Down to the Wire

Lesson today and I started off by requesting that he look at my loop jumps. Lately, I feel like these aren't as relaxed as they used to be. I know it's because I'm overthinking again and trying to force the jump but I just wanted Christopher to take a look because he always knows how to fix my issues :)

Loopz - We started with a single loop jump. As suspected, I'm trying too hard to make the jump happen which makes me over-rotate the jump. Because the first loop in the combo is over-rotated, the second one isn't set up for success. He also noted that I'm jumping up rather than out so when I land the first one, the second one has no momentum. He made some adjustments to my arms and reminded me to relax and then we moved on to the loop-loop combo. His biggest issue with this is that I am still not crossing the free leg in front for the second jump. He had me do an exercise where I do a single loop jump and then a one rotation backspin with the free leg crossed in front (easier said than done). This still needs work. It's not that I can't do the element, it's just that my form sucks. If I were being scored with IJS rather than 6.0, this would impact my grade of execution for sure. I want to keep working on this so that the technique is spot on. Will I get it together in time for the competition in a few weeks? Perhaps not. But I'm not giving up on it until it's right.

Programz - We ran the program in its entirety and it went okay. Despite wearing the sash, people were not mindful that I was skating my program and, therefore, I missed the sit spin because there were like three people in that spot who didn't move for me. So, I skated around them and picked up my program at the stag jump. Frustrating. I don't know, I mean, when people are skating their program, I'm always on the lookout for where they are going so as not to get in their way. That's what you are supposed to do. But I think some of these younger skaters see an "old lady" stumbling through her program and maybe they don't think they need to yield? Or maybe they haven't been taught situational awareness? Whatever it is, it's frustrating. We spot checked some areas to clean them up a bit. Because I'm skating faster, I'm starting my spiral too far down the rink. He wants me to start it earlier and he fixed my approach to it to make it look a bit more tidied up. He also commented on how scratchy my approach to the salchow is and that's totally because I'm rushing and trying to hold on to it. When I practice this on Tuesday, I'm going to see if doing one backwards crossover instead of two will make a difference in the flow.

Compulsoriez - Finally, we ran the compulsory program. I don't recall his comments. I don't think that means there weren't any, I just think that means that there is nothing huge I need to fix with this. Personally, I still feel like my spiral is too slow so that is something I'll spend some time with on Tuesday but, overall, I'm feeling pretty good about this. Oh! I need to be more mindful about rushing the toe loop! When I rush it, it waltzes. When I take my time, it's a proper toe loop. I can't slip back into bad habits now that I finally fixed this thing.