my right foot is really fucked up. i bled through my sock on thursday. before i went to the rink, i constructed an elaborate structure of band-aids and moleskin to attempt to cushion the inside ankle area of my right foot. well, it didn't uh, work...i tried to tuff it out but finally i couldn't stop my eyes from tearing up. i sat down and took off my skate and lo and behold, BLOOD. shit, i was distressed to see blood but i was secretly glad i wasn't getting upset over trivial pain. deathany (how is that for a rad rollergirl name) came to the rescue with her arsenal of medical supplies and wrapped up my foot properly with some stretchy foam tape and some regular athletic tape.
deathany's repair work allowed me to sort-of skate until about 9:15. shit, it hurt like hell though, i'm not gonna lie. loosening my trucks has made it possible to REALLY lean into turns. also, it has made it possible for my right (outside) boot to REALLY cut the fuck into my ankle and cause a horrific bleedy blister. rad.
it turns out that a lot of people have this same problem, especially with riedell r3's. r3's are great skates to get as a rookie but since they are not real leather, they don't break in at the pressure points. you see a lot of skaters with r3's also wearing these ankle bootie things. [not recommending this brand, just for illustration and shit.]
anyway it hurt like hell to keep skating on thursday night. weird thing is though, it hurt worse to STOP skating. the pain really rose to the surface as soon as i'd sit down to take a break. but skating normally for me at this point involves a lot of hard leaning on my right (outside) foot, and i didn't want to damage that already rough-as-hell spot any further.
so i decided to practice something that i suck at -- skating on one foot around the turns. going around the turns, i would lift up my outside foot and balance/lean totally on my inside foot. shoot, i was like miss wobble from wobblytown at first. it's hard to put all of your weight on your inside foot around the turns without your outside foot acting as a training wheel. it's very counter-intuitive. i gotta say, though, after a couple dozen laps, i started to feel a lot more confident about putting all my weight on my left foot. every couple laps i'd do a lap or two with regular crossovers...and all of a sudden i was able to push off from BOTH legs!!! finally! i think i may have finally mastered crossovers. we'll see for sure on thursday.
man, it's so hard to explain this stuff in uh, typing, cuz i am not even sure that i know what my legs are doing at this point. crossovers are hard to do well and i think that i've gone through a 4 or 5 step learning curve with them so far. (there are probably 19 more steps till i'm really rad at them.)
here's a rough draft of how i kinda learned them. i'll get more specific after skating on thurs...it's hard to think about this stuff while sitting on the couch.
1. take the smallest possible steps with outside foot, just kind of put it next to inside foot
2. same thing but lean in more
3. let inside foot slide towards the outside as much as possible before picking it up and stepping in forward
4. concentrate on bending outside knee to push off in order to gain speed during turns
5. concentrate on bending inside knee and pushing off after bringing it forward
the gap between 4 and 5 took a long time for me
anyway, check this out. looks like a good overview of basic skate technology.
Riedell quad skate basics
wish me luck with my stupid foot.
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