November 12, 2006

1:41p Private Lesson
Today I had a private lesson from 12:30-1:00. I got there and saw that 3 birthday parties were scheduled at 1:00. Good call on the early time, Jessi.

I got to the rink at 12:00 to warm up a few laps around the rink, and there were only 2 people on the ice. So I skated 2 fast laps, did some 3 turns, a few toe loops and waltz jumps, some backwards crossovers and two footed spins. I also worked on my edges on a straight line concentrating on even size lobes. This was all in the span of 20 minutes, so no real intense work on anything. Then I got off the ice for about 5 minutes to take my right boot off before my lesson. Stupid boot still only lets me skate comfortably for about 40 minutes at a time, but if I take it off for five it "resets" the time.

By now the ice had a good number of people on it, but no birthday parties yet.

So at 12:30 we start my lesson. I had told her I wanted to review the basic skills, since I skipped around in so many programs. We start with edges, which I told her I am very comfortable with, so rather than do forward ones, we did backwards- which I've never done at all except to hold landing edges and for a few seconds in three turns.

HOLY MOLY those suckers are hard. First off, I am throughoughly confused about where my hands go. Then, since we were doing half lobes on a straight line I got very confused about how to push off/backwards stroke into the edge. (Glad I did learn backwards stroking) anyway my outside edges weren't too bad and my inside ones were laughable, but got to not horrible. That will definetly be something to practice when the ice is near empty.

Then she looked at my forward three turns. All of them behaved well and I was told that the only problem was I wasn't using my knee bend but otherwise they were as they should be. So we decided to try backward ones. I have never ever done a backwards three turn. This statement still holds true after about 5-10 minutes of work on them. But at least now I have the idea and can practice them. I once again didn't use my knees and I either popped my hip too soon or didn't follow with it. My outside ones were not bad for a "i've never done this before", inside horrible. none of them had the 2nd lobe on them, I'm just remarking on the ability to turn!

Then we did stops since the only stop I've ever learned is a snowplow. T-stop I can do well with my right foot, I always put it down on the inside edge on the left foot. Snowplow stop I understand but can't imagine wanting to do while moving quickly. My tango stop is bumping and I didn't try it with my left foot. I need to sit into it more. Overall, I'll practice all these but stick with snowplow- which isn't even that reliable now that I've switched skates.

Then we moved onto spins. From a two footed spin if I really think about it and switch my weight before I pick my foot up I can get one revolution of a one footed spin. She told me to keep working on that and we moved to going into the spin from a T position. I really need to think about holding my right arm rigid and getting a really deep edge, and then lifting my hip up. Of course with these my 3 turns were beautiful! Which meant I rode the edge into a lovely lobe, rather than staying right after the turn part and spinning. I really don't understand what I'm supposed to be doing. But I was told that now that I'm watching my hip I'm starting on a really loopy spin rather than just holding a long edge. Um sure. I'll keep working on it, but it's so frustrating. I'm going to focus more on getting revolutions from the 2 footed spin. And in a 2 footed spin- I'm still only at about 4 revolutions.

Then the lesson was over.

I stayed on the ice for about 15 more minutes, but by then it was packed with kids and there wasn't much point, so now I'm home again :)