Waltz-8 Elements

My figures lesson with Lynne on the Chandler adult skate today.  There's no Ice Café today due to the Thanksgiving holiday but they did have an adult skate. I decided to do figures again today (not spins) since I had not figures lesson last week.

Today's lesson:

• 3s -- we continued working on these, on the small semicircle and then on my scribed circles.  The L side is getting there... R side not so much, still kinda forced.  Grrr.
• step forward -- in isolation these are not so bad (R is better than L).  From the RBO I can actually turn my foot and push (most of the time), only occasionally on the LBO.  Still trying to stand straighter and have more control.
• waltz-8 -- we ran through it just once.  It is still weak, but definitely a bit better.  Argh.

After my lesson I worked on BO8, serpentines and 3s to center.

BXOS & Jumps

My lesson with JJ on the 7:30 a.m. FS at Gilbert.  Cold out today!  Winter has arrived.

Today's lesson:

• BXOs to BO edges -- Just some refinement on this move to fix the RBO, specifically, and also some work on the BXOs in general to get them to be fully crossed and not so scratchy.  My main takeaway on this was to not hurry the BXOs tempo-wise but be more deliberate on them and also to push a bit harder.  I really need to work on just improving the BXOs in general, it would benefit this move and of course the perimeter XOs.
• Jumps -- just a couple of minutes on these, warmed up waltz jumps (JJ reminded me to look UP) and then a couple of (really bad) salchows.  Bleah.

Starting in a couple of weeks JJ's schedule will be changing and I will have uber-early lessons.  Ugh. Not looking forward to it but maybe it will get me to skate a little more since I'll already be at the rink anyway?

Waltz-8

My figures lesson with Lynne on the 7:30 a.m. FS at Chandler.  I was running late for this session, unfortunately, and didn't get the 30 minutes of warmup I'd planned.  I'd decided to try figures on this session since ordinarily I have it to myself, and that worked out very nicely.

I warmed up with edges and FO8.

Today's lesson:

• FI8 -- as an experiment, I tried not marking my center for these.  It threw me a little but I was able to pick up on the print from my push-off so it was kind of okay.  The actual figure was not too bad.
• waltz-8 -- we ran the figure, then worked on the 3s for some time.  Lynne suggested I work harder to keep my hips forward/under me and stand up straighter.  After a while I was able to do a somewhat better job of this; it will take more work though.  

After my lesson I worked on 3s to center and BO8.  I was able to improve the LFO3 but the RFO3 was still pretty rough.  BO8 was pretty rough at first but did improve pretty quickly -- I hadn't done patch in 2 weeks or so so not surprising.

Spins

My spins lesson with Lynne on the 7:30 a.m. FS at Chandler.

Before my lesson I ran through the Bronze moves test.  It's getting better though I didn't quite make it through the RFO power-3s.  Grrr.

Today's lesson:

• standing start -- this was 18 of our 20 minutes :-).  After quite a while I finally got several that were really quite good, including one pretty nice 3-rev spin.  So I continued in hopes of locking in some muscle memory but they got somewhat worse after that.  I am getting a feel for what it feels like to be in the right position, but too often I rush it and force the spin.  Still I thought we made some good progress.
• windup -- just time for 3 or 4 of these.  The entrance looks really nice and and I'm actually doing a reasonable good job of it but not coming over the L side so my spin goes nowhere.  Grrr.

After my lesson I had a few minutes so I worked on moves some more.  Urph.

Spins

My spins lesson with Lynne on the 8:15 FS at Gilbert.

Today's lesson:

• standing start -- these were about the same, though I got a couple that were not bad.
• windup -- I got a couple that were almost okay. I have all the pieces, I just have trouble getting them all to show up at the same time!! Grrr.  I was doing better at relaxing though so that's a positive.

3s, Step Forward

My figures lesson with Lynne on the Chandler Ice Cafe.

I warmed up with edges, then we started our lesson.  We continued working on the elements in the waltz-8.

Today's lesson:

• 3s -- we worked these more on the semicircle by the hockey box, then on my scribed circles.  The chief things we worked to fix were to keep the free leg close before, during and after the turn, and to work on keeping the hands/arms down and close and to move them through, not helicoptered.  We took some video so I could see what I'm doing and sure enough it wasn't at all what I thought for the most part.  So we made some progress.  The weakest part now is definitely the check though.  Grrr.
• step forward -- we finished up with just a couple of minutes on these.  As I expected they are not so bad in isolation -- so the setup I'm getting from the 3 is a large part of the problem.

No lesson next week unfortunately but we'll be back at it in 2 weeks.

Last Duet Practice

Melissa and I met up with Coach Olivia on the Gilbert adult skate for our last duet practice before Autumn Antics.  We ran the program 5 or 6 times and worked out a bunch of small things.  In general I think we both feel pretty well prepared and that we are good to go.  It's been a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to Sunday's skate.

After our practice I had 15 minutes or so to run my light program with props.  I ran it twice.  It's in good shape, I think.  First time was fine except for a couple of minor adjustments to make on positioning.  Main thing (as with the duet) is to sell it!

Patch Practice

No lesson with Lynne today, so I just had time to practice.  I worked extensively on my 3s and also some time on the step forward, serpentines and FO8/FI8.  It was kind of nice to have a chance to just practice since I've not found a good time for patch practice in general.

Bronze Moves

My lesson with JJ on the 7:30 FS at Gilbert.

Today's lesson:

• 5-step mohawk -- the L side is still weak.  We made some progress on getting me to stand up straighter on the mohawk and a little progress on making the steps more even.  The R side mohawk is still horrible though.
• power-3s -- we focused on the nasty R side.  I was actually able to do them without  Le Stic!  They are rough and the pattern is horrible... but I did them.  Yay me!
• circle-8 -- I just did it once (we were out of time) and it was actually really good. Yay!

After my lesson I finished out the session (we had started at 7:30) by running the other test items I had not run -- BXOs to BO edges (okay!), perimeter XOs (okay!) and the L side of the power-3s (getting better).  Yay!

I stayed and skated the 8:15 session and worked on my light program for Sunday.  It's pretty decent. I also worked on spins for a while -- they were pretty awful.  Grrr.

Duet Practice

Melissa and I met up with Coach Olivia on the 8:15 FS at Gilbert to work on our duet for Sunday's competition.

We had a pretty good practice!  We ran through it a number of times (we had full costume) and tweaked a few small things but in general I think we're in good shape.   Mostly we worked on making things BIGGER and more expressive, and also some small timing things.  I feel like we're in pretty good shape.  We have one more practice left, on Thursday.