Trial Lesson With Sarah

I had my trial lesson with Sarah on the 6:30 a.m. freestyle at Shiny Rink. The lesson was at the beginning of the session so I didn't get a warmup other than getting on 2 minutes early (shhh, don't tell rink management) and taking the first couple of minutes to warmup, so a very brief warmup.

• discussion -- we started out with Sarah asking me what I knew about blades and edges. We had a brief discussion about edges, weight placement and so forth.
  
• stroking -- from there we went on (of course) to look at stroking. She emphasized many of the same things other coaches have, posture and weight placement. We worked on pushing and getting the extension of the leg/foot with some improvement.
  
• edges -- we went through these (FO, FI, BO, BI) much as for the moves test. A lot of emphasis on posture and weight placement. We also spent some time working the pushoff for the back edges and I actually had some real improvement on getting a better pushoff and getting and holding the foot in front. Yea!
  
• FXOs -- we spent some time on these on the center circle, working mostly on being more comfortable on the outside edge and (again) skating in the crossed-over position.
  

After the lesson I briefly asked her about her background. She said she'd gotten the gold medals in freestyle, dance and moves (figures?), and had competed nationally in dance. She's been coaching for 9 years. She seems to be pretty booked up (a good thing) and her available time is all early mornings.

After the session I bumped into the other coach I'd been trying to get in touch with for a lesson, and she promised to call me so hopefully we'll get it figured out soon.