Off Ice

My coach runs an off ice class for some of her skaters, in a dance studio away from the rink.  There's a core group of five of us, and I'm by far the oldest, fattest and worst skater! But the kids are lovely, and hilarious! We generally work on fitness, flexibility, core strength, jumps and presentation. Some weeks we focus on one element more than the others, like this week it was jumps, last week a ballerina came in and we did mainly presentation. But we usually do at least a bit of everything.

Fitness
We start every week by some running round, and since the first week I no longer feel like I'm going to die at the end of it! Skating and off ice are my only real exercise, so another hour a week of exercise is always going to be a good thing!

Flexibility
We do some general stretches and spiral stretches. Coach helps us to do progressive stretches to make them more effective. Some of the kids are ridiculously flexible, but not even them are as bendy as the ballerina, who could calmly sit in side splits and lean her stomach on the floor!

Core Strength
Sit ups and push ups have become a feature at the beginning. One of the kids finds these absolutely hysterical,  and when Coach made her do them on the ice, she was giggling away! Another one where we lay on our backs or our stomachs and raise our legs and shoulders off the ground slightly. It's really hard on your back, easier on your stomach. And this week I beat the kids, we had to hold it for thirty seconds and I was the only one who did it! Coach made the kids do it again, mwahahaha! The kids also do cartwheels, handstands and headstands sometimes, but I give these a miss. As an extremely overweight adult, I don't think throwing my whole weight onto my hands is a good thing, and may well end in a broken wrist or two!

Jumps
One of the kids is working on her axel. She can land it off ice when she puts the effort in, but hasn't done it on the ice yet. I think knowing she can do it off ice is a confidence booster, or it would be for me anyway! Some of the others have attempted double axels off the ice, while still only working on low doubles on the ice. It's a good chance to work on height, landing positions, rotation, not wrapping your legs in the air, and committing to the jump, without actually doing it. You can still fall off ice, but it doesn't seem as scary some how. Maybe cause you don't have that pesky, slippery ice! Sometimes off ice jumps are harder because you don't have the momentum or speed of the ice to help you. Also, make sure you wear deccent shoes! I hurt my ankle one week doing too many jumps in rubbish shoes (nothing major, and it was fine after a week, but why risk it?)

Presentation
I mentioned the ballerina who came in, she helped us with some graceful arm movements (well they were graceful when she did them anyway, not sure I quite pulled it off!). Coach also had us work on our programs off ice so we could focus on presenting them nicely, without having to worry too much about the actual elements.