Stretch!

I have been troubled for the past few days about how to help Lil Shauna in her ice skating. We only have that much ice time in a week and I have been wondering about how I can help her off ice. Other than balance, I figured out that flexibility would be the other key to help her executes the different postures. Unfortunately, flexibility isn’t something that she has. Zzzz…

My lunch time during the last week had been spent Google-ing on Youtubes on beginner children figure skating. I hope that these videos will inspire the little girl. It will also allow her to visualize how some posture should be and how some moves (like the crossover) are actually done. There are some pretty good videos out there. We will only know the impact of these videos when we are back on the ice tomorrow.   

I also Googled on how people practice ice skating off ice and the results generally point towards stretching to increase flexibility. At one point, I pondered if I should send Lil Shauna for more classes like the ballet or gymnastic. Those will surely help but I don't think we should add on more classes to our already very hectic lives. Moreover, Lil Shauna didn't fancy them much. She picked ice skating over those when we gave her a choice last year.

I directed my search towards stretching exercises that figure skaters do off ice and there are quite some. However, most of the stretching regimes are definitely beyond Lil Shauna’s ability at this point. Then I found one 12 mins video on the different stretching exercise that leads to the split at the end of the video. I thought it was fairly good and the person in the video looks professional. One of my greatest fears is injuring the little girl by teaching her the wrong stretching techniques. I tried the regime myself and went ouch and ooooo.. as I followed the video. I did feel my flexibility increases as I do those stretching exercises. Of course I didn't manage a split by the end of the video but I wasn't too bad. I actually surprised myself! And the instructor mentioned that it would take time and practice makes perfect. Woohoo! The stretches were really powerful and my legs were sore by the end of the regime.

Lil Shauna joined me when I repeated the 12 mins regime. This time, she went ouch, ouch, ouch as the stretching proceeded. Lol. The split at the end of the video again didn't happen with Lil Shauna. She didn't seem to do some of the stretching properly too but I guess practice will make perfect. Moving on, we would try to keep to these stretching exercises every day on top of the 2 postures that we are supposed to practice. It doesn't take a lot of time and I hope that we can proceed with more difficult stretches as time goes on. 

Figure skating is definitely not an easy sport and it requires a lot of hard work. I hope Lil Shauna will persevere. I am really excited about the journey that Lil Shauna is embarking on but worried that I am overexcited. Daddy Lim reminded me this morning to go slow and that our kids aren’t talented in any specific fields.  Yes, I needed that reality call. I think my excitement voiced down to the fact that she has finally stuck to something and I had hopes that she would be good at it one day. But I think I need to be prepared that the little girl might one day decide that figure skating isn’t for her.

Oh, by the way, my legs are still sore today. Power!

Mummy Lim