Lesson today and I haven't practiced since my last lesson a week ago. I have, however, been running through the steps for the Hickory Hoedown so I'm not totally dumb when he asks about how it's coming along.
Free Dance Music - I had sent Christopher the music I was thinking of and, even though he said he liked it, he didn't seem inspired. Usually, we put the music on the rink speakers and he'll doodle around on the ice with some possible choreography. But with this music, he didn't seem like he loved it. Too much thinking and not enough doodling. When the music was over, he said he thought perhaps it was a bit slow and it didn't have a lot of excitement to it. It just didn't build, I guess. I think he's right. So, I told him about another song I was considering so we put that through the rink speakers and he.lit.up! All kinds of interesting doodling was happening! Yay! Final verdict: he loves this music and thinks it would be much better than what I had initially sent him. So yeah, new music!
Free Dance Elements - Which brings me to what will actually go in the program. He gave me a few things to work on - a knee slide, another twizzle with two rotations instead of 1.5, and a dance spin. The dance spin is what really surprised me today! He proposed a catch foot camel. Yikes! Since I've never attempted one before, he had me do some catch foot spirals to make sure I knew where to grab my skate (grabbing the heel works best) and once he was satisfied with that, he had me attempt the full thing. I got into my camel and reached back for my free foot and then pulled up and wow that was a ride! As soon as I got a grip on my skate and pulled up by flexing my back, the spin got faster! I wasn't ready for it to actually work! When I skated back to him he said "that was actually impressive!" So I guess this is my new dance spin! I'm sure I can flex my back more to make it prettier and I'll work on that on Wednesday but I'm just really excited that I was able to do it!
HickHoe - Since I know the steps now, we ran it with the music. Oof, I'm not ready to do this at speed yet, lol. So, we turned off the awful country music and just focused on the end pattern which needs the most work. The problem isn't the steps, it's the tracking. If I'm slightly off center from him, it makes it so much harder for him to do his 3 turn at the end of the pattern. I'm also struggling with the transition from Killian to Waltz hold at the start of the end pattern. These are things that I can only really work on with a partner. It felt fine practicing by myself and then Christopher comes along and I struggle. Sigh.
Ten Fox - We worked a little bit more on this. I asked him to go over back progressives since I'm sure I'm not really doing them correctly. Then we worked a bit on the end pattern with the damn outside mohawk. Ugh.
So yeah, lots of exciting things in the works. I bought a pretty lavender ice dance dress that was on sale for Black Friday that I can use for tests and comps and I'm brainstorming ideas for a free dance dress (I'm thinking of one of Brad Griffies' new designs in mallard and I'll stone it myself).
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