Polishing -- Coarse Grit

Today's lesson on the 7 a.m. FS as usual. Not too many skaters today, just 4 I counted. Today was all about polishing the program, but it's hardly fine-tuning at this point. There's still much to do. We started with a runthrough (of course), then ran sections and fixed some stuff, then another runthrough at the end.

• Opening -- no feedback!
• 3-turn section -- Sonya reminded me to try to set a better edge when stepping into the 3s. For the last part (LFO glide), I went rather straight the last time as I was short on time, but Sonya wants a definite curve, even if I have to do a little curlicue (so to speak) at the end.
• Pushback/2-foot spin/toepicks -- This is not too bad. Sonya wants the arms coming up and not just back on the toepick thing, but not too bad otherwise.
• Half flip/lunge -- Sonya's pleased with the half flip. It's definitely better, but I did a really good one about 2 weeks ago and I'm still trying to get back to how that felt. The lunge... I am having real issues with the lunge--3-turn. I'm not sure why, this used to be an easy move for me (the "Gordon"!). Not right now. Sonya gave me the option of dropping it. I think her thought was that sometimes, less is more. She's probably right. I'll play around with it in practice and if it's not solid I will drop it *sigh*.
• Footwork -- we spent some time working on the footwork after the lunge, Sonya was getting me to speed it up, make the transitions quicker. Some good progress on this. Sonya wants these steps all on a 2-count.
• Waltz jumps -- not sure if I'm going to do one or two. I've left the second one out a couple of times because I was running late, the last time through I only did one but Sonya said it was "huge!". So we'll see.
• RFI3/spin/closing -- The problem here is mostly that I'm going hecka fast into the RFI3 and it scares me. Sonya reminded me to really bend my knees (and, as she said, don't assume the "Thinker" pose -- butt out, head dropped, etc. :-)). Other than that it's not so bad, I think it will be okay.

All in all a very good and very tiring lesson! Now it's just get some practice and some rest before my skate (Sunday at noon).

No lesson next week (I'm taking a week off from lessons). I told Sonya when we come back I'd like to spend some time really work just on edges (and speed) as if there's one thing I've learned from this experience it's that my edges are not what I'd like them to be.