Michelle Kwan Has Nothing To Worry About

Today's lesson:

• power-3s -- at my request we started by looking at these. I've noticed that my step forward tends to be "bowed out" a bit, i.e. when I step forward for the new lobe instead of going more-or-less straight I'm tending to go "out" a bit and then curve back. We worked these for a while on each foot. Anna says partly it's that I'm (waaait for it!) stepping wide. Figures! It's a common problem. Oh, and could I place the 3-turn at least a little closer to the top of the lobe? Anyway, some improvement on these, even on the right foot. At least they are fun; the step forward and new lobe always gives me that I-might-fall-but-probably-won't adrenalin rush. Whee!
  
• spirals -- we spent quite a bit of time on these; Michelle Kwan's signature move but her legend is safe from me! Anna showed me the PM Moves pattern for consecutive FO and FI spirals. I had some real problems with these at first, mostly because I needed to take more time in between the spirals to get prepared. Anna said, "what's my favorite word?" The answer she was looking for was "set" but I wanted to say "eyes!" :-) Anyway, if I take the time to do the "set" properly they are sort of do-able. I did manage to do an entire rink-length of outsides and almost the whole rink-length of insides, so yea Gordon! However, Anna did say that my skating leg is bent ( or appears bent). I gave her a hard time about that since we'd just talked about it last week or whenever, but she says it does look bent so I need to fix that -- she said she doesn't want me to think of "locked knee" so much as "lifted up". We also looked at the PPM pattern (right and left foot spirals on flats). My problem here isn't so much (as I thought) that I'm falling onto the FO edge, it's actually that when I start the spiral I'm on an FO edge already. I don't know why that is. Anna suggested I try lining my shoulders up pointing to the end of the rink, and that did seem to help somewhat. I don't actually need to test these until Adult Silver (that's just bizarre) so I'm not worried about it. I should clarify -- you can do a lunge or a spiral on the APB freestyle test, but as far as moves are concerned, it's not 'til AS and it's only the Pre-pre Moves pattern. Just bizarre. Anna was happy with how well I picked up the FO and FI spirals though. Of course I'm still working to get acceptable extension, but they are improving slowly. Gotta keep stretching! :-)
  
• FXOs -- about 2 minutes on these, in the moves pattern. Anna was pleased that the transition between circles looks more natural and graceful, but she's going to bonk me if I don't stop toe-pushing into the first XO of each circle -- that is, toe-pushing on the "easy" push. I don't know why that is. Also, I expressed my concern to Anna because I counted, and I'm only doing *2* or so FXOs per circle and it's supposed to be at least 4. Anna said that we'll need to fix that but it's a low priority, and that it's hard for a person my size. I am getting some pretty good speed out of just those two XOs -- besides the XOs there's the push between circles, a total of 5 pushes per circle and I'm going not at a huge speed, but almost as fast as I can handle a circle that size. Eeep!

That was all we had time for. I suspect on Thursday Anna's going to want to look at the BI3 again. Eeep!

Addendum: I forgot to mention that while I was working on the FO spirals I wound up doing the fastest LFO3 I've ever done. Do you ever get in that mode where you forget what pattern you are working on and winding up doing something similar that's comfortable or familiar? I was working on the FO3 spiral pattern and whoosh found myself doing an LFO3 while going at a pretty good clip. It was rather cool!