Fun With Crossovers

Today was a very hectic day but I managed to make it to my lesson, my 5th lesson with Anna. (I don't know why I count, I just do) We started out by stroking, as usual; this time I went a little slower so I could do crossovers around the ends of the rink. She pointed out that I'm trying to do the end crossovers too squarely; when I set up for the first one I need to get my body turned (hips) turned toward the circle a bit.

Next we went on to working on a serpentine crossover pattern around the rink; I'm pretty sure this is from one of the MITF tests but I'm not sure which. It consists of alternating crossovers so that you go around the rink making lobes which consist of basically one crossover near the boards and another (opposite foot) at the other end of the lobe. I had a really hard time with these, not so much the concept as keeping track of what direction I'm going and what foot I should be on. The basic pattern should be (for example going toward the boards) a right-foot stroke, cross right foot over at the bottom of the lobe nearest the boards, a right foot stroke, feet together, a left-foot stroke, cross left foot over at the extreme of the lobe (farthest from the boards), a left-foot stroke, feet together... repeat ad nauseam. I struggled with it, and Anna said it was pretty hard.

From there we looked at my almost-back-XOs, and backward stroking and edges in general. I still have a long way to go on this, especially the RB edges (duh!). She gave me some good feedback on weight placement -- need to have my weight over the back foot when I'm pushing it out as the front foot crosses, otherwise there's no power. Once it's crossed I need to shift weight forward and push while picking up the back foot.

After that we looked at FO3s. Anna says they are much improved, and she was pleased that I'd clearly worked on them a lot; and now I need to work on doing less with the arms and more below the waist; also work more to hold the exit edge (again, duh! :-)).

Next week we are going to look at FI3s. I guess I should work on them, especially the LFI3 since I don't think I've ever done one. Unfortunately I'm not sure how much practice time I will get this week :-(.

Homework for the week is to continue working on the backward stuff and the serpentine XOs.