Weed Skates

 Busy day today! My new skates are ready so I drove down to Littleton to pick those up and then it was up to Broomfield to pick up my Free Dance dress from the alterations place and then my lesson at 3:00pm. I'm pooped. 

New Skates! - Ok, they are BEAUTIFUL! However, they smell like marijuana. Like...a lot. I asked my fitter if he smelled it too and he confirmed that Risport boots just smell like weed for some reason. Maybe it's the material they use, I don't know. All I know is that it's potent. He warned me not to leave them in my car for too long because they will make my car small like pot. I would have a lot of explaining to do if I got pulled over. So yeah, I have weed skates. Appropriate for Colorado, lol. Anyway, he took me down to the ice for a "Meet your Rocker" session. These new blades have a 7 foot profile which will be a huge adjustment for me as I've only ever skated on an 8 foot profile. It's definitely different! He ran me through some exercises to get the feeling of how much to rock up for a jump. Then he had me skate back and forth for a bit down the blue line. They seem aligned pretty well as I didn't drift when I was doing some one foot glides. They are comfy and stable and, although it might take a bit for me to adjust to the new rocker, I think these are going to help improve my spins and turns. 

Dress - I picked up my Free Dance dress just in time for the Exhibition this coming Sunday and YAY it fits! She did an amazing job and it fits me perfectly now! I won't have time to stone it for Sunday so I'll skate "plain" but now I can order some pretty sparkly bits and make this dress really shine for the upcoming season!

Lesson - Today was all about Dance. He wanted to see a run through of the Free Dance. It was kind of a mess but considering I hadn't worked on it all week I'm not surprised. It will be fine for Sunday though. We worked a bit on the catch foot camel because that is still a struggle. He wants one rev in camel position before I reach back and, even if I can't grab it in time, still try to reach for the foot. Of course more expression. I started out with some and then 30 seconds in it was gone again. Alas. We worked a bit on the final knee pose thing and apparently I was doing the arm tornado too quickly because I was having a difficult time getting down on my knee. I kept rotating as I went down and that creates an unstable end pose. If I use the tornado as a moment to quiet things down a bit, the knee thing becomes easier. Next, I begged him to show me the Willow Waltz. It's the only one of the three Bronze Dances I haven't learned yet. I tried watching videos of solo willows and partnered willows but my brain was hurting. He showed it to me and I actually picked it up pretty quickly. It all made sense once I partnered it. It's actually not as difficult as the other two (the Ten Fox will be the death of me). So yay! I can start really digging in on all three Bronze Dances!