Trial Lesson With Krissy

After work today I drove the 19 miles (35 minutes) to Shiny Rink to have my trial lesson with Krissy. The FS session is 5:45 to 6:30 and had about 5 skaters on it, so good conditions for a lesson. I had a quick 15 minute warmup, but I felt a bit nervous and unsettled and not at my best, unfortunately.

Today's lesson:

• stroking -- yes, every trial lesson will begin with stroking :-). Krissy's comments pretty much echoed everyone else's -- good extension and power, but need to work on keeping the head up and the end crossovers need work.
  
• FXOs -- we spent quite a bit of time on these; Krissy wanted me to work harder on skating crossed-over and improving the underpush. She also wanted me to drop my hands and arms lower and work to lower the shoulders and relax :-). We also worked a bit on tempo. Krissy finally said "I could work on these a lot more", but we needed to move on.
  
• BXOs -- we worked on these in the Moves pattern and later by the boards. For some reason I was a little distracted and came rather disturbingly close to the wall on the right-hand circle both times I did it. We worked at the boards on sitting down on the edge more and getting a better cross.
  
• Spin entrance -- we spent our last five minutes on this since it's still a trouble spot for me. Krissy drew a diagram of what the entrance should look like and I had a go at "skating on the dots" so to speak. Some slight progress but no big breakthrough. It was encouraging, though.
  

I was pretty happy with this lesson. Krissy is very positive, very professional and organized (she handed me a folder with lots of info about her rates and policies, handy skating tips, etc.), and very experienced. She's been coaching for 11 years and skated competitively for a long time. I was really pleased with her approach and our interaction, and I also felt pretty positive about the environment. The drive wasn't as bad as I feared; traffic was relatively light both ways (I found a better route than I'd used before from Shiny Rink to home, and it was 12 miles and 25 minutes).

I have one more coach I want to try out; hopefully I can get this done by the end of the month.