Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

Time

Event

7:11p

Private Lesson today for group! Gosh today was a great day. The kids have Christmas show rehearsal so I got a private lesson with Andy. We did silver moves, and you know, as fantastic of a coach as he is, I don't think I'd trade Courtney for him (not that I can afford him). He doesn't seem quite as critical- or maybe it's just because he's not my "coach". But it's really great to have a second set of eyes. Before I forget- quote of the evening "I'm going to touch you. Like, not in an inappropriate way- just to hold you hand for this". That cracked me up when he qualified the statement. So we did spirals, power pulls, cross rolls, and 8-step. Spirals- he had me switch my hand on my left spiral (and maybe my right- I'm not sure what i was doing) and it's really hard to get used to. It makes me feel like i'm stretched more, but it still takes 1/4 of the ice to get to hip height. I'm doing same arm as skating leg. No other comments except to stretch back the heel, like Courtney tells me everytime. That left spiral is miserable. Power pulls I thought were awful, but Andy was pretty complimentary (maybe it was the bottle of Grey Goose I gave him as a Christmas present- since it's our last lesson- or maybe I really don't suck) They definetly don't increase in power, but he told me that the inside edge was pretty strong, and I should work on getting it to rip, and then really focus on the cut back into the outside edge. Going backward was tougher, but we worked on the "cross" "open" motion of the leg, and I THINK i've got it. Especially on my left side I just have no knee bend, and I really need it. Forward 3-turns he was very happy that I was setting my foot down before crossing, and I manged to rip on a few of them :) My left side is weaker than my right and my hip doesn't snap, so we worked a lot on the hip snap. When we switched to back I made a face and said "these are bad" and he told me "I know what you're doing- $20 says it's this" and did the pick up foot kick toepick down thing lots of people do. I should have called him on it, because that's not the problem- I don't finish the edge. But since I wasn't doing that he told me that these were actually quite good. So we worked on leaning, and he held my hand and then put his other hand behind my back and had me hold a really deep outside edge. After doing that he told me he thinks I would be able to get a death spiral because of the way I did that exercise, and I laughed, told him that was one of the moves I have always really really wanted to learn to do, but after how terrifying just barely leaning was, I think I changed my mind. Maybe next year, I'll see if he'll teach me one. So we worked on that, and I counter my body against the edge when I cross, and it got a little better, but they need a lot of work. We closed with 8 step mohawk, and I'm picking my feet up too high on the last couple steps, and on the CCW side he actually stopped me because he said the way I was doing it was scaring him. Apparently I'm flexing my foot before putting it down for the mohawk, and he was just waiting for me to stab the back of my blade into the ice and crash down onto the back of my head. Message recieved- point the foot!!! (This lead into a story about him catching his blade on his other blade during an overhead lift, which resulted in his partner getting 18 staples on her head, and him getting like 14. Way to scare me away from figure skating!!!) Then sadly the lesson was over. He did ask me for the club show if there was anything I wouldn't wear for a costume, which was nice- but I told him whatever is fine, however I will be pretty pissed off at him if he puts me in a white unitard- but I'll wear it. :) I'm looking forward to see how that goes, and how much actual skating I get to do. We have a 90's disney medley with 3 group parts, and then a national showcase skater solo, a juv pairs solo and an intermediate pairs solo interspersed.