Today I had my second figure skating session of the new season. This was at the same wonderful arena as Friday. Unfortunately they were having some kind of problem with the environmental controls in the rink and there was a mild fog hovering over the ice. To make matters worse, the condensation was reaching the rafters and subsequently dripping off them, creating stalactite-like lumps of yellow gunk on the ice. It was such a contrast to the pristine ice conditions on Friday! I hope they get the problem fixed soon.
I spent some time working on some three-turn drills my coach taught me and built up some confidence in my jumps. I should be able to create big, strong, technically good single jumps one day, but first I need a bit more confidence. Today the level of the skaters was mostly not as high as the group I had been skating with in the summer, so I didn't hang around the boards and watch, I practiced all my jumps except for the Lutz (I am still afraid of it). Probably my technique is crap, but I am working on getting comfortable with landings and making my jumps less curly. The rest I will leave up to my coach to deal with in due time.
My lesson went very well today, much better than Friday. We spent some time on my camel spin and established that I can reach a good position just standing around at the boards, but my free foot does not lift high enough in the actual spin, plus I am not folded forwards enough. These will come with practice as I build muscle memory, especially by practicing spirals. Coach taught me to lean slightly to the left so that my centre of gravity comes more over the pivot point. After that tip I was able to pull one amazing camel spin out of nowhere! It was probably 5 revolutions and I could have held it longer but I had a perverse sense of not wanting to waste my coach's time. Of course I tried three more after that and they all sucked, but there is so much to think about at once, I just need to keep practicing. Coach claims that she sees potential in my camel and that it could be spectacular one day. That was exciting!
After the camel we did some obligatory waltz jump work which was not too exciting but I suppose that waltz jumps are a foundation of sorts for the other jumps so I see the value in the exercises. I am building a bit of edge control now and she thinks I can move on to the second phase which involves straightening the free leg in front on the landing rather than bending it in my phase 1 drill. Again there are so many things to remember at once, but it will just take time. I teach group fitness and I am always shouting out technical details that I don't even have to think about anymore, so the same can happen with my skating if I practice enough.
After my private lesson, there was a group lesson with 2 other coaches I hadn't met before. Apparently I was the new person in the group so they asked me to introduce myself and made me feel welcome. We practiced some drills skating around in crossovers at one end of the ice and then doing some kind of fancy move to the other end of the ice, then more crossovers. Each move was done forwards, then backwards. I got to try doing forward and backward cross rolls, backward changes of edge, and apparently some choctaws. They didn't really look like what I thought choctaws were, and the drill was a bit unclear and we ran out of time so I am looking forward to practice them again. The backward crossrolls were awkward at first but I got better at them and are actually kind of fun. I would like to have really good skating skills so learning moves like this is just what I want out of a lesson.
After this, there was public skating for a dollar (!) which I couldn't pass up and my sister joined me to get some practice on her hockey skates. At this rink there was not even one other low freestlye skater so I got some cheers from two little girls that worshipped my sad one-foot spin that travelled embarassingly across the ice. I tried to teach them how to do a two-foot spin and they told me I should be a skating teacher, LOL! Even practicing my back cross rolls seemed to catch people's attention and it was a little amusing to go from the worst of a bunch of figure skaters to the star of public skating!
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