Somewhere around 9:10 tonight, as I was coming off my second cycle on the skating treadmill, I had this kicked-in-the-gut feeling of “what the heck am I doing?” It sorta dawned on me tonight that this is not so much like I’m trying to move my game to the next level, but actually play it right in the first place.
The skills zone (a.k.a the synthetic ice) was tough. My shot pretty much sucks, and while I’ve always known that, it has become all the more painfully obvious. I can at least see now where it goes so horribly wrong in that I can start with my hands away from my body (which is good) but I tend to draw myself tight as I shoot and follow through (which is bad). And then on the treadmill… wow is my stride bad. I’ve known for a long time that I don’t bend my knees enough, it’s a struggle that I constantly battle, but the treadmill really drives the point home.
Now I suppose that realization of this is the first step in fixing it. But it still comes as a harsh realization after five years of playing (that’s somewhere around 150 league games not to mention all the scrimmages and Ronnie’s Ice) that I’ve got some pretty fundamental flaws.
15 sessions left to try and do some hardcore fixing to make this outlay of time and money worth while. And I am going to give it my best shot.
