11-7-2007

4:07p
Group Lesson
Group lesson last night was frustrating. We spent the 30 minutes doing salchows and toe loops and both of them were awful.

I was taught a very swingy salchow- I think that's just how Burton introduces it, and with Burton I've been working on not swinging so much, but I must not have made the right connections with what he's telling me to not swing. According to Andy, I have a "roller skaters" salchow. Which means I have a really short check on my three turn and then I swing my leg to get me into the air. So I spent the time working on holding the check to my 3 turn, and then NOT swinging but bring my leg to an "h" position. By the end of that part of the lesson, I was holding my 3 turn much better- but the very end of it had way too much time that I was dragging my toe pick. BUT I could barely get the jump off the ice. However, I felt like I was making progress to correcting it.

Then we moved onto toe loops. My toe loop has always been prerotated- but all the coaches at the rink say that single jumps should take off with only a half of the jump remaining. HOWEVER, even with half the rotation done on the ice- I'm toe waltzing. Apparently what makes my jump cheated wrong is that I'm picking far away and then jumping off my pick, instead of pulling the other edge in in an outside pivot kind of move while prerotating. So Andy had me work on that using my tracing, then he did a huge jump to make a "good" tracing for me. It's pretty amazing how far apart my toe pick and my free foot edge are. I've worked for a long time with Burton to pick further away- AND (to his credit) he's been telling me this exact same thing about pulling in, but I guess I also didn't connect that I haven't made the change at all. So my toe loop is now about non-existant. If I try to pull in with that outside pivot sort of move, I can't jump at all, I lean too far to the left, or something like that. I wanted to cry by the end of the lesson. I didn't get a single toe loop off the ice once Andy made that correction. I understand it, and I see how it works in his jump, but I cannot apply it.

Tonight with Burton I might work on jumps, but I'm really hoping he'll teach me the 5 step mohawk. Especially if he wants me to test in February! I really like moves so much better. I feel like I make progress with them. I very clearly could not do back 3 turns 3 months ago, and now I can. I know 3 months ago I had no concept of a rocker or counter, and now I do. But a year ago I was introduced to salchows and toe loops, and I've made apparently zero progress on them. I think I'm a moves girl.

Tonight I hope to learn the 5 step mohawk, but I don't know if I will have a lesson. I just got a call asking if I could switch to last lesson tonight, but said no. I try to be flexible, but switching to last lesson moves me from freestyle to club ice- and I don't have $6 this week for club ice. Not to mention it doesn't give me a break before synchro which makes for a long, painful foot night. I told Burton that if he only has 15 minutes, we can do a short lesson, or just make up next week. We'll see, I guess.