Back to Basics

We have spent the past week working on exercises to develop unison, power, and edge quality. It has been an enlightening experience, pointing out our various weaknesses. On the flip side, we have already seen vast improvement. If we can master these exercises and then add more difficult exercises we feel the compulsories will be much easier for us. We already went back and tried things that were hard for us last year and they were much improved.

We realize that we need to invest some time in this endeavor. We never really had the chance last year, with 13 tests to pass, two CDs to learn, an OD to choreograph, etc. This year is a good one to focus on what we ignored in the past. We'll also test Tim's remaining silver dances. Compared to last year this may seem boring, but we are really feeling happy with our progress and can see so much potential.

We certainly don't regret last season, despite struggling against our lack of experience skating together. I believe that if we could do everything we did last year without having these basics in our vocabulary, we will be so much better equipped when we do. This foundation will allow the freedom to do the things we want to do in our choreography and more easily skate the higher-level compulsory dances.