Six days to my Juvenile Moves test

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I had the rink to myself at 6:15 a.m. this morning with lots of space to work on my moves. I’m glad I did: by 7:15 a.m. it was too busy to skate my patterns. I don’t usually skate on Saturdays but I have the last couple of weeks because I really want to pass my moves test next Thursday.

Coach Kim asked me on Tuesday how I feel about my upcoming test. I said I want it to be a worthy effort. It’s probably not likely that I will pass. And yet I really hope to and I’ve been working as hard as I can for there to be a chance.

Still, the main thing is that I don’t want to skate so poorly that the judges wonder why I’m putting the test out there. So that’s my standard: a worthy effort. Kim says that if I skate like I have trained, it will be.

When I go out and skate my patterns cold they are so much worse than when I’ve spent a long time warming them up. I plan to skate the public session before the test session and get everything warmed up well.

The biggest bugaboos for me are the back power three turns and the forward inside double threes. Lately my back power threes have improved, though I still sometimes put my foot down on the clockwise side.  Kim told me that my inside double threes are now the element that needs the most work, and I’ve been putting the work in.

The eight-step mohawk is still questionable. I really want the outside mohawk to be quiet on both sides. But despite working on the problem for a long time, I often noisily ‘jump’ the mohawk on the counterclockwise side. I can do that mohawk well in isolation but something about doing it with those crossovers and the change of arms makes it hard.

I have a long list of tips to try to get that outside mohawk right:

• On crossover steps get down more and stay far enough back on your blade.
• Transition arms through the crossover steps with a scissor motion without raising the shoulders.
• On the third step let the free foot pass through ahead of you and step onto a good outside edge.
• Rise fully.
• Keep free foot turned out as you bring it to the mid-instep of the skating foot for the mohawk.
• Push chest up through the turn.
• Push leading shoulder down into the circle during and after the turn.
• Don’t throw leading arm behind you or turn it upward after the turn. Keep it stable and just move the shoulder back.
• Keep trailing shoulder down.
• After the mohawk, sink down into the skating ankle.
• Stay down through the rest of the move.

Here’s a high-level ice dancer, Oleg Altukov, doing the move. He keeps his arms still and outstretched throughout the move. Ty does it similarly. I’m far below the level of these guys and if I tried to hold my arms out like this it would create too much torque.

Wish me luck!