Jumps

I couldn't have asked for a better environment for my lesson than Shiny Rink this morning -- ice was just gorgeous and only two skaters on the ice. Whee!

Today's lesson was all jumps:

• waltz jump -- just a couple of minutes on this since I did one before my lesson :-). I'm getting reasonably good height/length. Sonya reminded me to bend the knee/push my weight back a bit on the RBO before the step forward; I'm getting up on the toe a bit. Also the first one was rotated on the toe a bit. I fixed that and my last one was really, really nice; it just felt very easy and had good form. Yea!
  
• half flip -- these are coming along okay. I really need more practice on them! The biggest thing is to get more spring off the toe (it took me forever to get that on the waltz jump).
  
• salchow -- Sonya had never looked at this with me as far as I know. It's about where I left it with Anna :-); the turn and check is not bad (need to remember to feel the tension between the L arm and free leg), but still a lot of work to do on sitting back on the edge and getting some snap to the deepening edge. Also, Sonya wants me to bring the free leg and arm around together and do so wide, not close-in to the body (she said "like riding a horse").
  
• toe loop prep -- Sonya taught me an exercise to do by the wall to help me prep this. Basically it's RBO, pick behind, draw the R foot through and then bring the R hip through and pivot/lift the R leg. She suggested I try to do 20-25 of these (!) when I skate.
  

I was pretty happy with this lesson, things are coming along on the jump front. Sonya mentioned that we would have to reschedule next week's lesson as there is a testing session that morning at Valley. I'm going to try to go watch some of the tests if I can, it's always instructive.