Time Trial

My lesson with JJ was on the 7:30 a.m. FS at Gilbert as usual, and as usual not crowded and good ice.

Today's lesson:

• time trial -- JJ told me he wanted to work with me periodically on speed and power (which definitely does need improvement). So he had me start at the blue line and skate a lap around the rink forward and then a lap backward without stopping. Not surprisingly I suppose I chickened out on the 2nd set of FXOs on the forward lap since I was going pretty fast. Then I chickened out on doing a mohawk at what is for me pretty high speed, so I lost some time; I was also a little confused about whether we were stopping and restarting from forward to back or just going on. So then I did the backward lap. My time was 1:37 although I think we agreed we'd call it 1:30 since I lost about 7 seconds asking how we were doing this. Not a great time but it's a benchmark from which we can improve.
• spins -- I wish I could do these as well on my own as I do them when I'm in lesson! The biggest thing is to not rush the entry, but take my time on the step in and hooking the spin and to hold the leg/upper body back until then.
  
• toe loop -- we worked on holding the R hand/shoulder back after the 3, and especially on holding the toe pick firmly in the ice and the L foot straight up so it's not blocking me from jumping. Some good improvement and I actually got an uncheated jump out of it! I'll post a picture below.
• salchow -- these are coming along. The first few I did were not bad but then I started rushing them and that was not good. Still working on getting a feeling on the timing of this jump.

All in all a great lesson. I'm really glad we are working on speed and power since those are definitely weaknesses. After my lesson I skated the following session ('til 9) for 1.5 hours total.