Dancing!

 Lesson today and during my practice before the lesson I did camel after camel after camel. They felt really good today and I was able to repeat some of the success I had when I worked with Coach Katie on these over the weekend. Because I was camel'd out, Christopher suggested learning some ice dance today! Yay!

Dutch Waltz - We began with some basic dance prep for the Dutch Waltz. He had me do some swing rolls, progressives, and get the feeling of the up-down movement on a circle. Once he was satisfied with my progress on these basic movements, he taught me the steps to the Dutch Waltz. I actually did alright! Not gonna lie, I feel pretty comfortable with dance. I grew up as a musician so counting beats is familiar territory for me and I like that I can add movement to the counts. It's all very prescribed and predictable. When you have anxiety as badly as I do, knowing what will happen and when feels very safe. 

He suggested that I download the USFSA Dance app to study when I'm not on the ice. I already have the USFSA Free Skate 1-6 app and I still refer to it periodically when I need a more detailed description of things so I know that the Dance app will be helpful as well. I downloaded it as soon as I got home and OMG, YES! I love it! It only has the first 6 dances but I really like how it breaks down each movement for each dance and has video demonstrations. It also has the pattern diagrams and five variations of cheesy music to select for each dance. It was $2.99 in the app store and well worth it for what you get. Highly recommend. 

I told Christopher that I'm serious about wanting to eventually test in Ice Dance and he thinks this will help my overall skating so he's on board with it. It helps that I have a coach who does it all (he's a triple Gold Medalist in Moves, Free Skate, and Dance) so I don't need to go to anyone else to learn this stuff. 

I'm already looking at dresses for testing!