Spins, Salchow, Program

I was visiting Portland and had a lesson with Sonya this morning.  JJ had asked me to have her look on my program, and I also wanted to work on spins and salchow.  Lesson time was 6:30 a.m. (on ice at 6:15).

Today's lesson:

• spins -- we worked mostly on trying to get me "untwisted."  I've usually approached this by trying to bring the R side around more but Sonya instead had me work to bring the L arm/hand around more, which actually helped a bit.  Some small progress and I did have one nice spin in particular.  I'll have to work on these more.
• salchow -- we worked mostly on getting me to hold the exit of the 3 longer and then to get a bit more curve before the takeoff.  We talked a lot about my aversion to doing this jump; Sonya thinks if I can figure out why that is it might be very helpful.
• program -- finished up with this.  We ran it with music first and actually, it's the first time I've pretty much done the whole thing from start to finish and it was almost okay, in spite of the fact we've not really choreographed the 2nd half.  Nevertheless it went pretty well actually and I got everything in more-or-less.  I know I forgot some of the arm stuff that JJ had already given me and I was a bit early finishing the first part but I was still pleased; except that I tried the ending I had worked out and Kelli thought I had fallen!  And Sonya thinks it's a bit too melodramatic for a freeskate.  So we will have to come up with something else.  After that we worked on some things especially the waltz jump-salchow transition and Sonya made some suggestions on arms and flow.

It was awesome to have a lesson with Sonya again  I don't think she had really seen me skate since I left in Sept., and she said she sees a lot of improvement, which was nice to hear.  I was really pleased the lesson went so well, especially since I got to bed very late and didn't sleep well at all so I probably had 3 hours of sleep!