In N' Out

The title of this post does not refer to my favorite hamburger chain, but rather to Anna's name for what the Moves test calls "perimeter power crossover stroking", also know as "Russian stroking."

Today's lesson:

• forward Russian stroking -- Anna asked me at the beginning of the lesson what I wanted to work on and I said this ("in and out" in Anna-speak :-)). We had not looked at these in a while. In particular I was confused about the pattern and whether the lobes should change at the "pepperoni dots" or elsewhere; Anna says as I get more power I'll make the lobes bigger but I can't cross the center line of the rink. We worked these for some time, and Anna pointed out I'm tending not to get a good stroke (with extension!) into the crossover which slows me down and throws me off. In general they were better than I expected, though.
• back Russian stroking -- I asked Anna to show me these since we'd never done them (and I'm on a quest to be introduced to all the AB Moves). As I suspected, they are somewhat similar to the pattern for the 2nd lobe of the power-3s. We spent some time on these as well. Anna says the most common mistake is to not ride the beginning edge but go straight to the crossover. Since we'd not worked on back XOs in a while we took a moment to run them in the Moves pattern, then back to the back Russian stroking. Anna says when I take my time on the BXOs they are not so bad, and she can clearly see each stroke. It's when I rush them that I tend to get sloppy.

That was all we had time for. I'm thinking I want to leave 3-turns alone for a bit (just as I left spins alone for a bit) since I think I've over-worked them. I'm going to try to concentrate more on stroking and crossovers for the next week, with waltz jumps and spins for variety.