Crossovers & 3s

I should have known when I saw the ice that today's lesson was not going to be a good one... apparently, more compressor problems overnight, so the ice was quite slushy and there were a couple inches of water at one end. Yech! To make matters worse, about 3 minutes before my lesson I was working BI edges and had a backwards fall. I hate backwards falls! This was the first time I'd ever fallen doing back edges, as far as I know. My tailbone was bit sore, and I wacked my left elbow a bit; but the main thing was that of course in falling I flexed my left wrist (the sprained one) rather violently and it was NOT happy. Anna came over and asked if I was okay. I went and got off the ice for a minute to see how it was, then decided it was okay and got back on. Still I was a bit shaken up. Grr!

Today's lesson:

• perimeter stroking -- Anna was relatively pleased with the crossovers, not with the stroking; need more extension and to really hold the position. I'm pretty convinced this was mostly due to the fall since I was doing MUCH better last night (and, for that matter, in my warmup). Grr.
• crossovers -- back into these. We did both chassés and crossovers on the hockey circle, both directions. I was still feeling kind of off. Anna is really pushing for leaning "out of the circle", or as I'm thinking of it, more like "keeping upright over the circle." Really, it seems to be enough just to not lean into the circle. This corresponds with keeping the trailing arm what seems like outrageously high, and actually bringing the leading arm down lower. This seemed to be just what Anna was looking for and she was happier.
• FO3s -- working on getting the step forward. I'm still tending to rush these. Still working on the body position coming out of the turn, keeping the free leg back and bringing the trailing hand forward to facilitate the step forward. The RFO3 tends to be turned on the toe a bit and that's a problem. These still need lots of work.
  
• FI3s -- We just got to work the RFI3 as we were short on time. We worked on doing it pre-rotated since when you alternate the FI3s you're going to come off the BO edge with the skating arm/hand already forward. This proved a bit unsettling and I had a hard time doing them at all well. Again, much more work required.
  

Anna mentioned in passing (with the usual sort of caveat, "don't take this the wrong way") that it's good that I'm falling more. I told her I fall plenty, just not in front of her :-) and that I don't mind falling in general, it's these backwards falls that bug me. Grr! Also while we were working the 3s, Bri was standing next to Anna at the boards and asked, "Is he going to test?" (or maybe it was, "Is he EVER going to test?" :-)) and we both said "May" and followed with, "we'll talk."

As of now (4 hours later, almost) it appears there won't be any lasting problems from my fall this morning, which is good. My tailbone is a little sore, as is my elbow, and my wrist is just a little tweaked, but definitely okay. Thanks be to God.