Mood:
happyMy new coach for this session is Gigi. Although not as peppy as Kelly was, she seems nice and is very encouraging. Before my lesson started, I warmed up in the public session for about an hour. It was so nice having sharp blades again. The guy at the proshop did a really nice job. I am always a bit apprehensive about getting my blades sharpened because I have heard so many horror stories and have seen for myself many a ruined blade from sharpenings gone bad. This particular guy at the proshop is the only person that sharpens blades, so it's not as though they have some random dude at the shop attempt to sharpen blades for the first time. They ripped nicely on my forward crossrolls and on my edges. They felt great!
So, the lesson started off with jumps. Namely, the salchow and half lutz. The salchow I was able to do with no problem. I think I could still use a little bit more knee bend to gain height and Gigi said that both the entry and exit edge of the three turn should be of equal length. Right now, the first half of the three turn is a bit longer than the second half. Moving on to half lutz...I have never been shown the half lutz but common sense told me that it is the same as the half flip but the takeoff is on an outside edge instead of an inside edge. The entry is different too. She showed me how to go into the jump from one backward crossover, two foot glide, bring right foot up to the left knee to prepare and then bring it back, pick, draw and the rest of the jump is much like the half flip. The tricky thing is to get used to getting on that outside edge before you pick in.
Next on the agenda were the back inside three turns. In freeskate 1, I had a hard time getting the back outside three turns until one day, it just clicked. I never really attempted the BI three's because, well, because I was scared. I was afraid that it would take me a while to get the BI three turns down as well. I surpised myself! They were not to shabby. I just had to get over the fear issue and then I was able to do them almost as well as the BO three's.
Next up was the backspin. Gigi told me that Kelly spoke to her about how this was one of my weak points. I'm glad she did because the lesson was going so well, I was afraid that she would expect me do to the backspin as well as the other elements. At least she was prepared for the suckage ahead of time. Freeskate 3 requires me to do the backspin in the crossed leg position with a minimum of three revolutions. Right now I have about two revolutions in the crossed leg position but it's very inconsistant. It is something that really needs some quality time put in to make it smooth and effortless.
We will be doing the waltz 8 and forward/backward crossovers in a figure eight pattern next week. These elements are hard to do when you only have 1/6 of the ice surface to work with. She was relieved to hear that I am quite familiar with these elements already and I can practice them on my own.
