Test Prep

Today's lesson on the 7 a.m. FS as usual. I felt very uncoordinated, like I had 3 left feet. Bleah. Instead of a runthrough as I expected, Sonya wanted to work on elements. I guess that's a good sign that after last week's runthrough she's not so worried about the whole thing. Before the lesson proper we talked about the possibility of being double-paneled for this test (Carrie is planning to test as well) and what that would mean for how things work.

Today's lesson:

• Warmup prep -- we talked about what elements to work on in the 5 minute warmup. I should be able to skate FS session before the test so I'll be somewhat warmed up. We settled on stroking (get my legs under me, especially the end FXOs), L side 3-turn pattern, waltz-8 (I think!).
• Waltz-8 -- yech. These were so much better last week! Once again I'm having problems getting that shoulder pulled back before the step forward. This is really frustrating!
• FXOs -- not too bad, but when I get to the second set of CW FXOs I get really nervous. I think it might be because I'm going into them faster since it's the middle of the move, not the beginning. I need to practice them more in context -- I think too much of my practice is in isolation so it's not the same as in the test.
• BXOs -- not that bad. CCW are still quite scratchy, but I'm getting a good cross and Sonya says the transition between circles is better.
• 3-turn pattern -- we just did the L side (I'm going to stop calling it the bad side!). I wasn't getting a good back lobe, which makes the step forward sloppy. Grrr.

All in all this was a very frustrating lesson! Last week seemed so much better, or at least I felt a lot better about it! Grrr. The test is one week from today. The schedule is not out yet though.