XOs

Today's lesson:

• LFI3 -- as usual. These are slowly getting a little better. Sonya reminded me to keep my chin up, and also not to have my free foot drift too high -- if it does I tend to break at the waist to compensate. I'm tending to have a hard time synchronizing turning the upper body and turning the hips for these. Frustrating.
• FXOs -- CCW are, I think, almost passable *when I take my time*. There's a good cross, good extension, and no toe-pushing if I just take my time. CW, on the other hand -- we worked on cross and hold a bit (it's still SO difficult!) and of course extension needs to be better. I tend to just be falling onto the crossing foot on these (i.e. transferring my weight before the crossing blade is actually on the ice). Grrr.
• BXOs -- Mary said to me yesterday "friends don't let friends do bad crossovers!" :-) Sonya had me work on just skating backward and lining my feet up as if I were half-way through the crossover; then working on pulling the one foot over and pushing with the other. This really helped a lot! My CCW are still a little scratchy, but the CW were much, much improved -- a real cross and not very scratchy at all. Wow!

After my lesson I worked a little on the back Russian stroking. I was having trouble with it (going verrrry slowly) and then I realized I wasn't doing the arms right. Duh! Once you do the arms right, the weight-shift thing is much, much easier. I'll have to keep working these.