Saturday 11 May 2013

Slump

I've fallen into a slump. Skating doesn't interest me as much as it did before now. I don't know if it's because of the stress of doing another recital and eventually compete and test again, or because I feel I've reached a progress bottleneck. Probably both. Grad school stressing me out doesn't help either.

The stress factor seems stupid. I wanted to perform, compete, test, or at least I did back when I was still passionate about everything skating. Since I told my coach I wanted to do all of that, naturally we have these things lined up. The plan was that I might be doing a competition in September, so coach wants me to perform again at the recital in June to get more experience. And then I also wanted to do the bronze MITF test in September. The biggest problem now is my program. It's the same one as before, except that we've switched out the toe loop after the spiral to a flip (at my request), and the one foot spin to a scratch spin (at my protest). But after my last recital, I didn't do any part of my program for an entire month, and then for another two, three weeks, I only ran it without music. So now that coach is making me practice to music again, I can't. It's awful. I'm dreadfully behind time even though I feel more rushed than before, my scratch spin takes longer than the original one-foot spin, I can't do the back-power-3 into loop jump anymore, the back-3 scares the hell out of me, and for some reason, my stamina has gone down a lot, I am completely out of breath after one run-through. And on my last run-through, I had a gigantic unexpected fall, splat onto my butt (at least it was on the side where I have a butt pad), and even my insides felt shaken. I almost felt like just sitting there on the ice and shedding tears of self-pity. So because of my dismal performance, and my anxiety of how am I going to get this back to okay in a month, I feel less inclined to do it, meaning I don't want to practice. Yet the less I practice, the worse I get. And then the less I want to practice. And repeat.

As to the bottleneck, I just feel like I'm not making any progress. It could be that I'm still looking for that feeling during the first year of skating, where every other week I'd be exclaiming, oh! I can do a one-foot spin now! Or, oh I landed my first loop! I don't even remember the last time I said I learnt something new. I know everything gets harder so it will take longer to learn, but I feel like week after week, I've been working on the same things - sit spin, which is not getting any lower; camel spin, which is not getting past 1 rev, if any; back spin, which is not getting past even half a rev; waltz-loop, which sometimes decides to happen and sometimes doesn't, depending on, I don't know what, the stars?; and the lutz, which is just - weird. And so I don't want to practice.

I skate because I love it, because I want to have fun. So if it's becoming a pressure, that's not what I want. The thing I want to do the most now is to just take a break from skating, but that would be a bad idea, since after two weeks of not skating, all my muscles will have disappeared and I'd basically have to start again. I've had this experience once last year when I went home and didn't skate for three weeks. It was not good. So I can't take a break. I had a good long talk with my skating friend, and she said that I should lay off the performance/competition/test for now. But I feel bad suddenly turning my decision around and telling my coach that I don't want to do the recital anymore. My friend assured me that my coach (who is honestly the nicest coach at our rink) will understand. She said I need to ask coach to do more fun things during our lesson, instead of having to work on the program or the moves, especially with a deadline looming there. I'm going to take her advice and talk to coach at our next lesson, even though I'm still scared of what she might think. I hope everything works out and skating can go back to being something I look forward to.

18 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to hear you're feeling a bit disillusioned - I totally relate! Especially things like not getting any lower on the sit spin, or more than half a rev on the backspin! I'd also say take a step back from competing/testing, you may have set too many goals when full of enthusiasm, which now feel daunting given the skating slump (which we all have). Listen to some other music (if you have an ipod/mp3 you skate with) which isn't from your programme, and just skate...not for anything or anyone other than yourself. Listen to the music and do the things on ice that you like - for me, that's doing spirals and spread eagles and fluffy stuff where I don't have to worry about technique, but it makes me feel free again. The love and passion will come back, I promise. As adult skaters we don't have to keep pushing ourselves ahead, we are allowed to simply enjoy it without worrying too much about the fancy stuff :)

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    1. Ah but some of the things that I think are "fun" aren't things I can do yet, like I would love to be able to do an Ina Bauer but I can't. But I know what you mean by just listening to some other music and skating freely to it, that sounds good :) Thank you Jules.

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    2. Stay focused on what you can do, not what you can't do...I get horribly depressed when I think of all the things I wish I could do but never will be able to! What kind of moves do you like to do? Do you like any other kinds of dance off-ice? I like putting some music on in my bedroom and busting out some moves just to get rid of tension and unhappiness...with the curtains closed of course!

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    3. I like to do jumps more really. Right now I'm happier practicing for my next MIF because it's something I find I am actually improving on (probably since I spend more time on it). But I'm not much of a dancer, off ice or on it :p I think I might like ballet a lot if I learned it, but I'm not going to try to figure skate and ballet lol.

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  2. Oh Janie! My heart breaks for you. Skating slumps are never much fun. Are there other adult skaters at your rink that you can practice with? You guys can skate together and work on all kinds of fun stuff without having to worry about moves, programs or any of the other elements. Are there higher level skaters you can watch and use as motivators? Whatever you decide to do, don't stress. Skating should be fun and will be there for you if and when you are ready to come back. Hugs!

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    1. Eva, only on the public sessions I go to, not on freestyle. There a higher level skaters but I think right now they are depressing me more, because I keep thinking that I'm never going to be that good! I know it took them waaaaaaaay more practice than what I'm putting in to get to where they are, but I'm just a little tired of making myself practice at the moment. Hugs back!

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    2. Hi Janie. I agree with what Jules said - practice the stuff you like so maybe that passion and love will come back. Don't worry about how much you practice - worry about HOW you practice instead. One doesn't need to spend hours on end to improve. It's about smartly using the time that you do have and doing "perfect practice" (i.e., not making mistakes during practice) so your body builds that muscle memory more quickly. Remember the old saying - quality over quantity. Let me know how else we can help!

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    3. Hi Eva. I'm taking it slow now, practicing when I want to, and not beating myself up for not being able to get out of bed to go the morning freestyle to practice. I think I'm already feeling better now that I've cut myself some slack and talked to coach about everything! Thanks :)

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  3. I don't have any advice about the competing thing, since I don't even test. But how do you feel about MIF? I simply adore the mental discipline it takes to work on patterns and turns. I don't know where you are re back 3's or brackets, but that would be something new to work on. You could even try some ice dancing patterns.

    Seriously, this should be fun. I hope you find a way for it to be fun again.

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    1. Surprisingly, MIF are one thing I'm interested right now, I think it's because that's the only thing I feel like I'm making visible progress (like being able to go further on the circle 8, or learning a new pattern etc.). Surprising, because I've always liked to jump more than anything else, and I'm really good at the whole being able to control every muscle to do figure-like stuff. Thank you Q.

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    2. The way I see it...one day, jumps will fail you (I'm in my 30s and jumps no longer hold any kind of appeal for me...my body just won't do as much as it used to). But moves are here to stay. Skating is so much more about patterns and footwork and artistry than the random jump here and there. If you removed everything but jumps from a program, you wouldn't have much of a program. There are some really super tough turns and steps to learn still. Think about it. Counters. Rockers. Choctaws. Twizzles. And then being able to do those with speed. And connect them with other moves like spirals and spread eagles. Not to mention spins and back spins.

      I just got chills. For me, that's what skating is all about. And then there's refining the basics. My coach still works with me on crossovers, getting every little detail perfect. Posture. Chin lift. Arm position. Proper edge. Stance. Knee bend. Under push. It can be really fun to take something that's relatively basic and make it look so amazing.

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    3. Every time I see my ice dancer friend I see so much stuff that I still have to learn, all the stuff that you mentioned. But right now, it's still the jumps that give me thrills when I land one successfully. So much to still work on!

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  4. Ack, I had this whole long comment typed out and then it went poof! Blogspot, I hate you. I've been having such trouble trying to comment here lately, I hope this one goes through!

    Basically I just said that I can relate to your feeling - I haven't felt it full-on but I do know what you mean about not learnings things as quickly as I used to, feeling stuck on the same skills without visible improvement, and feeling like all my practices are the same old thing. I'm right there with you on fearing taking too much of a break and losing a lot of skills (and muscle strength), so maybe you can reduce that workload instead of taking a full-on break? Like do one competition and one test, and nix the other performance. A little breathing room can do wonders, and if you have time to work on skills other than test/program, it might start being fun again.

    Whatever you decide to do, just know that you're totally not alone in how you're feeling! Plateaus are so demoralizing. Hope you find your spark again soon.

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    2. Oh no sorry about your disappeared comment Sarah, thanks for typing another one out! I've definitely reduced workload in terms of less practice. As for the competition, I think I'm going to put it off for a bit, let myself practice bronze MITF slowly and steadily. And learn fun stuff like twizzles which I've always wanted to do but don't know how yet. Thank you, I already feel better with everyone being so nice :)

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  5. Hi Janie!

    I was just talking about just this sort of thing with a skating friend. She's just passed her bronze test and her coach gave her a little pep talk that it was going to feel like she wasn't learning anything for a while, because she wouldn't be learning new moves all the time like it's felt like up to this point. He encouraged her to set other goals of things to work on, like more revolutions or better positions in a spin, or arm positions or height in a jump. Maybe evaluating the skills you can currently do and thinking of ways you can improve them will help you set little goals and see progress. Push on through! Demotivation is part of the journey, but one of these days you'll get back out there, have a great skate, and wonder why you were feeling blue about it all. Please keep skating!

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    1. Oh dear, you mean there's a plateau after bronze?! And I'm still working towards bronze. Well I'm going to get over this one and worry about the post-bronze one later! That was very thoughtful of her coach give a pep talk about it. I think if I think of my skills in terms of better edges, more speed/power and that, I have improved a bit. It's hard not to just think of how many things I can do now though. I will keep skating and find the fun again! Thank you :)

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  6. When I told my coach I'm not testing USFSA anymore, I started to enjoy skating again. There's always ISI events which are more fun and imaginative. Maybe you can try learning a couple of dances to work on your edges and turns.

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