Monday, March 8, 2021

Dumbing it Down

 The Cody competition is next week and I don't think I've ever felt as unprepared for a competition as I do right now. This is mostly because we just finished the choreography for the Canasta during our last lesson so I only have a period of two weeks to perfect the routines. Ugh. 

When I'm running the dance programs at home, everything is perfect and I'm hitting my marks. I even have some sassy expressions. But man, that just does not completely translate to the ice. All expression is gone and I'm fighting to get my arms to coordinate with what my lower half is doing. I also discovered that the ending that Christopher gave me for the Canasta is pretty much impossible for me. When he taught it to me last week, we were doing it slowly so I could get the choreography. Then, the session was over so I couldn't practice it at speed that same day. Doing it on the floor was fine but when I tried it at speed during today's practice, I almost died! The Canasta is pretty speedy so coming out of the pattern at full speed and going right into an Ina Bauer (on my bad side no less!) into a pivot and final pose is terrifying. I made a mental note to ask him to dumb it down for me when we had our lesson. 

24 Program Challenge (15/24) - All was well but I need to vent for a bit. There are some really small skaters on the ice almost every time I practice. Three kids in particular that basically spend their time playing together instead of actually practicing. I'm pretty good about staying out of their way but when I'm running my program I don't have that luxury. One girl saw me get in my starting position and decided that was where she was going to put her spin. So, when I did my little turn around at the beginning of my routine, I almost ran in to her. I almost ran into her again during the wind up to my final scratch spin. This is not the only time this has happened with these kids. They have absolutely no consideration for anyone else on the ice. I know Christopher has already spoken to their parents about their behavior, but there hasn't been a change. It's dangerous, actually. Not to mention I haven't had a clean run-through of my program in like two weeks because I keep having to abort elements to not run into them. Again, this is another reason why I feel utterly unprepared for my competition next week. I just want one run through where I can focus on my program instead of where these kids are. Sigh. Venting over. 

Lesson - We spent the first half of the lesson working on the flip jump. I made some minimal progress in regards to not forcing the rotation but it's still happening. I really hope one day I'll just have that aha moment and the technique will be good. Alas. The second half of the lesson was spent on changing the ending to the Canasta. Instead of the Ina, I'll be going into a lovely attitude spiral into some sort of pretty glide into the final pose. So much better! If I had more time, I would have stuck with the original choreography and just learned how to get it up to speed but I have 9 days. NINE! Yikes!

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