Not Being Afraid to Start Again

Whenever I skate, I always think about the skaters I admire and their spins and footwork that I would rewatch over and over again because of how much grace it has, and I would then look at my own skating moves and realize ow much of a difference my movements has with the professional skaters’. I would always try my best to mimic it and try to do it in the way I want to, but then it will always turn out in a way that does not look as good. So, in this case, I would fear that the more I try to mimic it the higher the chance of me forgetting how to do the movement originally. So, I would always be in this dilemma of should I relearn the movement? Or should I just refine my own movements?

Whenever I think about this, I would always be hesitant, but now, I’ve came to realize that I love what I do, and sometimes, it is okay to start again and to lose what I have had for a while for the better of the future. For example, the positions that comes before the Biellman spin for me are to me, not as elegant and pretty as the ones I see on the Internet done by Kamila Valieva (obviously), Alysa Liu, Anna Shcherbakova, etc. I always try to max out my stretches every time in my warm up just so I can try to pull my leg higher, but what I really want to do is to have my hands go around my legs, but because of the speed of my spin is too low, I always struggle to either maintain the speed of my spin throughout all the changing of positions, and also trying to ensure that the movement and the position I am doing is up to my personal standard. I have attempted a few times to have my arms around my leg but they have all resulted in my struggling to maintain the speed of my spin, so I quickly did a few spins in the way I am used to to ensure that I am not losing the spin as a whole already. 

This fear of losing id very common within skating, especially with jumps, as with jumps, one needs to maintain it in order to show that they have fully grasped the skill, but if a skater does not practice enough or frequently enough, they will face the risk of losing it and their body not getting used to doing it, especially when they first landed it. Skaters might learn to do a jump one way but then after a period of time training they might start to change the way they jump due to realizing that the way that they initially learned the jump is incorrect and may lead to injuries and less points in competition, which may lead to them not knowing how to do a jump when they don’t do it in the way that they are used to. So many skaters around me had experienced this process and it is always heartbreaking to see them fail again and again on something that they can do so well before. I always thought that I would not face this risk of losing my movements because I would only do spins, but no, not only do I “lose” my spins, the spins are not always stable, even within a single practice session. Maybe it is not enough practice, maybe it is not enough technique, but overall, I just have a hard time maintaining the spins and trying to relearn them and pick them up again. But now, to me, relearning them and trying to obtain them again after losing them is part of the process that I enjoy, as every small bit of process counts into the final outcome, and whenever I do a spin with a great speed or in a position that I like a lot, I always feel extremely proud of myself and satisfied, with there always being a smile on my face. 

So, this is part of the process of being human. The process of life, I suppose.