Testing, Again

Tonight was the last night of our semester for skating school. Glenn was back again, and Luz was present so there were three of us for class.

Glenn started by looking over the Adult 1 & 2 curriculum (ugh!) and checking off what we knew. He then decided we needed to learn the forward chassé on a circle, so we spent some time learning it. It's pretty straightforward actually and I picked it up without any trouble, although I don't see myself practicing it anytime soon since dance is not something I'm currently interested in. After some review he decided we knew all the 1&2 stuff -- which is mostly true. I'm still not happy about using the adult curriculum though. I don't know how to deal with this other than by abandoning group lessons and I'm not prepared to do that yet.

After the chassé, we went back to working on 3-turns since Luz had missed several weeks and hadn't really learned them. As class was ending Glenn took a couple of minutes to compliment me on my progress, which rather surprised me. He said that he likes the fact that I'm continually making small, steady progress, and that over time it really adds up.

After the lesson I stayed all the way 'til 9:30 (with no Z-break!) and worked extensively on almost everything, but in particular I worked hard on forward CCW crossovers and backward skating. I also spent a good amount of time on the LFO 3-turn. This was undoubtedly the most time I'd spent on crossovers, which in a way is surprising since I've worked on them a couple times in class and at least a couple of times at coffee club. Anyway, they are coming along and definitely getting less scary and less clunky. It helps that my shoulder has improved enough that I can pretty much use it normally although it still hurts a little. My backward 1-foot glide (mostly left foot) is coming along well, too -- it's not so scary and I'm getting longer glides out of it. I don't know if I'm going to have a Eureka! moment with that or whether it will just be steady improvement. I suspect the latter.

I was talking with my classmate Luz after class; she says she is going to try to take private lessons because her schedule is too wacky (she's in an MBA program) for her to reliably make the class. So unless someone new joins it looks like it will just be myself and Ashley starting next week. Of course with class being Wednesday nights that means we're scheduled for class on Christmas and New Year's Eve this year. I don't see THAT happening, but I guess I'll ask about it.

With my certificate today I got my USFSA basic skills membership card. I'm not sure what that really means, if anything, but it's kind of nice to see.