This week's lesson I had to chicken out of practising my jumps because the thigh muscle on my jumping and landing leg lately has been like "urr, this is painful, have you ever thought about exercising me once in a while before making me work?" I'd actually been worried about the pain for a while because I hadn't been able to source whether the strain was in the knee or the thigh. Knee would be a disaster because that would end my jumping pretty much straight off, but thigh would be fine as that's just needing more muscle strength.
So, for the first bit of my lesson, my coach ran diagnostics on me and figured it was probably my thigh, which I agree is probably the case, so I've been prescribed squats to do in my spare time.
Meanwhile, we worked on my upright and back spins. My upright spin has always been terrible, it's what's preventing me from making progress to pretty much anything else in the spins department, but we actually made really nice progress on it in the lesson, I actually got a few decently centred and I'm getting better at keeping my leg out initially then bringing it in and straightening my skating leg as I rotate - easily the best spins I've ever done today. Back spin was new though, we're working on it as build up to the Axel jump and beyond, just doing a basic pivot and lift onto one foot at the moment - at least I have some stuff I feel better about practising now that won't strain my thigh too much!
