B8s

 My figures lesson with Danette on the Chandler adult skate. Nice ice, 6 skaters.  I scribed circles and warmed up with forward edges and BO edges.

Today's lesson:

• BI edges -- I was having some issues with the initial push, not sure what my issue was exactly but we straightened it out.  These were not bad, actually.
• BO8 -- we worked on getting a better push and better posture.  I did actually make it 3/4 of the way around the circle, which is my best in a while.  I couldn't repeat it though.  GRRR.  We spent about half the lesson on this.
• BI8 -- eep.  I am not getting over my skate well enough so my circles are curving in too much.  We worked to try to have the same approach (mostly) as the BO initial push.  It's still lacking, but the body position after is actually not that bad.
• FO8 -- just a couple minutes on these.  About the same as before.

The Stick

 My figures lesson with Danette on the Chandler adult skate.  Great ice, just 5 skaters.

I warmed up with forward edges and scribed circles.

Today's lesson:

• B edges -- these were actually pretty good. I am doing a better job of getting that free foot in front promptly.  Still some more work to do on not widestepping the first BI push, but in general not bad, and flow was nice.
• BO8 -- Danette brought out the stick for me to hold (it's a hockey stick that's been trimmed).  This really does help me be more aware of my upper body position.  So we worked on the BO8.  Besides the fact that my push is totally inadequate to carry me around the whole circle, the RBO was not that bad.  I was able to maintain a reasonably good position the whole time.  The LBO is a different story, so we worked on it a bunch.  Just really having trouble holding that upper body still and resisting the rotation.  Danette held the stick for me and that gave me more confidence to lean into the edge more as well as really to bend the knee and push harder.  More work required tho.

B Edges & 8s

 My figures lesson with Danette on the Chandler adult skate. Nice ice and just 4 skaters.  I scribed circles and warmed up with forward edges.  Considering I've been off the ice for 3 weeks they were not bad.

Today's lesson:

• B edges -- some time on these.  The BO edges were pretty nice.  We spent some time on the BI edges, especially working to avoid the wide step and get better posture/position on the first push and lobe.  Danette had me do an exercise we've tried before, skate 2 lobes on alternate feet and then a full circle.  Eeep.  At one point Danette yelled, "Gordon STOP!" as Sarah and I were both inadvertently headed for each other (I was going backward).  I was rather startled and wound up falling, my hardest fall in a long time.  I'm perfectly okay.  Rather proud of myself as for a minute I thought I was going to fall backward and I managed to fall to the side.  Yay!
• 8s -- from there we moved to the circles for the last 10 minutes or so.  FO8... eep.  I was going flat on the LFO.  Not sure what's up with that.  FI8 was relatively okay.  BO8 was not bad.  In all of these I'm not quite making it around the circle tho.  So frustrating.