Workin' it

Practice this morning and, since it was a drop-in session, it was a mix of the usual crowd and some faces I haven't seen in a while. The ice was still crowded, though. Meh.

Warm upz - Laps (many), edges (all), and turns (some).

Spinz - I did some basic one foot spins on the blue line as a warm up and to find my center but then when I tried scratch spins in the middle of the rink, there was hella travelling. These use to be so good before I broke my leg and now they are nearly impossible to center. I went through my mental rolodex of all of the corrections Christopher has given me on my spins and was able to get one spin that was relatively centered. Moving on to sit spins, I tried to apply the same corrections here while at the same time pushing to get lower. It's still a work in progress. Finally, I did some backspins from a standstill working on getting that free leg crossed right from the start. I was able to get one that had two revs with the crossed leg.

Jumpz - Waltz jumps, toe loops, salchows, loops, and some flips. I did it all! My flips actually felt pretty good today which was delightful! Once I was warmed up on jumps, I started working on the new combo. Sloooooowly. I thought if I started by working on it in parts, I could piece it all together at the end. Apparently, it doesn't work that way. I can do the waltz-toe loop and I can do the toe loop-loop but when I try to put all three together into a combo, I get a waltz-toe loop-struggle loop disaster. I'll keep plugging away at it. It's crazy how I can do all three of these jumps just fine on their own but when I put them together it just goes all to hell.

Compulsoriez - I studied the video I took during our lesson and I think I have the choreography down but it's looking really rough. The part that is causing me the most grief is the part right after the salchow. I'm struggling going from the landing of that into the two BI 3 turns. The first RBI 3 turn has some speed (scary) but then when I switch to the other side to do the LBI 3 turn, all momentum is lost and I practically come to a stand still on the glide out. Sigh. This will take time. I worked a bit on the spiral sequence too. I'll be doing an RFO spiral, mohawk, LBI catch foot spiral like the one I'm doing in the picture below. If I can manage to be consistent about staying off my toe pick on the backward spiral, this may not be the worst looking spiral sequence. Finally, I worked a bit on presentation and trying to be more graceful with my arms. I always feel like I'm forcing grace rather than letting it happen naturally. Maybe as I mature as a skater, I'll develop some of those natural movements but until then I feel like I look like I'm trying too hard.