Push!

My figures lesson with Danette on the 8:30 a.m. FS at Chandler.  Just 3 skaters, ice was kind of beat up as you'd expect.

I warmed up with edges and FO8, FI8 and scribed some circles.

For today's lesson we focused on improving my push.  As I told Danette, when I watch "good" figures, the initial push is much more aggressive and confident than mine.  When the ice is less than ideal (like today) I sometimes struggle to make it all the way around the circle, much less do the 1.5 circles of a serpentine.

So, we worked on it.  Danette had me do a number of things:

• Be sure the pushing foot is turned out at 90 degrees, not 60 or whatever I was doing :-)
• Bend the pushing foot at the ankle to really push the blade into the ice
• Plie'!  Like, really bend the knees.  When this is right I can feel my ankle pushing against the boot, and some torque in my knee
• Weight just be almost entirely on the pushing foot, not the soon-to-be-skating foot
• Push hard!
• Pick up the back foot, starting at the heel.
• Stand up straight!

All in all I think we made some progress.  I need time to practice!