Mid month update

My skating goes so well! Only good news in this post! Mmm wait... I'm pretty sure we will get another stay at home order soon...

Back to my skating... for now, I'm still skating Monday, Wednesday and Friday on my own at my rink and I'm having a lesson on Tuesday at another rink. I've missed one Friday and one lesson, but still, I feel I've got a good pace, a rhythm. The muscles feel good, the mask doesn't make it easy, but stamina is improving too.

Pre-Juvenile MITF: The only move that I was not 100% confident for testing was the 3-turns. And they count as two moves and two of the marks for the test, so they need to be confident. Looking back they started to get hesitant when my blades got very dull (I was skidding on some). Then, when the blades were too sharp and on a too deep radius, it was confusing. I wasn't sliding but whenever I wasn't perfectly align (and that is often, and that is ok because this is still a low level test) I would have a balance check and a scare. And a bad fall... yeap, on the bad hip... Also the backward circle eight hasn't gotten completely around on too sharp blades. Now, with the right sharpening, everything is back... The next testing session is December 15... And I'm very doubtful that that is gonna happen because of covid... So I'm not really pushing the moves but I do run them carefully, kind of eye-ing the testing. 

Ice Dancing: I've got it in my head that the boots are not supportive enough. When I push into my ankles, and in Ice Dancing you push on every step, I get no resistance, it's uncomfortable, so I don't feel I can go for speed and power. I do maintain the Ten Fox, but I'm not putting any heart into it. I'm not particularly attracted to this dance and there is no hope of testing partnered any time soon. I've considered testing solo but I'm late on few steps, so not on music, and I feel that I would need a little more power that I don't seam to be able to find. The Foxtrot and European Waltz also don't work without speed and power, the pattern just doesn't goes where it should go.  So I don't do much Ice dancing...

Slow new things: I'm spending most of my ice time on new things that I can do slowly, no power and speed needed. The forward inside brackets are getting really good. I'm not hesitating anymore on the outside ones. Twizzles... I couldn't work on them with too sharp blades, so I just started them again. They are confusing... The counter clockwise sometimes gets 2 full rotations, yeiii, the key word being sometimes. I'm not able to figure out what I do differently when they work. The clockwise ones stop invariably after one rotation. I feel I'm leaning outside the circle, I'm blocking myself with the right shoulder. Per my coach's request I've made a list with the new thing I wanted to learn. And I tried them on my own first... forward double 3-turns, backward power 3-turns, backward crossrolls that he explained to me and I'm ready for the next set of corrections. I'm also working on adding arm movement to some of the edges.

Exhibition program on Nutcraker music: This gives me so much joy, as I expected. The music is a little longer then my old Freestyle program so I added some moves from the Freedance program I was working on. This exhibition also me to work on Freestyle, the spins and jumps that I planed to put in the program. I decided that I'll run the program each time I'm on ice to be sure I build the stamina even if I don't put on the music. I've put the music just once... it's complicated... Anyhow, I'm trying to not allow this program to take over all the skating time, I just work on it on the last 15 minutes on ice. Now, the bad news... The exhibition is suppose to be on December 13th, so probably it's not gonna happen...

Power and Speed: I'm getting into the habit of trying to push myself at the end of the session, if I'm not too tired. If I'm tired, I do breathing kind of edge lunges and contractions. When I feel good, I do power stroking, forward and backward crossovers, forward and backward chasses.

Sewing: I've finally sewn some soakers (absorbent covers) for my blades. I haven't really felt I needed them before, because after wiping the blades after skating I was putting them on a towel in my skating bag. But now, we are not allowed with the skating bags in the building and I'm using the plastic guards to transport the skates and those keep the blades wet. I've also sewn a new skating skirt. From when I've hurt my left hip, I'm always wearing a hip pad so I like to have a skirt over the leggings to cover the pad. I used to wear mostly black leggings and I have made two black skirts. Lately I've got into heather grays, as they don't show the cat hair so badly... so I needed a gray skirt!