Trial Lesson With Suzy

I had a trial lesson with another coach today, Suzy. It was at the end of the public session at Valley. Unfortunately the ice was in pretty sad shape and was swarming with little girls -- Suzy said that usually it's much quieter but there was a Girl Scout troop present. Anyway, I got there a little later that I would have liked so only had about 10 minutes to warm up before our lesson.

Suzy has been teaching for 32 (!) years, and skated competitively for 8. Her background is mostly freestyle although she did some dancing with she was competing. Our lesson:

• stroking -- Suzy wants me to keep the free leg straight when I bring it in (rise in the knee when bringing the legs together), and work more on holding the extension. Also she reminded me not to look down so much :-).
  
• FXOs -- we worked on holding the positions longer, being more deliberate, and (yes) pushing from the heel more. Also, trying to get a better underpush and bringing the free leg around more smoothly. She liked my bad side (CW) FXOs better than the CCW ones! Also keep the back arm further back and stay turned into the circle. These have got sloppy in ways I had not noticed :-(.
  
• BXOs -- similar notes to the FXOs -- push from the heel and sit back more on the blade. I'm still (of course) not getting a true cross on the bad direction. Look over/down the arm more.
  
• 3-turns -- She wanted me to go into these with the skating hand leading and not do any arm motions at all. That was a bit weird since I've always done them the other way (free arm leading and then rotate skinny), but doable. Didn't like it much though. I didn't attempt the LFI3.
  
• waltz jump -- Suzy told me to hold the landing position more firmly and not let the free leg pull me around. It wasn't a great jump and we were running out of time.
  

Suzy is obviously a very good coach and had some good insights even in just the short time we had. It's interesting to note the differences in approach from someone who's more freestyle oriented though -- not bad, just different. Her schedule is a bit limited in that she only teaches at the morning and afternoon public sessions, M-F; i.e. 9:30 - 11:30 and 1:30 - 6. I don't know if I could make that work with my work schedule. I'll have to think about it and maybe talk with my boss. Basically my options at this point seem to be Lucy, Suzy, or look at one of the other rinks. Food for thought.