Dress Rehearsal

For today's lesson I got dressed in my program costume (okay, I didn't put on the studs or cufflinks, but other than that it was complete). I got to the rink and warmed up off-ice, then Sonya talked to me about the competition and gave me a 5 minute warmup. For the warmup she wanted a lap of stroking and/or slaloms, then suggested I could work on problem areas -- in this case, that would be my footwork areas that are giving me grief still. The good news is that I've been skating so much lately (although I was off yesterday since I am coming down with something and wanted to rest) that I actually felt reasonably warmed up. Sonya said if I'm the first one skating I should remember to come off at the 1 minute warning.

After the 5 minute warmup, a brief rest and then poof, skating the program. The good news is that I was more or less okay. The bad news is that I fell doing a crossover and went zipping merrily along the nice, clean, just-Zamboni'd ice. I couldn't get up for the longest time because I couldn't stop! I was laughing pretty hard. I should have remembered Amy's advice to use your toepicks to stop yourself! Oh well. By the time I was able to get up I had just a few moments so I did a quick spiral and then the 3-turn into the 1-foot spin.

At this point the photographer and reporter from the Oregonian showed up, but Sonya and I did our best to ignore them after we helped them over to the hockey boxes (we were told for insurance purposes we had to help them, and there's no way into the hockey boxes except from the ice).

We continued with working on problem areas and did another runthrough and several partial ones (last half, mostly). Sonya says I still need to be quicker about the transitions. Not surprisingly, Sonya decided we needed to drop the spiral from the program -- there's just not enough time for me to reliably put it in (apologies to all who were hoping to see one from me!). Instead it's just a two-foot glide to the RFI3 etc. Sonya wants more height and push from the half flip, better extension on the swing rolls and gotta keep the head up more! On the positive side... waltz jumps are not too bad (but Sonya wants me to bring my hands through together), and my little toepick move (Sonya likened it to Michael Jackson... OOH! :-)) is finally right.

We also reviewed etiquette etc. for getting to starting position, bowing to the judges and audience, and exiting.

After all this it was a bit past our time. Sonya went to get ready to work on her own program, and I worked some more on my problem areas while the photographer and reporter did their thing.

I've still got work to do but I'm feeling reasonably good about things. I'm still running late but I can adapt if need be, and I do still have a week. My costume is all set and I skated in it for over an hour and it was reasonably comfy. Not wearing gloves didn't bother me as much as I feared (even when sliding all over the ice!).

One lesson left, on Monday. My practice ice is 7 a.m. Sunday a.m. 3/9, and my skate is noon 3/9.