Turns & Spins

I had an "extra" lesson today, since I have a schedule conflict for next Monday's lesson time. I had the afternoon off from work, so I was at the 2:15 freestyle and got good and warmed up for my lesson at 2:45.

For the first part of my lesson we worked on 3s since a) I was working on them before the lesson and b) we've not looked at them in a little bit. On the FO3s the major focus was not forcing the turn (especially the RFO3) and, relatedly, working on getting the turn closer to the top of the lobe in the alternating 3s pattern. My issue with this is that I tend to rush the turn once I've rotated. It should be: push, set, rotate, set, turn, set. It tends to be: push, set, rotate,turn! So we made some progress with that. Another thing we discussed is having the same kind (quality) of edge as when I'm just doing edges. For some reason I tend to treat them as an entirely separate thing, which is probably why I'm trying to do them off of flats so often. Grr!

After the FO3s we went to the FI3s. The RFI3 has continued to improve. Anna noted, though, that my free foot tends to be right at my skating foot. She suggested getting it held a little back and pointed down (I know she's told me this before). Anyway, I managed to do that and voila! much better. Now I just need to work on looking where I'm going. We touched briefly on the LFI3 and it's still problematic.

After almost 20 minutes on 3s we went on to look at spins. I got some really nice one-foot spins, including one that was close (I think) to 5 revs! Then we went to look at the (in)famous backspin. Anna reminded me to keep my stomach firm and stand tall. With that I managed a really nice backspin that was a little better than 2 revs! Wow! And of course Anna saw it, which means it will just encourage her.... :-). It was pretty awesome though!

Next we looked at the FO3/back 2-foot turn on the circle some more. I still am tending to force these FO3s waaaay too much. The back 2-foot turns are improving, though. Anna said she really needs to get me learning the back 3s. I'm not sure why she is so adamant about this, but she is....

At the end of the lesson Anna said she wanted to see me do 3 bunnyhops in a row. So I set off and did 2 and then lost my rhythm.... so had to come back and do the 3. Phew!

Anyway, it was a really good lesson, and best of all I have another one tomorrow! I'll blog more about the rest of my skate in a separate post.