Saturday Lesson

Ooof, this one was rough. I hardly practiced this week and it showed. About halfway through our lesson, he asked if I had practiced. I was honest and told him that I was barely able to fit in one session and the quality of practice was lacking because the session I went to was so crowded. My coach shouldn't have to ask if I practiced, it should be evident. Embarrassing. Anyway, here's how my lesson went:

Circle 8 - He made a lot of corrections. My arms are all over the place and I wasn't bringing in the free leg and keeping it there so that was really throwing me off kilter. We worked on each circle individually mostly because I wasn't able to complete any circle I started regardless of what edge I started on. At one point I asked him "these will be the death of me won't they?" Why does everyone make this look so easy? Am I watching them after they have practiced it for a while or is it really just that easy and I'm the only one not able to make this move happen?

Crossovers in a figure eight pattern - I was able to complete the whole move but not without corrections from Christopher. My good sides are speedier than my bad sides so I either need to speed up the bad side or slow down the good side to make everything uniform. The swingroll/mohawk transition was improved from last week but it is still not where it needs to be for the test. We worked a bit on feeling that change of edge and bending the knees more on the mohawk.

Backward outside/inside edges: Since we looked at the forward edges last week, we focused on backward edges this week. He didn't hate them so that's nice. I need to slow these down as well. They are definitely picking up speed as I go down the line. On the BI edges, he made some corrections to my arm switch and head positions. Edges seem to be my least sucky move but I still need more work.

Those damn spirals: I think he knows now how much I hate this move so he makes sure to have me do them during every lesson. Well played, Christopher. Well played. As predicted, they were abominable. My left leg spiral was more of a shaky left leg arabesque and my right leg spiral was better but I wasn't able to maintain a flat and kept falling onto an edge of some sort. I need loads more stretching and practice off ice. Normally when I practice these at home, I'm holding on to something for balance. It's evident I need to stop doing that because, well, I have no balance when I try them on the ice.

Next week we will look at some of my pre-bronze free skate elements. Somehow, I need to figure out how I'm going to find a session I can practice at between now and then. The only solution I can think of right now is to buy a drop-in freestyle punch card at my rink and choose a weekday morning each week to get up and practice for an hour before work. That may be cheaper then changing my contract and having them charge a change penalty. The next contract starts on March 4th and I will be sure to add an extra weekday practice onto it so I don't have this problem anymore. I thought that just contracting for the session I have my lesson on would be enough because that's what I did before but much has changed in six months. The Sport Stable is no longer an option and Apex is not always the ghost town it used to be on Wednesday evenings. Ugh.