Progress At Last

After enduring a painful period of skidded axel take-offs (resulting in wild, uncontrolled axels), I decided that I needed to fix the problem. I'm not good at fixing myself. What I feel like I'm doing and what I'm actually doing are often quite different. I surprised myself today by making some progress. I kept my right shoulder back more. It had been sneaking around almost in front of me while I set up the jump on my BO edge. I remembered to lead with the left shoulder and keep the right shoulder back, and instantly saw improvement. I had one take-off that didn't skid at all! I also focused on jumping out, and not around. All of a sudden, my axels were respectable again (not great, just respectable).

Here's the rundown on the rest of today's practice:

2salchows: Still not consistent. They usually get more consistent after 10min. of practice, but if I intend to compete (which I do) I'll need them consistent as soon as I step on the ice. I did decide to press myself and tried an outside spread eagle with L foot leading into a 2sal. I fell several times, and then managed to land a few. I also did a bauer R foot leading, RBO3, mohawk into 2salchow. Surprised the heck out of myself by landing that.

2toeloops: Still not getting any distance. Had one today where the landing mark was before the takeoff. Not quite sure how I managed to get negative distance. I did do a few that felt smooth when I concentrated on moving smoothly toward the end of the rink through the whole jump. (Those got maybe an inch of distance.)

2loop: These were wonky today. I was feeling a bit tired, and had a hard time getting my right side under me and my left hip lifted. I did a few that were 1/2 to 1/4 cheated, but none were fully rotated.

2flip: Only attempted 3. First two were poo. Landed the third on one foot. It was cheated, but that was good enough for me. I called it quits on the jumping then because I had to go to work.

Flying camel: Somehow improving. I still don't center right away, but at least I'm holding the spin now. I think off-ice camel position work has helped. I've been focusing on pushing my L(free) leg over my right side and looking to the right. Very helpful.

Camel-sit-layback: It's back! Now I'm trying to add a back camel after the layback. That's tough.

Intermediate MITF: Backward power 3's are improving. I'm not afraid of hitting the wall anymore, and I'm getting a good BI edge into the corner. Now I just have to make them more flow more smoothly. Brackets were much better - much less skidding than last week. Backward double 3's were still troublesome, but I managed some decent ones when I thought about making them dance-like and keeping my free leg/hip lifted. Inside slide chasse pattern - I'm working on leaning back and looking where I'm going on the power 3's and pointing and turning out my free leg on the slides. Coach says I get good power and "rip" on these. Power circles are also improving. I can do the correct number of crossovers now (12-14)!

Novice MITF: The rocker-choctaw is hard! I love it though. I tried starting from a standstill and tried gaining speed. I did it, but top speed was still at snail's pace. These seem like they'll be fun once I get some flow. I'm still just trying to get all of my body parts moving in the correct direction at the correct time.

Things to ponder: I could not do a waltz jump properly today. I either got height, but no split or split but no height. Some days, I just cannot do a proper waltz jump. You'd think it should be easy since I can do axels, but I have the hardest time with that darn jump. Hopefully I won't putz it up when I do my prelim. freeskate.