May Day Test Day!

Remember how I was excited about testing in April? Yeah, that's not going to happen. Because our club's spring show takes place on April 14th and 15th, they didn't want to host a test day on April 13th because they thought that might be a bit much. So, they moved it to Wednesday April 11th. I can take a Friday off from work to test but I cannot take a Wednesday because those are usually my busiest days at work where I'm going to meetings, teaching classes, and meeting with students. So, when Christopher told me about the change it cemented my new test date in May. I guess it's a blessing in disguise because with all the other stuff going on my personal life (ahem, buying a house), it's getting a bit overwhelming. Now, I will have an additional 4 weeks to get ready for test day and that takes some of the pressure off.

Lesson - For our lesson today, we didn't look at the program at all but instead ran the MIF test from beginning to end. Perimeter Stroking felt great. I actually remember thinking while I was doing the move that this was the best I had done it. When I was done, I skated back to Christopher thinking he was going to tell me that he noticed improvement. Imagine my disappointment when he said "Yeah, I would not have passed you on that." The problem? I did six strokes and he wants four nice long powerful strokes with extension. I did three steppy crossovers at the ends and he wants four proper crossovers with a noticeable underpush. Back to the drawing board on this one! Next up were my edges. For the forward edges, he would like four total (two lobes on each side of the line). On the backward edges, it's okay to do six total (three lobes on each side) as long as I'm consistent and have the same number of lobes on my BO edges as I do on my BI edges. He also made some corrections on my head and arm positions. We moved on to the crossover pattern and with this he wants more speed. I have spent so much time these past couple of weeks trying to get my forward crossovers the same speed as my backward crossovers that I slowed the whole thing down considerably. So now that they are more equal, I need speed. The transition was fine but because there was a student also working with her coach at the hockey circles, I didn't place it in the correct spot because I was trying to avoid a collision. Waltz 8 was improved in terms of timing, he just had corrections to make with my arms. Finally, sprials. Lucky for me, his back was turned during the first half (aka my bad side) so he didn't see the disaster but he did notice that I need to hold the move for longer at the end of each side. I'm bringing my free leg down too soon.

Overall, these are not things that would prevent me from passing the test. This is Christopher making sure things are perfect and holding me to the same standards as he does with his younger standard track students. That's what I want. I know that this first test is an "encouragement test" and if I were to test tomorrow I would easily pass but I want it to be a clean test and, most of all, I want to represent Christopher well. And for my own personal satisfaction, I will not be pleased if I get a pity pass. I want the judges to have very little to say in terms of corrections. I have worked so hard and long for this that I don't want to just pass, I want it to be a good strong pass. He also seems to not be be worried at all about the Free Skate program. If he's not worried, why the heck am I so panicked over it? What is he seeing that I'm not? I guess since this is my first program, I'm worried that it won't look good and that I'll look awkward and stiff but he seems pretty confident that I'll do well. Go figure.