On The Sideline (Curse Of The Green Jersey)

I was still waiting for all the bruises to surface on my knees but from what I could see, this is going to be a really big one. Not only do I get bruising on the knee caps where I landed, I am also getting bruises in the surrounding area including the side of my knees. To play it safe, I decided not to skate practice last night. I could bend my knees and I would probably forget about the pain as soon as I started skating. However, I could not afford to take another tumble even if I had my squishy volleyball kneepad on. I will need my knees in good working order for years to come so it is in my best interest to take good care of them.

It has been a while since I last watched a practice. I got to observe many things which I miss when I was too busy to avoid getting dropped by the pack. For example, when I bring my right skate over my left in the corner, I know that I lift my leg way too high. However, exactly how high was too high? When I saw all the different ways everyone did their crossover, it became clearer. I saw how skaters like AH, AA, and DA lift the right skate just high enough to barely clear the left skate and how stable they were. It really doesn't take a lot of space for the right skate to cross over without tripping! On the other hand, for skaters who lift the skate high, their body weight moved back and were definitely not as stable.

Another interesting thing I saw was timing for the relay push. I have lots of trouble with pushing effectively. DA told me that I should run right up to the skater in front before pushing. After watching all kinds of pushes last night, I think I start to understand what he meant. If I'm not mistaken, I make contact way too early in fear of not catching up to the skater I'm suppose to push. However, that basically means I'm typically one stride short of getting close enough before pushing. I saw some fantastic pushes last night and some rather weak ones. A very distinctive difference is that if the pusher's arms are bent at contact, the push is usually pretty good. However, if the arms started off with less bent, of course the pusher couldn't generate much power (well, duh...). Anyway, this is something for me to keep in mind when I get back to practice next time.

At the start of the season, coach AA started awarding the green jersey at each practice to give recognition to skaters in the club. It is a really cool thing to do and I think it's wonderful to give props to skaters at the club. However, this may sound silly, but I think there's a curse to the wearer of the green jersey. Since the beginning of the season, whoever wears the green jersey typically wouldn't have a good practice. If memory serves me right, SH, ShH, L, JaP, AH, and I all had bad falls when we got the jersey. As for the "lucky" few who didn't fall, well, they seemed to skate slower than normal. Of course there are exceptions but still, the odds are against us so far. Would you like to break the curse of the green jersey?