Almost-Backward-Crossovers

I went to the evening public session tonight and had a great skate. I spent some time working on turns, of course; the FO3s are looking not-too-shabby, and even the RFI3 is a little improved. I still haven't tried an LFI3 in a while though. I tried a couple of RFI inside Mohawks and they are about the same. I worked on my spin a little just to keep my hand in.

I spent the bulk of my time working on my almost-backward-crossovers. After Monday I felt that I am really close to getting my BXOs, at least the CW ones (weak RB edges, remember?). So I started off by doing my backward 1/2 swizzles as before, but trying once again to get my back (left, in this case) foot moving backward a bit. Once I had that going I tried to add shifting my weight onto the forward (crossing) foot. After some work I was able to do that, I worked on picking up my left foot and moving it into the circle, without worrying as to whether I'd really crossed my right foot over or not. Once I was able to do that a bit I began to try to integrate all of these things. I had some success! I don't think what I've managed to accomplish is quite a backward crossover yet -- I suspect I'm not getting the crossing foot over enough. I'm still really jazzed though, because it's really good progress and all the individual pieces are, I think, present. I can see why BXOs are so powerful though -- it seems like you get a push with the crossing foot, while, at the same time, pushing with the back foot (it's a kind of scissors action that I actually started to get a feel for!), then picking up the back foot and placing it inside the circle while simultaneously pushing again with the front (right, in this case) foot. An awful lot of pushing!

Anyway, I skated for a full two hours and it never got horribly crowded, fortunately. I am really jazzed with my progress, it's awesome. I'm hoping I'll have an opportunity to work on this for a little bit with Anna on Friday.