Blue Skies or Storm Clouds: June 6-12

[luna_skater]

Wheee! I don't think I've ever started this thread before! Title is in "honour" of all the rainy weather we've been having here.

Blue Skies: Went to a really dead public session this morning, and one of the skaters asked if I was an ice dancer because I had such deep edges. Loved the compliment! (I'm primarily a synchro skater, but I have my gold dances). Practiced the freeskate elements I learned last week. My spin is getting lots of fast rotation, and doesn't travel too horribly. Sal and toe-loop were much improved by the end of the session, after I finally got my arms under control!

Storm Clouds: Still breaking in the new skates. Some things are fine, but back three turns are a struggle. It's frustrating to not be able to do the things well that I was really nailing at the end of April. I'm sure they will come back, but I'm getting impatient!

[jenlyon60]

Blue Skies: Ordered new custom Klingbeils on Saturday and they're due in before the end of the month!

Paso was Okay today. Cross-rolls better... I made a minor solo break-through. When I really concentrate on pressing through the heels on both the current skating foot and the "to be" skating foot, things are MUCH MUCH easier.

Storm Clouds Had my blades sharpened Saturday...they needed it but a side effect today was that I nearly fell doing Paso today with coach. Got slightly off kilter coming out of the restart and nearly fell backwards. Managed to recover during the back chasses and slip steps but the back breakout wasn't the prettiest in the world. Then on the ending, had trouble doing the skid stop with as much SKID as I had last week. But the sharpening definitely needed to be done... I was probably a week or 2 past due and the rink where Pro-Am is held usually has fairly hard ice.

[NCSkater02]

Blue Skies: I changed my summer work schedule because I have the morning free sessions through August 19 (school--and regular schedules--start the next week) I'm now skating on the 6:30 am session. I'd forgotten how much I love skating in the mornings before work. Not only that, I was the only one for the first 20 minutes, and only two more (and my coach) skated the session.

I worked on all the pre-bronze moves, including that new 3turn thing. I have it mostly figured out, although I am doing it 2-footed until I gain all my strength, balance, and security back. Most of them went as well as can be expected for being off ice so long--as well as any hard moves on the left outside edge being rather uncomfortable still. My coach said I look better still than she expects, and am progressing fairly quickly back to where I was before the break.

Storm Clouds: I don't think I'm progressing fast enough! :roll: As much as I dread spinning again, I'm looking forward to it, because it means that maybe I can jump again! I'll also be glad to just get back to where I was before. It's frustrating, knowing I used to be able to do these skills. :frus:

[Terri C]

Today was all storm clouds!!
Got off work (yup, I'm no longer working a 4 day 10 hour workweek) and traffic on the freeway was murder, as a thunderstorm had just rolled through. What is usually a 15-20 minute drive from work to the rink took ONE HOUR!!1
As a result, I only got to skate a hour! :evil:

More storm clouds:
My right pinky toe is starting to hurt again- no backscratches for me today and it just simply hurt like hell to skate. Looks like I'm headed back to the podiatrist, as I plan to call tomorrow and get a appointment to get another injection! UGH!

[jazzpants]

Terri: Sorry to hear about the toe. :cry:

I guess everyone's heading over to Germany or not skating much, eh? :P

Blue Skies:

Worked on RFI3's 'til the cows come home all weekend. I'm now trying to get into it at full speed. It's now much better. Same with the RFI mohawks too!
I worked on my Bronze Moves throughout the session. All of them, including the forward power 3's, is steady as she goes, thankfully!
Backspins are decent enough that my friends like them. Now to get them so my coaches will like them too! :P
Forward spins are steady as she goes...
Storm Clouds:

Primary coach not skating this evening. He's busy packing for Germany! (You guys going to Germany, treat him well, okay?) ;)
RFI3's and RFI mohawks may be much better, but I doubt they'll be ready to show off tomorrow in front of the secondary coach and she'll think that I didn't "take any risks." :roll: (Oh, yes, I SURE did...but these things, to do them right, takes time to build.) Maybe in a couple of weeks I might be able to eeek out an attempt at it... (Hey! IT's better than two weeks ago. I couldn't even do the RFI3's two weeks ago!!!)
Not getting the $%@& Chinese spirals high enough to look decent. GRRRRR!
Sit spins. Decided to bail after I attempted a sit spin and ended up slipped under and went spinning on my butt instead. (Break dancing, anyone?) :P

[sk8pics]

Yep, on my way to Germany in a few hours! Skated this morning, had some time with my coach who was now full of helpful advice. Felt pretty good!

Boy, skates weigh a lot and take up a lot of room in your luggage!

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

[mikawendy]

Boy, skates weigh a lot and take up a lot of room in your luggage!

When I travel, I always ball up my socks and other small items and cram them in my shoes and skates. (And I put the soft soakers in my skates too.)

[Terri C]

Terri: Sorry to hear about the toe. :cry:

As of 10:00 Thursday morning the toe issue will be resolved for the time being!
Despite the pain and pressure, I did have a good lesson with secondary coach today! Did the ENTIRE power three pattern and did not bail on stepping onto the RFO edge from back crossovers, that I often like to do! :D

Spins were awesome today, sans backscratch that was too painful to do. Did a fast, centered scratch spin, and just as fast and lower that usual sit and got two revs on the camel!!! :D

Will not skate until Thursday afternoon, when the foot will be better!

[Michigansk8er]

Blue Skys: Actually rotated a few flips today. This is a miracle.......considering I've been flip-less for nearly 2 years now. To think, this used to be my best jump. I also centered every single scratch spin. Who knew I could do that? It's ALWAYS been my worst spin, so I generally avoid it like the plague (give me a backspin any day of the week).

Storm Clouds: I'm in a skating funk of sorts. The past year has been mostly discouraging, and it's somewhat sucked the joy out of skating. Quitting keeps coming to mind. :cry:

[sk8er1964]

Blue Skys: Actually rotated a few flips today. This is a miracle.......considering I've been flip-less for nearly 2 years now. To think, this used to be my best jump. I also centered every single scratch spin. Who knew I could do that? It's ALWAYS been my worst spin, so I generally avoid it like the plague (give me a backspin any day of the week).

Wow - flips! I know that's been one of your hopes. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Storm Clouds: I'm in a skating funk of sorts. The past year has been mostly discouraging, and it's somewhat sucked the joy out of skating. Quitting keeps coming to mind. :cry:

We've got to figure out a way to cure this. :cry:

PS - ITA on the backspin.

[jazzpants]

Blue Skys: Actually rotated a few flips today. This is a miracle.......considering I've been flip-less for nearly 2 years now. To think, this used to be my best jump. I also centered every single scratch spin. Who knew I could do that? It's ALWAYS been my worst spin, so I generally avoid it like the plague (give me a backspin any day of the week). I've been on and off on flips for a while. Lately it's been off... well, unless you count a "brief" toe tap as a landing... :roll: Both coaches are totally cursing at me b/c "I should have OWNED that jump!!!" *sigh*

I'm still trying to center my scratch spin... heck sometimes I'm still having trouble crossing the leg over... Still keep going!!! And one of my major nemesis IS the backspin! Hate doing them... but now I can sorta do them now.

Storm Clouds: I'm in a skating funk of sorts. The past year has been mostly discouraging, and it's somewhat sucked the joy out of skating. Quitting keeps coming to mind. :cry:I TOTALLY understand at times that the feeling that you're not progressing may sap the joy out of skating... but this is usually when you are working out the major kinks in your skating. If you stay with it long enough, I'll bet that in the end, you'll end up becoming a WAAAY better skater than you'll ever imagined in the end. So if I were you, I'd stick it out to find out what you may get at the end of all the frustration but STILL stuck it out. Might be mighty interesting, 'ya know... ;)

[jenlyon60]

Blue Skies:

-- Forward quick cross-rolls much better today. The "lead from the heel" break-through I made the other day stayed and coach #2 liked that I was attacking them from the start. She showed me a neat exercise she uses to help with the "lead from the heel" but I didn't want to try it now with Pro-Am so close.

-- Nice Quiet Back cross-rolls... hadn't touched them for almost a month but she had me do them and I had some of the best flow I've had in ages on back cross-rolls plus no scratchy toe-picky noises. Coach #2 got me to get even a bit further back on the blade and that really helped.

--Starlight Waltz... In lesson with coach #1 we did 2 patterns to the music almost at the start, and I did all the waltz 3's (3 of them in the 2 patterns counting the intro-3 the closest to being on time ever. Which made me very very happy.

Storm Clouds: While working on the transition into the "pull through" of the Starlight I fell on my butt. No big deal (there's LOTS of padding there) but as I fell, somehow I bent my right pinky finger backwards against my coach's hand or his side and it's a bit sore now and wanting to not stay comfortably against the rink finger. Not bad enough to really go to the doctor about (and I'm left handed so it's not like it will interfere with writing etc.) So if it still bothers me later today I may tape the 2 fingers together for a day or so.

Moral of the story... Having the weight too far back on the blade and not bending the ankles/knees AND not letting go of coach on a fall ALL at the same time is not healthy to one's anatomy.

[flo]

Michigan,
I know how you feel. I get pretty slumpy at times. I know I don't want to totally quit, but I neeed something new and fun. I don't want to keep entering the same local events at silver (done it, won it) but I'm not all that interested in gold. Although I've never had much interest in competing in fs, I do love pairs and interpretive. What I'm trying to do is create some new interpretive programs while on the side waiting for the elusive pairs partner to pop up. I've also really enjoyed teaching and choreographing programs.
You have really done an amazing amount of work to get back to where you are now. Try to think about what you really enjoy and focus on that. You've had a successful skating career and now need to figure out what direction you want to take it in next.

[luna_skater]

Blue Skies: Landed my loop on the second try! I figured that jump was going to be a big hurdle to get over, since it sucked pretty bad back in CanFigureSkate. It wasn't beautiful, but I left the ice, went all the way around in the air, and landed on one foot facing the right direction. Waltz, sal, and toe-loop all improved. I'm particularly proud of the toe-loop progress, because that jump used to feel really awkward when I was younger. Also made some progress on the back spin. And the new skates still feel awesome!

Storm Clouds: Forward one-foot spin. It's traveling a LOT, and I can't get my free leg into the right position. Has lots of speed, but I imagine it looks hideous.

[jazzpants]

Blue Skies:

The evil RFI3 I had trouble with is getting better. I hope that I'll get even faster speed going into it soon too... (I could do it with some speed today...)
Secondary coach notices that I'm skating a lot faster when I warm up. I don't have to use as many strokes as I used to, yet I'm moving A LOT faster!!! And since I don't stroke as much, I don't burn as much energy!!! WHAT a CONCEPT!!!! :mrgreen: (And yes, she did comment on that too!!!)
Storm Clouds:

What we had today in the Bay Area!!! It was light rain but it was raining... No one knows how to drive around here when a rain storm comes thru... even when it's a light drizzle!!! :roll: (My half hour commute became more like 50 minutes!!!) :evil:
Evil secondary coach gave me an ending to my program... unfortunately to practice it, requires kneepads!!! 8O

[Casey]

I've been on and off on flips for a while. Lately it's been off...
I know the feeling! I swear, the other day I did really actually manage to do some, you know, _real_ flips, the kind where you don't cheat it and make it more like a salchow....but now they're all gone :(

Now I feel dumb because I ever said I could do them and now can't prove it. Maybe if I can get the blasted loop the'll come back...

I guess I shouldn't worry too much, I surely wasn't doing them well anyways, and to quote a friend of mine, "It is better not to do something than to do it poorly".

[Casey]

I'm in a skating funk of sorts. The past year has been mostly discouraging, and it's somewhat sucked the joy out of skating. Quitting keeps coming to mind. :cry:
Too bad. You're not allowed to quit. The rest of us here rely on news of your progress as encouragement to keep going ourselves! So there!

[jenlyon60]

Last lesson/practice before Pro-Am...

Paso worked well today. We were pretty pleased with how I skated it. (Still far from test quality, but definitely better than last year.) So I reckon that the Paso falls in the Blue Skies side of things.

Starlight.... well, Starlight was less star-Bright today. Actually 99% of the dance was about like normal. I did the quick drop 3's on time to the music and did a reasonable job on most of the 2nd side. Then we got to the "pull-through" and went flailing through the "how to get to my coach's left thumb" and got off-kilter. Recovered somewhat but not enough and almost totally face-planted on the waltz-3 at the end of the dance. Somehow pulled out or turned or some such without falling or otherwise injuring any bodyparts, not sure how, though. A definite Storm Cloud.

Tango... only did intros/exits on Tango to finalize the timing of the "in-place" intro, since I have a different Tango intro than coach's other skaters.

[NickiT]

Blue Skies
I had a lesson yesterday and today and both went very well. In total I ran through my programme four times and each time went completely error-free and my coach said it looked very good.

I've regained my confidence after having a bad skate on a busy patch last week due to the kids off on half-term. I couldn't land my lutz-loop to save my life then but it's back and strong this week.

I received a lovely compliment from David Clements, a top coach from another rink who was coaching one of his skaters at our rink today. He told me what beautiful music I skate to and that it was lovely to hear someone skate to "proper skating music" as he put it. He then told my coach that it really suited me!

Storm Clouds
Nothing really this week.

Nicki

[icedancer2]

Blue Skies
I

I received a lovely compliment from David Clements, a top coach from another rink who was coaching one of his skaters at our rink today. He told me what beautiful music I skate to and that it was lovely to hear someone skate to "proper skating music" as he put it. He then told my coach that it really suited me!

Nicki

That is so nice! What music was it, by the way??

[Terri C]

Blue skies:
My foot was taken care of this morning. Actually, my podiatrist suggested that I get a callous scraper from the drugstore and use it when the callous builds up. I then asked him if it was safe for me to get pedicures and he told me yes! So that's better than a shot!
Had a good lesson today. Spins were really good. Ran through my freeskate program, since the Peach announcement is now out and it's time to get it back in motion. It wasn't bad, but I fell on the end pose and my footwork was slow!

Storm clouds:
Power threes on lesson! Kept bailing out on the starting pattern! :evil:
Also, one of the rink employees was hell bent on power washing the floor during freestyle- very noisy!

[Michigansk8er]

Flo,

Thanks! I'm hoping to do some dance this summer (if I can figure out a way to adjust my work schedule and fit a lesson in) to see if there is life after freestyle. I haven't figured out my niche in interp yet, but comedy is not it. Synchronized swimming is starting to sound appealing. I'm in trouble!

Sk8er1964,

We need another skate and Applebees afternoon.

[Michigansk8er]

Too bad. You're not allowed to quit. The rest of us here rely on news of your progress as encouragement to keep going ourselves! So there!

I guess that solves that!

[figure_skater]

REALLY BLUE SKIES- i landed both my loop and flip consistently all week and my camel spin is getting better :D

[Anita18]

Blue skies:
I can stop! I can stop! Yay! Flattening the hollow a little bit really helped with stops and edges. I had never realized how sticky my blades had been. I even felt faster, but that could have been from a combination of the new sharpening, fresh ice, and flatter hollow. I didn't even notice a different in the deepness of my edges, which was niiiice. Maybe this is the right hollow for me after all.
I'm getting a private lesson next week! Yay!
Spirals don't suck! Yay! It's funny cause I hate practicing them, but they definitely weren't as bad as I remembered them. I could definitely hold them for a long time, which was good, but the forward inside ones are still ick. Now I'll have to try them at speed....
Finally got a few good sit spins, after some bungled attempts that had me really frustrated. Got a few good scratch spins too, but my consistency could always be better...
FO3's more controlled at speed yay!
Backsit somewhat stable. :)

Storm clouds:
CW forward crossovers still feel unnatural. Le sigh.
I'm jumping my BI3s. When I didn't jump them, I would underrotate them instead and fall on my butt. Booooooo. :evil:
Wasn't flipping the entrance of the backspin enough and my foot was trailing behind a bit. Sigh...

[Casey]

Bluer skies: This just in from my coach: "As far as your FS #3 test, the main thing to work on is the change foot spin, when thats ready I can give the test."

[sue123]

Haven't done this in a while. I went skating today, and it was great, my first time in a few weeks, although it felt like longer.

Blue skies: I skated with some world class skaters today, although I don't feel right mentioning names. But wow, it was amazing. I went for the public session, and it was an empty session, so they stayed after they rented the ice. It was insane. Although a bit nervewracking sometimes. They would run through their programs, and you'd have no clue where anyone was going, so you try to stay in one spot. They would do jumps and spins so close to you, it was frightening. There wasn't too many people,there were those 3 skaters, me, another adult skater, and a couple of guys just skating around. I kept getting distracted watching them do triples and interesting spin positions, one girl did an amazing Bielman.

I also did a couple waltz jumps, just to see if I could do it. And for some reason, last time I tried them, it didn't work. Today, I actually did it. Granted not very big, but I jumped over the blue line. And for some reason, I could only do them on one side of the rink. I also finally got the hang of CW 3 turns, back 3 turns, and I have the beginnings of a mohawk. And my one foot spin was going OK, until the end of the session. The ice got really cut up.

Stormy Clouds: This is my last time skating for about 2 or 3 weeks. I leave for Israel on Thursday. Also, there was this really annoying guy who worked at the rink, and was doing something odd. He kept jumping up and landing really oddly, leaving huge ruts in the ice. The first time, I thought he was tripping up somehow, but then he kept doing it. At least he only did it by the boards, so it was easy enough to avoid those areas.

[jazzpants]

Stormy clouds: Haven't skated since Wed. No lesson with primary coach since he's in Germany. :(

Blue Skies: I met LoopLoop and her husband last night!!! :mrgreen: (She's visiting my neck of the woods this week!) Lots of fun, especially once we actually sat down and ordered food! My hubby and I switched seats so our hubbies talk "guy talk" while Loops and I talk "skating." :twisted: And she's definitely a WAAAAY better skater than I am too... 8O :bow:

(Hey, Loops! Did you try that dim sum place I suggested. How was it if you did?)

More Blue Skies: Skating tomorrow afternoon!!! :mrgreen: I want my artistic program to be GREAT! (Or at least good enough for secondary coach. But she wants nothing less than GREAT anyway, so... :roll: :P )

And I look forward to meeting a SLEW of you guys at Peach in Sept!!! :mrgreen:

[jenlyon60]

Blue Skies I broke my famous last place tradition today. I got 2nd in Pre-Gold III (skating Starlight Waltz and Paso Doble) and next to last in Tango at Pro-Am.

Storm Clouds: 1st pattern of Starlight had problems on the closed outside mohawk causing me to miss the next step, plus on both patterns I rushed the waltz 3 at the end of the dance.

Then in Tango, the 2nd pattern was laggy and lacked flow, I thought.

[Terri C]

Blue Skies I broke my famous last place tradition today. I got 2nd in Pre-Gold III (skating Starlight Waltz and Paso Doble) and next to last in Tango at Pro-Am.

Good job on the Starlight and Paso!!! Is this the same Tango you're trying to pass?

[dbny]

Blue Skies I broke my famous last place tradition today. I got 2nd in Pre-Gold III (skating Starlight Waltz and Paso Doble) and next to last in Tango at Pro-Am.


Congrats on your silvers and not being last on the Paso!

Storm Clouds:
I've hardly skated in the past two weeks, mostly because of a miserable cold that really had me down and out. Finally, on Wed, I was feeling much better and had the ice all to myself on a public session, but wouldn't you know - I had forgotten to pack my contacts! I didn't do much because I wear progressive lenses in my glasses and it can be disorienting. I mainly just tried to get some exercise.

Blue Skies:
Finally, today everything worked out great. The usual empty public session I go to actually had a busload of kids, but they were very nice and mostly on the walls. I helped quite a few of them get started, just because I hate to see people get hurt.

Even though my L boot is still not right, and I thought that was the problem with my LFO threes for the past two weeks, today, they were the best ever. I didn't bail on any of them, but somehow managed to get my weight in the right place in spite of the boot/foot problem. I felt like I had the best control over all my F threes today that I've ever had, and was almost totally fearless on the FI's. Go figure :roll: That alone made me very, very happy, but then hubby was watching my spiral stretches, and commented that the R were quite good, my free leg actually being higher than my hip and my back nicely arched. Too bad he didn't watch me try it while skating. Just to push my luck, I did the five step Mohawk pattern, and it wasn't bad until the last LFI Mohawk, when I caught my L heel and came close to what would have been a very nasty crash and burn. Oh, and the very best news is that I don't have to report in for jury duty on Monday, although I still have to call in every night until dismissed.

[jenlyon60]

Yep. The first pattern was spot-on, but the 2nd pattern was a bit laggy.

I think also I was so happy about the Starlight and Paso that I just wanted to do the Tango and get it over with. We hadn't trained it much over the last month, either, compared to the Paso and Starlight work.

But to improve my flow I'm still going to spend a lot of the summer doing solo work. I've got new boots due in in about 2-3 weeks, so the solo work will be essential to break them in. Klingbeils again so they should break in fairly easily.

Good job on the Starlight and Paso!!! Is this the same Tango you're trying to pass?

[Shinn-Reika]

blue clouds I did a biellmann, started with the salchow, did a biellmann, started on sit spins, did a bloddy biellmann .

Okay so it was a biellmann spiral, but it's a friggin' biellmann. I'd been practicing the stretch off ice before, but never got the courage to balance it. Biellmann spin here we come.

stormy clouds Yeah I know I'm being predictable and all but I'm 18 and lonly darn it. Anyway I made a complete fool of myself in front of a girl (who I was obviously interested in). Anyway I saw her do a biellmann, and yeah well you can figure the rest out. The point is that I'm realizing that I'm developing an unhealthy tendency to show off, and unless I get a coach soon I may run plateu and be sunk, and that's gotten my a bit self-conscious.

[Casey]

Blue clouds, Shinn? Whatever, I'll go with it...

Blue clouds: Been sinking deeper into a "blah" mood about skating. Dragged myself to the rink for the public session from 2:30-5:15. Succeeded in making my newfound cold worse. Didn't feel like going back tonight, but I've been skating with some friends every Friday night and they don't come any other time, so I went anyways. They weren't there. Skated anyways. I was sore, sick, and tired, but pretended I wasn't. Saw a girl skating I talked to about a month ago, but hadn't seen since, and she started talking to me during the ice cut and asked me to come to a birthday party of hers on Sunday. Yes, a girl actually asked me on a date of sorts. Wow. And not only that, but a skater. Pardon me while I pinch myself to wake up.

Storm clouds: It's at a church, and she was there with a whole bunch of people from her church. Judging by my usual luck, they'll be a weird religious cult trying to convert me.

Blue-violet clouds: I noticed another girl staring at me after I did a waltz jump, so I asked her if she said something I didn't hear. She hadn't, but exclaimed how graceful my skating was. I said no it wasn't, but she persisted, so I said thanks.

Grey clouds: I have no idea why all of the sudden my skating is so impressive (not complaining though). It feels quite the opposite - I haven't accomplished anything new and I think my skating has actually regressed recently.

[icedancer2]

Grey clouds: I have no idea why all of the sudden my skating is so impressive (not complaining though). It feels quite the opposite - I haven't accomplished anything new and I think my skating has actually regressed recently.

You have hit a plateau. Don't worry a bit, Casey. Every skater on this board and every skater at every rink has hit this same plateau. You will stay here for a little while, work through it, and get to the next level.

Then you will hit another plateau.

Having a cold always makes the plateau worse.

Having people notice you is always a nice thing that happens when you are in the plateau also. It's like when you are feeling really tired, or sick, or otherwise crappy, and somebody says, "Wow, you look great today!".

Strange but true.

And I don't know about you, but living in the Pacific Northwest, I have noticed all of these clouds, all at the same time lately. What's up with that???

[kittie067]

Blue skies: my moves are getting better!! Spins aren't too bad.

Stormy clouds: the weather here in michigan is tooo warm at the moment!!! :evil:

Salchow was working but now I'm falling on it agaian!!! My waltz jump isn't much better, and I have FINALS all this week. 8O

At least I'm not the only one who's having a bad skating week! ;)

~kittie

[Skate@Delaware]

Blue Clouds: Went skating today, public session wasn't too terribly crowded (mostly with midgets, ok they were little ones AND they hugged the wall and didn't move fast). My friends were there, as was a skate friend I haven't seen in months (I was very glad to see her and glad all was well with her). My off-ice training has paid off, as I did some waltz jumps and bent deep on the landing and didn't bobble as I normally do (just leaned, because of my blade); and they were higher!

Stormy Clouds: My spin has taken a summer vacation....somewhere to Europe because that's how far it is traveling......and my leg refuses to listen to my head and stay UP before crossing!!!

[jazzpants]

Blue Skies:

Nice to be skating in a nice cool rink on a hot summer's day!!!
My Bronze moves are steady for the most part. :mrgreen:
Not quite there, but I can go into the RFI3 on faster speeds now. I STILL can't do them at full speed... hopefully in time I can.
Got the end to the program sorta right! THANK GOODNESS for SkatingSafe pads!!! :mrgreen: (My left knee is spared!!!) :)
Storm Clouds:

Should have stayed at the rink instead of going to the gym afterwards. It was HELLA WARM in there, even with their A/C on!!!
Still having a hard time with both the RFI mohawk and the RFI3 at full speed. Same with getting into position on the Chinese spiral... (If I was along the wall, no problem getting into position.) :frus: