Go Figure

 Busy day on the ice today! I was worried that I would be sore since I did my weekly cardio sculpt Pilates class on Monday night and my previously torn calf muscle has been sore ever since. Maybe I pushed myself too hard and aggravated it? But today was a 1 out of 10 on the pain scale so I was feeling pretty good to go full out on my elements. 

Figurez - One of my adult skate friends caught me practicing my Circle 8 last week and suggested that I join her at a local weekly figures class at a different rink. I'll be competing my Circle 8 in March at the Cody Spring Classic so I could use some focused instruction on figures so I signed up. Besides, I've always wanted to try it. Coach Julie scribed my circles for me (since I'm a noob) and I warmed up with FO and FI circles before we dove into the lesson for today. She wanted all of us to work on a change edge and demonstrated what to do with our free leg and how to keep our arms. I spent the next 45 minutes doing RFO-RFI and LFO-LFI. Oddly, my bad leg was my better leg. Go figure. I was so focused on the outside edges that I never switched over to doing this on my inside edges. Oh well. It was a neat class and I'll go again. I can only go every other week because of my work schedule but I can definitely see how this is going to help my overall skating. 

Lessonz - My figures class was early in the morning so I had some time to go home, shower, and drink some coffee before heading to my home rink for my regular lesson in the afternoon. Christopher seemed pleased when I told him about the figures class. He agrees that it will benefit my skating. Yay for coach approval. I asked to work on just Preliminary Dances today since the test is in 3 weeks. We worked on some alignment issues with my shoulders but overall, these are looking really nice, especially my Rhythm Blues. I'm ready to kick some ass on this test!

24 Program Challenge (3/24) - After my lesson, I had some time to warm up my jumps and spins and put my music on to run my program. I think this was the best run through I've ever done! My camel spin got the revolutions and I was able to get into a really nice scratch spin to finish it before moving to my footwork. The final spin was lovely and I ended on time. As self-conscious as I am about everything when I run my program, forcing myself to do it no matter what is really helping with the consistency as well as the nerves. 

I booked my hotel for the Cody Spring Classic in Wyoming! It's a five minute drive from the rink I'll be competing at so it's super convenient. And, as an added bonus, I discovered that there is a public library right next to the rink. I can't wait to poke around in there. I've never been to a Wyoming library. But on the sad side, there isn't a stand-alone Starbucks in all of Cody. There's a Starbucks inside of the Albertson's but we all know that's not the same. Corporate Starbucks > Licensed Starbucks.