The Lesson of Scary Things

Happy Halloween! It's a scary day, so we worked on all of the things that scare me. How appropriate!

Power Circles - These are usually so difficult to practice during crowded sessions but there were only a few of us on the ice today so there was no reason not to do them. Forward counter-clockwise (my good side) had decent enough power but I tend to get to a certain part of the pattern and stay there without expanding it out. He gave me landmarks to shoot for and that helped. My problem seems to stem from the fact that once I reach my top speed (somewhere around the 8th-9th crossover), I stagnate because my feet don't know how to make bigger circles with more speed. Oddly, the other direction (clockwise - my bad side) was better in terms of size of pattern but slightly weaker in terms of speed and technique. That's frustrating. We moved on to the backward power circles. These always carry a risk of a sudden "click of death" moment. We started with my good side, backward counter-clockwise. He said he was pleased with the amount of power in my crossovers but he would like me to again focus on expanding the circles as I get faster. Finally, my bad side. Again, the pattern was better but the crossovers were weaker. I feel like I can't win. He did say they looked better than the last time he saw them so I know progress is being made even if it's slight. 

Brackets - FI and FO brackets are getting better but I've been avoiding backward brackets like the plague. He keeps saying he thinks these are easier than the forward brackets but I still don't believe him. We only worked on BO brackets but he noticed that I get very much on my heel during the turn and that may be the thing that is making these feel so scary. He gave me an exercise where I am at a standstill and try to turn from backward to forward on one foot to get a sense of where on the blade I need to turn. I was able to do it from a standstill just fine so something is happening in my head while I'm moving that makes me think that I need to work way harder than I need to in order to force the turn. I need more calm in my brackets, essentially. 

Ten Fox - We rounded out the lesson of scary things with my least favorite dance, the Ten Fox. This whole dance gives me anxiety. It's fast, the holds constantly change, and that damn mohawk on the end pattern gives me heart palpitations. We partnered it without the music and my heart rate was elevated the whole time. Out of all of the dances I've done with Christopher so far, this one in particular makes me feel like I'm going to trip him and take us both down. He told me to get used to it because I'm essentially going to encounter this again when I get to the next level and meet the Fourteenstep. Cool. Continued dread. 

It was a great lesson despite all the scary things. Sometimes I need him to push me to work on the things that make me uncomfortable. As much as I hate it while it's happening, I always feel good afterward that I confronted my fears :) 

Twirling

Sunday Practice - Today was Fright Fest and I'm here at the Y practicing instead of competing. I ran my Free Skate program and it was clean and I felt great doing it too. I know I did the right thing by not competing this time since it would have been difficult to tell how I would feel the day of but I'm having some serious FOMO about it. Sigh. Anyway, my practice went well. I'm making it around all of the time on my Backward Circle 8 so now I'm going for consistency, bigger circles, and stronger pushes. I worked on the rest of Gold Moves before moving on to Dance things. I ran my Free Dance (it was lovely) and then I worked on Willow Waltz and Hickory Hoedown (those are okay). I did not even think about the Ten Fox today. I'll work on it next time. I just really hate that mohawk in the end pattern. It feels like I'm going to die. 

Monday Lesson - I was working on camel spins when it was time for my lesson so that is what we started with. We even dabbled in some camel-sit combos which need a lot of work. Ew. Next up were backspins to get ready for Axels on the harness. I'm getting better at crossing my leg over in the backspin (although I get fewer rotations when I do) but my free leg is still too high. We worked on crossing at the ankles instead of up by my knee and man, things get speedy when I do. It's unsettling. After he was satisfied with my progress on these, I got strapped into the harness for some Axels. I'm landing them from a standstill but my snap is just not....snappy. That will come in time when my backspins improve, hopefully. Up until now, we have only been trying them from a standstill and I feel like I'm getting enough power into the jump so Christopher wanted me to try the step forward from a backwards edge. All my power? Gone. This feels totally different. Maybe I would need more speed which I'm sure I would get in the fishing pole harness but I'm not ready for that yet. Anyway, it's progress. There are so many moving parts that go into an Axel and it's not something you can go into lightly. You really have to throw yourself into it. I'm okay for now doing this on the harness but I know someday in the next year, I'm going to have to start doing this unassisted. Yikes. We moved on to Dance to round out the lesson. I've been working on the Willow Waltz so I requested that we take a look at that. You know, I really love this dance. It's so twirly and honestly makes me feel pretty (when I'm not panicking about taking that 3-turn at speed). We partnered it without the music, spot checked some things, and then partnered it with the music for the first time. It's speedy! Oh! And I forgot to mention, I was working on flip jumps in my warm up before my lesson and I did a weird thing that resulted in a right proper flip. Of course, because it was a fluke, I wasn't able to repeat it but I think it was a real flip! Christopher has me doing this exercise where I do 2-3 half flips in a row followed by a full flip. On one of the half flips, I picked in hard for the half but did a full flip instead. It had height and my free leg did the "h" position. So mad that I can't get myself to repeat it so I'm stuck with cheated flips until I can figure out how to will myself to get a proper one again. 

Back in the Harness Again

Sunday Practice - This was quite good, actually. I was able to divide my time equally between Gold Moves, Free Dance, and Free Skate. I worked a lot on Forward Brackets and Backward Circle 8 and feel like I'm steadily making progress with these. I touched on the Backward Power Circles (aka Snails) and finished up with some Double 3s (no progress this time). After moves, I ran both my Free Dance and my Free Skate and those are holding steady. My camels in both programs spun as they were supposed to so that was nice for once. I dabbled in some individual jumps, spins, and footwork to round out the hour. I worked hard to get as much done in one hour as I possibly could. 

Monday Lesson - Feeling like I have more energy lately so I did some off ice warm-up walks and even a six minute run. On the ice, I warmed up with a smattering of everything since I wasn't quite sure what Christopher wanted to work on today. When he got on the ice, we started with Forward Inside and Outside Brackets on the hockey circle. The turns are happening and they seem to be proper brackets so it was a lesson in getting my free leg and arms to work smarter not harder. I tend to whip the turn a bit causing some flailing with arms and free leg. With a little more knee bend, I'm better. Next up, Christopher surprised me and asked if I wanted to get in the harness for some Axels. I mean sure, I always do but I warned him that my Axel preps have been neglected these past few months while getting choreography for two programs under control. He strapped me in anyway and I did a few sloppy Axels (one of them was not entirely sloppy according to my husband). I need to get back to working on my backspin and doing the waltz-backspin exercises. I'm convinced a nice backspin will be the thing that brings this together for me. As of now, I'm landing it on the harness on one foot but because I'm not snapping into the backspin position in the air, it's looking sloppy and too open. Moving on, we had a little time left to work on Pattern Dances. I admitted that these have also taken some time off during the summer and that the only one I think I still remember is the Hickory Hoedown. So, of course, he wanted to work on the Willow Waltz. Sigh. We reviewed the steps and they came back to me enough that we were able to partner it without the music. It wasn't the worst but, yeah, I need to start working on Bronze Dances again. 

So, lots of work on the ice this week. I've been feeling pretty good lately so I'm trying to take advantage of this energy by packing in as much as I can before I'm benched. 

Super Early AM Lesson

I couldn't skate on Monday due to a library staff training day so we rescheduled for this morning at 6:15am. Ew. I don't mind skating in the morning but I haven't done a morning session at the Promenade since probably before the pandemic. 

I had a brief warm up on ice before my lesson started and I tried to fit in as much as I could including Gold Moves, jumps, spins, and footwork. I didn't get very far before Christopher got on the ice. It's a 45 minute session and I usually do a 40 minute lesson. Luckily, he was smidge late so I was able to fit the warm-up in.  

Lesson - We started with the Backward Circle 8. Ok, here's the thing...it's been a year of working on this and I'm finally making it around on all of the circles. My arms are flail-y and the circles are small but I'm doing it. Now, I need more power in my pushes (they get progressively weaker with each push) and I need to expand my circles. So, we spent some time working on those two things specifically. My first circle is my strongest so if I can get a really strong push there, the momentum from that might help carry me through the weaker pushes. Next up were spins. Still working on the entry to my camel to keep my chest up and my left arm in the lead. I also need to work on leading with the left shoulder as well. When I do this, things look a lot better. We dabbled in some sit spins. Same thing - lead with the left and really focus on the entry edge. I had one really nice one so we moved on from there. Flips and Lutzs were on the menu this morning. Lots of time with these but not sure if improvement was made. These will forever be a headache for me. 

Janet Champion Spin Clinic - Our club is hosting Janet Champion once more, this time for a spin clinic. Eight hours of spins. Woot! I signed up right away. 

Fort Collins Fright Fest - It's not in the cards for me this year. I hemmed. I hawed. I ultimately decided that as much I love the medals from this particular competition, I don't want to push myself to make it happen when I'm still trying to take it easy. I just don't want the pressure right now. I probably shouldn't be doing the spin clinic either but I NEED help with my spins. A trip to the ER a couple of weeks ago and a doctor's follow up visit last week showed the cause of my back problems and, although it wasn't what I expected, it's not entirely surprising. I'm scheduled for surgery soon and recovery from that will take me off the ice for the rest of the year. In the meantime, I do what I can and rest in between. Sigh. 

Smells like Team Spirit

Another week went by without practice. The back issues turned into something else entirely so I've been taking it easy so as not to further aggravate things. I skipped last Monday's lesson to rest but I felt well enough today for a lesson so to the rink I went! 

Team Spirit - When Christopher got on the ice he asked why I didn't go to our club banquet yesterday evening. I went last year and it was wonderful but, again, resting took top priority. He said it was a shame I didn't go because he put my name in for the Team Spirit Award. This award is given to a club member who always cheers for others and encourages others to do their best. I'm always cheering for my competition or anyone who takes the ice. It's a hard sport and cheers help. It was super sweet of him to nominate me. Alas, my club has this weird rule that if you don't attend the banquet to receive your award, you just don't get it. Drats. That's fine. I'm honored that Christopher nominated me :) 

Lesson - We started the lesson with some clean up work on the Flip and Lutz. After awhile, they started to look better, but only slightly. We moved on to camels and sits. I still have the bad habit of scooping down and up into the camel. If I just keep my head and chest up and don't swing my left arm, I get a better spin. Bad habits are hard to break. He surprised me by asking to see my sit spins so I reeled one off for him that felt really good. He challenged me to do another one and force myself to go even lower. I did the best sit spin I think I've ever done. It felt like my ass was on the ice. Neat! But when I skated back to him he said he thinks I can go even lower! Aghghghg. Like, that felt pretty damn low. Finally, we worked on Brackets. FI brackets are still my strongest but the progress I made on the FO ones disappeared over the week of no practice. So we spent some time on those and then took them to the pattern (were I immediately ate shit on the first LFO bracket I did). Sigh. But hey, a month or so ago I was too afraid to do them away from the wall so this is progress regardless. 

Even though I was off the ice for a week, my husband said this is the strongest I've skated during a lesson in a while. Maybe resting has benefits.