Tonight is my first skating class, plus a link

Tonight is the first class of my ten week skating class. Pretty excited, I think its the only way I to make sure that I skate at least once a week. Not sure what to expect, other than to be awesome at skating at some point. Hopefully I can get someone to take a picture so I'll have something to post here.

Also, my friend Chad is on a similar quest. Only with doing one of those ninja wall flip things. Check him out. I Will Wallflip
He just recovered from dislocating his ankle after a front flip on concrete, so there is some potential carnage to be seen.

Hope to have something like this to post after the class tonight.

Enrolled in Skating Class

Its been in the works for a while, but I'm finally enrolled in an adult skating class. Hope it helps. 8pm on Sundays for 10 weeks and starts on August 20th.

Apparently by the end of the class I'll be ready for primetime.

Been riding my bike a lot and can feel my stamina getting better, but nothing wears me out like hockey, so the first couple lessons with probably be interesting.

Happy Birthday to me

I'm 35 now. Yay! I always thought I would be much more of an adult at 35.

On a happier note, the Kings look like they're taking big steps toward winning the Pacific this year. I'll keep my expectations low though, I've been excited about the Kings in July before.

My wife and a couple friends got me a player worn Kings practice jersey for my birthday. I think it must have been Oscar Moller though, I dont think it would fit over my shoulder pads. It'll be good for wearing to Kings games though.

Select a seat is next week, but I'll be in Tennesee, I hope our cabin has wifi service.

Im signed up for an LGK pick up game on July 23rd. I hope they dont mind me messing up their game. I'll make sure my wife comes and takes pics and videos for the blog.

More Stick Time!

On Monday, my friend Justin and I went to a nearly empty stick time at The Valley Ice Center in Panorama City. It was fun having pretty much the whole sheet to ourselves.

Getting pretty confident with stopping with my right foot in front, which makes sense because I'm a goofy footer. Left foot is still pretty weak, but its getting there. Finally getting both feet sideways on my stops.

I definitely need a private skating class. I just feel like I wont ever progress by teaching myself.

Worked a bit on skating with a puck with my head up. Didn't do very well at that. Maybe Im destined to be a defensive Dman. If only I could skate backwards.

All this time I think about the time I wasted being too skinny for football and not athletic enough for basketball, too tall for wrestling and too bored by baseball. Now Im trying what seems like the natural sport for me at the ripe age of 34.

Oh, and I turn 35 next week.

Ive been riding my bike quite a bit, but I think my route must be too easy because my stamina isn't much better when I skate. Its an 8 mile loop from my house around the Rose Bowl and back. Takes me about 45 mins and theres a good enough mix of hills and flat areas, I feel it in my legs, but not my lungs like when I skate.

Baby steps.

Been too busy

Working on a project that has been consuming all of my free time. 80 hours or so in the last week, something like 26 days straight. So I haven't had a chance to skate. Since the project delivered yesterday, I'm hoping there aren't any emergencies today so I can go skate tonight.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to go down to Hockey Giant and get a stick that fits me.

Stick Time and general busyness

Went to stick time last night in Pasadena. Concentrated on stopping and getting comfortable with sliding my edges. Still out of shape and my back started to ache within the first few minutes, but I fought through it because I was having so much fun. Skated pretty much the entire hour, but was definitely fatigued by the end of the session. Not as sore today, but tomorrow will be the real test.

Got a bike!!!! Its sitting in my living room waiting to be ridden, but showed up without a seat clamp bolt. So I could ride it, but Id be swiveling around the hills of Pasadena. It's very clear I need to do something about my stamina, maybe I'll go to a bike shop after work tomorrow.

I'd like to skate at least once a week to make sure I progress at a decent rate, but work and house stuff have prevented that. Fortunately my big project is over and the house is in decent shape, so that stuff should stop getting in the way any day now.

Got another couple sticks from hockey monkey, but THOSE ARE SHORT TOO!!! Senior sticks, I made sure of it when ordering, but they just showed up short again. I need to buy my sticks in person or this is gonna get expensive. I think I should get into the hockey equipment biz.

I kinda played hockey!!!

A lot has gone down since my last update.

First of all, the rest of my gear was accidentally delivered to a vacant house on my street, then after a few phone calls they showed up at my door. Everything fits fine, except the sticks are a bit short. I dont think I ordered Junior sized sticks, but they barely come up to my chin without skates on.

As of Friday, my plan was to go to the Beginning Hockey class at the Valley Ice Center in Panorama City on Saturday morning. That plan didn't quite work out, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Friday night I literally said, "How the fuck do I tape my stick?" It was too late to get anyone to show me in person, so I went to good old YouTube. Turns out the HowToHockey.com guys have a couple stick taping tutorials which were exactly what I needed.

I think I did okay.



So I got all my stuff on and realized how hot everything is. Even without doing anything I was sweating. It is an interesting feeling though. Being mildly invincible is fun.

So on Saturday I made my way over to the Valley Ice Center to take my beginning hockey class. It turns out the class I wanted to take had been moved to Wednesday. So I ended up in a Hockey 101 class. I basically dropped into week 10 of a 10 week class of mostly 8-9 year old kids. These kids were pretty much done with instruction and were just basically there to scrimmage. Fortunately a friend tagged along, so I wasn't the only guy on the ice over 4ft tall.

So there I am, doing hockey drills with 20 9 year old kids. I did better at skating with the puck than I thought I would. It actually takes my mind of the skating part. The funniest part of this was on one of the drills, I ran into the goal and fell on my back. I think those kids were laughing, but I didn't care, so was I. Then the coach guy pulls everyone together and starts making teams for the big scrimmage. Im looking at the other adult in the class saying, "Are we really going to play against these kids?"

"I guess so"

For some reason we were both on the same team, so it was two giant guys, plus two small guys against four small guys. Fortunately we had a pretty good hockey player on our team, cuz I not only need skating lessons, but I need to work on my stamina. There were no line changes and those kids didn't need breaks. I was begging for a water break but it didn't come.

Even though it was against kids, I think I played okay. What I lack in skill, I could make for with my reach. I don't want to get into stats, but I did score a goal, it ricocheted in off one kids cage and anothers helmet. I felt bad so I apologized. Through all of this, I was wondering how hard we were expected to play. I wasnt going to check any 9 year olds, but I didn't want to leave the other kids on our team hangin out to dry, so I played hard on defense, and tried to set up the kids on my team to score. I see myself as a two-way playmaking center. Hahah!



So now I guess I need to start going to stick time regularly, and maybe a private skating lesson will do the trick.

I skated hard for about an hour with minimal breaks, so therefore I was pretty sore the next day. The tips of my toes hurt, my ass, my lower back and my hands were all pretty sore. On the second day, the soreness pretty much doubled. It was a good kind of soreness though. I should stretch more beforehand.