Test Freakout

I began my ritual test freakout today. I had a lesson in the morning during which my moves were very mediocre at best. I couldn't do decent power circles, outside rockers, power pulls, or choctaws today. That left um, just inside rockers in respectable shape. Lovely.

Since the morning session didn't go well, I decided to skate the 2pm session since it's almost always empty. I was rewarded for my second drive to the rink and had the ice to myself for a full hour. I decided to run through the junior test several times, doing everything just like I will on test day. The first time was a complete disaster. For the first time ever, I managed to fall on a power circle and slide full speed into the wall. Thankfully, I hit feet first and all of that work on "soft knees" in skating paid off because they absorbed the impact. Very luckily, I'm not even sore. Subsequent run throughs were somewhat better. It seemed that the more tired I got, the steadier my moves became. When I get nervous, I get very shaky legs. I never had problems with nerves as a kid, but they've been bad since I started competing last year. By the end of the session, I was so tired that I could barely hold my leg up for the extensions across the rink after the power circles. But, I had stopped shaking and was doing respectable (maybe even close to passing) run throughs.

So, the plan for test day (Wednesday) is to skate before the test for a full hour and wear myself out a bit. Hopefully it'll eliminate the shakes, but leave me with enough energy to get through the test.