Waltz-8, Jumps, Spins

Today's lesson was on club ice. A work conflict had caused me to reschedule from my usual 7 a.m. Monday slot but it was just as well since I was too sick to skate on Monday anyway.

Today's lesson:

• Waltz-8 -- Sonya wanted to see how this is faring. It's improving. The left side is looking a lot better. We worked on the right side to have the 3-turn be not so straight, to curve more/faster and to hold the BO edge straighter so it didn't curve into the circle so quickly. We made some good progress on this.
• Waltz jump -- just a few of these. Sonya had me work on improving my timing so that my arms come back with the free leg on the step forward, then come through with the leg on the jump. We also worked on bringing the arms together (not apart) on the jump, and bringing them up a little more. Sonya felt obliged to point out that my mouth tends to hang open on the landing (I told her I'm always surprised I did it, lol) so one more thing to worry about! Grrr. :-)
• Toe loop -- just continuing to work on the timing and to bring the R leg all the way back before jumping. This is improving slowly and it's definitely getting better. She also reminded me to feel the L hand drawing back into the jump, and bring the R hand around to meet it.
• 1-foot spin -- We did just one of these and it was MY BEST SPIN EVER!! Seriously, I got 3+ revs, the first time ever. I'm not exactly sure what I did differently... but I felt secure and I actually could feel myself on the sweet spot and *I didn't bail*!! Wow. I was so happy I could spit. Yes, it traveled outrageously and I'm sure there were other issues but I was really, really happy. Sonya asked if I wanted to do another (it was close to the end of the lesson) and I said NO! I just wanted to savor that. I'll keep working on it, of course.
• Backspin intro -- so, since we had a couple of minutes left Sonya felt she needed to introduce me to the backspin. She had me try it from an LFI edge, step to RFI3 and spin. It's not happening yet (dang that's WEIRD) but we played around with it at the wall a little bit. Awesome.

This was a great lesson! I'm so happy.... I feel like I got enough progress to keep me working hard. Thanks be to God and St. Lydwina! I have been so discouraged at times in the past few months about my spins, but this shows me that I can do it! I just have to keep working and it will happen. YAY!