My Coach Gets into the Act for "Cue Words"

I'm deep into my continuing adventure with 'cue words'. These are words you select to 'cue' you to perform a certain action. I wrote about them here when I started learning my back 8s.

The cue words do three things for me:
1. Distract my brain. I've got like a hurricane of things going on in my head during skill development.  A cue word makes me focus on one skill and not every skill.
2.  If the skill is extended, like the Back 8, a series of cue words can chain simple skills into a complex skill
3. If I pick the right cue, all the fiddly distracting skills will fall together. I know, it sounds weird, but it's working for me.

So, I'm working on my spins (both ways) with different skills. I need to get my righ free hip to the closed position. My right hip is naturally in the open position, which makes my  left spin very irregular. So, my cue word is "hip" when I spin to the left. This reminds me to get my free hip in the closed position.

I show this to my coach. "Hip hip hip hip" I go. I get a really decent spin. Lift the foot up, hit the rocker, spin--2 really nice rotations. The third rotation eludes me.

My coach stands like Carlo Fassi, hands in her pockets.  She's used to my unusual training activities. "Try 'knee, knee, knee'. I want your knees together. They're not quite there yet."

So, I've done the 'hip' cue word a few times. If I've done it enough I hope the hip skill merges into the knee skill when I hit the first "knee."

I do the two foot entry, and start chanting "knee, knee, knee!". My 'free' foot whips in, my hip closes, the foot raises and suddenly, I'm doing a big girl spin. I can hear my coach cheering "That's the speed I want to see!"

Internally, my body is chanting "slower slower slower!"

Yeah, there's the reason I'm not getting that 3rd rotation.