Inching forward

Progress on backspin and loop! You know, for my definition of progress on these particular elements, which is kind of like two steps forward, one and three quarter steps back. P had me do the inside-three-turn-in-place-with-free-leg-forward exercise and then go into the spin from that. It works a bit better than what I've been doing; it gets me turning on the right part of the blade, but now I go up too far on the toe pick instead of staying too far back. When I bail on it now, my left foot crosses my right to touch the ice, which is a good sign. (It's also how J the Younger broke her ankle, but I'm steadfastly refusing to think about that.)

Loop improvement is so minimal and hard to describe in words that I won't even try, but at least it's less crappy. Ugh, that jump.

I got my outside counters back, woo! And outside brackets to boot. They aren't pretty, but they turn almost as often as they don't. And P gave me a Curry exercise to do with outside rockers that disguises the fact that I can't hold the outside edge after the turn very well, hee.

Now I am writing Yuletide fic. I have 781 words on my assignment right now, and if it turns out as I expect I have about 5,000 more to go. I'm tentatively taking next Wednesday off in addition to Thanksgiving and the following Friday, so I hope to get the majority of it finished over the long weekend.