Choreography: Day 1

Christopher cut my new Freeskate music so we were ready to officially begin choreography! Woot! Up until now, I have just been working on individual elements that are going into the program but I didn't have anything choreographic to practice. 

We only got through the first 20-30 seconds because learning choreography is so hard for me. Once I have it learned, it's easy peasy, but the process of watching him do a beautiful movement and then trying to replicate it myself causes me anxiety.

He gave me a really pretty starting pose and steps leading up to the first jump combo which will be the salchow-loop-toe loop and then about 5 seconds of pretty movements coming out of the jump combo. Although I've been working on this new jump combo, it's still pretty inconsistent and, now that I'm doing it at speed in the program, I'm struggling. I manage to land it well enough when I'm able to take my time with it but putting it in a program makes me feel rushed. I guess I'm just going to have to "get good", lol. 

Usually, when I'm learning choreography, I ask Christopher if I can take a video of him doing it because it helps to see what it's supposed to look like versus what I make of it. He said "no" this time (*gasp*)! He said I'm at the point where I'm capable of doing the choreography and I really should be taking videos of myself doing it and learning from that. He's right. So, he shot video of me doing the opening choreography and it looks roughly like it should (yay). I need to trust myself more. And this is one of the many reasons why I appreciate my coach - he lets me lean on crutches when I need to but when he knows I'm capable of doing it on my own, he pushes me out of my comfort zone to do it. Here is the link to the video. I botched the jump combo and couldn't get that third jump in but this is just a start. I have room to grow with this. Also, this is not my program music but I somehow skated the choreography in time to it anyway. Neat. 

In our last few minutes, we worked more on the layback spin. He wants me to start arching my back more instead of just looking up. That's pretty scary, but then all of skating is pretty scary, isn't it? You just move from one scary thing to the next scary thing. Sigh. 

"It's fun to skate at the YMCA"

 I've been looking for ways to get my practice time in and one of my unicorn sisters gave me the "super secret" freestyle schedule at the YMCA. I say super secret only because it's not published on their website and you don't register ahead of time. I guess it's just a thing select people who regularly skate there know about? Anyway, they have a Sunday session that is 2 hours for $12 so I went! It was amazing! I only stayed for an hour and a half but I got so much work done because there was hardly anyone there!

Movez - I spent so much time on Silver MIF because I had lots of room to practice things without people getting in my patterns! I made some real headway on my 3 Turn patterns. I practiced each one until I could do it without a foot down. It took a while but I finally did all of them without a foot down! It's not consistent but at least it happened and that gives me hope. The next troublemaker is the 8 Step Mohawk pattern. I did several trying to get a better cadence while still maintaining the proper shape of the pattern. I can't say it's perfect as one side is still clearly stronger than the other but I feel like I'm a little more confident with the increased speed. I worked on the spirals, power pulls, and cross strokes as well. Nothing special to report but they got done. 

Spinz - Lots of centered spins today! Woot! I spent extra time working on the layback and the camel-sit combo. I really want to lean back more on the layback but when I push my body to do it, I lose my center and I almost fall out of it. I think this is something that may just take time. And speed! 

Jumpz - I did all of my jumps but paid extra attention to the ones that will be included in the program. For the lutz, I started with the half lutz to get the feeling of the entry and the speed I will need. When I did the fully rotated lutz, things got wonky. I tend to practically stop right before the jump instead of going in with speed. This is a fear response I think. This may resolve itself with practice and time. For now, it rotates but it's ugly and I'm not entirely confident that I'm on the outside edge. I did a couple where I attached the toe loop to it but I can't say it was pretty, lol. Moving on, I made some progress on the salchow-loop-toe loop! I took a video and, when I watched it, it looks a little flaily so I need to pay attention to my arms with this. But I'm getting more consistent with the landings!

Dancez - I was going to use the last half hour of my two hour session for dance but honestly, I was pooped. I just wanted to take my skates off and get coffee. This would have been a great opportunity to make some progress on my dances since the session was so empty but, alas. Coffee was the priority. 

So, yeah. I think I have things mostly figured out now. I'll skate Sundays at the Y, Monday will be my double lesson with Christopher at the Promenade, and I'll choose a mid-week 6am session at APEX to round out the week. It's a lot of driving and it's not ideal but it's what I have to do since my home rink is prioritizing hockey over figure skating (and don't even get me started on the other sketchy things that are happening at my rink! I'm seriously considering switching clubs as well but that's a blog post for another time). 

APEX Layback!

 So with my schedule changing at work and my home rink getting rid of the early morning freestyle sessions (which is the only time a working adult like me can skate), I have started exploring other options. I've skated at APEX before and I like it just fine but it's a bit of a drive. Still, it's the closest rink to me besides my home rink AND they have early morning sessions so I can skate at 6:00am before I go to work. Since I had a Saturday free, I signed up for a freestyle session to scope it out. I've actually only skated public sessions here so I really didn't know what their freestyle ice would be like. I got there and there were only 4 skaters and 1 coach. Also, the ice was really nice. So far, so good! Also, I made a new friend! She thought I was 17 (bless her sweet heart) so she's kind of my favorite person now, lol. 

Movez - I ran through ALL of my Silver MIF because, guess what? I didn't have to dodge tiny children for once! I ran everything twice and this was the most comfortable I have ever been running Silver MIF. Maybe a change of scenery is nice after all!

Jumpz - I worked on all of my jumps but spent extra time on the Lutz and the new three-jump combo. The Lutz still feels gross but I'm not scared of it at least. I didn't add the toe loop to it because I really want to make the Lutz a bit stronger before I go all crazy adding another jump to it. Next up was the combo. I did quite a few that felt really nice. My only issue is I feel like there is a weird timing thing happening between the second and third jump in the combo. Like, the Salchow-loop happens with a nice rhythm but then it feels like a slight pause as I reach back for the toe loop. I'll have Christopher take a look. 

Spinz - Camel-sit happened but it is still pretty inconsistent. It needs a bunch of work! BUT! I felt like I made some progress on the layback. I was able to hold the free leg out for three revs and then go into the layback and even lean back a bit more for three revs too! I wanted to see what it looked like so I took a video. Like a dumbass, I threw my glove right in front of the camera (sorry for the swearing when I discovered that I might have obscured everything with a stupid glove) but I was still able to catch what looks like a baby layback! Awww, it's cute :) 

Lutzes and Laybacks and Combos, Oh My!

 Lesson today! During our last lesson, we talked about which spins to include in the new program so today we discussed jumps! 

Jumpz - I told him I would like to do a Salchow-loop since I've been working on it trying to get it up to snuff for a future program. He asked to see it and, of course, I bust my ass on it. Sigh. After swearing I'm not lying about being able to do it, I did it again and it was good! Whew! He likes the idea of a Salchow-loop but took it a step further by saying we should add a toe loop to it to make it a three-jump combo! I tried it and made it through sloppily but it can grow. So, yay! But I already had plans for a three-jump combo so I asked him what he wants for a two jump combo. He blew my mind by saying Lutz-toe loop. Like...what? I feel like my Lutz is a joke but he's over here telling me it's actually better than my Flip (in all honesty, he's probably right. My Flip is wrecked so it wouldn't take much to be better than that disaster, lol). He told me he wants me to shelve the Flip for a while and focus on the Lutz instead. His theory is that, after working on the Lutz for a while, my bad habits with the Flip might be gone by the time I revisit it in the future. I trust him. He's never steered me wrong yet so I'll do what he says. So yeah, My three-jump combo will be a Salchow-loop-toe loop and my two jump combo will be a Lutz-toe loop. That means I have one more Salchow and one more loop to round out my other two jumps. Ooof. I can't complain. I like a challenge!

With all of that settled, we got right to work on the Lutz and spent the remainder of our time on that. Lutz after Lutz after Lutz. It still feels wrong to me but I can at least tell that my free leg is better on this jump than on my Flip so he might be right after all. 

After the lesson, I worked a lot on spins. I started with the Camel-sit and then finished up my session with the layback. I was able to make some progress on the layback! I was able to spin while leaning my head back. After holding the free leg out for as long as I could, I thought I would ease into the layback part by just looking up at the ceiling to get the feel of watching the ceiling spin. I was able to do it but it made me super queasy so I'm glad I saved it until the end of my session. I kind of felt sick for the rest of the day (like a very mild hangover) but it was worth it! Yay progress!

Program Ingredients

 Before today's lesson, I've been doing a lot of thinking about which new elements to include in next season's Freeskate. I know I want to push myself a bit to include some trickier elements. For my two spins I was thinking a camel-sit and a layback (overly ambitious thinking on that one!). For jumps, I'm pretty limited because I don't have a lutz yet but I was hoping to include a Flip-toe loop-loop, a salchow-loop, and two other singles (probably another flip and something else). I know the flip-toe loop-loop is also a bit ambitious but I think I might be able to make it happen. I can do a flip-toe loop and I can do a toe loop-loop so why not string them all together? I just have to check to see if this fits the rules. 

Lesson - We started with the discussion about program ingredients and I told him about wanting to include the camel-sit so we spent the majority of the lesson on this. I think I had one good one that had 3 revs in each position but the majority of them were really icky. I have to get used to keeping my core strong as I change positions so I don't fall out of anything. However, there are hints that this is in the realm of my capabilities so I think he'll let me keep it. Next up, we worked on the layback. I haven't even thought of this spin in like two years when we first started working on it. This one is going to need a lot more work than the camel-sit! For now, he wants me to just enter an upright spin and hold the free leg and arms out for as long as I can before bringing arms into first position and curling the free leg around and behind with hips out. Once I get that down consistently, I can start leaning back. I think this might be the hardest part. I'm not used to watching the ceiling spin. Finally, we dabbled in some choreographic step sequence elements. More Ina Bauers, spread eagles, twizzles, and a split jump (yikes). The split jumps have me especially anxious. I can do a split on the floor but jumping into one on slippery ice wearing knife shoes is a whole different story. I at least attempted some today but they were super itty bitty as I wasn't able to kick my front leg out at all for the spilt. 

I love that he is allowing me to do these more advanced elements. I think that might mean he thinks I'm actually capable of doing them. I know I have improved quite a bit this past year so I'm okay pushing myself. I just really hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew

Feelin' Swingy

 Lesson today and we looked at Pre-Bronze dances some more. With the exception of the end pattern of the Fiesta Tango, I think this new set of dances is coming along. I even feel like the Swing Dance is much much better compared to Monday's lesson!

Swing - Just a couple of corrections. He had me dance one pattern by myself first before we partnered it. The first 3 turn needs to be "dancier" I guess, meaning my feet should pretty much be next to each other during the turn. Then, the swing roll needs to go around the  inside of the hockey circle before I begin with the chasses. On the chasses, I am not picking my foot up enough so we fixed that. Everything else looked okay enough so he put the music on so we could partner it. I did better coming back into waltz hold during the end patterns so yay progress! It still needs work but I'm starting to get used to the feeling of waltz hold!

Fiesta Tango - Ugh, this is not my favorite. We partnered the whole thing for the first time and it was kind of a mess. I have to hold his hand differently (thumb grip?) so that we can do the end pattern properly. The whole switching of the arms during the end pattern is difficult when I'm also trying not to trip myself or others with the footwork. I also feel like we are skating this at two different speeds (mine being the slower of the two, obviously). 

We didn't look at Cha Cha because, honestly, that one doesn't need that much more work to get it up to snuff. But! I think he thinks I'm doing well enough with progress on all of my dances such that he suggested starting to teach me the patterns for the next set. I told him I would like to wait another month before moving ahead and, when we do, Hickory Hoedown needs to be the first one he shows me because that looks like a fun time :)

"Stop pushing me away"

 Friday lesson - So much SWING! We spent pretty much the whole lesson working on the Swing Dance per my request. I feel like I am doing well enough on my own when I practice it solo but I need some work on the waltz hold and the placement of both end patterns. The good news with this is that he said my chasses and swing rolls are pretty decent. The bad news, I'm really terrible at coming back into waltz hold after the end patterns. At one point, he said "stop pushing me away" because I had a straight left arm that blocked him from coming back into waltz hold. I have anxiety about touching people and people touching me (which makes ice dance super interesting, lol) so I'm not surprised that my basic instinct is to block him from getting as close as he needs for a proper waltz hold. Overall, the dance is getting there but I really need more practice with partnering on this. 

Monday Lesson - A couple of hours before my lesson, I got my first Pfizer vaccine for COVID. Yay! Except...by the time I got to the rink, my arm was really sore and I was hella fatigued. All I wanted to do was lay down somewhere and sleep. Needless to say, I was not at my best during our lesson. We worked on the flip jump (again) and I think at this point he wants to just have me start over with this jump and break it down bit by bit from the beginning. When I do the "pick and draw" exercise, things look good. When I add an actual jump onto the pick and draw, I fall back into bad muscle memory habits. So, he has challenged me to do 500 pick and draws (picks and draw?). He wants me to do at least 10 per practice until I get to the point where I can add the jump rotation without it looking wrong. Next, we worked a bit on the 8 step mohawk. The "bad side" outside mohawk is really bad. I'm stepping wide and it looks frantic so we picked a hockey circle and just worked on the turn and holding that edge after. Again, this is another one of those things where I'll have to do over and over slowly to break bad habits. 

That Monday lesson was one of the worst I've had in a while. I really hate how my brain understands a concept but I cannot get my body to do the thing. I'll just have to work extra hard to fix some of these things. Sigh.