Perseverance

I had a 6 p.m. meeting today, so I didn't get to the rink until about 7:10 for the public session -- about 75 minutes of skating. The ice was a bit rough but I've certainly seen it much worse. It wasn't too crowded, which was nice.

I spent most of my time working back edges, Mohawks, and crossovers. I actually had enough room to try doing the MITF crossover pattern, a couple of times forward and once backwards. This needs lots more work, but it was good to get a little practice in. I think in part I need to start being more aggressive with my XOs -- I'm very afraid of going fast but I need to start getting over that, and the only way I can think of is -- duh -- to go faster.

I worked my Mohawks some, especially trying to do them on the hockey circle and do them at a little bit of speed. Not much speed, mind you, but more than I usually get from doing them from a standing start. This went relatively okay. I really need to work on holding the exit edge; probably 50% or more of the time I'm putting the free foot down more or less immediately. Still for now I was focusing more on doing them faster so I didn't worry too much about that.

I worked my back edges and general backward glides a fair amount; these are continuing to slowly improve. I tried to do a couple of back Mohawks (a BO step forward), but I only managed one (and it was pretty bad). For some reason I am really terrified of these, and I have a hard time getting turned around enough. That's really strange because when I'm practicing my BO edges I don't have too much trouble getting the rotation coming back to the line, at least certainly not on the LBO edge. I suspect it's a brain thing.

I also did a few spins and other miscellaneous things. My FO3s are kind of weirdly inconsistent these days. Sometimes I'm really forcing them, but if I can get away from that they can be pretty nice.