"No More Scooter Pushes!"

 
I am still in Oregon, and I had a lesson this evening with Sonya on the 5:10 FS at Sherwood.  The title comes from Kelli's comments to me after watching video of my Cactus skate -- Sonya made much the same observation.

For those that don't know what a scooter push is, it's a little push (I usually do them w/my right foot) to gain speed, and sometimes to help change an edge.  It's not a full-fledged push like you would make while stroking.  Generally speaking it's a bad habit.

Today's lesson:

• Scooter elimination -- there were a couple of places I'd noticed these scooter pushes creeping in.   The first one we worked on was in between the RFI3 and the toe loop entry toward the end of the program.  So we worked on it, paying special attention to let the end of the 3 curve around a little more and to bring the feet together before stepping forward after the 3.  That helped a lot to make me more stable and avoid the s.p.  The other one was after the waltz jump, going into the mohawk sequence, so it's much the same kind of setup.
• mohawks -- from there we looked at my LFI mohawk.  Sonya asked me to look back over my R shoulder going into the mohawk, to let it curve around more before stepping to the R foot.  It did help.  It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me since I am used to being told to look where I'm going.  She also asked me to pause a bit on the LFI edge before stepping down and I had less success with that.

That was all we had time for!  We have another lesson on the 6 a.m. FS tomorrow, then I need to fly home.  It's been a fun vacation though!