Turns, Etc.

For today's lesson we started by looking at my spins. They are definitely improving, and Anna was pleased. I still could be more aggressive on the entry and get more *snap* on bringing the arms in; but overall they are coming along.

Next up, we looked at pushing into the landing position on the circle. This is rather tentative and weak, and I'm not getting a good BO edge on either foot. From there we went to look at back crossovers. These are looking okay although a bit scrapey, especially CCW. When I take my time with them they are pretty good. Anna says I need to feel the edges more, especially the BO edge.

We moved on to FO3s, first on the hockey goal (Anna says it's called the "crease."). These were not as bad as I'd feared. Anna says I'm tending to over-check them, and also to anticipate the check somewhat. Still, they were okay enough to move on to looking at the FO3s on the circle. I'd done these a few times in the past, but not recently. Anyway, they went surprisingly well, all things considered. Anna showed me a drill where she wants FO3 followed by back 2-foot turn. Since I had not practiced the back 2-foot turns much, not surprisingly they were quite stinky. We spent a little time on them; Anna says I need more knee-bend coming into them and of course the persistent cry that I need to look where I'm going. :-)

We finished the lesson with some quick perimeter stroking in each direction. I'm getting a bit more extension and flow, and my end crossovers are improving. Anna said I need to work the pattern a bit more, especially the end presentation, just so that I'm comfortable doing it.

After my lesson I had a half hour in the freestyle session to skate, since I didn't have to rush off to choir practice (Labor day holiday). I worked a bunch of stuff. It's so much nicer to be really warmed up and in the groove! Although for the last 15 minutes I started to feel pretty tired.

As I was leaving, I noticed they have posted a new freestyle schedule (of course, it's not on the website yet :-(). They have restored the Sunday morning freestyle sessions! I'm jazzed. Of course, I can't go for a couple of weeks (staying out late this coming Saturday so 9/12 won't work, and 9/19 I have choir at 10 a.m.), but I will definitely have to work that into my schedule. I've been concerned that I didn't have enough practice time (especially "quality" time) between my Friday and Monday lessons... so this is really helpful.

Update: So of course when I check the website, they now have the updated schedule posted. Cool!