Normally, Christopher and I have our lessons on Saturday mornings but he needs to finish up choreography for a Novice level skater on Saturday so he asked if I could fit him in my schedule elsewhere this week. I suggested Friday because I haven't been on the ice much with the holidays and that would give me an extra day to prepare but he suggested today instead. Yikes! That means I am having a lesson today without having practiced at all since our last lesson. I told him if he doesn't mind a hot mess, we can do Wednesday. Sigh. So, here we are...
Spinz - Luckily, he waited until the end of the one-hour session to do our lesson and that gave me some time to squeeze in some last minute practice. When he got on the ice, I was working on the dreaded backspin. I'm definitely getting the rotations so he determined that the whole leg-crossing inability is all in my head. Well, yeah. So we worked on it a bit and after awhile I was able to eek out a little over one rotation with the leg crossed. I hate this spin.
Jumpz - Moving on, we got right to work on jumps starting with the toe loop. Icky at first but got better as we worked on it some. Salchow is still spinny but with holding the 3-turn longer (and flatter) and checking my arms, it improved. I should be practicing this from just a forward 3-turn instead of doing it from the back crossovers. This will force me to slow it down some and focus on flattening the 3-turn. I can always add the crossovers later. Then he wanted to see my salchow-loop (!) and it was meh. It's been a while since I did one so I had a couple where I forgot to keep the freeleg in front for the loop. Oops. Loop jumps were next and we didn't spend too much time on these so I'm guessing they are the least awful of my jumps.
Movez - We started with the eight-step mohawks and spent some quality time working on my bad side outside mohawk. He gave me an exercise where I do the outside mohawk, cross, step forward over and over again in a circle. Basically, I just need to keep doing it until it's right. We put the whole pattern together (difficult considering other skaters were running their programs and this move takes up a LOT of space) and it was rough. Like, really rough. And I keep messing up the step forward on the final step. We worked on some forward and backward cross strokes and he commented on how the backward strokes have improved (amazing since I haven't practiced them since our last lesson!).
Programz - Lastly, he asked if I had any ideas for a new Bronze Free Skate. I wanted to show him the dress first before I told him the name of the song. He likes the dress and the concept of the music (and, you know, since he's choreographing the thing his opinion matters most). I sent him the music once I got home and hopefully after hearing it, he's on board with the theme. I'm not announcing anything yet (and probably won't for a while) but I will say that I like skating to music that feels empowering, whether it's inspired by a strong character from a book or movie or just the overall tone of the piece. I spent so much of my life not feeling strong or capable and now that I finally feel that way, I want to express it. This music has an overall message of not letting someone take/maintain control over your emotions and self-esteem. It's about reclaiming yourself and knowing you have the strength to get rid of toxic people (inspired by actual people I'm super thankful to be rid of). It's a very "in your face" kind of piece and it's totally badass. I hope coach thinks so too :)
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