Waltz Jump Progress

Today's lesson was on the back ice since there's a hockey tournament this weekend and it's mixing up all the schedules.

• perimeter stroking -- emphasis on (of course) EXTENSION. I tend to want to do my stroking in such a way that the free leg goes out and comes back in again in a sort of rhythm that's (for lack of a better word) symmetrical; but Anna says that people (judges!) should be able to look at me and see "the position" except just before I change feet. I need to work on this. Heck, I was just happy that I did some good crossovers on the ends!
• forward crossovers -- we spent quite a big chunk of time on these. Anna had me do crossovers with my arms at my sides, just concentrating on crossing the feet, not worrying about pushing or extension. Wow, that was hard! We worked these in the MIF pattern and then again on the circle. Anna was once again reminding me that I need to keep the back arm higher (she actually skated around behind me in the figure 8, holding my hand/arm up!) and also the front arm a bit lower than I have been. I didn't feel quite as good about my crossovers as I did on Monday; not quite that feeling-the-edge feeling.
• bunnyhops -- we do these mostly as prep for working on the waltz jump. Anna reminded me I need to get good ankle motion in order to spring off the toepick. As usual she had me doing 3 in a row. It's a good exercise, I should try to do them like that every time I skate.
• waltz jump -- we spent the last 10-12 minutes on these. First doing a number of small exercises like the double bunny hop, doing the stepover onto the toepick and turning on it, and some jumping in place by the boards. The two areas that are most lacking seem to be 1) getting the different pieces to all come together at the same time! and 2) getting the spring off the toe (which I've been whining about for a while). After doing various things we got some good improvement ending with 3-4 that were almost decent. Key thing (once again) is looking up (waaay up!). It makes such a huge difference!

All in all it was a really good lesson. I was really, really psyched about the waltz jump progress because I realized (AFTER the lesson) that they had felt really free and easy, almost the way they do in my dreams (but without the height :-)). That's really good!

After the lesson I asked Anna about the Moves test in May and said that the only thing that really concerned me was the 3-turns. To my surprise, she said she wasn't worried about them, that they were coming along and should be fine with continued work. What she IS concerned about is (not a surprise when I review my last few lessons) toe-pushing on my FXOs and, especially, scratchiness and not-quite-fully-crossed position on my BXOs. This was a revelation to me, and I'm glad I asked since I will start paying even more attention to these items. I had already upped my work on crossovers lately in general since Anna has had me spending so much time on them.

Before we left we discussed our lesson schedule. The rink has added some new freestyle sessions, in particular a Tuesday 5 p.m. and Thursday 5:10 p.m. They aren't necessarily permanent (they may well go away after the Tucson Invitational 3/5-6), but while they are there we are going to use them since it works much better for both of us. So starting next week we will be doing Tuesday at 5:30 and Thursday at 5:40. YAY!