Called out

 Lesson today and man, I wasn't feeling it. I was in a mood and my ankle decided that today was the day it was going to hurt whenever I did just about anything. But, as always, Christopher noticed. He noticed that I was hiding pain and he noticed that I didn't do the end pose he gave me for my program (more on that in a bit). 

We got right to work with the most glaring mistakes in the video I sent him of me doing my program - my terrible technique on the Lutz jump and the step sequence not taking up enough space. With the step sequence, I just need to push harder and have a little more power. That's not something that I can learn in just one lesson. I have to really work on it each time I skate. So I promised I will. After working on it a bit during our lesson, he said I was able to get an extra five feet. Not much but it's something. I'm at least getting half a rink's worth of movement which meets the requirements so there's that. Next up, the Lutz. This is where things really got dicey with my ankle and he called me out on it. He asked if my ankle was hurting so I had to admit that it was. Sigh. We worked on it for about 10 more minutes and not a lot of progress was made (I thought). He wants me to really work on the timing of the jump more than the pick and vault (although that needs hella work too but one thing at a time, I suppose). 

He had me run the program from the beginning of the step sequence until the end and when I was finished and skated up to him, he called me out on the end pose that I took upon myself to change hoping he wouldn't notice. Well, he did notice. And then we worked on getting the ending that I should be doing instead. Nothing gets past him and he won't let me take any short cuts. So, fancy ending it is!

Next up were Moves. We only looked at the 3 turns and the 8 Step, which is great because those need the most work. My FO-BI on my good side have bigger lobes than the turns on my bad side so I need to even both sides out to make the whole move look right. With my FI-BO turns, it's a different problem. There really isn't a good side vs. bad side. It's more like big lobes vs. small lobes on everything. The FI turns are huge but the BO turns are not. So, if I shallow out the FI turns that will make the whole move a bit more visually pleasing. 

I feel like I was a Debby Downer throughout the entirety of my lesson. I just had a lot on my mind and my body was hurting. Honestly, it's just one of those days where I want to be curled up with a book and escape for a bit. I didn't want to tell him I was a mess physically and mentally because I really don't want him to think I'm making excuses for anything. But clearly, I'm not good at hiding things either. I'll be better for next week. 

Oh, before I forget: 

The 27 Program Challenge (4/27) - I did my session at the Y on Sunday and got a lot done. I ran my program but bailed on the Lutz. Other than that, it was okay and I ended on time with the music.