First private lesson

I loved it. I really like my new coach, coach J. She's really analytical like coach C told me and points out all of those tiny details that I could be improving on. I never knew how many little things I was doing wrong! The slightest wrong angle or wrong height or unused muscle or bent back can mess everything up.

We started with doing outside edges (the kind that's on the pre-bronze MIF test), something I haven't been able to steadily do. Turns out my arms were completely on the wrong side (I had them like you would when you start outside 3-turns), plus I swing my arms and legs around when I change directions. After not doing this, the edges felt so much better, but definitely could do with a lot more practice.

Then we moved on to waltz jumps. Partly because I hadn't had time to warm them up and partly because of the aforementioned volleyball jump confusion, this totally sucked. I was lucky I didn't fall. No wait... I did! But at least not on the first go when I was showing coach J what I could do. Holding the RBO edge from a backward crossover entry was the big thing here, and I'm kind of having trouble with this now.

Thankfully we moved away from waltz jumps soon to Salchows and toe loops. Hold the left arm steady and scoop up only the right arm as I jump up. Extend the left leg to the back and side and don't swing left arm open in the check position. Have a deeper LFO edge and hold it steady right before jumping Salchow. Actually do a real RFI 3-turn on a curve as opposed to turning on a straight line for toe loop. There's actually a lot more on that list of to-do's, how on earth did I do them all at once? Well I couldn't. Coach J said it's just going to take practice and practice until they become muscle memory so I don't have to think about every little thing at the same time.


Four minutes left of the lesson and time for the dreaded spins. Having trouble with backward crossover entry now for some reason, I just did the one-foot spin from a pivot. Keep spinning leg straight. Bend and hold free leg higher, with foot next to spinning leg, not behind. This actually made a huge difference, for that one time that I managed to do all this. For the first time ever, I actually felt my spin centered and was steady for many more revolutions. It was such a happy feeling, I really want it again!


Well this has become a big long list of things to do, but there's just so much to remember! I hope I still remember them when I next skate. I'm so glad coach C recommended coach J to me, she's great! Nice and funny and really helpful all at the same time. I only wish I had more money to take lessons often. For now just to catch things up a bit, it will be once a week, but afterwards I'll probably have to cut them down to once every two weeks : ( Have to make use of every bit of it. Practice!