Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Wake Up!

Good Morning, Campers! Up with the lark!  It's a new year.
A new year, filled with left over problems from last year, but also the promise of new challenges.  Of course there are those pesky resolutions, generally put forth by perky people with way more enthusiasm than I can muster after a long night with the widow Clicquot; let's deal with all that right up front:  I hereby solemnly vow to make better bad choices this year compared to last.

Not wanting to be part of the slacker brigade, your old diarist went skating on the achingly beautiful first day of the new year.  I knew I had a lesson with Coach A. on the 2nd and figured if I could stand up on skates New Year's day, (actually my hair didn't hurt all that badly) that the lesson wouldn't be a complete waste of our time.

Come the 2nd, we dealt with an old problem--my poor excuse for a  CC inside Mohawk and a new challenge--my poor excuse for back outside edges.  Both of these foundation elements are key to my progress with the remaining two pre-bronze dances which I've left untested.  Doesn't matter if I remember the steps.  Doesn't matter if I remember to smile occasionally.  Without a good foundation this show ain't goin' anywhere.

So, on the 2nd of Jan. I found myself going backwards in both open and waltz hold doing outside swing rolls at dance speed during a busy FS session.  To say that we terrified a lot of inattentive free-style pixies would be a fair statement but no blood was shed.  The good news is that all this concentration on swing rolls left almost no time for Mohawks!

Scrolling on to last night's lesson, the focus was the dreaded Mohawk.  Coach A. had me over at the boards pivoting on my right foot.  Why is this turn such a stumbling block?  After what seemed to be a mind-numbing length of time (must have been at least ten minutes) we switched to back outside edges, but this time performed on the red line at the end of the rink.  There were no great breakthroughs in either department but I now have a couple more practice drills for homework.

So, that's my start to the new year.  Future posts will probably get v. monotonous and whiny, so feel free to tune out for a couple months! 

6 comments:

  1. dig it, man. love posts like these. I'm not setting any NY goals this year. I revamped my goals last fall sometime, and I'm going along with those.

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    1. My "goals" include not breaking anything that takes more than a week or so to resolve and continuing to have a bit of harmless fun. Positive results are entirely optional!

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  2. George, I challenge you to do more whining than me in 2018, especially when mohawks are concerned! And monotony seems to be my thing as well! With inside mohawks, I've found it really helpful to think about getting that entry hip solidly underneath me as I do the inside edge into the turn. That means that I have to feel like I'm leading with my hip/glute, rather than my upper body (it's an illusion, but it prevents my upper body from pitching forward into the turn). If I don't get that stable entry edge, the turn is terrifying. I'm terrifying myself as well as those free-style pixies!

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    1. Thanks for the tip. I'll need to write that down in my notebook. As for the whining contest we shall just have to see!

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  3. "not breaking anything that takes more than a week or so to resolve" - good in theory.

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  4. The best-laid goals o' mice an' ice dancers
    Gang aft agley.

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