Wednesday Night Cram and Thursday Lesson

Wednesday Night Cram - It's amazing how much better one can practice when they can breathe. I found an old inhaler that still had some puffs left so I inhaled and then made my way to the Stable for my pre-lesson cram session. After my warm-up, I ran through all of the Pre-Bronze MIF (including spirals!) and all is well here. My BI edges still have wonky arms so I made a mental note to have Christopher fix this. My jumps...OMG, my jumps. They are missing. Like, they are just gone! I know I can do them. Did I not just spend an entire 7 week session working with Christopher on nothing but jumps?! But now I feel like I am over thinking everything to the point where nothing is really happening. I'm feeling like I'm actually regressing. Waltz jumps still exist but my loop, flip, salchow, and toe loop are MIA. I was doing them better when I didn't think about them and just threw myself into the air. Maybe I should go back to that? Spins are about where I left them. We won't talk about spins.

Thursday morning lesson - After my warm-up I worked on cramming MIF again. As soon as Christopher got onto the ice I pleaded to him to fix my BI edges. As I warned him, they are a "hot mess." So yeah, he made some adjustments. Turns out, it wasn't so much my arms that I was doing wrong but my head position. Who knew. Then he wanted to see my CW Perimeter Stroking since he only saw CCW last time. I thought I did well but when I finished the move and skated back to him he said "yeah, I wouldn't have passed you on that if I were the judge" (*sad trombone*). I was able to fit the minimum number of crossovers at the end but he wants to see more and, apparently, I took a shortcut and should have gone around the pepperoni dot instead of just inside it. I also finished on the wrong leg. Ugh. So, back to the drawing board on this one. Good news, at least my strokes were okay even though he would like some more extension. On to Spirals! Both are at least hip height so yay for that but on my left leg spiral (right leg in the air) he would like me to work on bending forward more (hello, fear!). We spent the remainder of our lesson chatting about testing and whether or not I should focus on just the adult track or just the standard track. Apparently, it's unheard of to test both tracks simultaneously. But, you know me. Ever the over-achiever! My main concern with the adult track is that, even though I know the tests are challenging, I know judges have lower standards for adults and are more willing to pass a candidate even if mistakes are made. I don't want that. I want to be held to the same standards as those who test the standard track so, for me, testing the standard track is a means of quality control to ensure that I'm at the same level as the kiddos. Christopher suggested sticking with the adult track for now and he will personally hold me to the standards of the standard track. When I pass Gold he can then work with me on Intermediate and above if I want to keep moving up. So yeah, I guess I can expect him to be super picky from now on and that's a good thing :)