Creeping Up On a Skill

It's not supposed to be like this.

I tend to creep up on skills. I learn a piece of it here, and a bit of it there, and then with hours of coaching, and endless practice, suddenly I have it. And then I wonder why it took me so long to get it.

Right now (yet again) I'm creeping up on FI3. Yeah, I've been able to do these off and on, but I've never felt anything other than lucky that I could do one. And only at the boards. I've had some close calls too involving near death experiences---well, it seemed that way to me then....

Noooo! Noooo! I'm falling! I'm faaallinnngggg!

Then tonight, I realized I could actually feel the rocker as I turned, and I could shift myself from the back of the blade, to the front of the blade consistently without going up on the toepick, then stay at the front of the blade as I glided backwards. It was an interesting moment. At the beginning of the lesson I'm all flingy, then zip,zap, thunderclap, I'm on the rocker and kickin' rocker ass.

Still need assistance though (hold my hand Coach Cruella, please) so it's debatable if I'm kickin' rocker ass, or it's FI3 is kickin' Babbette ass. But, I'm creeping up on that skill a little bit more.

To what do I owe this marginal increase in my FI3? It's a slightly different approach to doing the turn.

I used to try FI3 the freestyle way with the leg extended. Then Coach Cruella told me to do it the dance way, with the toe tucked and the legs in closed position.  Closed position in this case being to keep my legs together like I'm protecting my virginity.

So, stroke onto the inside edge, hold for a slow two count, tuck the foot into the closed position for another slow two count, turn. To me the feel of the rocker only came through when I held the tucked position for the slow two count. I had time to get comfortable on the blade and in the right position. rather than just turning when my upper body was ready (which led to flingy 3's). Now I can get on the edge, get in the turn position, and turn. But the part where I'm supposed to go down in the knee on the back edge is problematical.

So I've 2 of the 3 C's: Control, Consistency, Coach holding me up after the turn. Sigh.

Anyway, now that I can feel the rocker change--and control it--I'm thinking complete FI3 may show up any day/week/month now!  

Making friends with FI3

Or I'll be blogging about it next year!