"Excellent"

I wanted to name this post "More dreaded jump exercises" or something but decided to take a more positive tone. One of my salchows elicited an "Excellent" from my coach today! So I suppose it is not really my ugly duckling jump, that title squarely belongs to my loop.

I had been sort of avoiding doing jump work with my coach so I bit the bullet today and asked to work on them. Of course I got more of the hated slow-mo walkthroughs; you know, the ones that require patience, edge control, perfect body position from head to toe, blah blah blah. I admitted that I have not been doing them as much as I should, so I will make a better effort to do them now. We worked on all four of the jumps that we have been studying. I was a bit disappointed that the loops I did for my coach were sad little hops, when I had pulled off some more inspiring versions earlier in the hour. The main bit of advice on that one is to stand up taller and not bend forward.

I am not particularly enjoying working on jumps. The preparation going into the jump requires concentration and edge control. The jump itself happens so fast that it's hard to tell exactly what all your body parts are doing. There are so many little bits to remember, it's overwhelming. Jumping wasn't taught to me in this way when I was a kid, so it's rather jarring to spend so much time nitpicking them now. Of course I want to have nice jumps so I have to suffer through it. I think the key will just be not to overdo it, to make sure my lessons over the course of the week are balanced across all types of elements. Otherwise it's just too frustrating.

I spent the rest of the freeskate practicing all my elements. My camel spin was not as effortless as it was yesterday, but it was still not too bad, I don't fall out of it as much anymore. I tried some more back camels and still get about one revolution. I had some decent backspins too. Yesterday I probably did some thirty or forty camels; it can really take time to warm them up. So with only about ten minutes to practice them today, I was not really expecting them to be at the same place. I practiced my layback too and while it is probably all wrong, I am having some success with feeling less dizzy when looking up at the ceiling.

I practiced spirals on both legs, both edges. My right foot spirals feel extremely awkward. I need to make a point of practicing about ten times as many of these than left foot spirals. My left footers get plenty of practice doing camel spins. In the group lesson they made us try those awful forward spirals (aka "leg pulls"). I surprised myself by managing to pull off a sloppy, bent-knee, but not so bad version on each side. My coaches seemed surprised too! I had been griping about these things on Saturday and swore up and down I couldn't do them. They also noted that I had held them for as long as they had instructed, when hardly anyone else did. Still, I don't think I will ever put them in a program if I can avoid them. Let's just say they are a bit, um, suggestive.

After that there was public skating, so I decided to stay but after about 20 minutes it was just too crowded to do much of anything really. I managed to do some laps of two-foot and one-foot slalom/skiing, and a two-foot turn exercise that has been baffling me. I think I made some progress in combining the turn with the required change of edge and smoothness. I did some opposite direction spinning while helping a little girl practice her spins and turns. I stuck it out to the 40-minute mark when there was a Zamboni break, then I called it a night. I couldn't even practice three-turns in this environment.

Good news, the ice conditions were much better today. I wonder if it is because of the drier weather, or because of the complaint I made last week?