Freestyle for real!

You can tell I'm obsessed with figure skating when I'm willing to get up early so I can go to the morning freestyles before I go to school. Getting up at 7:40 am is considered early for a night owl like me who needs eight hours sleep. The original plan was to go to the 7:45 am session, but I simply could not fall asleep the night before and decided to push it back to the 8:30 am session instead. It turned out for the best though! My group lesson coach C was there around 9 am so I asked her for recommendations for a coach. The coach she recommended was there too so I got to talk to her straight away. In fact, the coach was on the ice with another student right next to where I was practicing, so I caught snippets of how she teaches, and I really liked her! She seems very nice and analytical, which suits me perfectly, as I've often been told off by coach C to stop over-analyzing lol.

So there. I've finally made up my mind and the deed is done. I'm getting a private coach! We've yet to set up a time for our first lesson, but I'm really looking forward to it : )

So now I've been to my first real open freestyle session! (not counting coffee club and the adult only freestyle session) When I skate on public session, I waste time trying to dodge people and wait for an open space. On freestyle session, I still waste time! Because I can't help but watch the skater running their program! There was a skater there who's the best skater I've seen in real life (watching Kim Yuna on youtube obviously doesn't count). She had strength and elegance and all her double jumps were very strong, her steps so intricate. I was honestly very moved as I watched her.

I was still scared to move much around the rink since I couldn't go at the speed everyone else seems to skate at. After stroking around a few laps, I stuck to one end and stayed there. And every time there was a skater with a program, I would just stay at the boards whenever they were on this side of the rink, because I didn't think I'd be able to avoid them quickly enough.

I landed two of what I felt were perfect Salchows today (by my standards lol)! Only two though, they were not reproducible. Nor were those loops I felt I had started to get a hang of last week : ( But I guess if I can land perfect Salchows when I hated them before too, I should be able to get loops eventually. Toe loop jumps continue to be my absolute favourite, and spins are just the bane of my existence. That cross-leg scratch spin which appeared once has vanished without a trace. Please come back!! Tomorrow is group lesson night so I will ask our assistant coach who's brilliant at spinning to help me. Fingers crossed!