Skating In The Ice Cathedral

I got to attend the 9 and 10 a.m. freestyle sessions this morning. They may or may not continue to have Sunday a.m. freestyles so I was glad to get some quality time in. And quality time it was -- 4 people at 9 a.m. and 3 at 10 a.m., and the ice was really, really nice. I always feel like these Sunday morning sessions when it's quiet and peaceful are like skating in a cathedral of ice. I'm not sure how to explain that exactly.

It was a very productive session! I worked almost every skill I have at least a little, the only exception being the mazurka and the waltz jump walkthrough -- just was not in the mood for that for some reason.

I spent a lot of time on 3-turns and discovered that they really are improving. I had been thinking about my problems holding the check and decided that part of it was that I need to extend the free leg behind (behind, not to the side!) coming out of the turn; so I worked that a bit. It was a bit rough but resulted in some real improvement. I was really jazzed about that. I continued exploring this scissoring-the-arm thing. I seem to have turned some kind of corner on this because my 3s are feeling much nicer and neater, even if I think they are still a bit forced.

I also tried some 3s on the hockey circle and discovered that I can do a pretty nice RFI3 on the circle, which surprised me a little. Very nice. I worked the LFI3 a bit more but wasn't able to produce any real improvement.

I spent a good bit of time on back edges. My BO edges are definitely much better than, say, a couple of weeks ago. I'm still not really getting the free foot in front at the beginning of each lobe as I should, but other than that there's some real improvement. One thing I discovered is that part of the weak trailing arm issue is a weak leading arm -- an idea I got from my crossovers. That is, if I want to have the back arm nice and strong coming back to the line it helps if the front arm is also nice and strong. I think of it as having my arms stretched on a 2 x 4. That seems to help significantly. On the other hand :-) my BI edges are not improved. It occurred to me yesterday (at the football game, of all places) that I need to have my feet closer together when I do the pushoff. Unfortunately that didn't seem to help the way I thought it would. Hopefully we'll revisit them this week.

I did a few spins, but there was not a lot to talk about there. It's interesting how I go through cycles on what I want to work on, and spins aren't on it right now. It's mostly turns right now, crossovers and stroking. That's not a bad thing since I really need to have good solid foundations to build on.

I did a few other things (some bunnyhops, worked on RFI-LBI and LFI-RBI Mohawk combo) but nothing else to note particularly. I was in a really good mood when I left, feeling like I made some good progress. A good investment of $12!