Gordon's Sk8er Boi Blog

My adventures as an adult male figure skater in Tucson, Arizona Portland, Oregon Chandler, Arizona.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

F8, Waltz-8 and Serpentine

My figures lesson with Lynne on the Chandler coffee club.  Good ice as usual and Lynne gave me time for a good warmup today :-)

Today's lesson:
  • F8s -- I had warmed these up well, I just wanted Lynne to video them so that I could see what I look like (I'll post them below).   I'm a bit hunched over, but not as bad as I thought.  I still would like to have a little more speed on these but in general they are okay.   On the video the first RFO is pretty icky though :-(.
  • Waltz-8 -- these are definitely improved.  For one thing I pretty much always make it back to center, which didn't happen all that much in the past.  Second, on the L side I am actually turning my foot before pushing onto the LFO from the step forward, which didn't happen before.  True my circles are still rather egg-shaped but they are getting better.  Yay!
  • Serpentine -- we worked mostly on trying to keep the free shoulder firmly checked back while the free leg is forward (the cross-body stretch).  The change of edge is actually okay.   The biggest hurdle is that I don't have nearly enough speed to make it through the whole FI circle after the change of edge.  I'm going to have to push a lot harder for that.
All in all I'm pleased with my progress.  Slow and steady seems to be doing it for me.

Here's the video of my FI8:


And here's the FO8:

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2 Comments:

  • At 4:33 PM , Blogger Walla Walla Sk8ter said...

    Looking good Gordon! Figures are frustrating and great all at the same time--I'm so glad you (and other adult skaters) are working on them. I thought your insides looked really strong! Your outsides aren't bad, though you looked weren't enjoying them as much. Watch out for pre-rotating that left shoulder on the RO; LOL, I know because it was a huge issue for me. Thank you so much for sharing.

     
  • At 11:33 PM , Blogger Gordon said...

    Thanks! Yes I am really struggling on the FO8 to keep that free shoulder back!

     

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