Scraaaaaaaatch

My first time on the new Ultima Legacy blades, I felt my spins improved a lot. Today in private lesson during freestyle session, I was back to square one of spinning. Can't spin. Not even a simple upright one-foot spin. Reason being - I scratched with the toe pick so much that I was completely put off and could not spin any more because I kept trying to not scratch.

Last time I skated was on a public session, so I couldn't hear myself over the crowd and the music. On the very quiet morning freestyle though (all the kids are gone, yay!), I'm sure the entire rink heard me trying to spin.

This is definitely a good thing as it's going to help me spin the correct way, ie. on the sweet spot, as opposed to having the toe pick drag on the ice the whole time as I used to. I scratch as I wind up, and I scraaaaaatch in the spin (I don't scratch crossovers though!). The larger and sharper toe picks on the new blades amplify this bad habit like ten times louder, so I can ignore it no longer.

It was awful. I was trying so hard to balance on the rocker that I could not balance myself to spin. Good thing I didn't know about this beforehand, so the very first spin I showed coach was very nice and centered, albeit loud, so coach knows that I do know how to spin. I was mortified with the deafening scratch and subsequently failed every attempt after that. I know it's necessary to do things correctly, but not being able to spin again after making some progress is so frustrating!