*Hop, skip and jump (ok, not really the jump...yet)*

Ok, so, the interesting thing is - if Coach A really was playing sneaky tactics as discussed in my previous post, it worked.

Nice one Coach A.


In case you've forgotten (or didn't read it), I said: "I can't help but wonder if Coach A is just trying a sneaky method of confidence-boosting. Like "Here's a piece of paper that says you can do these things, therefore you must be able to do them". Because I feel a bit of a fraud, passing bronze, if I'm honest. Yes I can do a baby three jump, but it is only a baby one, because I haven't yet built up the confidence to make it any higher or bigger.

And yes, I can do a two-foot spin, but it's appalling a lot of the time, and only just starting to get a consistent three rotations (which is what's required). In fact, I suspect my one-foot spin is better!

But I guess, if that IS his motive, it's going to work, because I'm already determined to make those elements better based on the fact that I don't like feeling like a fraud. Sneaky coach."

My jump and spin both still need a LOT of work (but does there ever come a time when they don't?), but they're already an awful lot better than they were.

My last two lessons mostly consisted of working on that 3 jump, trying to kick up more and use my knees more to make it into more of a jump than the little hop I was getting - actually trying to use my arms a little more too, which helped.

In the last lesson, Coach A started getting me to
do three of them in a row. Apparently, the first one is currently ok, the second loses it a bit and the third one, well, he blew a raspberry at me to describe it....so I'm guessing that's not great then ;-)

Then in the final 10 minutes of my most recent lesson he explained to me the theory behind the Salchow jump and had me have a little try of it. My initial issue with it is a little bit of fear - I think because I don't know how it's going to feel, what to expect - and there's no hand-holding possible with that one. The Fear resulted in my just touching the ice with my right toe pick before taking it round to do the jump. Oops. Must get braver and try to keep it off the ice.

In other news, talk about put on the spot! Anyone else who has Coach A might recognise what I'm about to describe - but I wonder if other people's coaches occasionally do this? It's the second time Coach A has asked me this:

"Can you show me something I haven't seen you do before? Or something I haven't asked you to do for a while, that you've been working on and you think has got better?"

Cue THAT face again:

The only thing I could think was backward outside 3 turns - haven't done those in his presence since the one day he showed me them, oooh, maybe six months ago - so they MUST have improved, right? Right?

Thankfully, they actually worked. Thank God. He even seemed impressed - and Coach A is very hard to impress. He then showed me a fun little move I really enjoyed playing with, where you go into a mohawk from the back 3, feet together, glide back outside edge, rinse and repeat. Fun. If I remember rightly, I think he said some skaters do those before going into their loop jump.

I've signed up for Braehead adult camp again this year too - really really looking forward to that. I went last year, but had only been skating about nine months then, so was still struggling with things like outside edges and three turns - back crossovers at that point were nowhere to be seen. I still got a lot out of it though - not least some really fun times - and hopefully I'll be able to take a lot more away from it this time around, especially if I can get a bit further with at least the 3 jump and Salchow before then (It's at the end of March). I'm also starting to get a few fairly consistent revolutions on my basic one-foot spin now - couldn't even do a two-foot attempt last time - so hopefully there'll be something to work on there too.