I just went to a Skating with the Stars taping this week with one of my followers and she told me to update the blog. I informed her that I needed inspiration in order to update and I had not had much lately. Fortunately for her and for me, I got a much needed dose of inspiration yesterday morning. I had my first private ice dancing lesson!
First off, I had ten minutes of bliss as I skated on an empty rink with my own iPod blaring through the speakers. Then my wonderful new ice dance coach arrived and we started working right away. He asked why I wanted to learn how to ice dance and I told him that I was hoping that it would help with my edges, my MIFs and lastly to do something new and fun. And fun it was!
We started with forward progressives (to figure skaters these are crossovers.) Interesting though - the look of a progressive is different from a typical crossover. Whereas the basic composition is the same, you have to "prebend" before you push off again. Hard to explain in words, but next time you watch ice dance, take a look at their crossovers!
Then we moved to swing rolls. Now, I have never been very good at swing rolls and was a bit intimidated with learning them. My coach had me do a very simple exercise (which killed my butt and thighs BTW) to work on the mechanics of the swing roll and then had me try them on my own. It was like magic! I was doing swing rolls!
The first dance I learned yesterday was the Dutch Waltz. Next week I will learn the Canasta Tango. It was so much fun to learn something new and have a fresh set of skills to work on.
So there you go Miss C - I was inspired enough to write. Happy Holidays :)
