It's Still Not Low Enough!!!???

Lesson today! I started our lesson by asking Christopher his thoughts on me switching the first spin in my Silver FS to a sit spin. Of course he wanted to see it before he gave his answer so I reeled one off for him that I thought was lovely. It had speed, it had rotations, it felt really low. Alas. He said "If this were an IJS event I would say don't do it, it's not low enough. But since it's 6.0, go for it." I was like "It's not low?!" It certainly felt hella low. So he took video and yeah, it's lower than it's been in the past but it's not 90 degrees low. Damn. He gave me some tips on getting it lower. Basically, it's not so much an ankle thing as my ankle is bent enough to get to 90 degrees. Instead, I really just need to push my ass lower. He said working on single leg squats will help a lot (preferably with some TRX cables as an assist). 

Warm-up Practice - In preparation for Casper in a couple of weeks, Christopher wanted to see me do a full 4 minute warm-up as I would on competition day. So, I started with about two laps of stroking, backward power stroking, forward cross strokes, and backward power pulls. Then I did some spins and jumps in the order that I would do them in the program. Finally, the footwork sequence to round things out. That was exhausting and I hate skating with that kind of pressure. Since I was good and tired, he wanted me to immediately run my Silver Free Skate. 

Silver Free Skate - The speakers weren't working (why does this happen so frequently at every rink I skate at?!) so he had to follow me around as I skated with the music blasting from his iPad. I'm not gonna lie, it was really hard to hear some of the subtle musical cues I'm used to and I bet it was hard for other skaters to know that I was skating my program and to move out of my way. It was challenging but I got it done. It wasn't a bad program but I could definitely feel my soul leaving my body during the final 30 seconds where I'm doing six jumps and a spin. It was a little sloppy with the technique but I finished on time with the music. He immediately told me to take a lap (for endurance) and by the time I skated back to him I wanted to die. We spot checked some stuff and then moved on to the Free Dance.

Solo Free Dance - I was exhausted! But I skated anyway and got through it. 

I felt like he was pushing me extra hard today and I know it's to help with the stamina issues I've been having so I know it's going to help me in the long run but damn, I'm so freaking tired.