Hybrid Choreography

Practice this week was excellent. I feel like I've made a lot of progress on jumps, spins, and Free Dance choreography but not a lot on the new step sequence choreography for my Free Skate. 

Jumps - I've been working on the Flip-Euler-Salchow combo that Christopher had me try in our last lesson. It's not beautiful yet but I'm more comfortable with it. In fact, I think I got it to the point where I can put it my program and not have it be a total disaster so I changed my PPC for Cup of Colorado to add it in. Fingers crossed I don't mess it up. In my program run throughs, my muscle memory is so strong with the original 3-jump combo that I end up bungling the whole thing. However, when I'm intentional about it and remember that there is a change there, it works. The Flip-Loop combo at the end was nice and strong too. Also, my Flips in general have been pretty fantastic and, now that I can do them with proper technique, they are quickly becoming my second most favorite jump (my first love will always be Loop jump!). I had one Flip today that was so lofty! It just felt so damn good. Maybe someday, my Lutz will feel like that too. One can dream. 

Spins - Spins have been kind to me in practices. I am pleased with them. 

Free Dance - I'm getting better at skating this with speed. The music is so fast and I really need to meet my musical cues for max effect but I feel like I'm slowing everything down when I get to the catch-foot spiral. I'm counting in my head at least four seconds but it somehow feels like I need to rush it because four beats of the music is faster than four seconds (if that makes any sense). I have to consciously tell myself to hold the damn spiral twice as long as I think I need to. But anyway, the spiral is nice so maybe it's good to hold it. 

New Free Skate Step Sequence Choreography - Ugh. That pretty much sums it up. I have really tried with these toe steps but when I do them, I almost come to a full stop since I hesitate so hard. So, on Sunday, I spent way too much time figuring out what I can replace it with instead. I came up with a sort of hybrid between what Christopher gave me and what I am capable of doing but is still challenging. I basically took the toe steps out and replaced them with a RFO swing roll, change edge, RFI bracket. We'll see what he says about it. I'm not giving up on the toe steps as I still have them in my new Free Dance but they somehow feel more comfortable there than here.