Crossovers, Still

Today's lesson:

• crossovers -- we started with forward crossovers. If you think I've spent a lot of time on forward crossovers, you are absolutely right -- I've worked on them for 4 consecutive lessons for at least a little time. I would find this irksome except that I know they really need the attention. I was a little frustrated at coming back to them since I'd not skated since my lesson on Friday due to weekend commitments. Still, Anna had some things she wanted to explore on them. The first of them was seeing if I could skate in the crossed-over position. I already knew the answer to that -- I've not been able to do that before and I still can't. What followed, however, was an extremely helpful exploration of what I am doing vs. what I need to do. Basically, in looking at my crossovers Anna said that I am trying to transfer my weight to my crossing foot too early, so that I'm basically falling onto it. What needs to happen is that my weight is firmly on my back foot until the crossing foot is on the ice, and then I should be pushing onto the new skating foot. The last was an important connection for me, because what it says is that this should be the same as any other stroke other than the fact that the feet are crossed. In any stroke, you should be pushing onto the new skating foot. DUH! Anyway, this is a good new way of looking at this. I'm looking forward to having some time tomorrow to work on this.
• Mohawks -- we looked at these first on the crease. Anna's main correction was (as usual) to keep my head/eyes up. I was actually able to do that and it helped the check enormously. Anna's point was to keep looking over/above the skating hand. She really shouldn't have to remind me of this stuff -- it's not like I don't know it or that she hasn't told me that a million times. I guess that's why I pay her the big bucks, but it must be very frustrating at times for her. Heck, it is for me... We next went to looking at the "Mohawk combo from hell" pattern. The main thing that came out of this was not on the Mohawk itself but on that darned cross-step; and that was that I really need to get a good back edge with the foot held in front, then bring it in for the cross-step -- really, similar to doing a regular forward crossover. She had me show her my backward stroking with the free foot held in front, then we went back to the circle again. I know exactly how this pattern is supposed to look -- I just wish I could do it! Anyway, we made some fixes to it and then moved on.
• spins -- we reviewed my two-foot to one-foot spin. Anna's pleased that I'm more aggressive with these, and that I'm increasingly able to "fix" things that are wrong in the spin without having to abort. My push-out is also pretty nice. The main correction was, as with the Mohawks, to keep my head up. Anytime I wind up on my toepicks it's almost certainly because I dropped my head. Once I fixed that the difference was quite noticeable. After some work on those we went back to the scratch spin prep. First, we looked at the LFO edge prep. Anna wants me to be able to turn a really deep LFO edge with the free foot held out extended and really good heel pressure. It's a bit improved from the last time we worked on it but I need to make it a lot tighter. We finished up by looking at the back crossover windup and step forward. I still can't quite do the step forward, but Anna said the RBI edge is looking good and crisp. The main issue seems to be that the free foot tends to get unstuck and wander around :-). Anna says that it should stay crossed under until the rotation is complete, then I can (for now, at least) "stick" it to the back of my skating foot until I do the step forward. This should help me keep the free foot from getting into a wrong position and from dropping the free hip. Anna says that I have a great position, but then when I'm thinking about doing the step forward I immediately drop the free hip.
  

That was all we had time for. My next lesson is on Thursday this week since I'm off for Veteran's Day and I have a time conflict for Friday due to a conference call at work.