Perseverance

Since I had today off (Veteran's Day holiday) I went to the afternoon public skate. I didn't get there until about 3 and stayed until 5. It was fairly crowded, and there were a lot of little kids.

I spent the majority of my time working on forward crossovers again. I'm still feeling a bit stuck on them. I've noticed that when I'm skating them on the circle, my inside hand/arm come forward when I do the crossover, and I suspect this is part of the problem I'm having -- when the arm comes forward I'm probably not leaning into the circle anymore. However, being aware of the problem has not (yet) helped me fix it.

I also spent a good amount of time on clockwise turns, both the 2-foot and also the RFO 3-turn. I still can't quite do the RFO 3-turn but I'm getting closer. I seem to be leaning forward on it a bit (I have the same problem, though not as bad, on the CW 2-foot turn). My LFO 3-turn is actually getting to be pretty good, other than that of course I have to do it from a standing start and I can't hold the LBI on the exit and have to put my right foot down. The actual setup and turn is pretty good, though, and my tracings are almost symmetrical now!

While I was at the rink, I bumped into Cecilia, who does the coffee club lessons. She mentioned that one of her students (who reminds her of me -- having seen him, I understand why, since we have similar builds and are both male beginners of roughly similar ages) had fallen yesterday and broken his wrist. Eeeep! He was working on crossovers and fell. Having worked with Cecilia on crossovers myself I think I know exactly what he was doing when it happened... it's too bad. I hope he doesn't give up. Amusingly enough, Anna, one of the other coaches, came up to me later while I was on the ice and asked me how I was doing -- didn't I have a big fall yesterday? I said no. She said Cecilia had said I had a fall, and I said it was not me, it was Kenny. She said Cecilia had told her Gordon. As I was leaving the rink, Anna was leaving too and told me as soon as she saw Cecilia, Cecilia had told her it was Kenny, not Gordon, who had fallen. I guess I just have one of those faces. Anyway, it's nice to know Anna remembers who I am even if Cecilia gets me mixed up.

All in all it was an okay skate. I didn't get to skate backward much, it was too crowded. I didn't work on the lunge at all, or the side toe hop (well, I think I did *one*). I think my stroking still leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm also convinced I need to work more on stamina. Two minutes of doing laps around the rink (the ice was absolutely horrible today) and I'm tired. Hmmph.