Getting There

 Lesson today! Since Fright Fest is coming up pretty soon, we spent the whole lesson looking at the flip jump and the camel and then with the rest of the time we had, I ran the whole program. 

Flipz - I have three years of bad habits with this jump and it's killing me! I really thought that once I got through the fear barrier with this it would be smooth sailing from then on. Oh, how wrong I was! Although I land the jump almost every single time, my entrances are a bit rushed and frantic. We worked on getting my entrance to the flip as good as my entrance to the half flip. It's getting there though. I'm not seeing the progress day-to-day but I know progress is happening. It's still really frustrating though. 

Camelz - I told Christopher that I feel like I am making noticeable progress on this so of course he wanted to see it. As much progress as I think I've made, there is still so much work to be done. Yeah, I'm getting an extra revolution, but my free leg is just below hip height so it's not exactly that perfect T position that I should be getting. He also changed my head position a bit on the windup. Overall, I'm getting it more times than not. I'm on the right path.

Programz - I ran the whole program and guess what? It was pretty good! My jumps landed and my spins spun. I even got some applause from Christopher when I was done! If I skate like this for Fright Fest. I think I'll do well. w00t!

Dancez - Lesson aside, I had some time to work on the Dutch Waltz. I have the pattern memorized and I feel like I'm skating it well enough. The problem is that I feel like I'm running out of rink at the end of the sequence particularly with the last two steps. I'm getting really close to the boards. An ice dancer friend of mine said that that's fine (yay for using ALL THE RINK!) but just make my swing rolls deeper and I won't be so crammed at the ends. Cool. I'm looking forward to Christopher looking at the progress I've made on this and I'm really excited to learn the Canasta Tango. I know this may be a little overambitious but it would be really cool if I could learn and test all three preliminary dances sometime after the new year and it would really really cool if I could get them up to snuff enough to maybe compete with them at Sectionals in March. I'm really diggin' my decision to learn ice dance. It's a nice change of pace and I can already see improvements in my edges, especially my forward cross strokes.