The Rocker Foxtrot--NOT!

For five minutes today, Coach, his ice dance student, and I were the only people on beautiful, smooth ice. Glorious. I think I could cover the length of the rink in a single stroke.

Then the public showed up.

There were long stretches of silence in today's lesson. Silence apparently being coaches' way of telling you you're doing well enough not to need correction. And I got a high five for something. I wish I could remember what. So, not doing awful apparently.

Coach Cruella's edge lessons are working because I have solid edges. Dance Coach earns his pay by giving me a lecture on the fact that I have a bent knee on the free leg. We do other stuff. Zip the Canasta Tango through herds of twenty year old boys slamming each other into the boards.  Three turns in hold--there's usually long comments on these, but today, only a minor correction. Then things go to pot.

He tries to teach me the outside mohawk from the rocker foxtrot. I've read somewhere this is the "source of many amusing falls".  I nearly added to the total. I'm trying to get all the body parts working together, so I'm not worried about pretty skating. I get a gruff "Extend the free foot." Man, in your dreams. I'm all over the place. I don't know where to look, how to hold my shoulders, where my torso should be. Why am I learning this? It's a SILVER dance! SCARY! So, extension, not on my mind right now.  I just want to crawl back into the safety of my preliminary dances.

Dance Coach decides  to do forward edges in Waltz Hold. We do a few strides and he frowns at me. "You are looking in the wrong place."

Believe it or not, I've been learning dance for almost two years, and I have never heard this before. When we skate in Waltz Hold I usually look at his eyebrows, because I have to look somewhere and they're about in the right place. "I'm.Looking.In.The.Wrong.Place." I repeat.

"When you are on right edge, look over my left ear." He holds his hand about six inches up. "On other side, look other ear."

You know, it's moments like this that make me think ice dance deserves its reputation as fussy sport. This must be some style thing. I mean, how many more style things are there?  How does he remember all of them?

At the end of the lesson we're doing inside swingrolls in killian (much improved--except for the one where I got such a deep edge I nearly took the both of us down) and then I just run out of steam. I putter to a stop.

Dance Coach frowns. "Okay, Except for last one."

I throw up my hands. "Power. Edges. Posture. Pick any two."

He laughs and I'm off the ice.