December 3, 2006

Not too bad, I guess
Got to the rink ten minutes to 12:00 so I could be out on the ice right at the beginning of the session. Glad I did, because there was a noon birthday party. I got 10 minutes of only 2 of us on the ice- it was wonderful and by the time it was over my feet needed a break anyway, so I took 5 minutes off the ice. I have to do something about these boots.

In the end I ended up skating about 45 minutes and had to take my boots off one other time. I left them to get sharpened as well. I'm just have a counter guy do them, because clearly the "recommended" sharpener at the rink isn't working for me, and I always just had the rink kids do them in Dayton because there was no recommneded sharpener.

Anyhow practice-

Spins- I centered quite a few beautiful one foot spins using the two-foot spin and pick up the foot method. 3 rotations on two feet, 4 or more on one foot. I hockey glided into quite a few okay one foot spins. I didn't successfully "mini 3-turn" into any, although I practiced that entrance quite a few times on the wall. I don't understand why it works on the wall and fails miserably out in the ice.

Mazurkas are awful. I can't pull my leg in at all and the scissor kick makes no sense.

Mohawks- My right to left mohawks are good. I did the Basic 8 sequence quite a few times consecutively and except the step to the back (which I don't understand where my foot goes) it went well. Left to right are a disaster. I have to be practically at a standstill to do them at all.

Edges- I hate backward edges. My lobes are shaky and uneven. My forward edges are good but B. wants them done slightly differently than we did in Delta. I'll have to work on the new free foot placement.

Waltz jumps- they probably aren't pretty but I really feel as though I'm getting off the ice and landing away from where I jumped. It's a start. My actual start was barely getting off the ice and landing a mm away from where i started. Needs a lot of work.

Toe loop- way overrotated before I jump. This one is really hard on me.

Towards the end of the first hour I was coming out of a spin and nearly fell over backwards. I leaned forward and caught myself and didn't fall at all, but the thought of falling backwards really scared me. My legs were shaking really badly and I decided to just do some stroking, but by then the ice was terrible so I called it a day. If I get that scared everytime I think about falling, I'm never going to make it in this sport. (Same leg shaking as when we started ballet jumps)