Lots of skating

Another day off today (mostly so I can get good use out of my rarely acquired monthly rink pass!), and I racked up about 2 and a half hours on the ice. It was a bit annoying though, as once again a third of the rink was coned off for various celebrities, practicing for the Dancing On Ice Tour, so I couldn't do my full dance patterns.

However, I did do the Canasta Tango and Dutch Waltz as best I could - especially the waltz, as I wanted to practice its new arms that were added yesterday.

Backward Crossovers went quite well - they are definitely getting faster now, and I am feeling much easier where the weight should be on my blades (it seems to me to be just behind the centre of my blades). Did quite a bit of other "backward" stuff as well - serptentine backward chasses, backward Russian stroking and some BXO's into landing positions, trying to work on good extension and a deeply bent skating knee.

Did quite a few spirals today - I think on one side at least, I may have reached that holy grail of having my leg higher than my hip and I am beginning to feel more comfortable about pushing my hips back and getting my body closer to the ice. I am beginning to quite enjoy these now - and I know with my previous ballet training, that theoretically I could make these look nice. We'll see . . . :)

Otherwise, lots of playing around with edges, FXO's, crossrolls, the Passport Gold step sequence (yuck), mohawks, 3-turns and one-foot slaloming - one leg is getting quite good at it now!

And then after all that skating, I decided to go to a rather strenuous aqua aerobics class this evening. I must be mental.

Tomorrow we are having a "team" outing at work, including a 2 hour trip up the Thames with afternoon tea provided!! Yum - haven't had scones and jam for years!