caolaidhe
11-22-2004, 09:37 PM
Woo hoo! I'm mostly a lurker on this board, but I'm so excited that I just had to post. This past Friday I took my Adult Gold MITF and FS for the first time, and passed them both!
I'm particularly excited because I had really wanted to pass up to gold before the Jan 15 deadline for Adult Nationals. I competed at AN in Silver I in 2002 and 2003 and after medaling in 2003 I told myself I wouldn't compete there again until I moved up to gold. Only problem was those moves - I had passed up to silver before the adult moves requirements were passed and
so had not done any moves before. I figured it would be a little much to jump right into doing the gold moves, so first I did Pre-pre, prelim, and pre-juv on the standard track, then started working on the gold moves. Local competitions allowed me to skate up a level to gold so I did several of those as well (great for testing because then after competing, I could "dumb down" my program for testing, making the test seem so much easier!).
I always get terribly nervous before a test or competition and this was no exception - in fact, in my warmup I had two hard falls (one on the novice threes, and one on a bracket - ouch!). But thankfully that seemed to get the falling out of my system and I made it through the actual test without any major errors. Not to say that I did the moves well - the power circles went ok, but the forward double threes were somewhat scrapy (why is it so hard to bend your knees when you're nervous??) and I think I had some edge wobbles. The back double threes were a little better but also not as good as in practice. The BI3-FI3 novice move went more-or-less ok counterclockwise (end pattern was kind of jerky, though)...but the clockwise direction was really an exercise in survival through the end patterns, for some reason. (I know a lot of people dislike the novice move, but I actually had more trouble with the brackets in practice, I think.) I remember thinking, "oh man, I'm going to have to reskate that one to pass!". The clockwise end patterns were very scratchy and bouncy and my weight was all over the place on the blade. Then came the brackets, which I think must have looked like I was skating through molasses, because a couple times I just baaaarely made it back to the line. I was totally thinking that I'd never pass without a reskate, and so I thought it was a pretty bad sign that they didn't call me back when the test was over. I couldn't believe it when the test chair brought the papers over and said I had passed!!! (Two of the three judges were obviously in a kind mood since they passed me; the third judge wrote a lot of well-deserved criticisms of the moves and failed me.)
The freeskate went a lot better although I didn't do the axel nearly as well as I could have (two-footed the first one in the program, landed the second one but it just didn't feel like a very good jump). Everything else was okay, though, and all three judges passed me. So now I'm officially a gold skater, and I'm signing up right away for sectionals and AN in 2005!
I'm particularly excited because I had really wanted to pass up to gold before the Jan 15 deadline for Adult Nationals. I competed at AN in Silver I in 2002 and 2003 and after medaling in 2003 I told myself I wouldn't compete there again until I moved up to gold. Only problem was those moves - I had passed up to silver before the adult moves requirements were passed and
so had not done any moves before. I figured it would be a little much to jump right into doing the gold moves, so first I did Pre-pre, prelim, and pre-juv on the standard track, then started working on the gold moves. Local competitions allowed me to skate up a level to gold so I did several of those as well (great for testing because then after competing, I could "dumb down" my program for testing, making the test seem so much easier!).
I always get terribly nervous before a test or competition and this was no exception - in fact, in my warmup I had two hard falls (one on the novice threes, and one on a bracket - ouch!). But thankfully that seemed to get the falling out of my system and I made it through the actual test without any major errors. Not to say that I did the moves well - the power circles went ok, but the forward double threes were somewhat scrapy (why is it so hard to bend your knees when you're nervous??) and I think I had some edge wobbles. The back double threes were a little better but also not as good as in practice. The BI3-FI3 novice move went more-or-less ok counterclockwise (end pattern was kind of jerky, though)...but the clockwise direction was really an exercise in survival through the end patterns, for some reason. (I know a lot of people dislike the novice move, but I actually had more trouble with the brackets in practice, I think.) I remember thinking, "oh man, I'm going to have to reskate that one to pass!". The clockwise end patterns were very scratchy and bouncy and my weight was all over the place on the blade. Then came the brackets, which I think must have looked like I was skating through molasses, because a couple times I just baaaarely made it back to the line. I was totally thinking that I'd never pass without a reskate, and so I thought it was a pretty bad sign that they didn't call me back when the test was over. I couldn't believe it when the test chair brought the papers over and said I had passed!!! (Two of the three judges were obviously in a kind mood since they passed me; the third judge wrote a lot of well-deserved criticisms of the moves and failed me.)
The freeskate went a lot better although I didn't do the axel nearly as well as I could have (two-footed the first one in the program, landed the second one but it just didn't feel like a very good jump). Everything else was okay, though, and all three judges passed me. So now I'm officially a gold skater, and I'm signing up right away for sectionals and AN in 2005!