Awesome Practice!

Just as the title states - this was a great practice. I went to the Tuesday afternoon session so it was relatively uncrowded and I was able to do a lot of field move stuff and there was plenty of room for jumps. 

I started the practice off with some edges. All my edges - both forward and backward, are so comfortable now that I feel as though I could do them in my sleep. They flow nicely and the edges themselves feel very secure and stable. Waltz eight pattern was next. I did the first three turn in each circle in the closed position just as Gigi told me to do. It was not that hard to adjust to doing it this way but I still really like the look of the open position with nice extended legs. Oh well. 

Spins were really nice today! I did about a gazillion scratch spins with arms overhead and they felt absolutely sublime. However, I did rip my left boot cover when I brought my right foot down on one of my scratches. I guess that's what I get for having sharp blades. Now I have an excuse to buy more goodies from Rainbo :) Backspins were also pretty good. I'm getting two or three revolutions consistently now and while my upper body may not be too pretty (I think sometimes arms are not brought in at the same time), I am at least getting the rev's and am getting more and more comfortable with this spin. I can work out the details later. 

I was also feeling very jumpy today. I really wanted to get this toe loop under control because the test is in a couple weeks and has me choosing between a waltz jump/toe loop combo or a salchow/toe loop combo. So I practiced both combos very slowly. I figured out that the position of my foot coming out of a salchow prepares me better for the toe loop right after. I can do a waltz jump. I can do a toe loop. But, when I put them in combo, it just gets crazy. I did several salchow/toe loop combos that were really nice. So that is what I will do for the test. Towards the end of practice, I got adventurous and tied a whole bunch of jumps in succession just to see if I could. So, I did a waltz jump/side toe hop/waltz jump/salchow/toe loop combo. Whew! That was fun :)