Spins, Waltz Jump & Mohawks

Today's lesson w/JJ on the Gilbert 6:45 a.m. FS.  We are moving our lessons to Tuesdays at 7:45 starting next week, but since I was out of town this week we had it this morning.  There were a few skaters at the 6 a.m. session, but they all left at 6:45 and I had the ice to myself for an hour and a half!  Nice :-).

Today's lesson:

• Spins -- some work to clean these up a bit.  JJ wanted to figure out exactly what I need to do to improve them so that I will know what's working and what's not.  After some experimentation the two things we've come up with (so far) are 1) looking over the left shoulder on the step forward into the spin, and 2) really sucking in that core (navel to spine) when I start the spin.  That really helped a lot.  The biggest issue now is that I am still tending to have my weight moving forward and back (can't reliably find and stay on the rocker).
• Waltz jump -- we spent just a little time working on these in the context of the program; working on skating into it with more speed, and to work on the on-ice placement of the jump (i.e. where it is positioned).  We also worked on holding the BO edge cleanly before the jump -- not a two foot back glide but just a nice BO edge.  As I realized, this is just the same BO edge as in the Bronze Move I've been working on (see those tests are good for something!).  So we got that cleaned up a bit.
• Mohawk sequence -- having done all that we continued to the next thing in the program, and picked up where I left off with Sonya on Wednesday; working on the mohawk sequence in the program and trying to clean them up.  I explained to JJ that (from my work w/Sonya) the reason I'm scooter-pushing before the LFI mohawk is because I'm on an outside edge and I have to push to an inside edge.  So we worked a bit on that transition, from the BO edge of the waltz jump landing to the LFI edge.  For a bit JJ had me try doing a side toe hop after the jump to help me transition (I was lacking in enthusiasm for this :-)) but since it didn't help much and made things more complicated I think our consensus was to not put it in. (yay!)

We ran a bit long this morning!  After my lesson I finished out the rest of the 7:30 session working on my Bronze moves and some other things.  My power-3s really need work, there's not much power there and I never place the 3 at the top of the lobe :-(.  I worked my 5-step mohawk a bit and went back to something I'd not tried for a while -- doing them around the hockey circle.  This is a nice way to work just one side of them without having to work the other side or worry about where you are on the ice.   I mostly worked the LFI side since it's worse.  I also spent a little quality time on my CW FXOs since I never do those and it shows :-(.  All in all a great skate!