Nettles or Nirvana - 19-24 September 2004

[Mrs Redboots]

The nettles follow on logically from last week's brambles (at least, they do here, where they grow together and trap the unwary blackberry-picker); I couldn't think of anything else nice beginning with "N"....

Nirvana: Our coach was relatively complimentary about our Free Dance - one or two places he made corrections and that helped. His wife (who teaches my husband) said that we were too aware of each other, and looked nervous.

Nettles: The more we practised our spin, the worse it got. At least, for husband. I got better... maybe he's used to me doing it badly? Actually, at one stage it felt as though I was rotating on the spot and he rotating round me, which is not the idea at all; we are supposed to rotate round each other. I tried to alter our spiral sequence so we are only holding one hand, not too, but it wasn't going to work without endless practice, so we decided to leave it as it is for now.

We had to do our Canasta Tango when a waltz was playing, which was rather off-putting, but it worked all right.

[jenlyon60]

Nirvana:
Promenade stretch of the Tango was strong today.

Nettles:
Spent most of a 30 minute lesson with secondary coach working on LFO3s. Totally reconstructing them and working on strengthening the check. Near the end we switched to the right side and she noticed right off that I don't get nearly the knee bend (before the turn) on the left side that I do on the right side. But it was a very useful lesson and I have a lot to practice. And all this will directly feed into my American Waltz.

[quarkiki2]

Hey, it's been forever since I've posted in here!

I'm (as always) working on 3 turns, FO & FI & BI. FO are OK, FI and BI are barely two footed and I don't know what to do in my brain to get my silly free foot off the ice, grrr!!!

Working on an entry to a one foot spin. I'm still feeling pretty wierd on the choctaw, even though I'm doing it right. Then I get 1 or two revolutions after that. It'd fun when I hit the sweet spot, though.

My ice time is down a little due to the fall play, so I'm only out there twice a week.

My synchro team is looking forward to our new program. We've started working on new elements and some more difficult stuff. And some pretty fun stuff, too. Spirals into lunges and FO mohawks and cooler pinwheels. I hope that we start on choreography Wednesday.

Anyway, great skating to all!!!!

[Mel On Ice]

Nirvana:
My team and I just got back from competing at the ISI Adult Championships. Individually, I won my freestyle 3 event and came in 4th in artistic. I wasn't even disappointed in that placement, as I landed a loop for the first time ever in competition, as well as my first attitude spin, and my first ina bauers (okay, those were supposed to be spread eagles...)

And my synchro team won both the compulsory event and the synchro skating event! Somehow I knew we nailed the comp, but the synchro skate win was a huge surprise and a big boost.

Nettles:
more than I can describe or discuss on a public forum... headstrong women are good... headstrong women are good...

[sk8pics]

Congrats, Mel!

Nirvana Practice last night was fun and the ice was good. I hadn't skated since last Wednesday and at first I felt like my feet belonged to somebody else. But soon I adjusted and most everything felt fine. And I could still do the alternating back xovers to boe move, so that made me happy. Spins coming along, too. Right FO3 is good even with some speed. If only I could say the same about the left FO3.

Nettles Back crossovers weren't as fast as they were last week, but not bad. I could really see that in the pattern for the backward perimeter crossover stroking, though. I was pretty off pattern because I wasn't going as fast as last week. Of course, there were a lot of people in the way at various times :roll: so that didn't help. Still, it wasn't bad.

Happy skating,
Pat

[Mrs Redboots]

Husband is away for the day (he got up at 4.00 am!), but decided to skate anyway as I knew that, if I didn't go skating, I wouldn't get out of the house, and I had errands I wanted to do!

Decided, when I got there, that I was unmotivated, so decided that for once, I'd just have a "play day" and behave like a typical adult recreational skater! However, my friend was there and working very hard for the solo dance class in the British Adult Championships, so I helped her with her compulsory dances a bit. Really, all the skating I did was practice my back crossovers and then, just at the very end, the "conditioning exercises" I'm working on with my coach.

(But when I came home I washed all the windows and net curtains, so I'm feeling tired and virtuous, even though I didn't do much on the ice!).

[quarkiki2]

Yay for Mel and her team!!!!

Good foor you!!! :D :D :D

[gregyoshi]

Nettles: Need new boots and having pain from broken down skates. Laying off all jumps. (Almost there with the cold hard cash for the new ones.) Trying to convince myself that jumping rope is fun. Kinda annoyed by a skater with similar skills as me who seems intent on copying whatever I do right near me on the ice. Could be all in my head but I have a sneaking suspicion he's just doing it to psych me out. Psych me out of what is something I can't understand though. I don't complete, don't plan to in the near future. He is a competitive skater but I don't get what I have to do with it. Now with me being a little on the lame side because of equipment problems, I'm getting a complex. Finding excuses not to go to the rink.

Nirvana: Working on forward crossovers on weaker side. Really happy with my increased speed and confidence (only one click of death and I didn't fall). Getting a better push from the supporting leg. Also happy they actually cut the ice before the session started and we didn't have to skate on ice that had been used since 5:30 am. Working on more off ice training to make up for the lack of work on the ice.

[Stormy]

Nettles: Having to adjust to skating early mornings again. Since last May I've been skating mid mornings, which was the perfect time for me. Awake and full of energy. Now I have to skate at 7:30 am and I can't seem to spin that early.

Nirvana: Landed a few more decent axels yesterday! I hadn't had a lesson in over 2 weeks and I was afraid I'd lost it, but lo and behold, there it was! :)

[Terri C]

It was total NIRVANAthat I got my new blades today, but imagine these being the first time yuo've had new blades in six years and getting used to the rocker on your blades is major NETTLES!

So, no jumps or spins today,other that a two foot spin. Tried to do the footwork into back crossovers in my program and could not do back crossovers! Worked on basic edging, stroking and such while dodging the Regional bound kiddies.

Hey, any of you in the South Atlantic region hearing parents yell at their kids to stop yakking and get to work?? We have one more week of that, folks!!!

[Mrs Redboots]

Major nettles: My knees hurt! And I am tired, having skated for 3 hours this morning, then done some shopping!

Why is it that the better we get at our free dance, the more aware we both are of minor things that need correction? Sigh! :roll: Today it was our endpiece, the hydroblade, that wasn't working as it should. Oh well.

Nirvana: At least our spin worked today! Except the time when we decided to practice it right on top of a hole where someone had done a double lutz! And really, our dance isn't too bad now. Need more knee-bend, of course, and not looking at each others' feet. and to try not to go out of time with the music at the end of the step sequence, or with each other in the "Yee-hah" bit....

My lesson went well; worked on conditioning exercises, 3-turn exercises, Mohawk exercises and back edges, all successfully. Oh, and back crossovers, which I do beautifully when the coach holds my hands, and less well by myself. Proper ones, I mean, not dance ones. Coach said I'd worked well and done well, so that's good.

[NickiT]

Nirvana
After not having a good skate on Monday I'm pleased to say I successfully ran through my programme twice cleanly today in my lesson and even got as far as working on hands and wrists. Now I know when my coach starts picking at the more minor things, I can't be doing too badly.

Nettles
She made me do field moves again at the start of my lesson. I used to love field moves - that was until I progressed up to these horrendous Bronze ones. I struggled with the forward outside double threes and fell on the step sequence exercise today. Still the rest weren't so bad and in fact, I daresay some felt a bit better. It's my own fault really because I tend to neglect these when I'm heading for a competition. I really should do them I know, it's just hard making yourself do something that scares you to death!

Nicki

[Mrs Redboots]

Do them as part of your warm-up, then, before you settle down to working on your programme. We find that makes us practice them (not that I'm working on any seriously right now, but Husband is hoping to take his Level 3 Dance moves one of these days).

Haven't skated yet today - going down to the rink for the last hour of teatime patch followed by Dance Club later on.

[sk8pics]

Nirvana The session for my Wednesday lessons continues to be fairly empty, so it's been quite pleasant. And last night I got an extra half lesson because one of my coach's other students had cancelled. We used the time mostly on harness work for the toe loop and salchow. The toe loop is getting better and better, so close to completely correct my coach was going a little crazy, LOL! It was fun, but 30 minutes of jump, jump, jump did wear me out a little. The other cool thing yesterday was that I can finally sort of do backwards power pulls on my left foot. 8-) I never had the control before to even try, so that was pretty exciting. The right foot will get it soon, too, I think!

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

[jenlyon60]

Nettles: Got to the rink and found that the rink had sold 1/2 of the sheet scheduled for the early morning FS/Dance as hockey training, and that they planned to let us early morning FS/Dance skaters use only 1/2 of the surface. Which makes it very difficult to do anything other than small segments or tricks in isolation.

Nirvana: Well, the lesson went okay. My end pattern of American Waltz could use more check, but today the solo work finally started having a waltz feel to it. So it must be somewhat improving.

[Terri C]

It was nirvana that I could all do all my jumps through loop, which is my hardest jump, on my new blades today - they've been sharpened! :D

I also did a okay program run through!

The nettles was that spins will have to be re- adjusted. I could not, no matter how hard I tried do a decent spin on lesson today, whether it was the scratch, back or sit!

[luna_skater]

Nirvana - FINALLY! I finally had a good practice. I have been kind of depressed about my skating the past two weeks. Synchro has been going great, but my skills (Sr. Silver) weren't improving at ALL. I am kind of impatient with skills; I think because dance came to me so naturally I expect to blast through my skills the same way. My multi-threes have a lot more power and speed now, and my brackets have improved a ton! The whole rocker exercise was really, really good today, and the choctaw ends are awesome...I love doing them and just caught on to them very easily.

Nettles - My expanding exercise seems to have regressed. :?? I'm having a lot of trouble doing the rocker properly so I can ride the back outside edge into the bracket, and this wasn't really a problem before.

[Mrs Redboots]

Nettles: Ice was dreadful last night at dance club - it looks as though the Zamboni broke down half-way through the resurface. Manager had no idea why it was so awful. I was tired, and came off about 40 minutes into the session, but had fun dancing with the various men, and practicing our compulsory dances for next week with Robert.

We have a RIDL match on Sunday :x (I loathe them!), and somehow I seem to be going.... plus Robert has agreed to skate the Dutch Waltz with another skater who is rather more of a beginner, so she wants to practice with him tomorrow morning, and that means Saturday patch (again!) and I don't like Saturday patch, either.... oh well. We stayed in bed this morning!

[mikawendy]

[QUOTE=jenlyon60]Nettles: Got to the rink and found that the rink had sold 1/2 of the sheet scheduled for the early morning FS/Dance as hockey training, and that they planned to let us early morning FS/Dance skaters use only 1/2 of the surface. Which makes it very difficult to do anything other than small segments or tricks in isolation.[QUOTE]

What a bummer! They'd've done better to have given you half the ice running the length of it (so you could at least do 1/2 patterns, though cramped), or better yet, give you some advance notice!

[jenlyon60]

It was interesting today... before the FS session, the hockey coach who had bought the other half of the ice yesterday came up to me and thanked me for being nice about him using it. Surprised the heck out of me. And he said that next time (in other words, it's going to be a regular occurence again, like last season), if we temporarily needed the rest of the sheet for a program or such, to let him know and he'd clear space for a couple minutes.

Anyways.. onto today's lesson...

Nettles: My right knee was hurting big time. I have a Bakers cyst in the back of the knee that swells up and acts up on occasion (over use generally) and today it was swollen and hurting. So we worked on ALL NEW intros for the dances I'm doing at the competition in November. (although I guess ALL NEW intros should be Nirvana.

Also Nettles was the crowdedness of the session. About half of the kids appear to be "just graduated from LTS" and sometimes I think it's harder to dodge them than to dodge the kids getting ready for Souths.

So I came home and iced the back of the knee and I'm going to wrap the knee and do a course of ibuprofen this weekend. Plus I found arnica gel at the health foods department of my favorite grocer.

[dbny]

Nirvana
Had my first lesson in months on Monday. Coach said my B cross strokes were actually better than my F 8O, and told me all the good things about them and then went on to fix up my F, which had just gotten sloppy. We also worked on FO threes (this whole topic actually belongs under "Nettles"), going back to just doing a FO edge in rotated position with free leg tucked. Then I showed coach the little footwork sequence I have been working on, and she suggested some arm movements to use with it for variety.

Public session on Wed after the tots class was again completely empty, so I was able to do some of the patterns that are always interrupted.

Nettles
I thought that I was going to be back to skating four times a week, but the Thursday freestyle was cancelled, and hubby & I showed up at the rink today for the Friday afternoon public session to find a sign on the door that it was cancelled also! That sign was not there on Wednesday! OTOH, and this is pure "Nirvana", the manager was right there and told me to just call him anytime, and if there was dead ice, I was welcome to skate, then he suggested a particular time that was usually free :D :D :D

[Mrs Redboots]

This for Saturday patch:

Nettles: I hate Saturday patch - Saturday mornings should be for sleeping, not skating! But there is a RIDL match this afternoon (Sunday) - I hate RIDL matches - and another skater is planning to do a Dutch Waltz with my husband and wanted to practice with him, so we both went. And he and I did a little work on our programme, too. Our spin is playing up....

Nirvana: Can't remember - I know we had fun in the end. And I was coaching Husband and Less Able Skater, which is also fun. Oh, I know - I was watching their feet and proof positive that Husband is not putting his feet down in the right place - he is not totally cutting the corner, but he points them up the rink instead of out to the centre or towards the barrier, as appropriate. So it is him, not me! :twisted: :mrgreen:

[Cinderella]

Nettles: I apologize to those who have read this post already on other boards.

Nirvana : I'm "officially" back on the ice!

My coach said she couldn't stand it any more, after 11 weeks, she just "had" to see me. So she came to our adult public skate Friday and we had a good lesson. It was very exciting! For the first 10 minutes we couldn't stop hugging each other. We really missed our time together.

My coach is so incredible and smart. Instead of doing anything like we normally do, she started with having me do some basics and she assessed my strength (read: weakness) and ability. Then we started right from the beginning, like I was a pre-alpha skater. She modified all of the exercises to be two-footed at first until I built up some strength and sureness in my right leg. We did the coolest things. Probably those of you who teach new skaters know all about these. But I don't remember having learned this way and I'm very pleased to learn things right from the beginning. Don't forget, where I took lessons it was all about "recreational" skating and I don't think we necessarily focused a lot on the basics. So this is great.

We did a crossover exercise (forward and back) that I don't think I could do even if I were 100% recovered. We did swizzle exercises (forward and back), inside edges, and even just walking sideways down the ice by stepping sideways on the flat and crossing behind. Some of the things I couldn't do right away, but then I could. And others I am still struggling with. She had to hold my hand on a couple of them so I wouldn't sink down (whooooooooossssssshhhhhhhhh) on my bad leg.

I'm very energized. And she designed everything for me to practice through the week and continue to improve. She said no jumps and spins for me for some time until I have gotten my strength (and my back) back.

We made some important discoveries. For 10 weeks I've been compensating for the nerve pain by shifting all of my weight over to the left side. I now have to work my way back to being able to shift my weight where I want it. My right hamstring is amazingly tight. She gave me some on-ice exercises to help gently stretch it out. My big toe still has weakness and doesn't hold me up properly. My ankle is a bit wobbly. And when my brain tells my foot to point the toe, it just doesn't work. It's like it isn't connected! I have to concentrate on pushing down on my arch instead, in order to get the same result. How bizarre is that!?

We agreed that I'm probably around 30-40% on the ice. I told her I felt like I was 92% off the ice. So it's coming along, but slowly.

I'm so glad we did this. My coach is amazing. I was worried that she would be pushing me too hard, but she was the one who would make me take a break and "shake it out." I had a marvelous lesson and worked up a literal sweat from all the effort. Overall, I skated for about an hour and 15 minutes, and I came home and iced my back immediately.

And here is my positive thought for the week: One of my biggest criticisms of my own skating is that I feel that I look unpolished. I was certain it's because I needed work on some of the basics. But who wants to do that when there are axels to land and 2toes and 2sals to attempt? So maybe this injury is a bit of a blessing in a (painful) disguise?! Because now I am "forced" to relearn the basics and I'm certain it is going to help me with everything overall. So for that I am grateful.

Thanks for listening!

[AshBugg44]

I skated at my new rink on Friday (Lane County Ice Arena in Eugene, OR). Everything went pretty well! Good axels for once. :-D Bad double sals though...I ALWAYS pop them! :(

[plinko]

Nirvana:
A good friend I hadn't seen in a long time and I agreed to meet up at an out of town rink for a skate together. I was so looking forward to this!

Nettles:
The ice was rented out to a hockey camp instead. This is the third time the rink has done this, the manager's explanations of "hockey needs the ice right now" didn't wash and especially when he felt it wasn't important to post signs for the public skaters. I see I'm not the only one with rink& hockey troubles.

We went for pizza instead. So, no skating + pizza = extra exercise tomorrow.