Warm-up Practicez - I moved over to where the entry door would be at the rink in Monument and "entered" the ice for my four minute warm up. Everything went well but I feel like I don't have enough time to fit everything in. Four minutes was up and I forgot to do jump combos. I'll make sure I get everything in tomorrow (plus Christopher will be at the boards to remind me if I forget stuff). My spins were really nice and I wanted to stop and admire the tracings on the ice but I was under a time crunch. Alas. So, I'm not going to fret about my choreographed warm up. It's just a plan so I don't forget but if I do happen to forget a thing it won't be the end of the world.
Trouble Spotz - I worked on trouble spots for both programs starting with the BI 3 turns from my compulsory moves routine. My turns are typically executed well when I remember to turn my head along with my torso so I need to make a mental effort to remind myself of that when I perform this, otherwise I'm looking in the opposite direction and the turn becomes forced. I did a few passes of these before running the whole thing. Moving on to the free skate program, my biggest trouble spot is that opening jump combo (toe loop-loop) so I did that several times to reinforce the feeling of getting it right. I feel like if I can land this combo right from the beginning, the rest of the program will go well. I worked a bit on the footwork sequence trying to get that a bit more smooth but was stumbling through the twizzle for some reason. It's never really been a problem before but today they felt erratic. Finally, I worked on the stag jump. During my lesson, Christopher pointed out that I've been replacing the stag jump with a half-flip. Yeah, I guess I have without even realizing it. Hrmm! If I perform a half-flip, that's actually a problem because then I have gone over the maximum of 4 allowable jumps. A stag jump won't count as a jump but the half-flip will and I guess that would be a deduction. Looking back at the video from sectionals, I totally replaced the stag with the half flip. Ooops! So I worked on the stag jump today and man it's uncomfortable. I'm more like a broke down mule than an elegant stag. It will have to do. I can't practice it anymore between now and tomorrow. What I have is what I have. The other option is to leave it out entirely but then that will mess with the timing of my music and there is just no time to be working on rearranging things the day before competition.
So, am I ready for tomorrow? Not really. But then I think if you ask any skater this question they would say the same. There is always something that needs work. I'm not as excited about this competition as I was last year but I'm not nervous either. I guess I'm more apathetic than anything and it has me questioning if I should be competing anymore after this (for a while, not forever). Or maybe it's just this program. I don't love it anymore. Sure, the music is fun and the choreography is lovely but I feel like I want to slow down and work more on presentation, edges, beautiful lines...something that a slower program might allow me to do. I told Christopher that after this weekend is over, I really want to spend more time on Silver Moves. I don't know what it is, but working on Moves really calms me. I think I need that back for a bit before I do another competition. Although Moves are difficult, there is a certain ease about them that I love, namely the fact that I'm not trying to fit things into a certain time frame or I need to keep up with the music. Perhaps that's why I'm struggling with my free skate program. It's just a race to keep up and how can I focus on technique if I'm always rushing to the next thing?
I'm not having my husband record my events tomorrow (he's on tossie duty anyway). I just want to go out there and skate and hopefully shine. If I do well, I can always buy the professional video. I'll post about how it all went after the weekend is over.
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