Moves & Spins

My FS lesson with JJ on the 7:30 a.m. FS at Gilbert.  We had the ice all to ourselves!  Very nice for us, not so great for the rink.

Today's lesson:

• FO8/FI8 -- the Bronze Moves pattern.  JJ wanted to look at this since we hadn't done it before.  There was some confusion about the pattern.  I skated RFO8, LFO8, LFI8, RFI8.  JJ was really impressed -- my tracings on the right side were very, very close! (but see below)
• BXOs to BO edges -- I suggested working on these since the rink was empty -- these are pretty blind so I don't like to do them around other people :-).  Anyway they were pretty good and I was really happy with them.  JJ's only correction was that he'd like to see my free leg higher on the extension on the BO edge.
• FO8/FI8 again -- we were checking things on the BO edges pattern and looked again at the FO8/FI8 pattern.  On reading the text, it appears that it's supposed to be RFO8, LFO8, RFI8, LFI8, so I tried it that way.  Weird.  It just feels weird that way.  I'm going to double-check but that seems weird to skate the same circle twice in a row (LFO8, RFI8).
• Spins -- back to these.  Eh.  Many of the same corrections but no good ones today.  Blah!
• 5-step mohawk -- we had a little time left and I asked to look at these because they stink.  The mohawk is actually not that bad, but I need to hold the BO edge longer which should help the step forward be better.
• Power-3s -- JJ was being (very) generous with his time so we spent a little time talking about these.  These and the 5-step are my weakest moves by far.  The 3 feels so different when I try to do it in this context vs., say, waltz-8.  JJ thinks it's the hip position.  He demonstrated... wow.  I rarely get to see JJ really skate but when I do... wow, it's impressive.  POWER!

Not a bad lesson, though I'm very frustrated with my spins.  I stayed until 9 and worked on them some more along with a bunch of other stuff.  I made myself do the FXO-BXO perimeter stroking with the mohawk in between, and also even worked on doing T-stops from a bit more speed.  I really can't be doing a Bronze MITF test and doing a snowplow stop.