Back Edges Woodshedding

Today's lesson:

• Waltz jump -- we started out by me showing her the tracings from some waltz jumps I'd done during my warmup time. I am coming straighter off the pick than I used to (yea!). Lift on these has really improved. Anna emphasized that I should be landing on more or less the same circle as I took off from; right now it's not quite matching up (I'm jumping a bit too much out of the circle). Also she says my landing is perhaps a bit cheated; I'm not coming around enough before the landing. More stuff to work on! Still I'm pretty happy with them -- they are much better than a couple of months ago.
  
• BXOs -- we spent quite a bit of time on these. We started with the 'bad' side. The good news (such as it is) is that when I'm doing them, I'm not so conscious of "this is the bad side." I don't mean they are equally good (the CW are still much better than CCW), rather they don't feel so awkward. We spent some time just working the BXOs, then we went to working just on skating a BO edge and holding the free foot in front. That morphed into doing "ISI style" BXOs (i.e., pick the foot up). Yech! Those are hard! I did not enjoy them at all. The point of all this was to get me to sit back on my blade more, get more kneebend, and really get my weight over my skating hip. There was some improvement but they still need work. Anna pointed out that the way the free leg comes off the ice doing this (backward stroking, really) should be like a slide chasse. It feels very unnatural!
  
• 5-step mohawk -- we worked on these, and especially the slide chasse since we'd talked about it previously. Anna made me work on not being sloppy with the mohawk -- keeping the feet close together and not bringing the foot so far forward. I can do nice mohawks when I concentrate, I just tend not to :-(. Anna reminded me I need to do an entire side of these, or better yet 2 laps of them, at a go -- in order to get used to the flow and to have an opportunity to fix things as I go. These are still a bit "lurchy" at times. We also spent a fair amount of time on the step forward with perhaps some small improvement. Anna talked about getting more inside edge pressure on these -- on the initial FI edge, on the BI edge after the Mohawk, on the push into the BO, on the push into the FO, and on the FI last edge. She had me practice doing FI edges and trying to get more ankle roll on the edge. While doing this drill she emphasized that you have to lift the free hip to compensate. It's a little tricky. I can kind of do this on FI edges. FO edges, clearly I'm not there yet (but I need to be).
  
• Salchow -- finished up with these. My problems with these are all Anna's fault, I've decided -- it's difficult for me to not continue looking where I'm going after the 3-turn, and it's difficult for me not to keep my feet close together on the turn; both things Anna drilled into me when learning 3-turns! For the Salchow, though, I need to turn and be looking back (over left hand) after the 3, and I need the free leg extended behind me. These are improving slowly -- it's all about timing. I'm not particularly scared to do these, but I wasn't as aggressive today as I was last week.
  

We had another long lesson. I'm pretty sure it was 45 minutes long! Wow. I was a bit whupped afterward.

Anna mentioned before the lesson that she would like to see me in Coronation Comets for my next blade. She feels that the bigger picks on the Ace would discourage me from really learning to do what's needed to put the toepick in the ice -- i.e. it would encourage me to be lazy. So, Comets it will be.

I also mentioned to Anna that today was the 2-year anniversary of my first lesson (it was a trial lesson) with her. Wow, it's been a long two years and I've accomplished a lot.