Just Figures

I had my first figures lesson with Lynne today, on the coffee club session at Chandler. It's a good environment for this since there were about 5 or 6 skaters and 2 coaches on the session and the ice was freshly surfaced before. Lynne brought her scribe but we did not wind up using it.

Today's lesson:

• FO/FI edges -- I was working on these to start with so of course Lynne wanted to look at them. We worked on getting my weight placed a bit further back on the blade (I was too far forward), getting a better push (get feet closer together at the start) and especially keeping the free shoulder/hip back until the rotation at the top of the lobe. These were pretty rusty to start with but improved quite a bit by the time we were done.
• FO8/FI8 -- as usual my circle size and tracking are reasonably good (at least for now) but my push and body position are lacking. Many of the same issues as on my edges. I'm amused that there's a definite dip in the middle of the rink that I didn't really notice in my FS blades but in patch blades it becomes quite obvious!
  

All in all I think we did some good work. I clearly need to get more practice time in my patch blades, though, if I am going to make progress. Alas, that's not happening this week :-( but after the holiday crush I am going to try for an additional hour of patch time per week in addition to Wednesdays, perhaps half an hour at coffee club and another half hour or 45 minutes after my FS lesson. I would try Friday mornings but the ice quality at that session would be too frustrating.