Hitting The Hard Spots

Today's lesson:

• Back edge stability -- wasn't sure what to call this one. I told Sonya I wanted to work on being able to hold that BO edge while turned into the circle and free foot in front. So.. we worked on it! It's hard. Sonya suggested I think of the push as a "flick" and to keep the free foot in front from the get-go, not let it get back and then have to move it in front. We worked this on the wall and on a hockey circle. She also suggested I keep my arms lower and, especially, not to drop the free hip. Unfortunately keeping the free hip up tends to make it hard for me to keep my skating knee bent (sigh). Still, we made some good progress and I have some ideas as to how to continue to work on this.
• LFI3 -- having worked on that position, we went on to LFI3. We actually made some good progress, I was starting to feel an actual down-up-down on the turn and was able to do the turn without putting my free foot down. I'm very cynical about progress on this turn since I've been working on it for so long, but... this felt different. The key seemed to be in part to really feel the ball of the foot. It also helped to do the RFI3 right before and then try to remember that feeling and match it on the other side.
• Back Russian stroking -- Sonya wanted to look at this (we'd not done so in a while). I forget how fun these are! Sonya reminded me to change the arms at the top of the lobe, to really straighten the non-weightbearing leg for the wide step, and to look where I'm going. She also wanted me to pull back even more on the widestep edge, to almost be twisting back to generate more power. I don't know, I can already generate some pretty good power as it is!
• Spins -- just a couple of minutes on these, continuing some progress I made before. I actually had about 1.5 revs of a good spin (not centered, though)! The key seemed to be that I'm remembering most things (not being too forceful, setting a good edge etc.) but I'd gotten a little sloppy on bringing the R hand around and in. So once I did that I had some pretty good results! I'll have to keep working on this.

Sonya is on vacation next week, so no lesson. I feel like I have plenty to work on, anyway.