Catching up with skating

Oops, it has been a long time since I posted.  But I have a good excuse. 1) Because I'm not making much progress, I don't have much to say.  But that actually isn't true for these missed entries, I've just gotten lazy about blogging. The next excuse is better 2) We moved so I have been busy preparing to move, moving, and settling in,  and 3) we have no internet at home.

So with that said, let me recap some of my skating.

Tuesday the 9th. Fabulous day of skating!  Now that I live 15 minutes away from the rink instead of less than 5, there is kind of a problem. Already I'm burning out on LTS, but on a cold rainy day- I just DID NOT want to go. I'm so glad I did.  We started the lesson with alternating 3s from preliminary and then the forward to backward 3s from Silver, and magically- I didn't have any sidedness issues!  My counter-clockwise 3s were working just the same as my clockwise ones.  I have NO idea what I was doing differently, but hopefully whatever it is it will stay!   Then we worked on backward circle eights and they can be summed up as "awful" (for outside) and "awful doesn't even begin to describe it" (for the inside ones).  My goodness- how are they so different from forward edges?  I can hold the edge just the same on the line (well, maybe my back inside is weakest), so why is the circle such a challenge?  Don't even get me started on that awful push to get to the back inside edge...

But the really really good news (well maybe that was the three turns)- I crossed my foot on a change foot spin!  My backspin from an inside edge entry is getting stronger, I'm crossing my foot in a closed position instead of an open one, so I can start trying to cross higher up and push down for speed, but I've been working on a backspin from a pivot position and that is enabling me to get the push correct on my change foot spin.  It is still pretty atrocious, but definite progress is being made!  YAY!

Saturday the 6th.  Carson was out of town so no lesson.  I skipped skating because we had been so busy.  I really SHOULD have gone to practice, but moving is exhausting.

Tuesday the 2nd.  I skipped skating because I was so busy.  We moved on the 1st, so there was a TON to do.

Saturday the 29th.  This was a good skating day.  For my lesson I had hoped to work on the Rhythm Blues pretty intensely, but Carson broke his lace tying up his boot, so he wasn't able to partner (he tied his skate up with one lace so that he could still stand on the ice).  Rather, I did the Rhythm Blues a few times individually (he still held onto me during the end patterns).  I need actual practice doing the dance, and preferably to music.  Hopefully this weekend.  After that, I learned the cha-cha.  He had introduced the end pattern to me, thinking it would be difficult, but it turns out, I do that step down rather naturally.  So I learned the rest of the dance.  I LOVE this one.  It is quite fun.  I have a feeling I'm in for a big spill on that step down because it can't go this well for too long, but I'm really confident about this one.  In February when there is another test session, hopefully I can take four dances.  Unfortunately the mohawks in the other two for that level are going to take forever to get down.  We worked on mohawks a bit this lesson, and they are just really awful.  Maybe it will go better if I'm partnered...