Progress?

I feel like I will never get used to waking up this early in the morning. My body resists any attempts to get out of bed and then all it wants is coffee which I can't supply until after practice. Ugh. However, I did a lot in the one hour practice that I had and I feel like I made some progress (some being the key word).

Movez - I feel like I finally made the necessary fixes to my perimeter stroking. I did four extended strokes on outside edges down the length of the rink and did four strong crossovers at the ends. Doing only four strokes instead of six actually felt a bit better. It just felt like it flowed more. So yeah, my coach was right. He's always right! Consecutive edges improved in one regard but not in another. My forward edges felt great once I made the corrections Christopher gave me. Four lobes did the trick and actually forces me to slow the thing down. However, my backward edges were just so weak today. My initial push just had zero energy. I really hope it was just a today thing because usually my backward edges are decent. Crossover pattern got sped up but then I didn't place the transition in the correct place. Frustrating. With the waltz 8 I tried to pay attention to my arms on the first three turn and I think it went well. Finally spirals. Even though I stretched this morning, I chickened out on doing them on the ice because, frankly, I'm embarrassed of them. I'm sharing the ice with some amazing skaters and I'm the old lady who has no flexibility. I know I shouldn't care what others think of me and remember that they were beginners once too but it's still something I'm self-conscious about.

Spinz - Of course I worked on the two-foot and the one-foot spins but I was feeling adventurous and threw in a few scratch spins as well. I have not done a scratch spin since before my injury so I wanted to wait until I was stable enough to spin consistently on my left leg before I did a scratch spin. The first one out the gate was beautifully centered. I would have taken a picture of the tracing if phones were allowed on freestyle ice. Sadly, the more I did them the worse they got. But hey, it's a start.

Jumpz - Waltz jumps felt fine today so I spent more time on the salchow trying to really check that three turn going in and checking the landing coming out so the landing doesn't spin into itself. These started to feel better so I moved to toe loops and half flips. The half flips still really hurt but I only have one in my program so I can bear it. Toe loops are still toe waltzy. Bad habits are hard to break. Finally, bravery kicked in and I tried the approach to the loop jump since Christopher has hinted at me starting these again. The backward crossover entry is how I broke my leg so I think if this is a jump I'm going to do now, I need to approach it differently. So, I worked on approaching it from a right forward inside three turn. I just did the approach and didn't jump. I want to get comfortable with that at speed first before I launch myself. This is probably the most terrifying thing I've done since coming back. Trying to do the thing that broke me will be a HUGE hurdle! So, baby steps on this one.

Programz - I didn't have anyone to run my music for me so I worked on sections without the music. The part where I was struggling two weeks ago, the part after the two foot spin, feels so much better now with Christopher's fixes in place. In fact, the whole thing feels pretty good. I'm still working on placing everything where it should be but I think the timing is fine and it feels deliberate. I hate that the thing I worry about most with this is facing the right way when I exit the two-foot spin. Am I making it more difficult than it needs to be?

Once I worked on all the important stuff I spent the last ten minutes or so working on Bronze MIF, namely the five step mohawk and the power three turns. I think I'm doing them correctly but we'll look at them during my lesson on Saturday since he said he wanted to introduce me to Bronze Moves so I don't get bored. Fun stuff!