Freestyle Jumps Lesson #1

I have been super nervous for this lesson for the past two weeks. The main reason being is I'm not sure how bad my jumps really are because, with the exception of my waltz jump, I haven't done any jumping for the past 10 years. I showed up nice and early for the lesson so I could calm my nerves. I got my skates laced up and waited to see who my coach was. As I have learned from my Freeskate 4 experience years ago, a bad coach can really kill your spirit and motivation. For the next six weeks, I have Christopher as my coach. He introduced himself and told me a bit about his background (which is heavy in ballet so, yay, I'll maybe look a little bit more graceful when this is done!). Even though I told him I'm a returning adult skater who hasn't really done much these past few years, he had me start with....

The dreaded backspin! If you look through my journal entries from years ago, you will see that the backspin was my nemesis. I understand why he had me start with this: it is necessary to get the proper in-flight position for a jump. However, it's really difficult for me for some reason. The best way I can describe the goofy feeling of a backspin is that it's like being right-handed and after learning how to write well, your teacher asks you to now write with your left hand! Sure, you might be able to write out some letters, but they sure as hell won't be pretty! To me, this is the backspin. I can spin just fine on my left leg, but ask me to spin on my right leg and I can barely eek out a singe revolution. I promised him I would spend some time working on my backspin for my next lesson. Once I have that down pat, I'm sure he's going to have me start on the loop jump.

So we moved on to some other prep exercises. He had me do a two-foot half rotation from a standstill. I actually over jumped this and did a full rotation (oops). Once he saw that I could rotate in the air, we worked on toe-loops and salchows. Salchows were just ok. They could use some more height but I'm landing them. The toe-loops were a hot mess! I'm actually doing a toe-waltz so he had me do some exercises at the boards to get the feeling for where my picking foot should be and how my freeleg should cross in front. I'm cheating the jump by rotating on my toepick. This needs to stop.

Finally, we ended on a high note and he had me do some waltz jumps for him. These are pretty good actually and he commended me on having the proper arms for the take off. He said this will prepare me well for the axel (gulp!). He fixed some things on my landing like my head position but overall, they are passable.

Lots of homework for my next lesson so I will practice on Sunday and again Tuesday morning. The one really positive aspect of this jumps class is that I am the only student enrolled in it. So I'm getting a private lesson for the whole 30 minutes. :)