Preliminary Test

I skated the Chandler Ice Café as usual for my patch lesson. Beyootiful ice and only 4 skaters :-)

I warmed up with edges and FO8/FI8.

Today's lesson:

• FI8 --just a little work on body position as there's a point in the last third of the circle where I feel like I'm struggling to hold my edge.  It's partly that I need to keep my upper body quiet but also I need to bend the knee a bit more.
• FO8 -- a bunch of time on this; mostly working on the push.  On the restart I tend to not bend my knees much so I have a weak push, so we worked extensively on pushing harder, including just pushing onto a flat and seeing how far I can go.   Part of it is bending the knees much more and another part is something Melissa had mentioned to me via an article she passed along, about feeling like you're lifting your toes on the soon-to-be-skating foot when you push.  Definitely some progress here.  The point is to have the position correct from the beginning, not (as I currently do) rocking forward and then having to sit back to fix it.  Part of this too is just being more mindful on making *every* push a good one and not getting distracted.  
• waltz-8 -- just a little bit on this at the very end.  I had some really crappy RFO3s (of course I fell on one), the LFO3s were better.  Step forward still weak but I'm doing a better job of holding the BO edge so I guess that's something.  Really need to work on keeping the free foot close too.  On the RFO3s I really tend to force them around, not so much on the LFO3.