Moves & Spins

My lesson with Holly on the Gilbert adult skate.  I was okay but really crowded.  I warmed up with stroking and crossovers.

Today's lesson:

• perimeter XOs  -- not bad, actually. Still need better extension, I think, and to lean more on that RFO edge when I'm on it.
• power-3s -- actually not that bad.  I remembered "head and shoulders" and did a better job of keeping the shoulders down and head up.  Still need a longer entrance edge.
• BXOs to BO edges -- okay.  I feel a bit slow, still, and Holly wants me to curve the lobes a bit more.
• circle-8 -- a bit better, actually.  Holly held my hand to help get me to sit on the back of the blade from the beginning instead of being forward and fixing it.  Now, if I can just do that from the beginning...
• spins -- these were actually, amazingly, pretty good!  Note to self is to not push too hard into it.  I'm doing a better job of bringing the free leg in and up and not chickening out so quickly.  Yay!

I left immediately after my lesson -- work, but also -- too many people.  And a couple going really fast.  Ugh.

Edges & FO8

My figures lesson with Danette on the 11:45 adult freestyle at Chandler.  I had first lesson, so no warmup and no scribed circles.

Today's lesson:

• edges -- Mostly okay.  Danette had me do the FO edges again as my posture was not so good.  I'm having issues with my LFO edge skidding also.
• FO8 -- most of our time on this, and especially the LFO.  We spent a lot of time working on getting a better, no-skidded edge.  I really am not sure what's going on here but I know it's all posture related.  Danette did take a moment to look at my blade in case there was an actual issue, but there doesn't appear to be.  

Not the greatest of lessons today.  The session was really crowded (12 people + 3 coaches) and I am not comfortable skating with that many people during a pandemic so I left right after my lesson.

Moves

My lesson with Holly on the Gilbert adult skate.  It was relatively crowded, much more than in the past -- I counted 9 skaters and 2 coaches.  Eeep.  We started a little late as they didn't start the (noon) ice cut until about 12:15 (when the session was supposed to start).  It was a quick cut.

I warmed up briefly with stroking and crossovers.

Today's lesson:

• perimeter XOs -- just once through these to warm up.  More or less okay.
• power-3s -- We spent quite a bit of time on these.  The RFO3s are still horrible.  Holly reminded me "head, shoulders knees and toes!" -- head up and shoulders down.  This does help a bit.  I feel like these were better 2 weeks ago though.  I'm not skating enough to really make progress right now though.
• 5-step mohawk -- these are not actually THAT bad.  Holly asked me to push more into the boards on the 3rd (middle one).  The biggest reminder was to PUSH BACK into the 3rd step (BO edge).  Wow.  When I do this it really helps get me off my toe and on a better edge!

All in all a good lesson.

B8s

My lesson with Danette on the Chandler adult FS.  7 skaters and 3 coaches, much better than last week, and nice ice.  I had 2nd lesson so I scribed circles and warmed up with edges and F8s.  My LFO was not so great -- I kept getting on a flat about 1/3 of the way around.  Argh.

Today's lesson:

• BO8 -- We spent most of our time working on the LBO as the RBO is actually pretty good.  We worked just on holding the correct position with L arm back, R arm forward (turned into the circle) and looking into the circle with free leg in front.  Ugh.  This seems so much worse than I remember it being in the past.  
• BI8 -- I need much better pushes on this, especially on the LBI.  Eeep. Similar issues to the LBO.  Just a lack of control overall.

Moves & Spins

 My lesson with Holly on the Gilbert Adult Skate.  I had about 15 minutes to warmup, so I mostly did stroking and crossovers.  Ice was fresh but had some strange waves to it.  There were like 5 skaters at the start of the session and a couple more joined part way in, but it was pretty okay.

Today's lesson:

• perimeter XOs -- I did a set of these and then we worked on the FXOs.  I always feel like I'm crowding the end of the rink at the end, so Holly had me straighten my first couple of lobes out so they weren't so diagonal.  That helped quite a bit.  I still need to bend into (and lean more on) the clockwise XOs though.
• BXOs to BO edges -- these were actually pretty good!  I'm doing better at getting off my toe on the RBO.
• spins -- I had only done a couple of these before today.  They were actually surprisingly good!  I did a much better job of hooking the spin.  I still tend to exit before I really need to, and I still need to work harder at staying over the L side, but in general I was pretty pleased.

8s

My figures lesson on the 11:45 a.m. adult FS at Chandler.

I had first lesson, so I didn't scribe any circles.  Today's lesson:

• edges -- some posture issues on the FO edges, the rest were more or less okay.
• FO8 - meh.  After the first one I did manage to make the first RFO not so huge and better shaped, so that was something.
• FI8 -- okay
• BO8 -- control issues on the LBO.  We worked a bit to get me to hold the initial position longer and to lean into the circle more.  Urph.
• BI8 -- just a couple of minutes on these.   Again I need to watch the initial position so that I don't turn the upper body out of the circle.  Ugh.

This session was pretty busy, I counted 11 skaters (including me) and I think 6 coaches.  I really am not comfortable with this environment.  It's not helped by the summer camp skaters hanging out in the changing area with no masks and no social distancing -- basically nothing different at all.  It's concerning and I'm not sure how/if I want to continue under these circumstances.

Circle-8, Jumps

My lesson with Holly on the 1 p.m. session at Gilbert.  Again I had a good half hour to warm up.

Today's lesson:

• circle-8 -- we spent a fair amount of time on this, especially trying to fix my RFO push.  Still not positive that my R blade placement is okay.  Other than the RFO it's mostly okay.
• waltz jump -- just a few of these.  Reminder to keep the head/chest up.  More or less okay.
• salchow -- meh.  I fell on the first one.  Duh.  They got better, though.  The last one was almost okay, although still jumping a little too late.

This was our last lesson in this time slot.  Starting next week adult skate starts again MWF so I'll have my lesson Fridays on adult skate.  Yay!

BO8 & Waltz-8

My figures lesson with Danette on the adult FS at Chandler.  I had the second lesson of the hour so I had plenty of time to warm up and scribe circles.  There were 10 people on the session so it felt really crowded to me and I wasn't too thrilled with that.  I warmed up with edges and FO8/FI8.

Today's lesson:

• BO8 -- since I'd already done my F8s Danette wanted to start with BO8.  We worked a lot on the LBO side since I was having a lot of trouble controlling it.  I worked to hold the initial position (free leg in front, L arm back) longer and lean into the circle more.  Some success.
• waltz-8 -- a lot of time on this.  Ugh!  I fell 3x on the 3 turn (I'm fine).  My LFO3s were eventually pretty nice, actually.  RFO3 not so much. 

Obviously there's a lot to work on, but it's coming back a bit better than I would have thought.  I'm going to be in this time slot for a while (whole summer, probably) so I'm going to try to get more time on patch than I was historically getting.