Ten Fox Fail

I didn't skate this morning because the roads were too icy to risk getting into an accident over skating. But I did skate yesterday and tried my hand at attempting the Ten Fox with the music. It wasn't pretty, lol.

Dance - I started with the Hickory Hoedown and that was feeling pretty good (at least it feels good when I skate it solo). I was on beat and I felt capable. Yay! So, I moved on to working on the Ten Fox. That was also feeling pretty good so I decided now would be a good time to try to run it with the music. Spoiler alert: it was not a good time! I got halfway through the pattern and I had to nope myself right out of it. I'm just really not ready to do this at speed yet and it's heckin speedy! So I felt a little defeated. Sigh. 

The 12 Program Challenge (3/12) - I ran my program and it was going well until I missed a couple of beats coming out of my camel. The second half of the program felt really rushed as a result. The problem, I've discovered, is the scratch spin coming out of the camel. It's usually really centered and so I hang on to it longer than I should. So yeah, I should just not do that, right? It's not that easy. It gets speedy and I'm having a difficult time stopping it facing the right way. So, I've been playing around with that fun catch foot camel into the upright catch foot thingy and if I can make that work, that might be a good solution. I have a few weeks until Casper so I'll keep playing around with it some more. 

In other news, I got my blades sharpened and, while I was there, I had a discussion with my fitter about new boots soon. Although, I've had my eyes on the Jackson Elite, he highly suggested the new Jackson Synergy boot. I've never even seen this boot before (and honestly, it's kind of ugly) but I polled the greater hive mind (aka the U.S. Competitive Adult Figure Skaters group on Facebook) and I'm hearing some great things. Here is what I have learned:

• The U-shaped throat is way more forgiving on your ankles (yay, I have ankle issues so that's nice)
  
• The Synergy has amazing heat moldability. 
• It has great flexion, meaning  you can bend in the boot really well right out of the box yet it still feels supportive.
• It comes with insoles already that will correct various degrees of pronation.  
• It's slightly lower cut than my Premieres (great for dance)
  
• They offer different degrees of stiffness - 65, 75, or 95. 
  
• Break-in time isn't as bad as for the Elite.
  
• According to one person "the fit is INSANE"

So, if I can get past the ugliness of the boot, this really might be a good option for me. I trust my fitter and he thinks that with the amount of time I skate and how hard I am on my current boots, this is a nice step up for me. But dang...they are ghastly to look at.