Revenge of the Three Turn

For the longtime readers of this blog, you know that 3 Turns were a big deal for me. As in, six months of long drawn out drama involving fits and tears and angry words all stemming from my frustration with simply flipping my blade around from forwards to backwards. But as with all skating, everything happens in due time and I got three turns figured out. FO and FI, with my outsides much stronger and easier, and insides happening with good regularity, if a little slowly still.

With the show over, I pressed Coach Fab to move on to the next level of testing; Pre Bronze Freeskate Test and Bronze Moves. So we did Moves.

Bronze Moves are more fun than Pre-Bronze. Power Stroking, 5 Step Mohawk, Power 3's, Back Edges and a Figure 8. I was pretty sure I had most of this under control, just needed it cleaned up. Coach Fab apparently disagreed with my summation of my skillset. First he tore apart my Power Stroking. I need to push more and better, and the backwards power stroking is all off on the tempo and lobe. "No, stop. Come here. Let me show you. Watch me. Stop. Stop it. Stay still and watch," was a pretty good summary of that portion of the lesson.

"What's next?" he asked me after all that torment.

"Power threes!" I was all so super confident about these things. Yes, I can *do* power threes.

Until I couldn't. "You get four," he said, looking down the length of the rink. "Right now you're doing five and a half."

"Just four?" And I watched as he drew out just how I was going to do only four down the length of the rink on the long axis.

The trick to four is as follows: widen out the lobe, take the three turn as fast as possible, check out like there's demons on your inside shoulder, push on the step down, and push, push push on the back cross without turning too much into the lobe. It's complicated, and I failed miserably. My major error? Failing to fully check out of that three turn, and being so fearful of the speed I took it too slow.

On Patch Ice this morning, I repeated the same fault on 3's to Center. "You need more push," Coach Yoda said again. "And check the turn."

I'm just going to get t-Shirts made for my coaches to wear so they don't have to keep repeating themselves.

Once again, three turns have become a hurdle. Now that I can do them, it's time to work on making them better, faster, bigger and more precise. Much like crossovers, 3 turns are apparently one of those skills that you never stop learning. "They're pointing the wrong way," Coach Yoda indicated, standing over the tracings of dozens of side-pointing threes turned too soon and too slow.

"I got one," I indicated one lonely little 3 that was dutifully pointing down the long axis. "That's something."