Training with Asha

I do not normally eat breakfast.  I know it is supposed to be an important meal, but I rarely want food in the mornings.  I will eat a banana, or a granola bar, but it is very rare that I sit down to a breakfast.

Thinking back to my torture session on Saturday, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to get a nice breakfast in before working one on one with Asha.

I learned something.  Australian bacon is better than American bacon.

At first I did not think that was bacon.  It does have the recognizable skinny piece of bacon I am used to seeing in the US, but it is also attached to another, bigger, piece of meat which is also very tasty.

Properly fueled, I choose to walk to The Domain, carrying my skates.  The park has those horrible tiles to ride over and to get to The Domain you have to go up a big hill on those tiles.  Towards the top I always start stumbling and tripping and it is all around unpleasant.  I fell over last night right at the top before the night ride.  My fall was just to my knees (padded) and I was barely moving so it was insignificant, but I just do not find that hill fun.  The Domain is also at the bottom of the hill on the other side, but at least the other side is smoothly paved.

I saw Asha and Stuart working on things like rolling off curbs.  So I sat down and watched people for a bit.  Was not too long before these two came by.

I assume they were going to the fake beach since they headed over the Goodwill Bridge, but maybe they just liked being stared it.  It was definitely not just me that found two guys in speedos riding Lime scooters amusing.

My time with Asha was great.  What a difference that makes with some one on one time where your quirky/bad issues can be pointed out and corrected.  I was not quite prepared when she asked me what I wanted to work on.  There are things I have issues with, but I just do not know what I do correctly and what I do incorrectly.  That is my big dilemma about living in Southern Oregon — I have not been able to find any instructors which makes YouTube my instructor, and there are a lot of things you just do not pick up from watching those videos.

For example, I thought I had crossovers down fairly well.  Incorrect.  I can do them, more or less, but she showed me how I was stepping wrong, putting my weight in the wrong place.  It is going to take some work to correct that.

My parallel turns are OK-ish, but again I am not doing them quite right.  I have my weight in the wrong place, need my knees closer together, and a bigger knee bend.  Once again, it is going to take a bunch of practice with these new methods.

We also did some hill practice using parallel turns.  That tends to be my preferred method when I have a lot of space, but I also tend to slowly get going faster and faster which makes it a little unreliable in the long run.  I end up switching to dragging and heel brake.

We tried a couple of different hills and surfaces.  Her tips and instruction watching me do it helped a lot.  Also where we were doing this was interesting.  It was not in an isolated parking lot or anything convenient like that.  It as on the Goodwill Bridge coming down towards The Domain, and the hill that leads up into the park.  Had to avoid pedestrians, bikes, scooters, vehicles.  Much more realistic in terms of what you need to deal with in actual skating.  The Goodwill Bridge also has areas where you have to scissor (speed increases) and then go back into the parallel turns, similar to the stepping plow area she had us practice on a few days ago.  Good stuff.

Asha has taken pity on me for my lack of local instruction and distance traveled.  She offered to help me again tomorrow at 11:45AM.  Appreciated and accepted!