Progress!

Well, it's not a "Eureka" moment, but I made some solid progress tonight at the public session. After warming up a bit I spent some time working on stroking as usual. After 30 or 40 minutes I started working on my one-foot glide (mostly the left foot). I made some good progress. Then I took 20 or 30 minutes to work on my two-foot turn. I went out in the center and made little boxes as I would glide and turn, glide and turn. I did a slew of 'em and they are improving. I only tried a couple clockwise though, and the CW ones were very lacking. My counterclockwise ones are definitely coming along, though -- a couple of times I could tell that I hit the true "sweet spot" on my blades. I did notice at one point that I was leaning forward when turning, and when I fixed that it definitely seemed to help a bit.

After working on the turns I did some stroking and decided to spend my last 10 minutes or so working on the glides some more... and came up with some really good, solid ones. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing differently, though, more's the pity. But I had several quite long ones on my left foot, and even a couple of decent ones on my right foot. All in all I was quite pleased with my progress.

I noticed a young skater who looked to be about at my level, and so I talked a bit with her -- she's named Lindsey, she was there with her friend Khristina. Lindsey is in Basic 2 also (the kids' class, of course, not adult!) but she's a little further along than I am. Her turns look much better than mine -- she said she'd spent a lot of time on them. She's also been working up a two-foot spin, which is Basic 3 or 4. It's kind of interesting to relate to kids as peers -- it's refreshing, actually. I suppose most parents never get to relate to kids in that way, but I really enjoy seeing kids like Lindsey and Khristina. It gives one hope for the future!