So, I was going to ditch class today in favor of some much needed sleep but since the rugrats who live downstairs from me were banging on the metal railing of the stairs outside with baseball bats, I couldn't sleep anymore anyway. So, I had been up for over 24 hours, slept for about 4 hours and got up to go to my lesson, with almost no caffeine btw.
I got to the rink and it was more crowded than usual. Wait a minute...I thought today was the first day of school. Don't these kids have like, I dunno, HOMEWORK???!!! I could not work on anything! Seriously, I skated in circles for an hour. I was so uninspired. And sleepy.
The lesson started with Kelly asking us how the first day of school was and after my two 12 year old classmates answered, Kelly turned to me and waited for my response. I looked at her like "geeez, do I really look that young, must be the ponytail". I guess she thought I was still in high school and was surprised to learn that I am only one year younger than her!
We warmed up with advanced foward stroking. There is always something you can improve with your stroking, I guess. Then she introduced us to one of the Freeskate 2 elements, the foward progressive chasse sequence. I love it! I actually felt like an ice dancer out there. It was fun and really picks up some speed when done in a figure eight pattern. The rest of the time was spent on the dreaded backspin. She showed us how to go into it from BXO's just as you would for a foward spin except instead of stepping onto a deep LFO edge, you somehow step onto a RFI edge. I didn't really get how this worked. I will have to have her show it to me again. How do I go from riding a RBI edge to stepping foward on a RFI edge. Doesn't make sense to me at all. I practiced it, instead, from a standstill pushing off onto a RFI edge and holding it as long as possible until it hooked and started to spin. I still only got about 1 revolution but it's better than nothing. It will improve with time. Next week is jumps (waltz-side toe-waltz and toe loop) and the waltz three.
