Polishing

I skated the 8 a.m. FS at WSC this morning, and Sonya was kind enough to make time for a lesson for me even though she usually doesn't teach on Mondays.

Fresh ice for this session, and just 4 skaters and 2 coaches so it was pretty nice.  A good warmup, worked a bunch on spins and then on the salchow.

Today's lesson:

• toe loop -- some time working on this.  Sonya worked with me on the wall and on the ice to bend the picking leg and then straighten fully, while bringing the free leg through/up ("h" position).  Not really much progress but at least I get the idea.
• free skate -- we spent the rest of the time polishing the free skate.  I ran it for her and actually it went quite well.  We worked a bit on two main areas:
• exit from the first spin -- I'm just sloppy.  Sonya had me be sure to push back firmly (brush out), glide back, then back-snowplow stop before the program goes on.  It does look a lot better, and anyone who's skated with Sonya will tell you how much she can't abide not finishing the move!  She says the judges don't like it either :-).
• footwork from the salchow into the waltz-toe -- removing scooter pushes I was doing after the sal, Sonya wants me to just push onto a nice glide w/extension (*straight* leg), first left then right, then into the mohawk etc.  On the back progressives she worked with me to really point my toe (gotta sit back on the blade so I don't scrape my toepick!), then do a cross step on the last one before the BXOs.

And with that we were out of time... good lesson, and good skate.  I think JJ will be pleased (assuming I can do all that!).