Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Time

Event

8:50p

I'm so very frustrated with synchro. I cannot do anything- and we aren't even skating at speed right now, we are barely moving. I hate being "left handed" (though the 8-step mohawk I do "normal"). I just almost always leave Tuesdays being thrilled with some little victory and leave Wednesday hating myself for being such a crappy skater. I don't want to give up synchro, because I really do like it. Just not when we are turning. Okay- things that went well today. On the CW side- I kind of felt like my stars were getting the idea of it- I could do several in a row. And while they weren't ideal, I think you could at least tell what I was doing. (As Courtenay pointed out, that's the camel spin.) Also, choo-choo train, to flat spiral, turning on outside edge to flat spiral went well, and I even got it on the front end one of the two times (fine on back end). Bad- PB 3-turn pattern, on the CCW side I never actually go the inside 3 turn. Hooked up in the circle, I only managed to do the outside 3 turn half the time, and never got a good star in the circle We do these little footwork mohawk/kick step thing and I cheated it the whole time. And then when we worked on stars on our own, on the CCW side I wanted to cry- it was just horrible. Okay, moving to a better day- Tuesday. I came home yesterday just elated. And really- just as many things went wrong. Andy took my toe-loop from me. I'm cheating it too much to call it that. He really worked on me on pulling back the pivot after having picked down. I really understand what he's saying, but just can't seem to do it. We worked on power pulls for a good amount of time and I'm not doing them from my shoulders anymore, but from my butt. Unfortunately that's STILL not my knee. But Andy told me they were looking good. He didn't remember having worked with me on them before (it was around December) but was very complimentary (while still giving me a ton of corrections to work on). In my own practice, I got a fantastic 30 minutes in. Because of all the power pulls my knees wouldn't put up with anymore, but god I was sweating by the end. Good workout. I felt like all my moves went well. I still really hate that slip step on the 5-step mohawk, I look ridiculous. I did some really nice scratch spins- really crossed. Most traveled but I did center 2 really well. Andy actually even called me over to compliment the cross, which was really cool, since I wasn't in lesson at the time. Then I worked on camels, and got 2 revolutions most of the time. I need to work on those with a coach, but Courtney and I have been really focusing on moves. I also worked on laybacks a bit. Two of the young girls I skate with told me they look really pretty, but one said I had a "granny" leg (like Burton would say)- that's NOT good. Cross rolls felt good, Progressives were there. I can do the just underpushing on the circle now :) All the way back to Saturday- took a lesson with Brianna. We worked on moves, but I only 3 of them (plus one or two patterns of a fourth) The 3-turns actually went okay. She really wants me to concentrate on the pattern, because I'm often 1 fewer 3 turn on my stronger side because I start with more power. On the backwards crossovers to outside edges we changed the entrance so that I start facing the hockey goal, do a single push then 3 turn, then do 2 back crossovers. Since I start with more power it's going better. Previously I had been stopping myself just before the move started to get through that 3 turn. We didn't work on it, but I'll do the same thing for the other crossover move. For the mohawk I'm still like a stiff penguin, I just HAVE to bend. Last we worked on the forward crossovers and those went really well- for the entrance I was taking 4 pushes, and now I'm doing 4 pushes plus a crossover on the edge of the circle which gets me to the start of the move- it definetly makes it flow smoother. So now I just have to decide whether synchro is the right place for me and figure out how to get over these stupid turns.