Choreo

My lesson with Holly on the 8:15 FS at Gilbert, as usual.  I warmed up with stroking, spins and some jumps.

Today we continued working through the choreography for the new light program.  I still don't have the final cut (agh!) but should have it by Monday, hopefully.

Here's what we have so far:

• opening, at boards near judges.
• w/music - push back... "Hey!"
• skate to left; prop
• 3 chainé turns
• rope pull
• waltz jump
• slalom w/arms toward center
• prop
• double bunny hop (eep!) around toward/along blue line
• skate "you're the girl for me" w/arms toward audience and curve around to center
• lunge
• stand w/arms - right up, left up, right down, left down, knees, jazz hands
• spin
• skate toward audience w/arms pointing to back
• curve around toward center
• salchow 
• curve around to left
• spiral
• prop
• end

I think that's right.  There is probably something I am missing.  Only two jumps and one spin.  Hmm.

At the very end we ran my dramatic program.  I left out the waltz jump (oops) and the bunny hop, and the spins were awful and so was the toe loop. But I ended on time! lol

Posture

My figures lesson with Danette on the 8:30 FS at Chandler.  Since there's no Ice Café this week we moved to this day.  Not a great choice as there were about 7 skaters on the ice with lots of dance and moves.

I had a half hour to warm up so I worked through edges, FO8, FI8, and worked on some of the exercises Danette has given me.

For today, considering the conditions we decided to keep working on posture. It is slowly improving but it feels very, very weird.  We ran edges and also working down the end red line so I could see my reflection in the glass.  Ugh.  It's really hard for me to bring the pelvis forward/tuck the tush in and still bend the knees.  Of course Danette wants me to keep my head up too :-)

For the last few minutes we worked on 3s. I was actually able to keep my head/chest up which helped a lot, and I had a better check. Yay!

More Choreo

My lesson with Holly on the 8:15 FS at Gilbert, as usual.  A bit of a zoo this morning.  Not that the # of skaters was huge but everyone was practicing programs/dance/moves and so a lot of people zipping around.

I warmed up with laps and spins.

For today's lesson we continued working on choreography.  We spent some time working on my chainé turns to get them to not be as swinging and keep the free leg closer (I can use this in my dramatic!).  And some general working out of some details.  I still don't have the final cut for my music so that is holding me back.  We also decided to move the waltz jump earlier in the program and put a salchow where the waltz was. I still probably need at least a couple more elements though and we need to work out the ending.  Ugh.

FI8 & Posture

My figures lesson with Danette on the Chandler Ice Café as usual.

I warmed up with edges, FO8 and FI8.

For today, we started off working on FI8.  This quickly morphed into a conclusion by Danette that we really need to fix my posture (it's true!).  I tend to be too forward which slows me down and, not unimportantly, makes me look like I don't know what I'm doing.

So we spent some quality time trying to get me to stand up straighter, tuck my tush in, and lift my head.  We worked on doing the "plié" before the push; unfortunately what tends to happen is that I lean forward when I push and then I fix it soon after.  It would be a lot better to just have it be correct from the start :-).

Anyway this is clearly a long-term project as I've had this issue for a long time and it will take a long time to fix it.  Danette is optimistic, me less so.

Choreo

My lesson with Holly on the 8:15 FS at Gilbert, as usual.

Today we finally got started on choreography for the new light program.  We worked through about the first half of the program and worked through some questions about the music cut and props.

There's a lot to do but I think we got a good start. This program is going to be really fun :-)

Breaking It Down

My figures lesson with Danette on the Chandler Ice Café.  Nice ice and just 4 skaters.

We started my lesson pretty much immediately, without really a warmup period.

Today's lesson:

• Edges -- generally pretty nice.  I'm really happy with the BI edges, the initial push is much better.
• step forward -- after this I asked for exercises to address the continuing issues I am having with the step forward.  Danette had me skate backward down the line, turn and push.  This is actually slightly easier than in the waltz-8 as I'm only turning 180 degrees, whereas on the w-8 since it's on a circle it's more than 180 degrees.  We worked through some issues with trying to get me to bend my knees more and to bring my hips under me.
• hips exercise -- which brought us to working to get my hips under me on any push, and stand straighter -- a nice vertical line from shoulders/hips/feet.  I tend to be a bit forward when I push.  We worked on this quite a bit with only some modest progress, but as Danette said, I didn't get where I am overnight so this will take a while.  This is something I don't have to be in patch blades to work on, so I can work on it whenever I skate.

After my lesson I had about 20 minutes to work on this stuff some more, as well as the exercise she gave me a while ago of gliding on my back edge and keeping turned into the circle.

Birthday Skate

I skated the Chandler 5:30 p.m. FS as usual, but it was my birthday so it was special!

I warmed up with laps, then a little bit of time on FXOs and BXOs.  Then some time on spins ( a couple of good ones) and on jumps.

I realized one of the issues with my toe loop and the reason I'm picking too far to the inside of the circle is that I'm not checking the 3 very well, so I'm still rotating/turning while I'm trying to pick so it winds up way inside.  I need to try to make it a bit straighter, like the salchow, and then bend my knees more.

The last 10 minutes of the session, I looked around and realized all the coaches were gone and it was just 6 of us.  My first thought was "hey, all the adults are gone!".  Lol :-) sometimes in skating it is easy to forget that I am (technically!) an adult :-).

Perseverance

I skated the Chandler 8:30 FS for practice this morning.  I'm trying to do better about getting more practice, so glad that I was able to get myself moving and get to the rink this a.m.

I warmed up with some laps, then worked a bit on FXOs and BXOs.  Next I worked on jumps -- waltz, sal, toe.  Making a little progress on toe, sals were inconsistent.

Next I warmed up my bunny hop, then ran my dramatic program ("Years") with music.  A little rough in places and I was distracted by people getting in my way (in spite of the fact there were only 3 of us on the ice!).  I remembered just before I started that I have to move the start down ice since I'll be doing this on 3/4 ice for Autumn Antics.  Eep.  Anyway a little rough but I did get a good spin in the beginning so that's something.  I'll keep working it.

After that I ran through most of the Bronze moves except for power-3s. Spent a little time fixing the LBO in the 5-step mohawk so it was not so scratchy -- we'll see if I can do that in the actual move though.  Circle-8 still has issues.

Finished up with some more time on spins. Yay!

Waltz-8

My figures lesson with Danette on the Chandler Ice Café.

I had a 30 minute warmup so I scribed some circles, did edges and FO8, FI8 and then a little time on the waltz-8.

Today's lesson was just on the waltz-8.  We started off in a random spot, then moved to my scribed circles.  Today we mostly worked on the BO edge and step forward, especially from the RBO as that seems to be more of a problem.

I'm thinking we need to find more exercises that will help me with the various positions here, as that seems to be the crux of the problem -- specifically the two positions on the BO edge (turned into the circle, and then transition to turned out of the circle for the step forward). Mostly when I transition for the step forward I take too long, and I curve into the circle without turning out my skating foot. Urph.

Perseverance

I skated the 5:30 p.m. FS at Chandler for practice, as usual.  I was a bit tired and unmotivated, unfortunately.

I warmed up with laps and then worked on crossovers for a while, then some spins, both the exercise and from the windup.  I got a couple of good ones and the rest not so much.