Mental equilibrium
I’ve been lucky to have some really great skating coaches since I got back on the ice. The support, the guidance, and the patience have all made my perennially awkward self feel tons more at ease in the inherently uncomfortable position of being an adult skater. There are some deficiencies in my scattershot skating re-education, for sure. There are moves from the Free Skate 6 curriculum that I’ve been able to do for months while Free Skate 1’s back-outside three-turns are still glaringly absent from my repertoire. But for someone who’s skated at five different rinks in the past year (three of which are still in my lesson rotation) with coaches whose backgrounds are a veritable kaleidoscope of experience, I am both pleased and surprised at how comparatively consistent my training has managed to be. The most prevailing constant in the 13 months I’ve spent back on the ice, though, is my coaches all making the inevitable observation that I overthink just about everything I can. A...