Mixing It Up

As usual I skated the 9:30 a.m. session at Valley today for my lesson. I had called on Friday and they'd said the ice was up again. The ice today was a bit thin and rather rough (no Zamboni before the session) but acceptable.

Today's lesson:

• Stroking -- Lucy says my extension is much improved. Main corrections were to keep the shoulders down, head up and try to look more relaxed :-).
  
• Waltz-8 -- timing on these has improved. Lucy said I am tending to drop my R shoulder and block with my L shoulder on the step forward from RBO that I've been struggling with; that's one reason why that last step (LFO) on that side tends to take me so wide. Some good progress though.
  
• Spirals -- left foot is looking pretty good; Lucy says my free leg is almost at hip height now, yay! Right foot -- yech. I'd not tried one in a while and it was like I'd never done one at all. Couldn't seem to get my weight planted correctly and couldn't straighten the skating knee. *sigh*
  
• Lunges -- left foot is good. Right foot -- after a couple of bad efforts, managed a pretty good one. I need to practice these more.
  
• FXOs -- ever popular, these are (sounding like Yoda I am!). Extension on these is improving, and Lucy says my rhythm is improving too. Still need to work on keeping the shoulders down, and still some toepushing on the underpush (such as it is).
  

All in all a pretty good lesson. I only have 2 lessons left with Lucy before she leaves; I'm thinking I want to learn something new. Maybe an outside Mohawk?