Still In The Trenches

Today was my last lesson (for the forseeable future, that is) at coffee club. I'll kind of miss it, but of course I'll still be skating coffee club. I am looking forward to having a lesson time that's relatively bullet-proof, though; it seems like too often I've had to mess with the schedule for one reason or another.

Before the lesson today I asked Anna a quick question about the alternating FI3s. I'm used to leading into the FI3 with my free hand in front, then rotating to have the skating hand leading. The problem is that when I come off the BO edge and step forward my skating hand is already leading. Anna said that I have to learn to do the FI3 without having to do the explicit rotation, which is what I expected. Oh well! Anna asked if I wanted to do waltz jumps today, and I told her next week as my wrist is still a bit sore (it is improving though). Today's lesson:

• perimeter stroking -- a.k.a. "left and right". Anna says my extension and power are improving, and I agree. I'm pretty much making it down the ice in 4 strokes now and maintaining a good extension most of the time. I still need to be more consistent though; and the end pattern crossovers still leave much to be desired. I need to bend the knees more and get a better stroke into them. I was happy with the stroking but not with the crossovers!
• forward crossovers -- we worked these in the Moves pattern and on the hockey circle as well. Anna told me not to lean into the circle so much, which was interesting. Janet had posted on RSSIR a similar comment, if I remember, from her dance coach; so I'm assuming it's a dance thing. She also reminded me to push from the heel and to work on getting more of that outside edge pressure we'd talked about yesterday. I wasn't too happy with these.
• alternating FO3s -- we spent some much needed time on these, especially working the transition. Anna reminded me I need to place the turn better (not rush it) and also bend the knee and get my weight placed forward a bit on the back edge. Some small improvements on this but I'm still a long way away, it seems. Also she reminded me these lobes should be a bit smaller than the regular edge lobes; for some reason I'm tending to make them really large.
• footwork -- Anna closed out the lesson by teaching me some footwork she's used in some choreography; indeed, I'd seen this in my buddy Nicole's program. It's basically an FO3 followed by a toe-assisted 3 (or sequence of 3s). The sequence is FO3, tap free toepick and swivel on skating foot forward while pushing forward from the toepick. It's really pretty simple. Anna asked me to practice it -- along, of course, with the 12 bazillion other things I have to work on. "Sure!"