Ice Dance 101

After talking with Lucy, we decided a quick intro to ice dance would be fun for our last couple of lessons. Today's lesson:

• back edges -- I had wanted a quick review of these since I've been working on them assiduously. The BO are improving, but I'm still double-pushing the first edge and I still can't get the free foot in front. BI edges are improving too; my key insight is that I need to stay down in the knee; I tend to rise up too much and it makes it harder to stay in control. Still, the lobes are getting better-shaped and more even from L foot to R foot.
  
• swing rolls, progressives, chassé -- Next Lucy reviewed some basic ice dance elements with me. I'd learned how to do swing rolls and chassé from Anna. We reviewed those and Lucy also showed me how to do a progressive; it's not so hard. I'm sure there's a lot of refinement that I could use on each of these elements but for now we basically wanted to be sure I had the elements I needed to use for dancing and I can work them with my next coach if I want.
• Dutch Waltz -- I grabbed my rulebook and Lucy and I reviewed the steps for the Dutch Waltz. It's really pretty simple, so she took me through it. My biggest problem right now is that it's hard for me to string the different steps together promptly. And of course, I'm too slow and too hesitant. We ran through it several times and then we were out of time.

Today's lesson was a lot of fun! I blame it all on Nerd for her dance evangelism! I can see how dance could really do wonders for my edging, since taking those swing rolls at what counts as "speed" for me was pretty darn terrifying...

Next week, hopefully, we can try it with music!