Fake ice ???

After giving it a lot of thought, I decided that my brutal schedule might not be helping my immune system all that much. I figured having lessons before dawn on a Monday morning, then rushing off to work, then coming home and trying to rest, and then being back at the rink 15 hours later for a game was probably a bit much. So, I decided to see what other times my coach had available, and it turned out none of them that were at the rink would work for me. However, he does also give lessons at a synthetic ice training facility, and had an open slot for today (and hopefully future Saturdays). I've known about this place, but had been wary about the whole synthetic ice concept.

I decided to give it a shot (so to speak ha ha), and went over there today. It was very interesting. When I got there, he was in the front office, and brought me around back and gave me the 'grand tour'. "Here's the bathroom for getting changed, here you put your gear on" (he indicated a row of chairs against the wall) "and here-" (waved his hand at a goalie taking shots in a net) "is where goalies do goalie stuff." I was there pretty early because I hadn't been sure how to get there, so I got halfway geared up and sat and watched the goalies going through drills. (There were two goalies; they switched on and off.) It was somewhat like the indoor roller surface I used to play on, but smoother and denser. He'd warned me ahead of time that it was slower, and you need to push a lot harder to move, but still when I set foot on it I almost fell right on my butt. Since I was there early, I was able to skate around a bit to try to familiarize myself with the surface while he was off talking with the last goalie's mom.

It was a little different than the ice lessons (surface aside), because he had a few kids working for him, firing shots and jumping on rebounds while he watched and adjusted things and gave suggestions, etc. This also made for a more tiring workout, because the shots came pretty quickly. Because I was the only goalie there at that time slot, there was no one for me to switch off with, so I had a few 5-minute breaks. It was during one of those breaks that we talked a little bit about the surface, and I told him about my last game, when I had wasted a fraction of a second thinking "Oh! I'm supposed to do this here to make this save!" and by then I didn't have time to do anything and the puck was behind me. He was encouraged that I was able to analyze what I should have done, and said it was just a matter of repetition to get it to become muscle memory, rather than an actual thought process. I felt good about that.

The lesson itself was pretty good, and though the surface takes some getting used to, I'll definitely go back if I can get a regular spot. There are things you can't do on it, like the brutal skating exercises I love so much ( *sarcasm* ), and a few things I need work on (pushing across laterally while already down, going behind the net to play the puck against the boards), but everything else is pretty much the same. It's not like there isn't a whole bunch of other stuff I can work on, on that surface. I think I might request an ice session now and then to work on those other things, but for now, this will probably work out really well.