Learning to Cheat

Now that I'm done whining about the claw, here are some of the things I've done on the ice this past week for those skaters who are curious. I have started to compensate more with my upper body to overcome the lack of turnout and have found some new ways to cheat which are even more wonderful than what I used to do pre-PAO. I am also still compensating for some strength deficits.

Yesterday I did some hard stuff:
~FO and FI triple twizzles
~Twizzle from our old free dance (with arm overhead)
~Inside and outside rockers from Jr. MIF (RFO rocker is still the tough one as the left free leg doesn't want to come through correctly yet)
~Starlight Waltz solo (first time I have gotten through the entire thing solo; still no flair on the closed MO - thank you claw - but I was able to do the 3 turns into the MO and then the mohawks down the ice on the back end - the stepforward from LBO to RFI has been impossible until last week and now I've learned to cheat it)
~Rhumba choctaw at glacial speed
~Cha Cha Congelado solo
~Ravensburger waltz solo at slow but not glacial speed with all twizzles

And also the stuff that is easy for everyone else but hard for me:
~Alternating FO 3 turns (The 3 turns are easy, the stepforward has been difficult but I've finally learned to use timing and momentum to cheat it - still scratchy though)
~Back crossovers then stepping forward from the back inside edge onto a forward outside edge (a choctaw but one of the most basic moves in skating and something that has taken me a very long time to learn how to cheat - can now do these at about half speed)
~The three turn move from the adult pre-bronze moves test (I can finally do this; had major issues with the LFI 3 turn for a while until the strength came back in my left leg. Now the 3 turns are easy and I can now finally step forward from BI to FI with a lot of compensation in the upper body for lack of turnout)
~Blues choctaw now up to about 1/2 speed (I don't have the strength in my left leg yet to really bend the knee at the start of the LFI lobe, so it's difficult to come up from that and rebend into the turn. Instead I tend to stay down and then can't stop the rotation very well, especially with speed)
~Power pulls (getting stronger but still shows exactly where my muscles are weak)
~Stopping (almost don't have to think about it which is amazing considering I couldn't even do a snowplow stop from a crawl a few months ago)

And that's today's report.