The other day while on the ice at practice I looked down at my hand after itching my nose to find it bleeding profusely from a cut on my thumb. Apparently I'd sliced it trying to grab my blade during a back camel ( see an example of this maneuver here, though this is NOT me) like 10 minutes earlier, and bled all over the ice, my clothes, my skate laces and my program CD. It was a superficial cut, don't worry. But I think the constant centrifugal force of my spinning made it worse? I hope I didn't inadvertently bleed on anyone else on the session.
And I noticed two days ago that I have a toepick imprint on the outside of my hand. I don't even know how that happened. Maybe it was a high kick?
I remember sustaining some pretty gross-looking injuries (and remember witnessing the downright gruesome injuries of others, on which I shall mercifully not elaborate). I sported an elbow egg for two years, sustained by constant falling on my left elbow, which I suspect may have caused folks at my school to wonder about the stability of my home life.
Maybe this new spate of nicks is happening because I'm older and creakier? I don't think so. I think it's because nowadays--as opposed to when I was last competing--skaters are required to perfect more complex combination spins that involve grabbing and holding the skate blade in cray-cray positions in order to have a remote shot at winning. Take Olympic gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova, for example. Forward to the 3:20 mark to see what I'm talkin' about...
What the hell is that? And how does she pull it off? Is she missing a pelvic bone? A few vertebrae? I kinda dig it though, it's very...angular. Stay tuned for a post griping about all the painful muscle pulls I'm going to endure trying this at my next practice.
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