Break-aversary!

Happy 1 year break-aversary to me! It's been 1 year since I broke my leg so I celebrated by....skating! I survived this time ;)

Movez - Standard warm up included laps and forward/backward consecutive edges. I have noticed how much more stable my forward edges are now that I've been practicing the circle 8 so much. Neat! Everything got worked on with the exception of the Power 3 Turns because I was trying to stay out of the way of an upper level skater who was working on her new choreography (I had instant program music envy as soon as she started. So pretty!). The LFO circle of my Circle 8 is still kind of wonky but I'm getting around without a foot down most of the time. I can work out the shape later. My Five Step Mohawk pattern felt steppy today but my Power Stroking felt nice and smooth. I skated the Alternating XO-BO Edges tentatively because I'm still scared I'm going to run into someone.

Spinz - I started with one-foot and two-foot spins and then spent some time on backspins. Overall, pretty average. I spent more time on the two-foot spin than I usually do not so much because it needs work but because we changed the choreography and now I need to work out which way to face when I end my spin to get into the right position for two back crossovers and a loop jump. I figure if I end it facing the judges I'll be in the right place.

Jumpz - I spent a lot of time today at the boards trying to improve my toe-loops. I have been toe-waltzing these for so long that my body won't do it any other way. But running them over and over again at the boards with proper pick-in and free leg resulted in a couple on open ice that didn't feel cheated. When I do a proper toe-loop, it even feels safer and I can definitely tell when I do a real toe-loop vs. a cheated one. Now I just have to not fall back into bad habits. The waltz-falling leaf-half flip sequence was kind of a disaster. When I put it all together, everything is so small. It's really almost like footwork instead of a jump sequence. Also, since the falling leaf and half flip both land forward on my left toe pick, my leg was screaming after just a few minutes on these. I think I remember Christopher saying that he would be open to changing it to a waltz-loop combo but then I'm not sure how that will fit in with the jump element requirements. Can you have 2 two-jump combos? Ugh, rules. Finally, I worked on loop jumps from both entries. They felt scary today. This was the jump I broke my leg on and today was the one year anniversary so perhaps I was overthinking and worrying unnecessarily.

I need a nap and like six cheeseburgers.