For some reason, skate class was cancelled this morning.  They told us last week that it would be.  I didn't mind TOO much, because my husband was going to be in town, so I figured I could sleep late and have a relaxing day.  As it turned out, he had something to do Saturday afternoon, so I went to the public skating session from 2:30 to 4:00 pm.

It had been a while since I'd gone to a public session, and at first there was hardly anyone there.  I thought maybe I was there on the wrong day, or that public session had gotten cancelled, too.  But no, there were a few people there, including my friend Miguel who is in the Saturday advanced class.  It got more crowded as the session progressed, but it didn't bother me as much as it usually does.  I was VERY focused on practicing my newest tasks and goals.

Here's how I'm doing.  I'm comfortable doing forwards counter-clockwise crossovers, but STILL cannot bring myself to do them clockwise!  I can skate in the circle, I can pick my left foot up so I'm just skating around in the circle on my right foot...but when it comes time to cross my left foot over, I balk.  I'm not sure how to overcome that.  Maybe Tabitha will have to hold my hand again so I can get the feel of it more.

I'm getting MUCH better at doing backward swizzle pumps in the circle.  I can build up quite a bit of speed now.  Hard to believe just about 8 weeks ago I couldn't even get any backward motion going at all doing this.  So I'm very happy with my progress on this move.  I'm sure my next step from here will be backward crossovers.

Forward gliding is no problem at all, and forward one-foot gliding as well.  I can balance well, feel confident, and can build up speed.  My one-foot gliding is well balanced on both feet, and I can make a turn on one foot as well (not a spin, just a wide turn).  I can glide forward with one foot out in front, or one foot out in back, or one foot held in close to my other leg.  All good.

Two foot spins are coming along nicely.  I don't get as dizzy.  I feel like I'm building up speed but when I watch myself on video it looks very slow. LOL  Funny how it feels so much faster on the ice.  But my balance is good, and I can make 3 complete revolutions now.  I can also shift weight and make a nice exit from the spin, although not yet on just one foot.  Two feet only at this point.  But that's OK.  At least the spin feels "finished".  The one-foot exit will come with time.

The best news is that I tremendously improved my backward gliding!  I watched Miguel carefully and just imitated him.  Once I relaxed and found my own technique, it turned out to be very easy and SO MUCH FUN!  I can build up quite a bit of speed going backwards now, and it looks a lot more graceful than the backwards swizzles I was doing before.  This actually looks like SKATING!  The shifting weight motion also helps me with picking one foot up off the ice.  I'm doing really well on balancing on my left leg with my right foot off the ice.  Not so much on the other side...that still needs work.  My right leg must be weaker or something.  But hey, I was just so very happy to feel so much more confident going backwards, and feeling relaxed in my upper body while letting my lower body do the skating.  Yay!

Oh...and STILL can't do the Mohawk turn.    I can glide forward on my right foot.  I can bring my left foot in to the side of my right foot.  I can turn out my left foot.  I can set my left foot down on the ice, but I still need both feet on the ice to complete the turn.  I can't lift my right foot up off the ice.  Just too scary right now, I guess.  Something more to work on!!!

But there was one moment towards the end of the skating session where I was going around the rink, very relaxed, forwards, doing a two-foot turn, then going backwards, then stopping and doing a spin, then going forwards on one foot, then the other, then backwards again....where I felt so graceful and elegant out there, it was a real rush, and I felt so happy.  I am sure I didn't really look as graceful as I felt, but I don't care.  It's what I feel inside that counts, and I felt like a delicate graceful ballerina out there for just a few moments.  And that's what counts. :)