke confidently down the ice rink and switch rather effortlessly into backward crossovers. The only thing that was different was the loud scratching of my toe picks (an indicator that I was sitting too far forward on my blades).

My coach lead me in some posture exercises and then she started off by getting me back into jumping. People who watch figure skating usually call it spinning, probably because they see the skater leap and then spin in the air, but they are actually called jumps. Spinning requires the skater to have one foot on the ground, while the other is in a certain position. Now, I don't want to get too technical so I will move on! :)

Anyway, everything seemed to flow together and before I knew it, my lesson was over and the zamboni (ice machine) was on its way out to clean the ice. I did not want to get off. I wanted to skate and skate! I was so energized.

Mother and Daughter on the Ice! 

   And I realized that nothing had changed. I could still skate. I could still learn and try new things and my life was even more complete because now my daughter was sitting all bundled up on the side of the rink with my husband watching me, smiling at me.

~TabsAbs