Trick or Treat Lessons Oct. 27-Nov.2

[luna_skater]

I don't have a lesson today, but I didn't want my terribly creative subject heading to go to waste! :D

[flo]

Treat: Had our club halloween party, and went as a cat. My program is moving along well. The counter footwork sequence is working out, and getting stronger with practice.
I choreographed a friend's basic program, and he's doing rather well with it - can't wait to see it performed in this year's show.

Trick: managing my on ice time so I can help him out and have time to work on my doubles.

[icenut84]

I had a 1hr practice today (no lesson) and actually I'm quite proud that I worked on so many things in that time! :)

Treat: pretty much everything! :mrgreen:
*Stroking, edges, crossovers, basics, etc.
*All the turns I practiced were good too. My BI3s were better than last time too - the FO edge had much more flow.
*Back chasses were fine.
*Did a couple of 1 foot spins - while not amazing, they weren't atrocious either.
*Practiced the backspin a few times. I *think* I made a new record = 1.5 revs, on a BO edge! Yay! It's starting to feel less impossible, even though it's not exactly identifiable as a spin, lol.
*Practiced jumps. (WOW. Most times I don't. Even though I should.) Waltz jump was not as solid as normal but I could do it fine, and I was going for all of them - some felt nice and springy. Salchow was ok. Toe loop was ok too - some felt quite good and quite high. Practiced the entry etc for loop and flip - plan to work on them more when I get some lessons on them.
*Spirals were good - did LF flat, LFO, and LBO. I also did a tentative LFI - although my leg wasn't as high, I plan to work on it. The aim is to eventually get a Kwan-esque LFI-LFO change-edge spiral... 8O
*Afterwards, I felt better than I have done in weeks. :)

Trick:
*Jump landings weren't 100% perfect. I have to practice my jumps more. And the loop and flip didn't work either, but I didn't really expect them to. Hopefully I'll get them again when I get some lessons on them.
*RBO double 3 (with the BO3 first) wasn't as easy as on the left, but I managed it a couple of times so that's something.
*Forward upright spin not as good as I want it to be. But lessons to come on that too.
*The arm movements on waltz jumps (bringing them forward and together before stepping forward) felt weird and threw me off a bit.
*I wasn't 100% positive I was doing the toe loop properly and not toe-waltzing, as I cuoldn't see myself, but I was working on technique and I think they were ok. Not positive though.

[dbny]

Trick
Set out for the rink today allowing an hour travel time. Traffic was so snarled by bad weather and accidents that we turned back after 40 minutes. Getting not even halfway to the rink and home again took us over an hour! I desperately wanted to skate, but it just wasn't in the cards today.

[Figureskates]

Up at Lake Placid last week and had a chance to skate on the same ice as the Protopopovs.

Talk about pressure!! Try to practice salchows and waltz jumps on the same ice as two 70 year olds who can pop these things off with ease. Did get some pointers though which really did help!!

[sk8pics]

Originally posted by icenut84

*The arm movements on waltz jumps (bringing them forward and together before stepping forward) felt weird and threw me off a bit.

LOL, I had the same problem today in my lesson, first time on the ice in a week. I was thinking so much about my feet that I kept forgetting about my arms. It made my coach laugh a couple of times, as I sort of flailed around.

But Treat: Actually I skated great tonight, or in my coach's words, "awesome." :D Everything was as good or better as the last time we skated: good waltz jumps, good salchows, good toe loops.

Trick: I can not for the life of me remember my new free program! :roll: I keep forgetting what comes next, and then I go, oh yeah, and continue on. I suppose I'll get the hang of it eventually.

Final Treat: I've now lost 33 pounds (since early May). 8-)

Happy skating,
Pat

[Black Sheep]

Trick: At this morning's freestyle session, the sound system died (again) so I couldn't run through my program. Fortunately, I've got other rinks and tape players to fall back on if I get desparate (this is important since my comeptition in Utah is next week!).

Treat: I remembered some yoga stretches that actually helped to get my oxygen really flowing, so I was that much more awake and mobile than I would have been otherwise! 8-)

[Black Sheep]

Treat: Today I went to my rink up north to skate because, as on 2:00 p.m. CST, the sound machine at my local rink was still out of order. Anyway, the sound up north was great (as usual), and my entire long program went off without a hitch!

Trick: At this same session, I ran through my Interp. program (after my long one). I tripped on my toepick and took a nasty fall. I managed to get up and finish it, but now I am really sore--and I have a lesson early tomorrow morning. Oh, dear.

8-)

[MissIndigo]

Treat:

Got my blades mounted on my new Klingbeils this week! W00t! Tried them out Monday and they will still take a bit of getting used to but I feel so much steadier now. Managed two-foot spins, one foot spins, 5-step mohawk sequence, walked through power 3's, and otherwise got used to crossovers with these new skates. Didn't try jumping yet though...that'll come.


Trick: :evil:

My seasonal rink is such a joke--they put the ice in for 10 days this month and took it out this week for six weeks. I won't get it back until Dec. 11th, so I'll have to haul myself one town over still. I also learned how badly my permanent ice is doing...the facility is operating at a bad loss and is in danger of closing if this keeps up. :cry:

[mousey]

trick: skating was cancelled today cause of a power outage:cry:

treat: on monday i skated, and got through about 3/4 of my solo. that just leaves a tiny bit to work on, b4 competition!!

[garyc254]

Monday night....

Treat: Assisted with a couple of Snowplow Sam classes. Kids are such a hoot on the ice!!! :lol: Some of them may actually learn to skate. Others might consider swimming instead. :lol:

Worked on a footwork sequence, back edges, one foot spins.... none of them perfect by any means, but they are coming along.

Trick: For some strange reason I'm scraping my toepick on my mohawks after the turn. The one and only connecting move I can do without fear (at slow speeds).

After 2 hours on the ice, my hip muscles were aching and had to call it quits. Just as my coach asked me to join her dance class for the evening.

Also, coming down with a cold. :evil:

[blondeangl]

Treat: My jumps were 100% on! I landed my waltz, salchow, toe loop, half flip all nicely several times with solid landings, though the toe loop took me a few tries at first. My moves were much much better! My inside and outside edges were wonderful! My waltz 8's are finally getting good, just after 2 times my 3rd is a little to fast and out of control but its getting there.

Trick: My spins were so off it is not even funny! My scratch spin just wouldnt work with me. Everything was wrong, I couldn't get balanced or I got balanced but went on my toe pick as soon as I pulled in. I've had them so good the past couple weeks this was really dissappointing.

[Terri C]

Treat:
My FS program is starting to come back in bits and pieces!

Trick:
Our ice time has been cut again, eliminating all mornings ( the owner doesn't want to pay someone $8.00/ to sit and do nothing) and cut our afternoons by 30 minutes. Oh and the rink is nothing but DEAD ICE during the weekdays- it's too expensive to put the lights on. My coach and her associate are going to cut lessons and possible some students as a result. Coach told me that my spot was still safe- guess something needs to be said for showing up for lessons and paying the coaching bills on time!
Still though, trying to commute to skate all of one hour UGH!!! :evil:

[Terri C]

Originally posted by Terri C
[ Oh and the rink is nothing but DEAD ICE during the weekdays- it's too expensive to put the lights on. :evil: [/B]

I meant midday during the workweek!

[AshBugg44]

Awful. I was sick and my coach ended my lesson at 15 minutes because we were getting nothing accomplished and I was skating horribly. :(

[CanAmSk8ter]

Treat: Umm.. lesson yesterday was pretty good. Coach is giving me a very enthusiastic "definitely" re: the December test for my Silver Tango, and he's pushing me to at least try and get the American ready too. I'll give it a shot, but I'm definitely not going to push him to let me test it unless he brings it up. I'm really trying to get a start on the dances for Junior next year, mainly the Arge, and the Kilian as well, which needs major work, so I think I might as well wait until January on the American. Problem is, coach works another job too and won't know for awhile if he's working the day of the January (or February, or March) test session. But unless the American feels really solid, which it doesn't right now, I don't want to risk having it make my Tango look bad. Know what I mean?

Also treat: my twizzle in the Arge is kicking some major booty all of a sudden. I've started really pushing myself to work on it both slowly, to get the free leg extension and shoulder/arm position correct, and then quickly, to get rid of my mental block about doing it at speed. It's going so well that I've started using the same theory on the Kilian choctaw, and it seems ot be helping there too.

Trick: In addition to the tendinitis or whatever is wrong with my right knee, I managed to do something to my left knee now too. I think I just kind of hyperextended it at the gym yesterday, b/c it dindn't bother me at all skating yesterday, and I went to the gym after I finished skating. I did quite a bit of stretching after doing none for four or five days, and I think I got a little over enthusiastic about it :oops: I'm sure it'll go away in a day or two though.

[jenlyon60]

Be careful with the knee... my current knee problems started this spring when I was learning the rocker foxtrot and not getting sufficient turn-out on the free leg going into the mohawk when skating w/ my coach...

Now... initial diagnosis from docs is torn medial meniscus, something called a Bakers cyst and chrondomalacia...and I am waiting for the results of last Friday's MRI.

Oh well... I guess I will have matching polka dots on my knees (left knee was scoped in 92 and again in 99....

[plinko]

Trick: I went to skate the public session yesterday and then asked for my money back. I'm picky about ice .They hadn't resurfaced the ice in 5 hours. The zamboni guy wasn't answering the phone and I guess was taking an extra long lunch.
Treat: I got my money back, they don't usually do that.

[quarkiki2]

Stupid cold, stupid cold, stupid cold. There, got that out of my system. Now I wish that I could get the COLD out of my system, too. Grr!

Treat: Practiced for just a very little while before Synchro last night. Managed to get a couple of two-foot spins with my feet not turned out. The one disadvantage of having a new instructor every class you take is that they all have things they want done different than everyone else. For example, the two foot spin. I can get a nice 5-6 revolution spin from a spread eagle if my feet are slightly turned out. They turn out naturally from those 15 years of ballet, doncha know? Old instructor didn't care. New instructor wants them parallel and every time I try that I end up scraping my left toepick. Any suggestions???

Big TREAT: I managed to get through my entire syncro routine doing all of the elements last night. I struggle with the backwards footwork or the spiral sometimes. And the second to last run I got everything. I was jubilant!

Trick: The last run-through. I missed the backwards footwork because the person to my right is not aggressive enough when it comes to linking back up out of the two foot turn. Closer to the end of the section we do a move where two lines, each on opposite ends of the rink, pass so close it looks like we're going to collide but we take an inside edge at the last second and veer apart. I swear my line was ahead of the music and took my inside edge, then gotinto position for the pumps after the edge, but I heard the part in the music where we take the edge, so I took the edge again and the woman in front of me started the pumps. We tripped eachother entirely and she went down, then I dove into the center of the circle to avoid hitting her and to get out of the way of the other five people behind me. I guess I've got to shut off my ears and forget the music if we're ever in that situation again. Neither of us were hurt, but I felt like an idiot. Although the other line said I was incredibly graceful as I fell, LOL! Figures -- I look better falling than I do skating, LOL!

HAPPY HALLOWEN!!!

[sk8clean]

Treat:
For the first time ever I almost centered my one foot spin with my foot crossed!!! I was really starting to wonder if I would ever see the day. I also started working on the sit spin.

Trick:
One week until I compete and I still cannot land the toe loop jump. I really wanted to have that jump in my program so I could do a waltz/toe loop combination. Also my knees are not straight doing forward sprials-- leads to nasty falls.

[batikat]

Trick
1/2 term week here so loads of kids at the rink adn my lesson is behind cones. Also only skated once this week (due to kids adn mornign patch being used for panto rehearsals). Would have stayed for group dance moves lesson but management decided the ice was too thin and with no notice whatsoever decided to cone off the entire middle third of the rink during lunchtime patch session, so you could go on at either end but not across the middle and the coach couldnt get to the music anyway so we gave up.

treat
As we were behind cones and there are no competitions coming up which means I have no programme to practice anyway, we decided to go back to basics and work on footwork. I skate fast but my problem is control. We worked on mohawks (I can only do the closed ones with the foot going behind)and then he showed me the choctaws from the Killian and the Blues. These are so nice when they go right. Practising later I found the Killian sequence easier than the one from the Blues but quite possibly wasn't doing either correctly.
Salchow was OK but I need to get more height. Upright spin is fine until I try to cross my foot. Sit spin needs to get much lower - my problem is holding my Free leg off the ice as I just dont seem to have the necessary muscle power to keep the foot up and turned out so as I get lower the heel of the blade starts to catch.

[icenut84]

I skated today on a practice session.

Treat:

All my 3 turns were quite good, and I could control them quite well, and I also practiced some long sequences of them (eg double threes that continue, fi-bo-fi-bo-fi etc). Felt quite good.

My spirals felt quite good. And I fell on one!!!!! (a LFO one). I hardly ever fall so I'm not used to it, but I lost my balance, fell and slid into the boards. But I got up laughing and then went to the other end of the ice and did another LFO spiral, this time staying on my foot. 8-) I'm glad I reacted like that. :) Maybe my fear of falling is diminishing?

I had a lesson.

Trick:

The ice on the other rink was having maintenance done, so the practice and the elite sessions were put together. I was the only one who came for practice ice, so it was just me, some coaches and a lot of triple and double-jumping elites!! 8O Rather intimidating and made me feel like a total amateur. :(

My spins were travelling all over the place and the worst thing was that I couldn't tell (eg I thought it was centred ok) until I lost my balance/looked at the tracing. I thought you were supposed to be able to tell when you've found your centre and when you haven't? I was getting so frustrated though. I know what I'm doing wrong (one of the things?) but I can't fix it. Methinks that, if I ever really get it, it'll take much practice and many lessons, plus shedloads of frustration probably.

[singerskates]

Treats:
OK, this was really Friday, Oct. 31, 2003's session but I want to
share anyway. My coach didn't show up because she had to take her 2
year old to the hospital (2 year old got into the riddullin meant for
her other child. child is fine now though). Anyway, I'm skating so
fast now that I'm going 3 times around the rink in my 2 minute FS
program and 4 1/2 times for my 2m 58s interpretive program, I think.
I really have to have my coach count the times I going around the
rink covering the ice. I asked the head coach if I was covering the
ice enough and he said, "oh yeah you are." He also thought it was
weird that I put most of my jumps near the end of my programs when
most people are worn out. He said that it shows that I have endurance.
We the truth is that I don't even have my programs properly
choreographed yet. LOL I was just skating to my music to skate to my
music just going with the flow of the sounds and rhythm. It kind of
helps to be a musician to be able to feel the music before it happens
as it plays so that you can know what to do and when and totally fool
most of the coaches that aren't yours. Only my coach, my
choreographer, you guys and myself know that my programs are not done
yet. LOL

In other news, I was at Learn to Skate and CanSkate for the ice
skating party they had today and didn't have to teach but got to play
around with the kids and a few of the coaches. One of them some of
you might know. Does Kerri Rudling ring a bell? If it does, was he a
naughty boy and teen skater who teased the girls and snowed them?
He's the head coach at Club Tecumseh. LOL I mean, when he's on the
job, he's serious but when he plays, boy does he play and go all out.
During the party, he played tag with some of the kids and myself and
he spent a lot of time snowing people with his hockey stops. One time
today, I just have to share. It's so juicy. I was busy, making some
snow to get a snowball ready with which I was going to hit him when
from behind me he came to snow me. Well he did snow me but what he
didn't know was that I had a huge mitt full of snow and that I was
going to get him good. LOL and I did. Well, I threw him off balance
with the snowball and he fell splatting really good into the boards
and all the other coaches who were watching laughed so hard at him
and so did I. I mean it was one of those laughs where you don't have
any strength at all. When it was time for us to go to the coach's
room to get our skates off, I waited for him around the corner with
the snow I took off from both of my blades. Just as he turned the
corner to go down the hall, I got Kerri good right in the chest and
face with a nice fluffy snowball. ROTFLOL One thing though, when the
Christmas skating party comes, he's going to get me good.

Any good stuff like this at your clubs? ROTFLOL

[plinko]

Treat:
Second lesson of my life yesterday: It was mohawks. I thought, oh no, what now, after three turns the first day (which I couldn't do) this was getting worse. HAH! I can do mohawks, all ways. I've been doing them for years I never knew they had a name, they were just a way to get from front to back. Foot to heel, foot to instep, free foot swung to front after the turn. I only stepped on my blade once and had a lovely fall with applause.

Trick:
And then it was back to crossovers, stroke, toepick, stroke, toepick. Geez, my knees!

I'm having fun though.

[jazzpants]

TrickTransistion from toe loop to a sit spin. WAAAAH!!! NOT NOW!!?!?!?!? Also, very cold here in San Francisco... and the rink is extra cold b/c of it! EEEEK!!! I'm scared b/c that will definitely affect my skating. :(

TreatWarming up with a couple of good looking guys and wonderful skaters who are also competing at Skate SF!!! :P (Okay! They're also friends of mine too!) :P I got some push to do better, which really helps me to skate well this afternoon! I can't believe I landed another loop!!! 8O (God, PLEASE let it be there for the competition...) ;)

[tidesong]

Trick:
Spins... well spins seem to disappear faster with lack of practise somehow... only been skating once a week. They are ok but not up to my best standard

Treat:
Jumps! Landed my axel pretty easily today for the whole session. Double sal managed to appear twice at least. I think I'm finally getting my flip right.

[Mrs Redboots]

Well, we are back, and have learnt a lot!

Why did nobody tell me that one could, if not actually dance, at least stumble and kick one's way through the Tango if one has a partner, even a not-very-good partner? Robert and I reckon we'll work on that for fun this year. And we can now do the Tulips from Amsterdam waltz and the Riolada Samba, and have improved our Blues and our Foxtrot, and Robert worked on the Argentine Tango. I chickened out of that and did a class on the Canasta Tango instead, but even that was great as we were able to seriously deconstruct it, and with a dance you're supposed to be competitive with, they don't do that any more! So it was great to be reminded of exactly how the swing rolls and slide chasses should go, and so on.

I still don't dance the Blues, but am enjoying working on the steps, and maybe will be dancing it by this time next year - but it, unlike the Tango, seems to be harder with a partner!

Also learnt a lot about using the feet, and I think I may even have cracked inside Mohawks at long last - the acid test will be if I can still do them tomorrow.....