Lesson Together on Program Choreography

 We’re working out the kinks on our free program.  A little hard during a freestyle session, but we managed to get ‘er done.

Creating A Free Dance

Here’s a few vids of the learning process of new choreography for our Pre-Bronze and Bronze Free Dance Test programs.

 

Head Over Heels

 Well I finally did it.  It’s been a long long time since took a spill like this.  Today while doing absolutely nothing - I managed to let my feet go out from under me and fell backwards and let my head bang the ice. Longest second of my life.  I thought about how much it was going to hurt my arms and shoulders .. till I heard the cranial thump!  Took me a few moments to shake it off before I could even get up and another 5 minutes off ice trying to evaluate if I had any visible signs concussion.  

Of course our motto is “We Get Up” right?

Prior to this fall we started trying out Twizzles together.  I learned a new beginners arm position for ice dance down at our sides.  We also did some practice with swing rolls in varying dance holds.  We need some serious practice time together without the coach to work on our skating rhythym together.

After today we are both out of town for a about  a week so we’ll get back to it at the end of the month again.

Snippets of Monday Morning Practice

 I ran my Gold MIF but none of them went very well.  It wasn’t worth recording.  Did some three turn practice in front of the camera - then my phone got knocked over and when it was reset .. it was out of focus.  A few Twizzles were captured in the blurry background.

Picking Apart My Twizzles and Three Turns

 I really struggle with balance on Twizzles and some Three turns .. especially inside controlled ones like in moves in the field.  I can do them in freestyle - like before a Toe Loop or if I choreograph one particular one into a program - it gets practiced over and over so I find the balance of it.

Obviously I am not practicing the moves in the field enough to find my balance on them.  I know what I am doing wrong YET I am (thus far) unable to take the words of my coach and correct the problem.

Problem:  Keeping my hips tucked under me.  Using enough ankle/knee bend to keep the edge with just my lower body.  I usually stick my butt out - which needs to be counter balanced so I then lurch my upper body forward some.  That makes the turn off balance and harder to check the exit edge. 

Simple right?  I know what’s wrong so just correct it!  I wish.

My Twizzles have the issue of turning into spins (too centered) or turning into loops (inside edge vs a traveling three turn).  Coach thinks part of the problem is in my entry arm position.  I tend to shoot both arms straight out in front of me… causing the same problem as above… off balance.  

Now we are trying more of a “sweet spot” approach to them.  We did a two foot spin test and used my arm position of that spin to gauge where that spot was and are trying to apply it to the Twizzles arm position.

Wednesday Lesson on the Hickory Hoedown & European Waltz (Solo)

We spent 2/3 of the hour today working on the Hickory Hoedown.  Still getting comfortable together on the end pattern - my three turn into back swing roll and his three turn into back swing roll.

After that we started into a step sequence that we plan to use in our Free Dance test program.

What Another 6:00 am Practice?

 I’ve had the grandkids this week so I had to squeeze in practice where I could even if it meant 6:00 a.m.

Have I mentioned I am not a morning person?  Nobody should skate before coffee should they?

My usual routine involves a few cups of coffee, a soak in the hot tub (yes I know it’s not recommended before exercise) and a few stretches off ice then on ice.

Today I was cold and stiff and my knees would not let me rise and fall into the turns.

Man I HATE Mornings!

 .. But you have to make sacrifices.  This is the only time we can squeeze in our lessons with coach Kendall.  

Today we each took our 20 minute separate lessons and then spent 20 minutes partnered.  We had our first lesson on the dance spin.