Friday:
On Friday I had a bit of an off day, although not as bad as Monday. My skates felt a bit dull, I was skidding and sliding a lot on 3-turns and spin entries. I did my usual warmup of edges down the line, three-turns, and scrimped on stroking a bit. I practiced crossovers although only going forwards because my knees were bothering me a bit. No jumps today. Anyway not a particularly good or bad skate, just some practice. For my lesson, we worked on my skating skills test material. On the 3-turns pattern I was skidding on some of my turns and when I finished the pattern my coach said I looked totally dejected. She reminded me the importance of presentation in skating and to just fake it 'til I make it. After that I ran through the mohawks pattern and we were both pretty happy with it so it's funny having that juxtaposition. We spent some time on the circles too just cleaning up some sloppiness, what to do with arms, etc.
Saturday:
I always like to skate on Saturdays, I get two hours of practice and 45 minutes of teaching the kids which is fun. Some of the kids that I've been teaching for a while are really into it and seem to like me. They say cute stuff too :P
- Skating skills: The usual run-throughs of my test material, with music. In this time slot one of the other coaches teaches some other participants so sometimes the music doesn't always line up with what I want to do but I usually get a couple run-throughs of everything and some good practice time. One of the girls has been working on the preliminary dances, so I should print out the patterns for them so I can follow along. I already know the Dutch Waltz, and I've been following her on the Canasta Tango to learn it, but it would probably be good to have them in my head! Strangely, my blades weren't feeling quite as dull/slippery today and I did a decent job on my 3-turns.
- Group lesson: We practiced some good solid stuff like edges down the ice (at speed, definitely more fun than patch-style), 3-turns down the ice, a forward 3-turn followed by a backward 3-turn (fun and challenging), stuff like that. I really need to write them down sooner because sometimes I learn something new but then I forget to record it :P
- Spin lesson: One of the girls was away and with only 3 of us we seemed to get through more material, almost all the basic spins and a combination spin. We also tried experimenting with cannonball position sit-spins. I got to try a catch-foot camel and it felt like I pulled my hamstring! And I didn't even manage to grab on! Good stuff.
- Freeskate: I usually continue with spins after the lesson and seemed to be having a better spinning day that I expected after the way I skated on Friday. I didn't have any amazing combination spins or anything but was generally having some decent spins. Then I practiced my jumps, including a whole bunch of toe loops from a standstill, the one I totally hate, hehe. They still feel awkward but occasionally I have one that flows more. Those are the ones that feel close to being a toe-waltz, so I have to remember only about a quarter turn happens on the ice. Strangely I was a little spooked doing flips (usually fun) and more confident doing loops. Must have been opposite day:)
- Lesson: My coach brought her videocamera again and we had a very productive session with my backspin. It's very informative being able to see the spin right after you do it so you can connect sensation with appearance; also to see the result of what was wrong and what was corrected. Then we got some footage of my sit-spin and camel spin. I wasn't too surprised to see how wobbly my camel spin is, but it has potential. On the other hand my sit-spin is not very 'sit' at all and my free leg is somewhat bent, bleh. Getting a deeper squat will take some time because I have problems with my knees, but straightening the free leg should just require some extra strength in the quads. Essentially, if your muscles aren't burning, you're not doing it right!
I had a much better skate compared to the previous Monday. My skates were tied perfectly the first time and felt fine the whole time. The ice was a bit 'furry' which seemed to actually help somehow. Amazingly I forgot to get my skates sharpened over the weekend, and I think a little texture to the ice helps prevent the skidding a little bit.
I'm always short for time on Mondays and it's busy so I did a bare minimum of stroking, and noodled around a bit with 3-turn sequences and power pulls. I practiced spins, and now there are so many of them to practice it can take quite a while to get through them all. Sit-spins were giving me trouble, forward and backward, so I blamed it on needing a sharpening and moved on. I practiced my jumps, except for toe loops (tsk tsk). My knees were bothering me on the jumps so I didn't go crazy with them.
For my lesson I asked to work on skating skills again, because they moved up the test day! It was going to be Dec 18 but they moved it to Dec 9 to accommodate some sort of qualifying deadline. We worked on some of the circles that we had run out of time for on Friday, and the three-turns again. Some of those were a wash because it was a bit too crowded to do the pattern exactly as dictated and I got a bit confused trying to avoid two girls doing synchronized Axels. Anyway it was good practice; my coach things I'll be fine, I think I'll be fine, and even one of the other coaches thinks I'll be fine. Fake it 'til I make it!
Group lesson was a bit better I think because there were slightly fewer girls out there today. Still it is lame only getting to practice each skill once, I need to practice them sometime (when?). I finally (?) I think got the sequence down for this Choctaw exercise they have been trying to teach us:
- RFI3
- LFO3
- step into a backward crossover, hold the underpush with R foot under, weight on L foot
- change the backward edge from inside to outside, keeping free foot close
- step forward with R foot, L foot comes in front
- step backward onto L foot, R foot stays close behind
- these two steps, not sure if they are on edges or flats. I'm doing them on flats for now.
- repeat those two steps
- step forward again, should be on R foot
- repeat whole thing on other foot
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