Second Tester!

Ok, test day is tomorrow, ya'll! Yikes! I finally got my time slot for the test and it looks like I'm the second tester of the day. Another skater and I will get on the ice at 8:00am for our 10 minute warm-up and then I get off so she can skate her Junior Moves (adult). I am scheduled to go on right after her. I really wish they would have had me go first, though. I feel like, compared to her, I'm going to look like garbage no matter how well I do. I know I shouldn't feel that way...but I do. Sigh. I plan on dropping in for 45 minutes on the early morning session (7:00-7:45) so I can get properly warmed up and do some last minute spot checks. I didn't do that last year and I think it would have benefited me.

This morning's session was crowded as usual but it seems as though the Thursday session has just slightly fewer skaters on it so I was able to get some work done. I ran through all of my field moves for the test but after 30 minutes of that I really just wanted to work on other things. I'm ready to be done with Bronze moves! They are getting stale. I won't talk about the work I did with moves today only because it's pretty much where I left them last time. They are solid and I am ready for the test!

Jumpz - I spent a lot of time on the salchow today. Months ago, I was obsessed with fixing my toe loops and, since those are fine now, I really need to work on getting my salchow less spinny. I worked on making the 3 turn more straight and checking it better so I'm not relying on the momentum from that to get around on the jump. I also focused on making sure my free knee is up so that my free leg is in an h position. This all seemed to slow my salchow down a bit. Not a lot, but a bit. Progress. I also looked at my loop jumps today because I really want to get better at crossing my free leg in front on the second loop jump when I do it as a combo. Not much progress here but it got worked on. Finally, flip jumps. It's been a while since I've done any because I've been so consumed with the test. I'm happy to report that I'm still not scared to do them and, in fact, I think the time away from them was beneficial because they just felt better over all. Notably, I felt like I was launching a bit more from the toe pick instead of feeling like I'm taking off two-footed.

Spinz - I had some really good ones today! I started off by looking at my attitude spin coming out of the toe loop (aka the ending of my free skate program). The first one I did was perfectly centered so I just rode it out as long as I could. I don't know how many revolutions I got but I felt like I was spinning forever! Nice! I did some more attitude spins before moving on to sit spins. These were just okay today. I think part of the problem is that I stopped doing squats because 1). they are boring and 2). my right knee is crackling. As a result, my sit spins didn't feel as low as they have been lately but at least the spinning part is happening. I don't want to go back to doing as many squats as I was doing (I got up to 200+ a day!) but I think I should at least do 75 as part of my off ice warm up. It helps my ankle mobility at least. I dabbled in some backspins but was too afraid of doing camel spins on a crowded session.

Miscz - In the last 10 minutes or so, I wanted to just work on some new things. I tried my hand at the 8 step mohawk and miserably failed. I know the steps in my head but putting them to ice was a bit of a train wreck. Following that bit of suck, I added to it by trying backward cross strokes and I think I just looked silly so I moved on to BI 3 turns and botched them as well. Silver Moves are going to be hard! I am not good at this! lol.