Yesterday- the ice was heaven. We didn't have LTS due to Spring Break, and Burton was at Sectionals (he won his event) so none of his students were at the rink.
So when I got there at 8:45, it was just Y. skating around and Carlos had a student in the harness. By the time I got my skates on it was only Y. After a little bit, Y left, but by that time Taylor got onto the ice. Still- at no time were there more than two of us. AND the ice was fantastic.
I can ALMOST put all my weight on my right hand, so I decided I was going to skate without my brace. Since the ice was empty and I didn't have to worry about being bumped, this was the perfect time to do it. I can say with almost certainty that the brace ruined my scratch spins. I'd say 80% of them were fast and centered- it was wonderful. We won't talk about the other 20%...
My backspin was good, and I'm working on skating faster into it. I seem to have enough control of it that I can do that fine. I don't need to go from a stop before doing the entry-edge sequence anymore. Still can't cross the stupid foot though.
I worked on camel a bit- and bleck. Not so good.
I worked on change foot spin, and it has gotten much better- I can change feet! The problem is I'm tucking my foot to my ankle in the backspin, and Carson is going to kill me for that.
I only jumped a little bit, oweing to the no-brace thing. I'm working on jumping UP on my toe-loop and I think I'm doing it. I just have no UP in me. I don't know what to think of my salchow- does anyone else think it is a stupid jump? I mean, I look at the tracing and there is some distance between take off an landing, but I feel like I'm just hoping to the other foot. I don't get it. Waltz-toe was fine. I hate loops. I have a 5 year plan to rotate the flip...
I also worked on turns. One of my problems with the flip is, at speed, if the angle isn't exactly right I can't do the three turn. And that's one of my good three turns. My bad ones are embarrassing. How did I ever pass bronze moves? It's sad. And now that Carson took my footwork out of my program, I need better connecting steps.
Also- I think taking footwork out was a mistake. He thinks it makes me look slow, and I understand that, but I don't think anything I can do connecting will be any better- but now in between elements I'll be slow. PLUS, even though it isn't required for the test I think the judges will be expecting a competition style program, and I don't have footwork. Also- if I compete the program as a "warm up" again I'm sure to get last place- I'll be missing an element and have an illegal jump (because I now have 5 jump elements). I kind of feel like I should say something, but I don't want to be pushy about it- I just want to pass my test.
Early Autumn
2 months ago
2 comments:
Yay - sounds like things are getting better, and empty skating surface = fun skating surface. We had a competition today (I went as a judge, not a skater), but one of the rinks I practice at sometimes was having their normal Sunday practice after the contest. Normally I don't go to this practice as it is far away and busy, but since I missed my normal practice and this rink was on the way home, I went. It. Was. Heaven! The first hour everyone was doing compulsory figures, and after that there were two (very advanced) girls who are my friends doing freeskating (practice what they missed at the contest) and a few other adult/beginner skaters. I was able to skate dance records for over an hour without any interruption and only occasional breaking for the jumping and spinning girls. It was amazing. The floor was bad (very slick and slow), but doesn't really matter. I am also prepping for some tests, but I will be skating on a much nicer floor when I do take them, so I just wanted to go through everything today.
Anyway, sorry for the long ramble, been a long day, but I just wanted to share in the yayness of having a good practice. Hopefully now that your wrist is getting better you can get your spins feeling good again and have more fun skating the elements you like to do, and not have anything throwing you off on the elements you still need to work on.
I recently (3 months ago) returned to skating after about 25 years off. This week, I recently got a tip for my salchow that has it feeling MUCH better, so there's a chance a may help you. I was told that when holding out the second part of the three turn (both parts should be at least as long as your height) to use that time to get good and DOWN in the knee (and to deepen the edge) so that I can POP up on the jump and get more lift. This has it feeling like a JUMP, rather than like a partial spin on the take off foot followed by hop to the other foot. It feels a world better. I like checking out the tracing afterward - if I do a good job deepening the edge, it will show up as a good curl at the end of the takeoff edge. (The tracing also shows that I'm probably dragging my toe pick too much ahead of the takeoff, but that's a problem to deal with at another session - one problem at a time is my approach.)
Good luck!
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