It's a holiday weekend and because of that, there are no sessions at the Promenade so no lesson this week. I took this opportunity to get some meaningful work done at other rinks. I'm testing next week (!!!) and just got my schedule. Looks like I'm in front of the judges at 10:30am and I'm in the last group of the day. ALSO! Unicorn Sister Katherine is testing her Gold Moves so I get to be there to cheer her on. I'm so excited for her!
Practice at the Y - This was busier than usual. I'm not sure if it was because of the holiday and people have more time or if it was because of the Promenade not offering sessions. Either way, it was a bit crowded. At least everyone was respectful of space and made way for programs. I ran my Free Dance first and did really well. It's as ready as it can be. I'm just excited to be done with it. I cooled down for 10 minutes and then ran the Free Skate. Outside of my Flip jumps being wonky because I'm rebuilding them, it was actually a nice program. So yeah, the Flip jump. I have basically broken the jump so I can start from scratch and build it back the right way with proper technique. This has been so tough, ya'll. The jump feels so different now and I'm not sure if it's because it's finally correct or if I'm just doing it even worse than before. I feel like most of the time, it feels good but then I put it in a combo and I slip right back into bad habits. It's the same thing with my Toe Loop. On it's own, I can get a good one that isn't waltz'd but then in combo, it's a mess again. Bad habits are really hard to break. I finished up my practice working on Gold Moves. At this point, progress is so minimal but I can see it poke its head out every now and then. For instance, my Backward Circle 8 gets around almost every time now and I was able to do a whole pattern of LFO-LBI double 3s without a foot down. All of those skaters who told me that Gold is easier than Silver are liars, lol. Gold is humbling me.
Practice at APEX - Ahhh, home ice. I love it here! I just really haven't been spending a lot of time here lately because of all of the construction. It's a real pain in the ass to get there and back but since it was a holiday, at least traffic wasn't too bad. The ice was so nice! And I was sharing it with only one other skater. I ran my Free Dance, Free Skate, Cha Cha, and Hickory. I also worked on the entirety of my Gold Moves since I had so much room. I saw some improvement with the Power Circles! I think I'm starting to get the knack of the whole increase-the-size-while-increasing-the-speed thing. It's not perfect yet but it feels better than it has been. Overall, practice here was nice and it was good to skate on test ice before the 8th hits. Looks like they did some upgrades since I was last there. They improved the sound system, I think, and the lighting is different. It's a lot brighter which is nice but it's that white light that gives you a headache after an hour. Sigh.
I also did a good Bosu workout this morning for 30 minutes. I got the Bosu Ball a month or so ago and haven't really been using it but I'm going to start incorporating these workouts in with skating and Pilates to see how it goes. It's definitely challenging and so very versatile. Today, I just did some planking, bridges, and core balance type stuff but that was enough for me to break a sweat.
So yeah, getting ready for test day and then before I know it competition season will start up again. Ahghghg.
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