Monday, September 27, 2010

Just another day

Today I had another skate, and it was pretty average. In fact, the ice was abyssimal again. Condensation dripped from the rafters again and in addition to the bumps it was creating, the ice was frosty. It was the worst ice I've ever skated on, and I even complained to the manager afterwards. He said, 'what was wrong with it?' Ack!

Thee bad ice made it hard to do backspins and one-foot slaloms. Most everything else was ok as long as I avoided the bumps. I practiced my waltzing threes again, an I enjoy them. I had to modify it a bit sometimes to avoid the other skaters, so I am looking forward to being able to practice them on Friday morning on a nearly-empty rink. I ran through my jumps and they are about where I left them. Last time I did not really feel like jumping so it is good that I felt like it this time. My new-style loop jump is an ugly duckling, but I'm over my mental block of not being able to jump from the backward two-foot glide. The jump is just crappy, that's all. Better than no jump at all!

For my lesson I asked to work on the layback and the camel. For the layback, my coach says that I am rocking up on to my toe when I bring the leg behind. Instead I need to 'press into the ball of my foot'. She also suggested keeping the skating knee slightly bent, at least for now. I'm not sure if she eventually wants it straight or not. She's not too excited about my free foot position, but I told her I will have to work on it off the ice because it is just a flexibility thing.

As for the camel, we worked mostly on the entrance. Coach still wants me to spiral into a deeper curve, and by the end of the curve to be in the full spiral position. She told me again that my camel really has potential, that it will be spectacular one day! I will have to take her word for it, but it is exciting to hear nonetheless. Actually she says it is my best spin, which is a bit of a double-edged sword because I thought my other spins were ok, so now it means they were even crappier than my camel. But perhaps she's referring to the extreme amounts of travel my other spins suffer from, in which case it is probably a fair assessment.

That was it for my lesson, in addition to getting some skating skills printouts that I will have to study. Whee!

The group lesson today was more of the same. On Mondays it is always the same, crossovers and various moves down the length of the ice. This time the new thing we got to try was a sequence of turns. I didn't really catch the whole thing but it was something like three back crossovers, a back outside three turn, directly into a mohawk, then four back crossovers (or possibly two) and a back inside three turn, into the mohawk again. We are supposed to practice it in both directions. I didn't get enough time to practice the whole thing but I got the gist of it so I should be able to try it again on Friday.

Now there are three long dull days before I get to skate again. Boo! I will just have to settle for doing what I can off the ice.

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