The Tale of the Wonky Camel

Camelz - As Christopher was getting on the ice, he caught me mid-camel. Obviously a sub-par camel in terms of technique so this is what we started our lesson with. He made some adjustments with my arms and gave me a tortuous exercise that's essentially just a left leg spiral but, as we all know, my left leg is trash. This will take some time.

Power 3z - Next up, a look at my Power 3 Turns. I have the 3s down pat but I'm lacking the power push right before the backwards crossover. I'm just not shifting my weight the right way. I think this move is passable but it's not where I want it to be. I really want to get the technique down. I also need to stay true to the axis. I tend to drift.

Flipz -I knew these were coming but I was just hoping he would forget? He didn't so we got to work on these. He's having me do them slowly on the blue line making sure to stay on the line (I tend to curve these too much). He reminded me that it's not so much a vault off of the toepick but more of a jump off of a backward pivot. We did a few and they were all slow and sloppy but I'm going to work on them hard now. This whole fear thing is really holding me back. Just like the toe loops that I was able to fix by making them slow and small, that's how I'm going to approach these flip jumps until I can build them up to something decent.

Competition Debriefz - Obviously my sit spins are trash because of my injury and there is really nothing more I can do about these outside of continued stretching. Christopher sent me a video of some exercises using a half foam roller that are supposed to help with stability and core strength. As I was looking more into this half foam roller thing I saw that I can also use it to develop ankle strength and improve my dorsiflexion. I immediately ordered one from amazon and I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. So, I told him that I'll keep working on it. My sit spins may never be great but I can at least attempt to make them less awful. He also mentioned that speed and confidence seemed to be an issue so that is something that I will focus on in my practices. Overall, I think he was proud of me and I did what I set out to do - not embarrass myself. So, success!