Edges, Waltz-8, Spins

Today was my first lesson since 9/8! I had a pretty good warmup. When Anna got there we talked briefly about the video of my runthrough, then on to our lesson:

• Edges -- went through all the edges. FO and FI were not bad, although I'm still not tending to 'set' very well on the RFI edge. BO, need to work on keeping the free foot in front at the beginning (still!), being sure to place the new edge perpendicular to the line when changing feet, and not let the free leg swing around too much. On the BI edges I still need to work on getting more over my hip, most especially on the R foot; also need to keep the free leg from wandering out to the side.
• Waltz-8 -- these are actually rather improved. Anna suggested I make the circle a couple of feet bigger than I had been, which helped. We worked on the rhythm of the move. The step forward (especially from the RBO) is still not clean, so we worked on just skating a circle and doing FI Mohawk, BO step forward; the goal being to keep the free foot close and have a minimum of movement. I finally did manage some real improvement, not just in keeping the foot close but also minimizing scraping on the BO edge just before the step forward.
• Spins -- we were pretty much done when we decided to spend just a little time on spins. I had done some yesterday and in the warmup, and I was not impressed; but I actually did some decent ones. It seems to be very hard to find that rocker and stay on it in the spin though!

After my lesson I decided to try the waltz jump again since I'd spent all that time de-scratching my BO step-forward; I was rewarded with a really nice jump! Not high or anything, but having the BO edge cleaner made the rhythm of the jump much, much better. Now if I would just remember to look up, and to really push the L foot to have more *oomph*....

It was really great to be working with Anna again. I felt much better about my skating when we were done.