11-14-2007

4:39p
Group lesson with andy
Yesterday wasn't really a great day for me skating.

I'll start at the end of it. We did about 5 minutes of scratch spins at the end of the group lesson. I centered- ONE-. (It did make it easier to count the revolutions though when the spins traveled 5 feet. I'm getting up to 10 on a regular basis now, 15 is my highest. But what the heck happened to my centered spins!). But spinning was making me really really dizzy. REALLY dizzy. So I didn't stay to practice, I got off the ice and sat down, and it took about 20 minutes of sitting before the vertigo got manageable enough that I was able to drive home. So I went home, still dizzy, and spinning, but now with a horrible headache. I got in bed at 7:45, where I laid- spinning in my head- until 9:15 when I finally fell asleep. I better have an ear infection or something, because if this is the norm, I'm not amused.

The start of the group lesson was good. We started with moves in the field, which was insane. There were more people on the ice for LTS than on most public sessions, and because of the nature of LTS they were in clumps, rather than moving around. SO- we started with back crossovers to back outside edges. Andy had me demonstrate, and then after everyone went I went again, he gave me a correction on my posture (which Burton tells me every lesson- I swear I'm trying!) and complimented me on the move. I'm pretty sure the compliment was in comparision to the class, rather than quality of the move, but I'll take it. I'm really enjoying working on moves.

Then he asked me if I knew the preliminary spiral pattern, and I said yes, but I can't do it well. So he had me demonstrate that as well, and then we did the outside spirals one at a time. This was a long time of "no outside" "OUTSIDE- that's your inside", "You should know your edges by now. No, that's still inside". So I also got a compliment on this move, and that I did a good job of coming back to the axis each time, and I got a compliment on my leg position- which always feels much higher than it looks in the glass. We didn't do inside spirals, which are much weaker, but I like that my outsides are getting higher (and really like that I don't have to worry about these on moves tests!)

Then he decided to really challenge us, and this suprised me based on the utter lack of understanding of edges demonstrated during the moves, we tried change edge spirals. With one of the best demonstrations ever. Andy built up a lot of speed from the other side of the rink, did an inside spiral, then switched to an outside spiral- at which point he realized he was going to run straight into the wall, and swung his leg very quickly to get on a deeper edge. Since this was a demonstration on how swinging our leg controls the edge - it was a great way to do it. (Afterwards he stopped next to me and said "wow, I almost hit the wall there" and asked him if he was going to make us do it that way "sink or swim" style.)

So- the change edge spiral- I was able to actually change from inside to outside, but not outside to inside. Long glides with a change are so different from edge pulls. I never did it in a spiral position, more an ugly airplane, but it will be a good thing to work on.