Anxiety Happens

Double skate day!

Morning Practice - Yay! This was a really productive practice (it helps when you have the ice all to yourself!). I was able to run my Free Skate, Free Dance, Compulsory Moves, and Swing Dance several times and then really spend some time on spot checking problem areas. I dedicated about 15 minutes to Moves, which I know is not a lot but I have this competition coming up in two weeks and I really need to make sure I'm ready for that. But, in terms of Gold Moves, I worked on everything except brackets. I feel like I have really improved on my Backward Circle 8 but made a mental note to have Christopher take a look during our lesson. The outside circles feel like they are mostly controlled and I'm coming back to center but the inside circles are wild with the arms and not consistently coming back to center. They need a lot of help! But I do love how I am noticing progress with this every time I skate it. 

Afternoon lesson - We started with the backward Circle 8 per my request and we discovered I'm just really not setting myself up correctly for the inside pushes. For the first inside push, I need to initiate the push just before I get back to center so I'm not creating an additional subcurve outside of the circle. It's not pretty but at least I'm making it around the circle. Now, for the second inside circle, the push is super wonky. I'm definitely creating a huge subcurve, and that is affecting my ability to return to center. I'm coming up short about two feet which just so happens to be the size of the subcurve. If I can get rid of the subcurve, I'll be able to get back to center. I just feel like I'm so close on this move. It's almost there! We moved on to the Double 3 Turns which are still not great but I think they have improved (maybe by 5% but improvement is improvement!). Finally, we ran my Free Skate. Of course the Lutz-Toe combo was wonky as it always is so we spent some time trying to clean it up. The rest of the program wasn't too bad. He gave me some minor corrections (hold the landing of my loop a bit longer and hold my final spin longer too). I think I'm in a good place for the competition coming up. 

Anxiety - I have it. That's no secret. But lately, I've been really beating myself up over my skating. I'm making progress on things but it's barely noticeable. I'm always worried about whether or not I'm disappointing my coach. Things like my Flip and Lutz jumps for example. It's been years. YEARS! And I still can't get the hang of these jumps. I know Christopher has the patience of a saint but sometimes I'm frustrated that I still can't get my body to do the thing. I'm sure he's got to be frustrated too. He gives me corrections and I try my best but I still just can't do the thing. Anyway, I'm just venting and spending too much time in my own head. Again.