Getting Stoned

Lessonz - Lesson today and we started with spin entries. It's been a while since he's tortured me with this so I figured I was due, right? I feel like my spins have been slightly better lately but there is still so much work to be done with them as I'm still not entirely stable on my left leg. Perhaps this is something I will always struggle with. He made the same corrections because I'm struggling with the same things. Keep the free leg behind, hold that LFO entry edge for as long as possible, and watch my arms. Moving on, he wanted to see my program jumps in isolation (minus the ballet and stag jumps). He would really like to see my free leg crossed more during my loop jump combo so I need to work on that. He would also like to see me vault up more with my free leg in the waltz jump. We then spent some time working on getting my salchow to be less spinny. I really need to take my time and hold that LBI edge longer with a stronger check before starting the jump. Finally, we worked on un-waltzing my toe loop. I have fallen back into bad habits and started cheating these again. So yeah, I have to clean these jumps up a lot! At the tail end of the lesson, we had some time to run the program to make sure that's still on track. I was a bit apprehensive because it was such a busy session. Lots of skaters and an entire 8 person adult synchro team on the ice. Yikes! But I put the sash on and hoped for the best. It went as well as could be expected given the circumstances. At one point two skaters collided right in front of me as I was ending my footwork sequence so I slowed a bit to dodge that but it put me behind the music so, in order to end on time with the music, I sacrificed my toe loop and just went right into the final spin. The whole thing was sloppy but Christopher seems to think I'll get it together in time (I'm glad at least one of us is optimistic!). He also changed my end pose because I have a tendency to be a bit "intense." Originally, I was to do a lunge, turn, and reach up like I'm grabbing the stars but I think it looked a bit like I was reaching up angrily to pick fruit and, despite him trying to fix what should be a very simple hand gesture, it still looked unnatural. So he changed it to look like more like my opening moves. Who would have thought that the one thing he had to change due to my incompetence was a hand gesture? LOL. Anyway, I survived and if I can skate my program on such a busy session I'm pretty sure I can do a much better job once I have the ice to myself. But man, I felt like Frogger out there!

Dressz - The rest of the crystals I ordered came in and I got all of the rest of the supplies I needed with a trip to two different craft stores (I needed E6000 glue, an organizer to keep track of all of the different sizes and colors of stones, and some basic throw pillows to put inside the dress while I stone). I was able to get some stones on this dress finally and boy was that terrifying! I only put the gray crystals on the gray part of the dress and will put the jet hematite crystals on the black part next weekend. It took three hours to put them all on but I think it looks pretty decent so far, especially considering it was my first time. I only did the 30ss and the 20ss because, honestly, the smaller size crystals are just too small and there is no way I can think of outside of purchasing special syringes, to get such a tiny amount of glue on them. The 20ss and the 30ss were the perfect size for the glue dots I was putting on the dress. So, when I start on the "dark side" (eh?) I will stick with the same sizes there as well. Guys! It's so sparkly and pretty already! I can't wait to see what it looks like when I finish putting the rest of the crystals on. I'm pretty much going to look like a space unicorn and I love the idea of that 💓