Moves

For today's lesson we started by working on forward crossovers. Anna's working to get me to have good extension, then bring the foot in & across without hesitating -- one smooth flowing movement. On my weaker CW crossovers she had me bring the crossing foot over and hold it in front of the skating foot before doing the crossover; also to get more kneebend. This seemed to really help the CW crossovers, and trying it on the CCW ones helped them too.

Once we'd spent some time on that Anna decided to show me how these are done in the test environment. Starting from the hockey goal, a quick 3 steps (left-right-left) and into the CW crossovers on the right hand hockey circle. Once around the circle, then cross to the other circle, either on two feet or, preferably, one, then crossovers CCW around that circle; so a big figure-8. I'll need to do two figure-8s, each with 4-8 crossovers per circle. After the last one, I'll need to "present" the move by skating out to the middle and stopping, smiling at the judge (and, as I said, pretending everything was perfect :-)). Of course on the test I'll need to do them forward AND backward.

After working on those a bit, Anna decided she might as well show me the perimeter stroking move as done in the test. Starting from one corner of the rink, a few steps down the short end of the rink, a crossover, then stroking down the long side of the rink, crossovers around the end (she suggested 3), stroking down the other long side of the rink, crossovers down the short end again, then "present" out into the long end again. Of course I'll have to do them both directions for the test. We practiced this a bit. My extension needs improvement, especially extending the left leg when on the right foot. On a positive note I managed to do the end crossovers at probably the fastest speed I've ever done them (only did 2 though).

Since we were doing moves, we next went ahead and did the forward edges -- outsides (starting with RFO) across, and then insides (starting with RFI) back down the line; and "present" coming out of the last one. These were okay.

After that we spent five minutes or so working on spirals. My LF spiral is not bad, but my RF is a little unsteady. However, in working on the boards it looks like I might ultimately be better off with the RF spiral since it looks like I can raise my left leg higher. I'll have to keep working on it, of course. I have a ways to go but it looked like there was some improvement.

I was really happy to get this stuff done. This means the only moves I've not been exposed to yet for the Adult Pre-Bronze moves test are the backward crossovers (which are the same as the forward except I'll need to see how I'm supposed to begin and finish them), the BO and BI edges (I know how they're done, I just can't do them), and the alternating 3-turns (which, I'm pretty sure, are done just like the edges -- of course I can't actually DO them yet). So I'm actually in pretty good shape for the test, considering I probably won't take it until March at the earliest.

On another note, I decided to give up my wrist guard today; I didn't wear it. It was a little weird at first, and I felt unsettled; but once my lesson started I was fine. I don't plan on wearing it at freestyle sessions anymore. I might wear it at public sessions; I'll play that by ear.