My next test requires music. I am hoping to take the Adult Bronze Freestyle test once I can land a decent Salchow and Waltz-Toe Loop and of course do a backspin. My sit spin magically appeared after I got my new skates. Not sure where it came from since I could only do it occasionally before. Suddenly, I can do one cold. One less thing I have to worry about for the test. Yeah!
Today we started on the choreography for the program. Now, you have to realize that even though I skated as a kid I never EVER did a program. I skated in lots of group numbers in the club ice shows but never my very own program. When you are in a group number the choreography is done for the lowest level skater in the group making most of the steps very very easy. I am very excited about doing my own program as a grown up. I am skating to "Dawn" from Pride and Prejudice. I am keeping the slow start and end but cutting out one of the fast bits in the middle. I am only allowed 1:40 of music. What is left after the edit I am going to digitally stretch to fill the time since with the edit it is only 1:30. This is going to make a nice slow tempo for it, more like a ballet piece than a manic skating piece. Just right for me ;-)
We started with the straight line footwork. It is simply two three turns into a power crossover repeated twice with an arm flourish during each three turn. Once I got this down she added a pivot on my toe pick into back crossovers into an outside spread eagle then an inside spread eagle. This got added to the beginning of the three turn sequence. It is working out that the spread eagles are done around the hockey circles and then the three turns head down the rink kitty-corner where I end up at the other hockey circle. She then added an Ina Bauer at that end into back crossovers into a sit spin. I ran through this a couple of times dodging people along the way. I couldn't believe how klutzy I was suddenly. Then I realized that I am used to performing these as individual elements which means I get to take my time setting them up and getting out of them for each individual stunt. While I have performed every single part of this well and some of it for years, it is more like playing scales up and down the piano rather than launching into a good Rachmaninoff piece. Way different! During the run throughs I stumbled over my own feet and then lost the arm movements altogether during the three turn sequence. While I did manage to get through the whole little bit end to end, from a performance standpoint it looked like crap. I am going to have to practice this a lot, starting quite slowly. This was also done without music which is going to add another stress on top of me tripping over my toe rakes and forgetting my arms. I suddenly have a new admiration for the kids whipping through their programs. I am going to have to ask for an ipod for Christmas so I can skate to my music the odd times I get the ice rink to myself during a public session.
To go back to the music analogy, I know the notes now I just have to learn the song.
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