Last Minute Polishing

I skated the last hour of the public session at Sherwood today for some practice and a lesson with Sonya.  I felt pretty unsettled trying to warmup, as if I had not skated for forever (when it had only been since Wednesday).   Since there had not been a lot of ice available, and since WSC's ice is down, it was really quite crowded.  After a short warmup Sonya came over to start our lesson.

Today's lesson started with edges since I was feeling unsettled.  We followed with a program runthrough which went relatively okay in spite of the crowded conditions.  We spent some time polishing the RFO3-RFO3 sequence, and Sonya reminded me that I REALLY need to keep my head up.  Then we spent some time working on the spiral ---  I need to really get my skating knee straight before tilting forward.  We need some good progress on getting me to keep my weight back on the blade and lock the knee.  Then we went back and ran the program again and it was a little better.  Sonya suggested that I need to shorten the FXO-BXO section before the salchow (again a reminder to keep the head up) so that I have a better chance of ending on time.

A really good lesson and we accomplished a lot!

Two updates for the competition... 1) Kelli told me there's a snafu with her background check (it's not been processed yet even though, of course, they've already taken her $) so she will not be able to put me on the ice tomorrow for the figures competition; Sonya will put me on instead... and 2) a closer examination of the schedule revealed that I'm sharing a warmup with two other dramatic events, a basic level and a no test.  So chances are I'm actually just doing an exhibition.  Oh well, it will still be a good experience.