Just more good Saturday ice

Yesterday morning I had a good skate. I always like Saturdays :) I arrived early enough to warm up a bit and do my jumps on the floor.

• Skills lesson: We did run-throughs of all 3 patterns with the music and did some fine tuning especially of the pattern with all the 3-turns. My coach fixed a spot where I was keeping the free foot behind instead of bringing it in front. On the LBO 3-turn I am on too deep of a forward edge after the turn and have a hard time holding it for the required 4 counts without falling over! I need to practice that one. My coach says the power circles are a lot better but I should probably make the circles a bit bigger, there was one time I got too far around and messed up the transition to the next circle. She also fixed another problem with my free leg in this one. The change 3's pattern is pretty good I just need to clean up the first backward change edge a bit, and I think it will be ok.
• Group lesson: My toes are always frozen when we start this from the 45-minute CanSkate lessons we run between these two segments. We practiced the routine we are going to run for the year-end show in March. So far it's not nearly as long as the one we did at Christmas, I'm not sure if we're going to make it longer or what. The coaches weren't too happy with our spirals and leg pulls from the routine so we practiced them after that a bit more.
• Spin patch: My toes were still frozen so spinning was hard! Sometimes in spin patch we focus on one spin and other times we practice a lot of spins. Today we did a lot of different ones but because we kept moving on I didn't really get to practice making corrections. We did upright backspins and backsits. I had 2 bad falls on the backsits. Too much attack and when I hook the spin I can't control the spin with so much energy involved. After that I didn't much feel like doing any more of them. We also did sit-change-sit, back camels, and flying camels. My coach says that I have the timing right on when to 'fly' the camel, but the rest of it is not very good yet.
• Freeskate: I didn't get a private lesson today because my coach is prepping her other skaters for a competition coming soon. This was fine because I had a long jump lesson the previous day (usually my lessons are only 20 minutes). That meant I had a whole hour to practice anything I wanted, and my toes were finally thawed! I practiced my jumps just like Coach wants. She insists that I just need to get in more repetitions and then I will be able to make the nanosecond corrections that she wants. So I did at least 5 of each jump although I probably scrimped on the toe loop, I prefer to do them in combination. I even practiced my Lutz. It's hard to do the jump without disrupting the flow of momentum from the original direction. What an awkward jump, blech. After jumps I did a whole lot of spins, including going back to that backsit and they are tentative but ok. I practiced really whipping into my camel spin with a tight spiraling edge and it is really working for me! Sometimes it is just ok but other times I really get everything right and when I hook the spin I can also feel that it's centred and then it's much easier to hold the spin. It's also faster, I think I had a couple that were 3 revolutions. That used to be extremely rare! I didn't fall out of any of them :) After that I practiced some spirals and leg pulls, power pulls and cross rolls. Nobody was using the music so I practiced 2 of my Skills patterns again but I had to modify them a bit to keep from crashing into other skaters.
• Spin competition: today's spin was....dum dum dum, the stupid backsit. We practiced them a bit more and I had a couple of good ones, but I also fell some more. When it was time to do them one at a time, mine was pretty good but Coach pointed out that it's not low enough, and the free leg is too bent. After that we practiced them again so she could pick a winner. I did one really good one right off the bat! I tried to get lower and straighten the free leg and it felt like it must have looked fantastic. Then after that I fell about 3 times in a row. I probably fell 10 times today on that stupid backsit! After 3 hours on the ice I think I was just getting tired and losing focus that's all. Anyway I didn't get picked as the winner although the coach said that I had had some good ones. For next week we will do the flying camel spin and we had a 5-minute tutorial on it. The coach drew a diagram on the ice and showed us that the jump has to keep spinning, you can't jump straight out. She had a Sr. Bronze girl show us her flying camel (it is beautiful). She whips around on her toepick on the jump so that when she lands she is still spinning. Then it was our turn. My parents happened to be in town and came to watch part of my skate, and my fabulous Dad captured a nice piece of learning that went on. When I tried my flying camel, I jumped straight out instead of around. The coach saw it and pointed out my mistake. Then she encouraged me to try it again with more whipping action. The one I did after that is my best one ever and I partially corrected the mistake. Awesome! Unfortunately we were out of time after that but I can't wait to practice them again.

Beware of Flying Camels

Yesterday was my last Saturday practice of the year. It was very eventful!

My coach had a good idea. I have a 1/2 hour timeslot each week to practice Skills, but she has other students during that time. Another coach teaches two students who are at my level in that timeslot, so my coach suggested that I join them and then we can learn the next level together in a group lesson. Everybody wins! I think that usually you're not supposed to get lessons from another coach once you have your own coach, but my own coach suggested the whole arrangement so if she is happy, I am happy. Group lessons are cheaper and my coach admits that she's not super excited about teaching skills anyway.

• Skating Skills: So we started in on learning the Junior Bronze Skills level. One of the girls was away so it was just two of us. The pattern we learned is a series of crossovers around two hockey circles that get progressively faster. So the first two pushes are held for a count of four, the next four held for a count of two, then the last eight are one count each. After going around one circle forwards, we switch to the other circle and go backwards. The transition is just a Mohawk but I get going very fast and it's scary! The backward circles aren't quite crossovers though. They are a push-and-lift, and underpush instead of push-and-crossover. The feel a bit like figures for the four-count hold, but the others just feel like weird crossovers. Anyway the pattern goes backward in each direction and then one more transition back to forwards for the other forwards circle. After that, two steps takes you toward the blue line and then a T-stop is supposed to end the whole thing. These are not easy and by this point I am going ridiculously fast so I'm going to have to practice those.
• CanSkate: It was our last lesson of the year and I got into the spirit with a cheesy elf hat from the dollar store. I also got out my lightbulb earrings and necklace. The kids loved them! All my kids got their badges for the next level. I think I will kinda miss them...sniff sniff. The coaches gave me a Christmas card and a chocolate shaped like a skate as a thank-you for helping out in the lessons :)
• Group lesson: More practice for the Christmas show. We didn't do too badly. Still need to pick a good spin and jump....eh. I noticed that like 5 other girls did flips so I changed it to my new Sal-toe combination like my coach suggested.
  
• Spin lesson

1. Backsits- I asked to work on these because they are just not there for me anymore. My coach says it's a matter of a 'snap and square'. Snap into the the spin and square up the body position. She says I've got the hang of that generally, I think it's still a matter of balance or something.
2. Sit-change-sit - the next natural thing to work on after backsits. I dunno, I used to be able to do this spin a couple of months ago but it's just not working for me right now. The change is tough, it's important to step down with the weight overtop of the new foot, and not with it out to the side. Meh.
   
3. Back camel - my coach was really into the backspins today. She said that you go into a back camel the same way as the other backspins. But unlike the other backspins, the free leg doesn't come in toard the midline of the body, so it is much harder to really get the spin going. My first attempt was extremely poor, but my second attempt was surprisingly good. I might have pulled off two revolutions. Clearly more practice is needed. I have only tried these a couple of times before, it was fun to learn something new.
4. Flying camel! - this was a bit of a surprise, but my lesson-mates are now working on their Jr. Bronze freeskate elements so it shouldn't have been a surprise really. Coach says that for the entry, you start like you are going to do a forward camel. Then at the moment when you would initiate the spin, jump and scissor the legs to land in a back camel. We tried it at the boards and I watched the others try theirs a few times before trying it myself. I actually did not too badly! I tried it a few times. Coach says that I have the right timing and snap/pivot action into the jump, which is cool. But she says my back camel position actually looks like a camel, and that sent all four of us into a giggle fit :P

• Freeskate - Fresh off the flying camel lesson, I wanted to practice my new element. I had a few that were about the same as my attempts in the lesson. Then, I had one where I didn't really get my foot underneath me enough and I sort of crumpled forwards onto the ice. I landed on my right chest and shoulder with my right arm underneath me. I could have landed on my face! One of the coaches asked if I was ok and one of the girls too. It's nice, this other coach is always looking out for me :) Again I was surprised that the fall didn't actually hurt. But today my arm and shoulder were sore, and that is probably why. After that I took a break from flying spins! I worked on my other spins and even my jumps. Forward camels are still going decently well. They're not always strong, but when I fight for them I can usually complete the spin instead of falling.
• Lesson - we spent some more time talking about elements to put in my program. This time we focused on spins. Coach likes my sit-broken leg spin, especially (as she says every time) if I can get into a deeper position. For a combination spin we experimented with some new combinations. Coach surprised me by suggesting camel-layback-backsit! I was working on this combination a couple of months ago with some success but stopped for a while because my layback just didn't seem to be going anywhere and it's a more advanced element anyway. I tried her suggestion which was to transition from camel into an upright position with the leg in front, then take the leg back into the attitude position. Before I had been doing it directly from the camel into attitude, but this way we think that I pick up a bit more speed. Attitudes are definitely easier once you already have a centred spin going on, so I will make sure to practice this. The way my backsits are going though, I'm not sure I want to have it in my program yet. But I still have a couple of months.
  

Another Week in Skating

I had a pretty good week!

On Friday I put in a lot of solid work on basic skating skills and spins. No jumps.
My coach seems to think I'm ready for my skating skills test which is coming up, whee! That's exciting. I'm a little worried about it but generally I'm feeling more confident about it now.

On Saturday I had a good time in my long morning on the ice. I learned that there is going to be a Christmas show! We started practicing a group number for it which should be fun. I have to choose a jump and a spin to do in the show. Probably I will pick a flip jump but my spins are all inconsistent so I will have a hard time choosing something that will not look like total crap. We don't have very much time to practice, I wish we had started earlier.

In spin lesson we had a fun time trying to do some sit spin variations holding the blade, and then standing up into a leg pull. I can't do them but I did better than I expected. I can do the leg pulls in a glide but doing them in a spin is much harder! After the lesson I practiced them from both forward and backward sit-spins. I think that is why my outer hip muscles were ridiculously sore the next day! I have a new appreciation for Alissa Czisny's amazing leg-pull spin.
For private lesson we worked on jumps for the first time in a while. I am still not jazzed about the toe loop but my coach actually thought most of my jumps were looking basically not so terrible as they used to. She wanted to start with loop for the next lesson and get to flip and Lutz. Wow!
I had a major wipe-out on Saturday too, the worst one I've had since getting back on the ice 4 months ago. I was just skating along practicing my Waltzing Mohawks and my blades clinked together ominously. Suddenly I was sliding along the ice on my belly! The first time I've landed that way instead of on my butt, at least this time around. It was a shock to fall like that and also the way the ice stung my skin but it actually didn't hurt at all. That is a relief because I am afraid of falling especially when(if?) I get to doing bigger jumps but each time I fall I am reminded that it's not too bad.

So on Monday we did get to flip and Lutz. This time coach brought her video camera. It's very effective. She pointed out how my arms are sort of staying out at shoulder height in the flip, but instead the right arm should pump under and upwards. Seeing it on video made it easy to fix. Then we tried to fix how I bend my right knee before picking (it should stay straight, then bend after picking) but with less success. Also I need to keep my toe pointed in the picking foot to stay on the pick instead of falling back onto the blade. I need to channel my inner ballerina I guess. For the Lutz she had me going at a crawl around the circle before going slo-mo through picking and counter-rotating on the ice. Then she insisted that I try actually jumping and I squeeked one out. She filmed a couple of them and they are sad, but it's a start. The Lutz freaks me out a bit but I am pleased I can go through my bunny-hill version of it without panicking. After the lesson I tried a couple going a bit faster and screwed them up so I am going to keep it slow for now :)

Almost forgot to mention that I got my skates sharpened. I have been having a lot of skidding in three-turns and spin entries. I mentioned it to my coach and she suggested getting a sharper...uh...sharpening job. So I had long chat with my sharpening guy (apparently a former Novice-level Canadian champion!) and he agreed to decrease the radius of the hollow. My blades felt really grabby at first after that but my edges were so much more secure, I think it was a good move. I was hoping it would magically fix my spin entries too but alas, good edges cannot make up for bad technique ;) He also pointed out that I could have an alignment problem with the blades that can cause skidding. When I told him about how easily I end up on the flats in my figures he considered it even more of a possibility. After my test, I may investigate this some more. It's actually quite fascinating.