BO Edges And Spin Hell

I got to the rink just before 5 today for my 5:30 lesson. The freestyle session had about 7 skaters along with several coaches. Not too busy to be usable but more than I'd seen before when I scouted the session. Oh well!

The lesson started by working on BO edges on the line. I'd forgotten how the pushoff is supposed to go, so Anna showed me. I can't really do the correct pushoff right now so Anna said I could two-foot the pushoff for now. My BO edges are pretty weak still, and I seem to either not be able to hold the first position or, if I do, I don't get a very good circle/arc. My initial push is a bit weak too. After some work, Anna suggested I try doing them on two feet just to get the feeling of the body position, the rotation and so forth. This was very helpful. I'll keep working on that.

Next we worked on back crossovers a bit. Emphasis today was on keeping the skating hip in and really get my weight solidly over the back foot when the weight is there -- feeling the outside edge. It's a bit weak.

We followed that with spins. My spins seem to have deserted me. I'm not sure what it is, I suspect I'm just trying too hard. I was doing some halfway-okay ones right when I got back on the ice, but now... it's just weird. We worked on them for a bit without much improvement, then Anna suggested we move on.

From there we worked briefly on the bunny hop, although I reminded her I didn't want to be jumping yet. So after a brief refresher we went to work on the waltz jump entry. This is just the initial edge, kick through and jump from the ball of the foot rolling up to the toe pick, into the boards. I'm tending to lean forward, which is bad -- I guess that's how you do a "waxel" when your foot goes out from under you! Also Anna reminded me to keep the left shoulder forward.

For the last couple of minutes we worked on forward crossovers. I'm still having a hard time holding my body turned into the circle. I'm not sure why. The rest of the stroke etc. is not too bad.

I'm hoping to skate at coffee club tomorrow, then taking my skates in for their first sharpening since March. I will pick them up again right before my lesson Thursday.