Saturday Zoo

I attended the Saturday public session as usual, although between getting there a bit late and leaving early due to other commitments, I only had 2 hours of skating.

I spent some real quality time on my waltz jump. I was assisted in this by Rita (who I'm going to call Coach Rita :-) in the future). Rita is 12 and besides being a good and hard-working skater, she is a very nice person with a really winning smile that's almost always displayed. Anyway, Rita asked me what I was working on, and I was dumb enough to admit that I SHOULD be working on my waltz jump. With that, it was "Okay, come over to the boards! I'll show you." And she spent about 5 or 10 minutes working with me at the boards on my waltz jump. Much of it was stuff that I'd already worked on with Anna, but she was pointing out the position of the newly free foot/leg immediately after the jump. I think Anna had pointed this out to me at one time but I didn't pick up on it then. Rita said I should have the left (for CCW) leg in front of me after the jump and THEN swing it back. I'd never noticed that before, but I think she's right. I also think it's something you'd have to be able to do in order to do a waltz-loop combo (or anything-loop, really). It also seems to make it a little easier to do the jump, although I don't do it very well. Anyway, buoyed by that little workout, I spent another 10-20 minutes working on the waltz jump until I had to leave. Thanks Coach Rita! :-)

Today's quote is from Veronica H: "Why do people say life is short? It's the longest thing you ever do!".