Battered and Bruised

 Lesson today and we worked on more choreography for the Free Dance and more Axels (that's where the title of this post comes in). 

Free Dance - We are about 50% done with choreography now! There are four required elements for the Adult Juvenile Solo Free Dance (a short edge element not to exceed 7 seconds, a dance spin, a step sequence, and twizzles). So far we just have the short edge element worked into the choreography. I'll be doing a backward catch foot spiral. It's all very beautiful but I'm still not comfortable yet with the timing of the movement and I definitely need to work on expression. So much to think about!

Axels - We spent the second half of the lesson working on Axels and I was able to get a couple more landed in the harness. I'm still having a problem with the snap. I'm spending so much of my energy just trying to stay relatively upright that I can't focus on the snap of the jump. I'm getting my leg crossed over but I'm struggling to get that last 1/4 rotation because it's not crossed at the ankles - it's crossed higher up by my knee. There are so many moving parts to this jump! Christopher seemed pleased with the progress I made from last week to this week. My goal was "Axel by 50" but I think I might get it sometime in the next year or two. I had a couple of bad landings (one of which was on my right knee) and I'm bruised as a result. And this is WITH the harness. Imagine how destroyed I'll be once I'm ready to do them on my own. I see lots of padding in my future.