Perseverance

Since I had free time, and now that I have my pass, I went to the last half of the public session today. I got on the ice around 2:20, so with the Z-break, about 2 hours of skating.

I was pretty unfocused when I got there, and a bit tired from skating yesterday, but it turned into an okay practice anyway. I worked most of the same stuff as yesterday -- 3-turns, Mohawks, forward crossovers, back edges. I cleaned up my LFO3 -- the secret seemed to be to keep my free leg tucked in close just before the turn; I guess I was letting it stray a bit. Tucking it into my body gave me some nice turns. I even tried one on the hockey circle -- just so-so. My Mohawks are improving slowly. The crossovers are coming along, and while I still think they stink, I have to say I'm a lot more comfortable with them, so that is definitely something.

I tried doing the MITF pattern for forward and backward crossovers, and also for perim. stroking. Doing the crossover patterns is a little tricky -- for example, it's important to remember when you prepare to cross from one circle to the other which foot you need to be on when you get there. I had some issues to work out with that. The perimeter stroking is improving; I'm putting the crossovers in most of the time now, although it's often only 2 instead of the 3 I'm supposed to do.

I worked my back Mohawks a bit, just to keep my hand in. I'm having real issues doing them on the right foot.

I had my second fall since I got back on the ice; this one was also pretty minor. I was working back edges and got up on my toepick, so I fell forward on hands and knees. It was not a hard fall or anything.

I spent a little time on the bunnyhop, at last. The first couple I tried were pretty poor, mostly because I was having trouble engaging the toepick on the left foot to jump from. Jumping from the flat is both hard to do and dangerous, since it can slip out from under you pretty easily. So I went to the boards for a bit and played with skating on the left foot and engaging the toepick. After a little practice I went back out and tried some bunnyhops. I probably did 4 or 5 okay ones. No great height or anything (I can hear Anna in my head, "I want both of your feet off the ice at the same time!"), but at least they are nominally correct. Doing two in a row will take a little more guts, though, since I get going pretty fast just from doing one. Still, it's a start.