When You have Half a Skill

I've been working on my edge pushes for about 6 months.

I started out with the 'wiggle like a snake on its belly'  on my flats phase like everyone else, then I passed to an intermediate stage where I could get an edge occasionally (the 'get lucky' phase). Sadly, I had to put some hip action in there, so it's not really an edge push. Real edge pushes don't use the hips, but the knee.

It is hypnotic. Go, Tom, go!
But you still don't have an edge push

But after watching the Dubrova tape, where there's slow motion video of edge pushes at the end, I finally was able to put the whole thing together and practice it.

Today my coach, Miss Bianca, said "You're much , much better!"

Yeah! MUCH MUCH BETTER!
HEAR ME ROAR!

 Have you ever heard of the "sandwich method"? You tell someone something nice, then something bad, then something good? So, your boss comes up to you and says, "You got your work in on time, but there were errors in the spreadsheet, still management is impressed by your responsiveness."

Coaches use the "sandwich method" too. Miss Bianca says "Your edge pushes are much much better,"

Layin' down the bread.

"You've got the outside edges!"

So, there's the meat AND lettuce!

I wait for the other slice of bread, but apparently this is going to be an open face sandwich and we go off to do a slide chasse' drill to improve my inside edges.

However, when I get home I realize that if I treat this mathematically,  that there are four edges, and I have two of them, ON AVERAGE I have an edge pull!

Math is useless in skating!