Feeling run down . . .

Not at my best at the moment, I have decided. My skin is terrible, I have Mount Vesuvius sitting on my cheekbone (strange place to get a massive spot!), I have a flare up of a recurrent eye infection, and I overslept this morning. I soooo need some time off work. Luckily, I have some coming up! The only time I have had all year really is the week before Stacey's wedding, and I was completely exhausted after that, so hardly recuperative!

Saying that, my lesson was not too bad. I think my coach is very good at reading me and knowing what to get me to do!

Single push-off: I can get up almost to two-thirds of the rink in one push which is not bad, and my position has improved a lot. More knee bend required though . . . of course!
Backward Crossrolls: Wow - haven't done these for ages, and they feel almost . . . nice! My hands are still resting on D's, but my balance is much better, and they are getting a nice flowy feel.
One foot slaloms: More knee bend again! My head is only dipping about two inches, when it needs to be about ten, lol.
LEVEL 1 FIELD MOVES
Forward Edges: A pleased coach - only criticism was to not hold my leg at any stage, but bring it through smoothly. Its not all the time, just occasionally.
BXO's - Landing Position: No more slipping off the outside edge - again, a happy coach, but she wants more power in my BXO's.
FXO's & BXO's in Figure of 8: Have started doing the connecting mohawk to get used to it, but have to slow down first to do it. I'm hoping I can slow down gradually less and less. FXO's improved, BXO's as before need more power.
Forward Spirals: Another happy coach moment - holding them nice and long. So overall, Field Moves are on the whole a "good test" I think the words she used were. I need to work on making my BXO's faster, and that bugger of a mohawk in between the two figure of 8's.
Level 2 FM Mohawk Exercise: Managed to get through it from one end to the other, albeit quite slowly! All mohawks worked, even if my LFI mohawks are still a tad wobbly.
Choctaws: These feel odd. She helped me today - main point is to do the whole semicircle on the first FI edge, then the whole semicircle on the BO edge. It did make it feel a tiny bit better when I did that.
Golden Skater's Waltz: "I'd be happy to put that in competition". Music to my ears! Went well to music, chasse is a million times better, even the crossroll feels better and more "swingy". The two points to carry on working on was to raise my foot a little higher on the chasse, and to get more power and coverage in the pattern. I get pretty good coverage when doing it without music and hence slightly slower - I need to translate it to the correct beat now.

So some good points in my lesson today. And I also found out while standing off-ice that I can get into a two handed Biellmann position, which quite impressed me! I had tried to do it in trainers, but couldn't get a good enough grasp to get it high enough to get hold of it with both hands. It's a bit easier with blades on, but I can feel the muscles in my back now!!!