Sluggish Ruggish Bones

I went to my very first ballet class last night and I boy was I feeling it today! Every part of my body hurts, especially my bad ankle! On top of that, I got home from ballet around the same time that I usually go to sleep but I still had to shower, eat something, and wind my brain down with some mindless reality TV. As a result of all of that, I got very little sleep and I arrived at the rink this morning super sore and super tired.

After my warm up, I worked a bit on the scratch spin, the new jump combo for my free skate (the waltz-toe loop-loop), and some backward inside 3 turns. I fussed around with some flip jumps as well and was feeling pretty good about those so I moved on to running through the new compulsory moves routine. It's really slow and I'm still having an issue with momentum after the LBI 3 turn but at least I remembered the choreography.

Lessonz - Christopher got on the ice and I told him how my ballet class went. I think he's really pleased that I'm doing this. Lord knows I need it! Our main goal today was to finish up the rest of the compulsory choreography. We talked a bit about which jump combo and type of spin to include and I guess I just assumed we would do the same jump combo that I'm using for my free skate but I assumed wrong! I'll be doing a flip-toe combo (gulp!) and a sit spin. My flips have been pretty decent lately and when I did the flip-toe combo for him the first time, it also felt pretty good. Not perfect, but good. Then he told me to go into the flip with more speed and things started going downhill after that. I was mule kicking and forcing things that didn't need to be forced. Ugh, why is it that when he makes corrections on things I feel like I'm starting from scratch? So frustrating! At one point he told me could tell I'm starting to overthink things again. He's right. When I just do the thing, it goes well. When I start thinking about doing the thing, not so much. He added some more in-between choreography after the spiral sequence going into the jump combo and then some more coming out of the jump combo and into the final spin. He emphasized extensions and proper head positions and everything looked very "ballet." He even said he feels like he can give me some more ballet-like movements now that I'm taking a ballet class. I still feel like I'm struggling getting my body into the correct positions for things but I know it will improve with time. Anyway, the whole routine looks pretty and once I get it under control and consistent, I think it will also be a competitive enough routine for Adult Bronze.

So all I really want to do is take a bath and soak my bones but adult responsibilities force me to go to work instead. I feel tired from the inside out and I really hope this all starts to feel normal. I think when the new contract comes out for the fall, I'll switch my rink days so I'm not coming in the morning after a ballet class because, honestly, I feel like death warmed over.