Sunday, April 18, 2021

"It's fun to skate at the YMCA"

 I've been looking for ways to get my practice time in and one of my unicorn sisters gave me the "super secret" freestyle schedule at the YMCA. I say super secret only because it's not published on their website and you don't register ahead of time. I guess it's just a thing select people who regularly skate there know about? Anyway, they have a Sunday session that is 2 hours for $12 so I went! It was amazing! I only stayed for an hour and a half but I got so much work done because there was hardly anyone there!

Movez - I spent so much time on Silver MIF because I had lots of room to practice things without people getting in my patterns! I made some real headway on my 3 Turn patterns. I practiced each one until I could do it without a foot down. It took a while but I finally did all of them without a foot down! It's not consistent but at least it happened and that gives me hope. The next troublemaker is the 8 Step Mohawk pattern. I did several trying to get a better cadence while still maintaining the proper shape of the pattern. I can't say it's perfect as one side is still clearly stronger than the other but I feel like I'm a little more confident with the increased speed. I worked on the spirals, power pulls, and cross strokes as well. Nothing special to report but they got done. 

Spinz - Lots of centered spins today! Woot! I spent extra time working on the layback and the camel-sit combo. I really want to lean back more on the layback but when I push my body to do it, I lose my center and I almost fall out of it. I think this is something that may just take time. And speed! 

Jumpz - I did all of my jumps but paid extra attention to the ones that will be included in the program. For the lutz, I started with the half lutz to get the feeling of the entry and the speed I will need. When I did the fully rotated lutz, things got wonky. I tend to practically stop right before the jump instead of going in with speed. This is a fear response I think. This may resolve itself with practice and time. For now, it rotates but it's ugly and I'm not entirely confident that I'm on the outside edge. I did a couple where I attached the toe loop to it but I can't say it was pretty, lol. Moving on, I made some progress on the salchow-loop-toe loop! I took a video and, when I watched it, it looks a little flaily so I need to pay attention to my arms with this. But I'm getting more consistent with the landings!

Dancez - I was going to use the last half hour of my two hour session for dance but honestly, I was pooped. I just wanted to take my skates off and get coffee. This would have been a great opportunity to make some progress on my dances since the session was so empty but, alas. Coffee was the priority. 

So, yeah. I think I have things mostly figured out now. I'll skate Sundays at the Y, Monday will be my double lesson with Christopher at the Promenade, and I'll choose a mid-week 6am session at APEX to round out the week. It's a lot of driving and it's not ideal but it's what I have to do since my home rink is prioritizing hockey over figure skating (and don't even get me started on the other sketchy things that are happening at my rink! I'm seriously considering switching clubs as well but that's a blog post for another time). 

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