Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Time

Event

7:03a

Tuesday the 2nd Lessons last night went well. My adult class doubled in size :) So I am now teaching an Adult 1 (who is going to move to Adult 2 next week with extra work on stopping) and an Adult 3 (which is the highest level I've taught). The higher level adult told me that the way I explain things is so different from any of the other instructors she's used, but that I'm saying the same thing, just in a way she understands. That made me quite happy. I did a REALLY stupid thing though. The higher adult has a bad habit of hitting her inside edge on about 50% of her t-stops. She knows its the outside edge, and can occasionally do it, but usually it's inside. I was showing her how to really tilt the foot to the outside edge, flexing upwards to keep the toepicks out of the ice and the blade level, so that the inside edge doesn't have a chance. Then, as I set my foot down, I realized I about to fall, so I said "M... can I have your hand" held it gently, and sat down. Thankfully I was going slow enough that I could just glide, but I set my blade down on the back of my OTHER blade!! That was a good "what not to do" I was so embarassed, but so thankfully I didn't fall hard. Then in Snowplow the kid who has been in hockey skates and unable to stand up on his own for the last two classes finally came in figure skates!!! But after two weeks of being picked up and held up he had NO interest in doing it on his own. I let him push the box (the kid is 40 lbs, I CANNOT hold him, and have a bad back today from the time I did) and then would take it away from him to make him stand on his own- WHICH HE DID!!! Then he could do about 2 steps on his own. He cannot, and WILL NOT even try, to stand up on his own. I have to let him use the box, because I can't pick him up, he is just too heavy. It's easier to help pick an adult up, because they help you, he just lays there like a sack of crying potatoes until someone picks him up. My lower back is not pleased with the number of times I fell for that trick (crying kids on the ice are not a good thing). Thankfully his Mom called me to bring him off the ice after 25 (LONG) minutes, and she was very complimentary of me for the time I took with him. Sandy taught the rest of the kids with Ryne, and thankfully there is a lot of help, because otherwise this kid would be out of luck. My own lesson also went pretty well. We started with crossovers, and my left foot is working again (last week I couldn't get it to cross!) and my right progressives are back to being okay (no more stompy foot picking up here). My back crossovers feel great, but Andy says I'm not shifting my weight enough. I don't really know if that means I need to move my body, or just hold the edge of the underpush longer to show that I'm on that foot. Then we did jumps, I hate jumps, and never practice them (oops). My waltz jump is not very good. I'm trying to keep my arms from going over my head (I finally realized a waltz jump IS a tour jete- which has arms over the head 90% of the time and so I have 15+ years of that ingrained) and my balance is completely off as a result of trying to keep them to my shoulders. My salchows were much better this week, though still not good. I'm not holding the entry edge long enough, I guess I can't tell where I am in the turn until I look at the tracing, and it's never all the way around. My toe loop is horrible, I just cannot pull my legs together. On to practice- I did about 40 minutes, which is a good amount for me after LTS, and my knees aren't too bad. I ran all the way through moves once, and did all the patterns twice. My goodness that was difficult- there were lots of lessons (maybe 6) and about 5 little kid public skaters who could go fast, but not stop, and then about 6 other skaters practicing. I'm not used to dodging anymore after summer! The hardest part was trying to stay out of the way of the lessons, it was difficult to find a time to start a pattern, or to find a place to spin. But all the patterns were pretty good. I really think I'm ready to pass this test (well until test day nerves come into play). My 3 turns felt good, my mohawks felt good. I did some spins- crossed my leg in my backspin everytime! My backspin feels much further back on my blade than my scratch spin. The spin is smooth, toward the middle front and I don't feel like I control it (does that make sense?) where my scratch spin it's a bit louder, rougher, but I feel like I have control of whether or not I stay spinning. My toe pick is slightly in the ice (the first one) for the scratch spin, but not at all for the backspin. Then I did synchro mohawks. My problem with these is 1) they are barely on an edge, and 2) they happen so quickly. I didn't do them all the way to speed, but tried to count 1-2 and make sure I did my first foot on one and turned on 2, the were awful, jumpy, and ugly, but I got turned around. Now I need to up the speed 5-10 times! EEEK! Gotta go to work!