After School Zoo

 Lesson today and it was on a later session than I normally skate on. My session today started at 2:45pm so I got all of the after school kids. Seriously, the ice was busy! It was really hard to complete any of my patterns since there were kids everywhere. Even with Christopher spotting me, I get super anxious when the ice is this busy. I told him "it's one thing if I break my own bones, but I'll be a bit miffed if my bones break because someone wasn't watching where they were going." 

Moves - Needless to say, my moves were not as clean as they have been. When I'm distracted by trying to watch where other people are going (because I know they won't watch out for me), my technique suffers. I had a lot of "foot down" moments during my 3 Turns and I couldn't complete a full pattern of the 8 Step without having to bail. It's my last lesson with Christopher before the test and I really wanted this to go so much better than it did. Sigh. I have one more full practice early in the morning at Apex on Wednesday so hopefully I can run my test and regain some confidence for Thursday's test. 

Program - I mentioned to Christopher that he hasn't seen my program in an entire month! He literally has no idea if I've even been working on it or just slacking off. We've been so consumed in our lessons with getting me ready for this test that this has been put on the back burner. He asked to see the step sequence since it's really just too busy to run the full thing and, when I was done, I got the "slow clap" from him! Yay! The slow clap is good :) 

Dance - I showed him the intro to the Cha Cha and I guess he didn't think it was stupid because he didn't really change anything except adding a chasse. Hopefully next week we can look at my freeskate and dances since I'll be done with testing for a bit. Maybe we can start getting my Pre-Bronze dances back up to snuff to get them ready for testing too.

Two Fresh, Two Clean

I skated at the Y today. The session was later than usual and I'm not sure if it's because school started and this is the new session time now or if it's a one time kind of thing. Doesn't matter. It was a pretty good practice nonetheless. This is the third good practice in a row and I'm feeling pretty good going into the week of my test. 

Moves - I wasn't able to run a full mock test but I ran all of my moves individually and they all seemed pretty good. The 3 Turns were even stable today! Yay. 

The 27 Practice Challenge (21/27) - I was able to run my program twice today and both times were CLEAN! I didn't bail on any jumps, everything got landed, all of my spins were good, step sequence was nice and covered some ground, and I ended on time with the music. I can't ask for anything more. If I can skate like this at the competition in a couple of weeks, I'll be in good shape. 

Dance - I ran all three of the dances I'm performing at the competition and they are looking mighty fine! Since I know the patterns are good, I spent the majority of my time working on some intro choreography for the Waltz and the Cha Cha (I already have an intro for the Canasta since I performed it back in March). I'm recycling my old "Memoirs of a Geisha" intro from a few years ago as my Dutch Waltz intro. It works because they are both waltzes and I'm too busy to choreograph something from scratch. The Cha Cha was a bit trickier. I did have to start from scratch on this one since I've never competed with it before. I came up with something sorta sassy and I hope Christopher doesn't think it's too stupid. 

So yeah, today was a good day on the ice. I got a lot of work done and I'm feeling really prepared for everything coming up. I just need to keep this momentum going until mid-September when I'm done with testing and competitions and I can just relax for a bit.

Schedules!

I had a great practice this morning and then opened my email later to discover that the schedules have been put out for both CSI and my Test Session next Thursday! Yay!

Practice - Speaking of schedules, I messed up this morning and didn't realize that the 6:15am session changed to 6:30am. Oops. The guy at the desk was super nice and just let me on the ice early. With me showing up early and him letting me on early, I had a full 30 minutes to myself before anyone else got on the ice. I took advantage of full ice and ran my test. The whole test was nice! Like, I think I would have passed without a re-skate. I only had one tiny tap of a foot on my first LBO 3 Turn. I wouldn't even classify it as a "foot down" as it was such a light tap. I didn't think it warranted a re-skate so I moved on to the rest of the test. This is the best I've felt about this test! It was CLEAN! If I can skate like this on Thursday, I might potentially get a pass. :) 

Once people got on the ice, it got a little cray so I mostly just worked on spins and some jumps. It was a good first 30 minutes so I didn't want to over do anything by drilling it needlessly. 

Schedules - Ok, so there are SEVEN of us in the Bronze Freeskate at CSI! That's awesome! With the exception of one person, I know everyone I'm competing with. It should be fun! I'm also skating with two familiar faces in my pattern dances too. Nice! Finally, The Memorial Cha Cha. There are 14 people skating this event and since it's a memorial dance it's open to all levels. I'm competing with some Senior -level skaters. It's kind of intimidating but also kinda neat. I have absolutely ZERO expectations of winning this. It's just for fun. But...I wouldn't hate placing in the top half of the group. Other than practicing the patterns, I've done almost nothing to prepare for my Dance events. It's been pretty low down on my priority list with the test coming up and a new Freeskate to debut. Once my test is over, I'll figure out some opening choreography to go with my intros. 

Speaking of the test, I'll be skating pretty early on in the day so I can still get to work on time. It's not ideal. I would love to take my test and just chill the rest of the day but with the last minute change of dates, I couldn't make that happen. So, I'll need to go right to work after I test and I'll either arrive to work elated that I passed or I'll show up with a big cup of pity Starbucks and wallow throughout the day if I get a retry. Maybe I won't wallow but the coffee will definitely happen. 

Also, shout out to Alpine Skating Club! When my old test got cancelled and I registered for the one at Apex, I emailed their test chair to ask if I could be scheduled early in the day so I can still make it for work. They listened and honored my request! I'm so glad I switched to Alpine SC. I love how they value ALL of their skaters (including their adults!).

Getting Pretty Damn Close!

 I had a great practice this morning at Apex! It was one of those magical days where things went the way they were supposed to and mostly everything I did was "passing" in regards to MIF. 

8 Step Mohawks - The first one I did was kind of a disaster. I think I caught a rut or got on a goofy edge and it kinda slipped away from me. I gave myself a reskate on this and it was much better. 

Forward and Backward Cross Strokes - The forward strokes were awesome! I had a loud rip on each stroke. Neat! The backward strokes were good too but there were no audible rips. However, my strokes are more strokey and less steppy so that's nice. My imaginary judges passed me on this move. 

FO-BI 3 Turns - Not a single foot down! This is as clean as I've skated it in a while. Nice!

FI-BO 3 Turns - I had one tap of a foot down on one of my backward turns (LBO side) but the other two were good. In fact the last one on that side was really nice and I think my imaginary judges saw that and appreciated it. So, they passed me. 

Spirals - Lovely. Plus points here as always. I tried even harder to extend more on my bad side (the inside spirals) and I think this brought them closer to what the outsides look like. 

Power Pulls - Final move yay! I did not get any rips going forward but got a couple going backward. Overall, it wasn't bad but it wasn't as good as I've done them lately. Still passing with a 0, I think. 

So yeah, today was just what I needed. A good skate, things working the way they should, and a little confidence boost. I was supposed to test tomorrow at the Promenade but that's cancelled (even though they still haven't contacted me to tell me so, kinda annoyed at that). Instead I'll be testing 6 days from now on Thursday the 26th. Will it be nice to pass? Heck yeah! Do I expect to pass? Well, I know I still need a lot of work on these things so it's realistic that I might not pass this time. And that's okay too. I'm not going to put pressure on myself to pass this right now. This is all about putting it out there for the first time and seeing where I stand. I've worked my ass off for the last 2 years (the last 8 months in particular) to get this test ready. I'm proud of how far I've come and what I've been able to accomplish. Although I have good days and bad days, overall I've steadily progressed and grown as a skater. And that's pretty cool.

Stick of doom

 Lesson today and it was more Moves. Can I just say how excited I am to potentially pass this test next week and move on to more exciting things? Because two years of working on the same stuff really gets boring. I dream in 3 Turns now. :(

So yeah, we worked a bit more on the 3 Turns using the end part of the pole harness which was a lot trickier than the theraband (and happened to aggravate an old hand injury). We also spent more time working on the 8 Step to try to make the movements more sharp. If I can remember all of the things Christopher told me to do on this move, I might be able to get a 0 on this. Fingers crossed. 

At the end of our lesson, we had a few minutes to work on anything that was giving me trouble and I told him I was struggling a little with consistency on my opening jump combo in my program (Salchow-loop-toe loop). He took some video and you can really see how I'm over-rotating everything. I need to flatten out the salchow, let the loop happen naturally with the leg crossed in front instead of out to the side, and relax a bit more on the toe loop. I feel like I'm a tornado and nothing feels quite secure. I'm landing the combo more often than not but I'm never confident that things will turn out well like I am with my other jumps. I usually just enter the jump combo and hope for the best but there are so many things that can go wrong. 

Christopher gave me a bit of a pep talk at the end. He told me he can see how steadily I've improved on everything and to relax more about this test. If I treat it like an opportunity to show the judges how hard I've worked instead of like a life or death situation, I'll do well. I need to trust myself. There's a passing test in me somewhere. I need to let it shine through :)

High Five!

 I stayed a full two hours at the Y today and I accomplished a lot, especially toward the end since I had the rink to myself during the second hour. 

Moves - I was able to do two full test run throughs. I did not pass myself on either although I felt I was close (and maybe I was a little hard on myself). The big problem, once again, is consistency on those 3 Turns. During the first run through, my FO-BI turns were good but the FI-BO were gross. During the second run through it was the opposite. However, I really feel like I've turned the corner on my Power Pulls! The forward pulls are quicker and stronger and sometimes I even hear some baby rips! The backward pulls are nice too. I'm hoping I can get a +1 or at least a 0. That will help.

The 27 Program Challenge (19/27) - I did five run throughs today. FIVE! Can I just tell you how tiring that is?! But I had open ice and I wanted to take advantage of it. Out of the five, I had two that were complete disasters, one that was just okay, and two that were clean. The clean versions were the only two where I focused on expression (smiles and such). So, maybe smiling helps me relax and skate better. If the cure for skating poorly is to smile more, that seems like an easy enough fix and I'm willing to work on being more consistent with it. 

Cha Cha - I was sharing the ice with two other adult skaters who I'm friends with and, since we are all dancers, I put on some Cha Cha music and we all danced! It was fun and it was good practice for the Memorial Cha Cha coming up next month. I need to study the pattern placement though. It felt off to me. Hopefully, after I test next week, Christopher can take a look at my dances and make sure they are competition ready.

Well, that was unexpected!

 So I'm sitting on my couch at home and I see that I have a voicemail from Christopher on my phone. I know he doesn't usually call unless it's urgent so I listened. Turns out, The Promenade (where I was registered to take my test next Friday) is going to cancel the test session due to a low amount of signups. It wouldn't be cost effective for them to run the test session blah blah blah. 

I called Christopher back and he told me there is a test session at Apex (my new home rink) on the 26th instead but the deadline to register is literally hours away. So I hung up and registered to take my test at Apex instead. He's already planning to be there that day because he has another student testing so I don't need to feel guilty about him driving so far just to be there for my test. 

On the downside, I have to wait another week to test. I've been wanting to do it and get it over with and now I have to wait a little longer. On the plus side, I get another week's worth of practices and I can test at a rink where I feel more comfortable (Apex has better ice and doesn't feel as strict and stuffy as the Promenade). ALSO! It's so much cheaper to test on home ice!

This may all work in my favor after all but now I need to scramble to get my work schedule switched around to accommodate the new date. That's giving me some anxiety. Also, I'm kind of miffed that the Promenade didn't reach out to me at all yet about the cancellation. I'm thankful Christopher told me when he did because otherwise I would have missed the deadline to register at Apex. Imagine the students who don't have a Christopher and how in the dark they are about everything. That kind of sucks.