Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

Time

Event

10:38a

It's been a long week. We didn't have synchro Wednesday, which meant I didn't skate then. My Tuesday lesson was okay, just me and another adult. I just wasn't skating well. My waltz jumps are tenative again, now that my balance has changed due to both blades and the fact that I need to lower my arms. I always swing them way too high- like a tour jete in ballet- almost over the head, just nicely in front. But that doesn't work for skating. Salchows were awful- I'm slipping off the toepick, either not holding the 3 long enough or holding it too long. We worked a lot on my entry, but I don't think it go better. Then we worked on footwork. The plus- I remembered the footwork from last week. The downside- I still can't do the back inside 3 turn. I can sometimes do it in isolation, but never in combination. Then he expanded the sequence, and I'm doing something wrong because I can't connect it correctly- the positive is that my toe runs are getting a lot more comfortable, and I can get a good push out of them now. Today, skating was pretty worthless. I got to the rink and the hockey glass is completely fogged up, and so is the inside of the rink. You couldn't see more than halfway down the ice, though it cleared up slightly as time went on. Problem was, since I didn't have a lesson, I wore glasses, since I only have 80 pairs of contacts for the year, and don't like to waste them. They fogged up anytime I would exhale. SO I had to go home and get contacts, after trying to skate for about 5 minutes- that wasted about 10 minutes of my session. Not like it mattered though, because my skating was awful. My moves were all slow and tenative. My three turns were awful. I freaked out and didn't do the first one 4 or 5 times. I thought I was over that!!! The only thing was good was that I centered about half of my spins. Then I helped teach the adult lesson. There are 4 women of varying skill level, and they were all really fun and having a good time- which is always good. One of the little girls who usually takes on Tuesday is in Saturday Freestyle 1, so we worked on actual FS1 stuff, instead of the usual "what do you guys want to do" things. My scratch spin was great- though when Jessie asked to see it, it did not start off good at all, though I think I saved it, and then got a compliment on my speed. Yay me! My backspin is getting there. I crossed on two of them. I actually spun on most of them. I don't think I'll ever learn to exit this thing though. My waltz jump was eh- it just feels so tenative. I want my dance arms back! Salchow worked better today, I only slipped on about half of them, and the others I kind of did the 3-turn, then step- that was a jump right? thing that those always feel like. Now I have to go stretch. I really like the maxi-flex, and I feel like my stretching is improving, but I haven't used it since Tuesday since I've been off and on sick all week.