Back to Lessons

I had a good lesson yesterday.  Kind of a lazy practice before hand though.  I just don't have the drive I did leading up to the last test.  Now it seems unlikely, then it seemed like I was just on the verge.  Blech.

Anyhow- my lesson.  It was good.  I miss working with Carson in privates.  In group lessons he isn't very strict, and the flow is really slow.  In privates, well, he still isn't really strict (how can you be with an adult), but they are high paced lessons.  I end the 30 minutes TIRED and I work hard.  Hopefully Taylor will have the same lesson style (she can be a yeller with one of her kids working on moves, so I don't think she'll be easy on me- but she is in groups.  So we'll have to see if she has the same transformation.)

We started the lesson with jumps.  I got minor fixes to work on height, but I have to say, my technique is pretty solid on all my jumps.  I just need to stop the toe pick dragging in the salchow (which is oddly my 'best' jump. I don't get that. It feels so silly. Maybe salchows just are silly- like you are hoping from one foot to the other.)

We worked on loop in the harness, and I'd say 80% of them freaking rocked.  The difference is that I skate FAST in the harness, and really push myself.  I do the entry 3-turn with a ton of speed, and don't drag my toe.  (Because I put my weight further back, knowing that Carson will catch me if I'm falling onto my head!)  Carson swears he doesn't pull me up in the jumps- but he has too.  I'm jumping higher than my waltz jump or my toe loop on these.  Is it really all just the speed?  And how the heck do I get that outside of the harness?  Because there is no way I can have that kind of attack without knowing that I can't fall.

Carson joked about padding me up in bubble wrap, but the thing is, I'd have to be totally covered.  I told him that as irrational as it is, because I know figure skaters don't have this happen to them (except in maybe the absolute rarest of cases) but once you are in a hospital bed and you hear a Doctor tell your Mom you might not walk again- well, the fear is stuck.  I don't know how to make it go away.  One of my few regrets in life is refusing the psychologist in the hospital. I told him I was really sorry, but while I know the hospital says he has to come here every few days, I had no interest in it.  It was a physical injury, not a mental one.  He should have fought a little harder to let me know what a mental one if may end up becoming!  I had gone to psychologists before, so it wasn't like I was anti-shrink. I just had no idea, as a 17 year old, why I would need one when the problem was a spinal cord injury, and not a mental problem.

But I digress.  Anyhow- my loops rocked.  Maybe I just need to come up with a harness for my costume to trick myself into feeling safe.  What program music goes with a harness?

After that we moved onto spins.  My spins were actually pretty good (my backspin especially is getting fast and is almost always well centered), but my entry edge to my scratch spin sucks.  When I have awesome centered spins, it is a fluke.  (A fairly common fluke though...)  I hold the edge for like half an inch.  My left arm and leg creep around and force me to spin.  How do I fix this?     It isn't a problem in practice. I can eek out a great spin 60% of the time, and a decent one 90% of the time.  The problem is the 10% where it travels halfway across the rink. And since I enter my scratch spin with A TON of speed, and a TON of fatigue in my program, I get that 10%.  That's not good.  (Of course, stupid USFS took the spin out of the test.  WTF? Even my cruddy traveling spin is better than my jumps.)  Carson does say one good thing about me is that for the most part no matter how bad the spin is, I can keep it spinning.  And I guess that is true.


Finally, we ran my program.  And the scratch spin was awful, but otherwise it felt okay.  Carson was not happy though.  He said it was just sloppy.  The elements weren't bad, but the program was- if that makes sense.  It looks like I was on a vacation recently. Well yeah!  I had a single lesson in April!  I am not skating this Saturday, but hopefully I can work back up to not looking sloppy.

I guess I need to send my test papers in.  I can't believe how expensive this test is going to be.  Twice the price of the last one.  I wish our club had more than one test each year.  The out of club fees are killer.