Thursday, February 14, 2019

Working at my first Freestyle program part 2

Read "Working toward my first program" part 1 here.

Firstly, I decided to change the music, as the first choice was some delicate piano sound with two big orchestral accents and I was afraid that if I won't be able to align some dramatic elements exactly over the big music accents it was all gonna look silly. I also hired another coach (coach B) because coach A had to travel and I really really wanted a program NOW.

Coach B jumped directly into choreographing the program. I wrote in my previous post, the one reviewing the last month,  "The coach I hired now, coach B, is a quite experienced choreographer and performer, still settling in my city, so still approachable as price. He has such a beautiful style with lots of upper body movement! I first tensed up, thinking I won't be able to do much of what he showed me, but he broke down everything and he said that whatever I won't get comfortable doing in few weeks we'll change. So I take it as an opportunity to learn new elements, even if they are not gonna get used."

I feel that everything he's asked my to do up to now is new! I'll put everything new to me in bold.
First week:
- I start in a curtsy position (yes this is new, I never curtsied before) with the weight on the right foot, facing 45 degrees to the judges with the arms on chest and looking down towards right. Then arms ballet style, up and lateral,  and when they get there, pivot towards the left keeping the palms up. The trick here is to change the weight from the right foot from the curtsy to the left toe pick for the pivot. Also challenging at this point is to melt the arm movement into the pivot, and to stop the pivot when facing the judges. I'm surprised that for the pivot, that is not a challenge, I have 3 things to work on...
- Then, 2 inside edges (left, right) with arm movement 1. I enter the forward inside edges with the opposite shoulder than the skating foot in front, as usual. But now, the arm behind has to came around to the eye level and forward (meaning from the heart). We said we'll work more on arms later, for now it doesn't feel I do anything similar with what he's doing.
- Inside spread eagle (yeap, I've never done this) with arms laterally, palms up.
- Toe pick turns. This means to step on the left foot and turn on the flat of the blade then step and turn on the right toe pick, and repeat. These are done on a line. I'm cautious doing them but I can do them. Will I be ever able to do them on the music beats as coach B does them? Especially because it seams to be a very quick transition between the spread eagle and the toe pick turns.
- Forward outside 3-turn into a stop. This was supposed to be a back stop, but it transformed into a lateral one that I can do. The 3-turn has to be small and curved and I have to hold my weight on my left foot before my stop. I filmed my coach doing the steps so I'll remember them and he actually did a little 2 foot spin into a stop instead of the 3-turn, but I think I would try for the 3-turn for a while because it seams useful to learn it.
- After the stop there is some pointing towards the judges 2 (sending love). The coach will need to teach me that. I'm so new at this that I cannot copy it from the video :(
- Then it would be a 2 foot spin in the opposite direction than my normal one. I'm soo overwhelmed by now, that I don't want to do it. Because everything is new I feel I'll have no energy left for the actual elements I have to do for the test...
- Next there is a step like a spiral with arm 3 on the right foot with the upper body and free leg parallel with the ice, but keeping the skating  leg bent, looking down and the arm from the skating side extended forward.

At his suggestion, I filmed my coach doing my program, so I can reference it while I work on the steps. I'll let you know how it goes!

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