Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

 Lesson today! I told Christopher that I registered for Cup of Colorado and wanted to pick his brain about spin and jump changes. 

Spins - I told him that I wanted to do a Camel-Scratch combo for my first spin and an Attitude spin for my final spin. He asked to see both and I performed them well enough that he didn't ask to see more, he just gave his blessing for the change. Yay!

Jumps - I told him I wanted to switch my 3-jump combo to a Flip-Loop-Toe Loop since my Flip-Loop was pretty strong. That backfired! He suggested changing my last combo to a Flip-Loop (yay!) but then that puts me over my Loop jump quota so he wants me to do a Flip-Euler-Salchow for my 3-jump combo. NOOOOO! I hate the Euler! Even when it's done correctly, it's one of those jumps that just looks like a mistake. It's a "Wrong Loop." Ugh. But he wanted me to try it so I did. Most of my problem is I can't not think of a Loop while doing it so I end up landing it like a Loop. When I make a conscious effort to land on the left leg instead of the right, it works. But damn, I shouldn't have to think that hard on this jump. It just feels so unnatural. I promised him I would work on it as a potential combo. 

Footwork - He asked to see my Choreographic Step Sequence so I reeled it off for him. It was nice but he wants to change it to add some more difficulty. The beginning of the step sequence is admittedly sort of boring with just a couple of back crossovers and some pretty arms so he added some elements to the beginning part only. When I exit my Camel combo, I push under, do some clockwise toe steps, one back crossover with pretty arms, step forward into a Waltz 3, step forward again into a short Attitude glide, then pick up my choreography from the Ina Bauer and continue as usual. All of this stuff fits into the space that the previous two back crossovers were so it's...a lot in a short amount of time. It's not un-doable, I just have to rewire my brain to do the new stuff since I've been doing it the same way for the past year. 

After all of this, we didn't have time to run the program with the changes or work on new choreography for the Free Dance. This was enough. I have a lot of homework to do!