Preliminary Test; 3s

My figures lesson with Lynne on the Chandler Ice Café (we switched to Wednesday due to a work commitment).  Per our current setup, Lynne scribed me some circles while I warmed up edges so we could start promptly after we got on the ice.

Today's lesson:

• FO8 -- Okay.  I do think that doing these with little warmup is good practice for the nerves I'll have when testing/competing, but today I was just a bit off, more so than usual, which was a bit frustrating.  On the positive side I did get through it even with that, so I guess that's something.
• FI8 -- as usual, much better than FO8 and more or less okay.
• waltz-8 -- mmph.  The usual struggle.  Again to look at the positive side, I have a lot more control than I used to and I'm sure it at least looks like I know what I'm doing, so that is something.  The step forward is still getting me though.  Grr.
• 3s -- I told Lynne that in my skating this morning I'd realized how little control I have on my 3s anymore; so we worked on them as alternating 3s.  I actually have a lot more control on these in my patch blades than FS blades... which is really interesting.  I really do struggle to hold the edge after and get back to the line and be able to step forward.  I think this is worth pursuing as it does kind of isolate some issues.

After my lesson Lynne taught the group lesson, which was some basic power-y stuff.  Swizzles down the rink (forward and backward), swizzle pumps around the hockey circles in both directions, crossovers around the circles both directions forward and back, etc.  In patch blades it's... interesting.  I had some real difficulties getting a good RFO edge on the slaloms down the rink -- it tended to be flat and I'd skid.  An eye-opener.