To my surprise and delight, yesterday evening, right around the time I clicked "publish post," I received a short video clip in my email of two of my Skatefreestyle teammates practicing nothing other than the Cobra. So I wanted to make sure I kept these posts timely and relevant to them right now as they are working through their struggles with the exotic beast, especially since I am out there with them in spirit, at least in part. The other part of me is very much enjoying being home, but I consider these posts my small contribution to the team.
Tonight we take a look at my own experience chasing the deadly Cobra. So, onwards and...onwards! Because "upwards" doesn't really make sense here. Yeah.
The McIntosh Cobra Chronicles:
The whole saga begins at the April 2010 slalom retreat in Belgium with Naomi, where Jurgen and I, and possibly a few others, demanded from Naomi that she magically zap our feet into being able to do this trick. At the time we got the breakdown from her on the entry from toe-heel snake, but our success in execution was limited. She also told us to sit back on the toe, with almost no weight on the heel. (in my case, the right toe and left heel). The heel is for steering, we were informed. We could get into the Cobra, fine, and maybe sneak forward half a meter or so in the same direction as our toe-heel screws, but then we would spin around and around in heel-toe screws. Oh, poor us.
Then, that May in France, at LHSKontest 2010, I received some further advice from Chiara Lualdi on this trick (she is a master of all tricks that screw with your mind like Cobras, inverted eagles on toe and heel, etc;), who told me to sit back onto my right toe and counteract with my upper body by bringing my left arm forward. At that time, I was told that I was leaning forward too much as a result of trying to thrust my left leg out on heel. And let me tell you, that doesn't feel pretty, people.
Still no dice, although I was already adding to my body of knowledge on the mysterious Cobra (cue ominous snake hissing sound now).
We then cut to San Francisco in June 2010, where I reunited with Team Skatefreestyle for a week of practicing together while Naomi simultaneously ran a slalom retreat. At that time I was acquainted for the first time with an Irish skater named Sinead Howick, who learned the Cobra from Naomi in the course of the retreat. I saw her gradual but definite success out of the corner of my eye, and was consumed by feelings of jealousy and longing. I wanted my legs to do that too! But they wouldn't. Not without spinning around, whirling me down a dark tunnel of shame.
The score was thus
Deadly serpent: 3
Pitiful human: 0
I gave up on chasing the Cobra for the rest of that summer, and it was easy to do, distracted by battles and traveling and all the good things in life. Plus, learning a proper footgun was a big priority, so the need to practice Cobra sort of dissipated. I briefly flirted with it again in September 2010 at the Jeonju, Korea competition, aided once again by the ever-helpful Marina Boyko (whose name I am finally spelling correctly! Sorry!), but I still had no success. I knew I didn't have the right feeling. Everything about the trick felt very wrong.
Side note: When you are learning slalom, new tricks will often feel very weird. However, there is a big difference between weird and wrong. When a trick feels weird, it's the sensation that you are doing something you have never done before, your body is not used to it, and you have to think yourself through every step in order to succeed. However, what you will learn to feel is the imminence of the trick being good one day. When it's weird, you know it will get better. You will learn to feel it. When it's wrong, you will also learn to feel it, if you don't know already. Wrong means that it hurts, or that you absolutely cannot sense a balancing point, or even sometimes that it's too easy. If you have your doubts about what you are feeling, consult a slalom expert. But if it hurts, please stop, and change what you are doing.
End side note.
After Korea, that was the end of the Cobra for me for a long time. The summer slalom season was over, so we retreated into our winter habits, which included long practice sessions in the sporthall on weekends followed by well-deserved dinners in delicious restaurants. Life is tough, I know. However, I did chip away the ice at my favorite practice spot to keep my learning curve high.
And then, the Cobra came back to haunt my dreams.
This year at Battle Bremen, the Cobra revealed itself once again throughout the women's competition. Their hips didn't lie. In reaction, I whinged. I whined. I actually wondered if my legs were just too thick to lock into that position (not valid, by the way). At that time, Cris Pers assured me that it is not a flexibility trick. Sinead Howick said that if I could do toe-heel screw, then I could definitely do the Cobra. I wanted to believe them. I really did.
And still, I doubted.
Back in Le Havre, France, for this year's edition of the LHSKontest, I once again made it to the final. And once again, there were Cobras dancing up and down the cone line. Both Zoe Granjon and Sinead Howick busted them out as final tricks in the battle final, in backwards and forwards versions, respectively. They looked like they were having so much fun. I wanted to join them ever so much. Sinead even did a funky dancey Eastern arm thing as she glided, with ease, all the way out of the cone line.
And then, the next time I went out slaloming, after more than a year of wanting to do this move, I managed a teeeeeny tiny little Cobra slaloming in the 120's cone line, where my heel and toe were just about even with each other. Rightfully, I celebrated.
Well, of course this story has a happy ending, though the saga of my Cobra is far from over. I am far enough along at this point, however, where I feel like I can let you, my dear reader, in on the mysteries of this trick. Since I saw Sinead again at PSWC, I got her opinion on what I was doing, and I even managed to consult Polina momentarily to see what I am still doing wrong. It's a work in progress, but a labor of love.
Current Score:
Slithering reptile: 3
Tenacious cone warrior: 3
(I get extra points for maintaining a positive attitude even though I've still got a ways to go.)
So, the next time, we will deal with the mechanics of this sneaky beast.
This post is dedicated to all my cone-dodging Skatefreestyle peeps out in San Francisco right now, under the tutelage of Miss Natalie UJUK. *thumps chest*
No comments:
Post a Comment