Good old-fashioned hard work

Yesterday morning I had an good skate focusing mostly on basics. I decided to start my figures work with edges on a line because the circle eights are giving me a lot more trouble than I had been expecting originally. After building a bit of confidence with all 4 varieties, I did do some forward circle eights. This time instead of focusing on the size and shape of the circles I was paying more attention to my edges. I think that I end up falling onto the flat of the blade when my free leg passes in front. Probably the movement is not smooth enough and it's erasing the nice inward lean that I keep on the first half of the circle. I asked my coach about it and she agreed that the lean has to be maintained as well as a "pressing" on the edge. Again that magic word that I'm still trying to interpret, heh.

After that I did some work on my crossovers. I practiced them with holding the edges for a long time in an exercise my coach taught me, then gradually speeding them up. I do them on a hockey circle but I get going so fast that I have to make my circle a lot bigger, I also start to get a little freaked out, especially when going backwards!

Then a little work on spins, but they were not so great. Falling out of my camel again! Never take a vacation, it will break half your elements!!

I can't exactly remember if I worked on my jumps, hmm. It was only yesterday, but I can't remember. I think I did some spirals, but not jumps.

For my lesson we worked on the stuff for my skating skills test. We worked on getting the Mohawks program to the proper rhythm of the music, but it still feels rushed. My coach decided that she didn't like the free leg position on the backward edges, so that was a bit of an adjustment to change it. She agreed that the music seems fast and let me know that performing it to the music is not actually required in the test. So, if I can't seem to get it to the music I can just skip the music, but I would prefer to be able to get it as prescribed.
My coach also took a look at my 3-turns pattern and thinks it is pretty good but I need to cover more ice. She says that someone "my size" should be able to do that, and it will be expected from the judges. In fact, according to her, it is my "strong, deep edges" that make the patterns curve so much and why they are giving me some problems. The Preliminary level is designed with little kids in mind, they aren't going to be very skilled and most of their steps will be more straight than curvy, my coach says. So maybe the best thing is just to get the test over with and move on to the more interesting levels anyway.

I noticed that I was skidding a lot on my three turns and spin entries so I went and got my skates sharpened in the afternoon. Whee! I hope it helps :)