Strugglez

Practice at Apex this morning. With the dance test prep and the holidays, I really haven't had a full-on practice in a couple of weeks. I really felt out of sorts today because of it. 

Moves - I worked on the forward double 3s for a bit (both sides) and those are about where I left them. The turns are happening but the lobes are small and shallow and I'm sure I'm not placing the turns correctly. I dabbled in some FI brackets as well. These seem to have gotten worse. I feel like I'm back at the beginning with these. I didn't do the FO brackets or any backward brackets. I worked a bit on the backward circle 8. Oddly, this seems to have improved a bit? Weird. The bad side (LBO) was actually really nice and controlled today. I think some time off from it did some good. Now, if I can keep it that nice. 

Jumps - I ran through all of them (except lutz) and they are the same as they always are. Nothing extraordinary. 

Spins - I was having a difficult time centering today for some reason. They weren't wild or anything but they weren't as nicely centered as they usually are. I did a lot of scratch spins, some change foot upright spins, and some camels but the bulk of my efforts were focused on the catch foot camel. I attempted about 6-7 of these but only 1 was decent. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my free arm. I want to hold it across my chest but that's throwing me off center for some reason. Maybe I just need to work on it some more. 

Pattern Dance - I ran through the HickHoe slowly to make sure my chasses are proper and that I'm curving enough on the end pattern. This feels comfortable at a slower speed so I'm going to hang out here for a bit until I'm confident enough to do it at tempo. I dabbled in some Ten Fox but I forgot a couple of steps in the end pattern. However! I didn't struggle as much on the progressives and outside mohawk. I know I still need to work on bringing my feet together right away after the mohawk. I'm just happy I'm doing the mohawk at all right now. I spent some time on the line working on backward progressives to make sure I'm getting the proper push from both feet instead of the non-push I was doing before. 

Free Dance - I already worked on the catch foot camel so I spent my time focusing on the twizzles and the knee slide. Spoiler alert: I wasn't able to get either to happen (*sad trombone*). With the knee slide, I feel like I'm making it down to the ice just fine and then the turn happens and I can no longer control it so I end up on my ass. I feel like maybe I'm too old for a knee slide but I know that excuse won't work with Christopher. He's my age and he can do it just fine. The twizzle is weird too. I can do a single twizzle on both sides easily enough but when I add more rotations, it gets spinny. It's frustrating because I've been doing a 1.5 rev twizzle in my free skate but it's not proper. It's hard to break that habit. I'm excited about a free dance but it's not as...loose as my free skate. It's going to need to be very precise and technically correct. It will be a nice challenge for me and it will improve my skills so I'm all about it.