Dorky Day

I had a very dorky day today. There's no other way to describe it. I suppose it was partly because I had not skated since last Saturday, and partly because I was still very tired from a work trip, and partly just because.

I got to coffee club on time and had a full 15 minutes to warm up. I fell twice in the last 5 minutes or so. The first time I caught my toepick as I was just stroking. The second time (in full view of my coach) was just before my lesson, I was practicing forward crossovers and had a nasty fall on both knees, where I found myself skidding forward on my hands and knees for 6 or 10 feet. My left knee still hurts a bit from that one.

We started my lesson (my 6th) just looking at stroking. I'm still not setting up well for crossovers around the end of the rink. Next we looked at my backward 1-foot glides. My LB is pretty good; my RB is still having problems but it has improved. From there we went to work on forward crossovers -- perhaps because Anna wanted to make sure I would get over my fall, I don't know. I'm still having consistency issues. I tend to not stroke consistently in crossovers, both because I am afraid of going too fast and also because I wait until my edge/placement is right. Anna suggested that I should keep my free foot back and extended until I'm ready to do the actual crossover. This helps my positioning quite a bit since the extension means I pretty much have to get my weight placed correctly. It also doesn't hurt that I get more practice getting good extension, which I certainly need...

After that we finally got a chance to work on FI3s as Anna had asked me to remind her. We spent some time on the RFI3, which is not too bad although I have problems getting all the way around. Anna suggested that I'm tending to have my forward arm too high and my lower arm too low; I need to even them out a bit. Also I'm not getting quite enough rotation to begin with which is why I'm having to try to make it up on the untwist. We went on to the LFI3 and that was just a shambles; I just could not get myself to actually try it. I put it down to being spooked by a) having fallen on it on Saturday and b) having already fallen twice today. Anyway, I was kind of embarrassed at myself. It was annoying. I'll have to work on it.

For the last part of my lesson we worked on my spin again. Anna noted that I'm not placing my toepick very well for the pivot -- not engaging the top pick, so it's tending to drop out when I start. Also I'm not getting a very good initial pump. She said I need to think of standing tall through my central axis. I have worked on these a fair amount, but you'd never know it by the way I looked today.

Despite my dorkiness today Anna said I am still making progress. The Tucson Invitational competition is next week and I'm planning on going and watching as much as I can. Nikki (Anna's other adult student) will also be there so that should be fun.