Finally, Progress!

I've been itching to skate all weekend so I was full of energy and ready to kick some ass this morning when I got on the ice. It was a really thinned out session with only 3-4 skaters so I spent some extra time on moves and other things I'm too timid to work on in a full session.

Movez: After warming up, I spent a lot of time on the Circle 8. I'm at the point where I very rarely put a foot down. I didn't have a single FD at all today, in fact! My LFO circle is still wonky in terms of size but I felt like I was more in control of it today than in past practice sessions. I did a few full Circle 8s and then moved on. My Perimeter Power Stroking still feels good. I did two laps of those and then moved on to Five Step Mohawk. Now that I'm doing 4 lobes instead of 5 I feel like I can really extend things out more. These felt nice. BX-BO Edges felt a little shaky on the LBO (understandably) but felt fine overall. I did not do any Power 3-Turns because over the past few weeks I've really become kind of scared of these. I think I have had one too many "click of death" moments on these and now I'm spooked. Ugh. It's like once I get over one fear a new one develops. Such is the life of an adult skater, I suppose.

Spinz: No backspins today. Not because of fear or laziness but because I honestly forgot. I didn't remember until I was taking my skates off that I meant to spend time on backspins and Pre-Bronze Compulsory Moves (specifically the footwork sequence with the mohawk and cross behind). Stupid Monday brain! But I did a lot of two-foot and one-foot spins and I threw in one really nice scratch spin toward the end. I had a silly fall when I was doing the wind-up approach to one of my one-foot spins. I stepped forward weirdly and down I went, still rotating on my butt as I hit the ice. Embarrassing.

Jumpz: I did ALL THE JUMPS! (except the flip jump because reasons). During my last lesson, I asked Christopher if I would get more points if I changed my waltz-falling leaf-half flip sequence to a waltz-loop combo. He said that I might but he would like to see me do both to see which one I perform better. A waltz-loop would probably give me more points but not if I do it sloppily compared to a clean waltz-falling leaf-half flip sequence. So I worked on both. I did some stand alone toe loops and some salchow-toe loops. I did one or two waltz-toe combos and a whole bunch of loops. Loops are once again my favorite jump. They are just plain fun! I'm at the point with these that I can go in with more speed. In fact, I did one at full speed from back crossovers and holy smokes it felt nice! Yes!

Programz: I only worked on sections of the program instead of the whole thing with music. I really feel like I need to get a feel for some of these transitions since we changed so many things around. The thing I'm struggling with the most is facing the right direction after jumps and spins. I always seem to be facing the wrong way after a thing and that really throws me off. When I did my Pre-Bronze free skate test, I ended up facing the wrong way after my two-foot spin and forgot like 10 seconds of my choreography right after because I was disoriented. I never thought this would be the most difficult part of skating a program. I'm not sure if this is an issue with other skaters either because everyone I watch seems to place everything exactly where it needs to be seemingly without trying. I think we'll be running the program on Thursday so I'm kind of nervous to be honest. I really hope I'm ready to compete with this thing in September 😕