Sunrise, Sunset

I've said before that I love Power 3's. Actually, I love power mohawks now, too. (Given how much I hated mohawks just a year ago, I can't believe it either.) I like the swooping movements and arcs and forward to back and forward again patterns. What I'm working on now is perfecting them, because they are on the Bronze moves test. And Perfecting the Power 3 is all about controlling the 3 Turn.

3 Turns are tricky beasts. When you first get one, they happen when and where they do. You start off with the "gotta turn" mindset and just swing into it with no forward edge to speak of, and you hang onto the exit edge for dear life. You have to train that beast, and make it happen where and when you decide.

Working on Power 3's with Coach one morning, and he noted my ice tracing on the 3 Turn. "You turn on the sunrise," he said, pointing. "You need to turn on the Sunset."

And viewing the tracing as a horizontal plane, my turn was indeed happening as the sun rose over the icy steppe. "You can make it happen on the sunset, because this turn is all about control," he explained.

It was skating poetry, and immediately I began to hum "Fiddler on the Roof" in time to my turns and back crossovers. Leave the free hip back, rotate the shoulders, turn on the Sunset!




And I hummed it again today, thinking of how the seasons change and we change and the 3 Turns that had once plagued me so were now something I considered one of my stronger elements, something Coach is now adding embellishments to; swoop up with the leading arm and then swoop down to touch the ice on the exit edge. Or 3 turn to a tap-toe into an alternating 3 turn, humming "Fiddler." Which led to creating this masterpiece of an ice print, possibly one of the deepest turns I've ever done.



Look for it...

My hand fit into that turn!

My 3 Turns are not quite fully tamed, but they are getting there, one sunrise at a time.