"Take my Breath Awaaaaaaay"

Sunday practice at the Stable was unproductive at best. It wasn't so much my back acting up but the fact that I just could not catch my breath. After about an hour of practice, Dustin insisted that I get off the ice and go home. Part of me knew he was right, but the other part of me knows that I have a lot of skills that still need polishing and that I should stay to work on them. Dustin was worried so I left. Before my departure from the rink I was able to work on:

Moves in the Field - I decided to run through everything in order as if I were doing the test. I repeated a couple of elements that I wasn't entirely pleased with but, overall, I think these look okay.

• Forward Perimeter Stroking: Since the session was practically empty, I was able to do both CW and CCW! I remembered what Christopher instructed me to do and they felt pretty comfortable. I was able to fit in 3 crossovers at the ends now that I'm starting the turns at the pepperoni dots. That meets the requirements so I'm happy with that. 
• Basic Consecutive Edges: FO and FI edges are just fine. BO edges are much better with the adjustments to my head and arm positions that Christopher made. BI edges need work. The initial push is fine and I'm keeping steady with the power down the line. On my first run, I put my foot down so I did another set. These were better but I'm going to have to ask Christopher to adjust my arms on this one as well. I'm doing the move, I just feel like there is a better way. 
• Forward and Backward Crossovers in a Figure 8: I repeated this move a couple of times so I could get the timing right with the swingroll-mohawk transition into the backward crossovers. Since I have been doing it for so long on the wrong leg, it's a hard habit to break. Also, I was pretty scratchy on the backward crossovers for some reason. I'm pretty sure the answer to that is to bend my knees more. When it doubt, bend your knees!
• Waltz 8: This was another move I repeated a couple of times because I have to readjust my timing on everything now that I'm skating a bigger pattern at the hockey circles. It's getting there. 
• Spirals (X3): Yeah, I did these three times. The more frequently I do this, the less fearful I am. I also wanted to get both spirals to equal height. When I'm skating on my right leg with my left leg up, I have flexibility for days. Not so much on the other side, though. I either need to lower my first spiral or stretch out the other side more so that it's higher. But hey! It got done! w00t!

So yeah, that's the Adult Pre-Bronze MIF test. Will I be ready for an August test? I think I might be :) 

Freestyle - This is where I started going downhill in terms of stamina. Practicing my MIF winded me enough so I didn't have much left in me to really put in a good effort. I did some decent waltz jumps. I worked on slowing down my toe loop and salchow, but my loop jumps were a freaking mess! I just didn't have the gusto. Spins were abysmal. I actually fell on a scratch spin! I mean, that's a first. I just kinda fell out of it and my body made no attempt to stop that from happening or abort the spin. Geez. I was just wiped out and out of breath. This is super frustrating! 

"Old Lady Problems" Update - I went to the pulmonologist on Friday for the Lung Function Test. I should be hearing back from my doctor early this week about the results. Maybe I'm growing a tree in my lungs after all. I also went to the sports rehab place at the Ice Centre to get an evaluation. The therapist who worked with me was great. He noticed how tight my lower back muscles were and gave me some stretches to do at home until I come back later this week for more physical therapy. They also gave me some electro-stimulation and while that felt awesome (I almost fell asleep on the table), I'm not sure how much it helped. But, they are the experts so I'm putting all of my faith in them.