Blegh

I dropped in on an early morning freestyle session at my rink this morning. Getting up at 5:00am to skate is no bueno. Skating without a drop of coffee in my system is no bueno-ier.

In a way, it was nice because I had the whole rink to myself for the first 30 minutes or so so I was able to work on my program without feeling self-conscious. Ok, let me state this for the record...the lunge is by far my most hated element. It's such an easy skill but I feel super off balance doing one and I can only do it on my good leg as I'm still having stiffness/mobility issues with my left ankle. I hate the lunge and, after this test is over, I hope to never have to do one again. Die in a fire, lunge. Just die.

Movez - I warmed up with pre-bronze moves. My waltz 8 felt pretty damn good today! I heard rips, guys! I only did a few rounds of waltz 8 and moved on. No spirals today because I was a coward. Hate me later. My crossovers in a figure 8 are doing much better, though. I mostly just worked on speed and trying to get everything to move at the same pace since this was an issue that Christopher pointed out a couple of weeks ago. The swingroll transition is much more deliberate now although I'm sure I need more swing to my roll. Edges were steady. The forward ones still need to be more shallow and slow and the backward ones need a stronger initial push. However, I've discovered an ease to the BI edges that I never had before. Oddly, out of all of the four edges, these feel the most comfortable. Circle 8 is still a work in progress. I'm making it around on the RFO about 50% of the time which is a pretty significant improvement. The RFI/LFI feel great so I didn't spend too much time on them. Where I need to focus my efforts now is the LFO and then eventually putting it all together. Why are inside edges easier for me to do now after getting injured? Before the leg break, I struggled with inside edges. Now, they are cake. Weird. Perimeter Stroking happened right at the beginning of my practice and I tried to keep that waltz count in my head and focus on extension. These felt off perhaps because I was still half asleep. I blame Starbucks for not being open that early. Totally their fault.

Programz - I have all of the moves memorized that he showed me last week but I struggled with putting them all together. I've never learned a program before so I'm not sure if this is normal but I would start the program, get about 15 seconds in and then falter. Per Christopher's suggestion, I tried to just keep going but it really just felt like I was working on one section, pause, then another section, pause, and then another section. I was completely unable to just skate the whole thing. I hope that the more I do it, the more natural it will become. I think it's because I have only ever worked on elements in isolation and never in one complete narrative, so to speak. I'm actually nervous for my lesson tomorrow morning because I'm kind of a mess. I just hope he doesn't get frustrated with me. I'm trying.

Speaking of trying, one of the skate moms who monitors the freestyle sessions has always been great about reminding me that it will all get better. She sees me on the ice working hard and she sees my frustration sometimes when my body just won't cooperate. She never fails to remind me that I'll get there. It makes my heart swell :)

Edit to Add: As of today, I have completed all 13 of my required volunteer hours for RMFSC. I'm done for the rest of the skate year! YASSSSS!!