Whee!

I went to the evening public session last night, and I had a very good practice. It was a bit crowded at first (a church youth group showed up) but more or less okay. After the first hour or so it was less crowded. I stayed for about an hour and a half and I spent the first hour or so just working on my stroking and practicing all my old stuff. I've noticed it still takes me a while to get warmed up to where I feel I can do stuff. I guess that's not surprising.

After I was good and warmed up I spent some time practicing my two-foot turn. My fear of falling was very much in evidence the first time I tried it (maybe I am braver than I thought), but I knew that if I couldn't do this I'd get nowhere. Anyway, to make a long story shorter, I did it! I spent about half an hour practicing the turns (among other things, not constantly). I probably did 20+ turns, and I would say I did 4 or 5 that were just right. The remainder had the following problems in varying degrees:

• Didn't keep head forward
  
• Didn't keep left hand extended backward
  
• Didn't bend-unbend-bend knees correctly
  
• Didn't get full 180 degree rotation (either 90 or 120 degrees)

I suspect the last problem is really a manifestation of the other 3 problems. All of these turns were front-to-back, and counterclockwise, moving pretty slowly forward coming into them. I was really, really pleased with my progress. I think one of the main reasons it's so exciting to me is that in some ways it's my first "move" in a way that all the other stuff I do is not really a "move", i.e. it's a deliberate and hopefully graceful motion that has to be done just-so.

On a side note, I had two falls last night. The first was the typical "oops", where I was stroking (I think), and caught my toepick and fell forward. Not a big deal. The second one could have been more serious. I was working on my turn and something went wrong (not sure what) and I started to do the flailing-preparation-to-fall-backwards-seriously thing, when I managed to crouch down and turn it into a forward fall on my hands that didn't hurt at all. I'm not sure how I did that but I'm really pleased since it may mean I'm learning to handle falls better and to build better responses than the usual instinctual ones. I think it's a good sign.