Tenth Lesson

I had my tenth lesson tonight. Glenn seemed very impressed by progress from last week. I don't know if he didn't expect that an adult would really practice, or just that he didn't think *I* would, or just that I made a lot of progress. To be honest, while I thought I had made some progress, I didn't think it was anything to get excited about.

Our lesson consisted mostly of working on the same things as last week. He looked at my swizzles again and he really wants me to bend my knees more and push with the knees and *then* turn out the feet and push from the back of the blade. We also worked on the glide, which is coming. Finally, we worked on my stroking, which really made me happy since I'm tired of feeling like a poky dork around the rink during the public sessions. He confirmed what I wrote yesterday about bending my knees, and told me to work on it for next week; especially, to stroke each foot in turn and be somewhat graceful and leisurely about returning the stroking foot next to the skating foot. In other words, for that brief time I'm skating on one foot, and presumably the longer I take to replace my stroking foot the more comfortable I'll be on one foot.

After my lesson I worked for another 1.5 hours or so on the various things I mentioned above. There was a Z-break around 8 p.m., so since I never got any dinner I went and had a light dinner at Little Anthony's at the Rink (the rink restaurant). It was better than I expected, and since I ordered the special it was not too much to eat and inexpensive as well. After dinner I went back and skated for another 45 minutes or so.

I felt more social tonight, and spent some time talking with other folks. José, the adult freestyle skater I've mentioned before, was working on stuff as usual. We have a little in-joke now -- he'll skate up to me and say "jump!" or maybe it's "jump?" and I say "not yet!" It's kind of fun. I left the rink around 9:15 and noticed I was more tired than usual. I don't know if it's that I worked harder than usual (I am working on bending my knees more) or just coincidence. I felt pretty good about it though.