Wake Me Up When September Ends

Seems like a good theme for the next couple of days. Haha. Well, worlds is over. It was cool but it's nice to finally be home.

While I was at worlds I noticed different things I had not before and I found a new approach that I can't wait to begin applying. I guess because I was senior and I realized that I wasn't going to race as much as I had grown accustomed to that I just started thinking ahead. This was the first meet I think that I have EVER gone to that I was really looking forward to it being over so I could get back to work. Yeah, really. Honestly though I watched almost every single race of every division and I watched everything in detail to collect every idea possible on how else I can improve.

Now I really can't wait to begin working on numerous things but it'll be a little while. I'm not touching my skates flat out for a week, then I might start doing some indoor circles because I'm not going to practice and sitting around. Quite frankly though, I don't care about indoor.. all of my improvements are 100% outdoor based.
(I've always thought some of the things I put in here could help other people but my goals and intentions are far beyond most and I apologize but I've just about outgrown indoor skating, or at least dedicating one of the most important segments of my training to it)
In the past I would take every technical practice (or as many as possible) and just tell myself "I'm going to improve my technique" I would work on becoming more smooth and exaggerating my position. Well it's going to be a lot different this year. Instead of a broad subject like technique every single practice will be broken down into specifics. Some days will just be body position, or experimental things I've seen, or dissecting every push, etc.

One thing that I'm realizing more then ever is how much technique is overlooked even though everyone preaches it. Everyone talks about technique and how you need it and have to do it and blah blah blah but it's still overlooked. I've been told every year I've skated that technique is so important and that's why you spend so much time year after year working on it but I've only taken it seriously the last couple. Before it was like "okay it's important I'll do it" but it has to be so much more then just doing it. Not only that I've realized that indoor you can get away with technical flaws way easier then you can outdoor. There are tons of ugly indoor skaters that are still fast but outdoor it's not as common, at least not if they want to be great especially somewhere like worlds.