Rain or Shine: Practices & Lessons Oct 10 - 17 [Archive]

dbny

10-10-2005, 10:08 PM

OK, I know it's a little simple, but we are in for an entire week of rain here!

Shine:
How comfortable I felt on the ice after giving two private lessons and a group lesson. F power pulls are pathetically wimpy and yet I'm getting decent edges. B power pulls are still improving. Spiral stretches are starting to hurt less.

Rain:
Why do I feel so stiff and lurchy for so long after I've been on the ice? I took a whopper of a fall today right at the end of the freestyle. Did LFI Mohawk and caught my heel. The ice was pretty rough, so it may not have been my fault, but it hurt anyway. I went down like a ton of bricks. I was aware of jolting my entire spine, hitting my rear end hard, my teeth coming together with a loud clack, and my head hitting the ice - thank goodness for long hair clipped up in back! When I got up, I realized that I had also landed on my R hand and wrist is a little tweaky. I downed 600 mg ibuprofen right away and don't feel too bad at this point. Tomorrow will tell.

aussieskater

10-10-2005, 10:21 PM

OUCH, dbny!! I feel for you, I really do. Have you iced all the sore bits? (Is it possible to *get* all the sore bits - after a fall like that, there are bound to be lots.)

jazzpants

10-11-2005, 12:49 AM

YIKES, dbny!!! I hope you're better tomorrow and all you have just bruise! Yes, thank goodness for ponytails and scrunchies!!! (I have mine in a scrunchie now... it's getting long again for Skate SF and this time I'm opting for at least ponytail length long well into Adult Sectionals...)

Were you wearing those SkatingSafe (http://www.skatingsafe.com/) pads or am I thinking of someone else who has them? They really help protect my tailbone! After the initial sting, I went right back to skate... no problem!!! (Of course, I've been told NOT to wear any protection unless I am working on something that is guarantee to screw up the knee or am working on a jump I don't know. (Secondary coach's thinking AXELS, of course...) :twisted:

Rain:

Not much room to practice moves, though I did some practice...
I ended up doing more practice for my program. Jay is watching me... and has this inquisitive look on his face. (Alright! I also zapped right by him and one of his other student during that student's lesson. I feel bad about it but where else am I gonna set up my jumps during a crowded public session but the middle of the rink??? (And of course I have to go into it at a fast speed b/c that's what he expects out of me???)
Shine:

Well, I landed one lutz today... and discover (OH MY!!!) that I can bend my knees and my flip jump magically gets the rotation needed for me to land on one foot!!! (Doesn't work for the loop though... GRRRR! :evil: )
Did some good sit spins... unfortunately the one embarrassing thing is that my nose was runny and "stuff" came out flying during the sit spin... :oops: (Altogether now: "EWWWWW!!!!")

dbny

10-11-2005, 03:17 AM

Have you iced all the sore bits? (Is it possible to *get* all the sore bits - after a fall like that, there are bound to be lots.)

I haven't iced, as it was several hours before I could get home. Now I'm feeling sore where I didn't know I would, but my back, which I thought would be bad, feels fine.

Were you wearing those SkatingSafe pads or am I thinking of someone else who has them?

Someone else. I only wear knee pads and my knees seem to be the only thing I didn't hit today :lol:

Luckily, I landed sort of to the side, so I missed my tailbone and bashed the right side of my bottom instead. Altogether not nearly so bad as I expected.

Hannahclear

10-11-2005, 05:34 AM

Shine:

1) Worked on back crossovers to back edges for the first time. Not bad at all. Really, I feel that it's one of the easier moves, which makes sense, given that it's prelim rather than prejuv on the standard test track.

2) Coach said that my forward perimeter power stroking was "good, nice, acceptable and all that". 8O 1 down, 4 to go.

3) 5 step mohawk now can be done on the pattern. That's a step up for me! Sadly, left mohawk is not very good at all. But I can work on that.

Rain:

1) Backward perimeter stroking--I'm making the same mistake I make on the power 3s. I'm stepping on an outside rather than an inside edge on the transition. I thought that I had had a breakthrough with this on the Power 3s....turns out....not so much.

I'm getting my skates sharpened on Saturday, it has been well over a year. That may help once I adjust. Let's hope so. :??

On to freestyle practice Wednesday!

Skate@Delaware

10-11-2005, 08:27 AM

Since we were off for Columbus day, we went to the public session-which had about 15-20 kids, only 3 were terrors!

Rain: Spins sucked....although they were better than some I've done. I did manage a 3 rev sit, but wasnt down as far as I could have been. Did a few toe-loops, although they are mostly cheated toe-waltz's (one wasn't) :frus: Salchow-what more can I say! I need serious help on that one. :frus: Back crossovers-still scratching on right toepick. Left is good (can I say stealth!)

Shine: Waltz jump-got a few good ones with good height and distance-from a back glide! Yay! The distance was 3 blade lengths, which was 2 blade lengths longer than all my other ones!!! My husband swears that they were at least 1 foot high! I'm bringing the camera to freestyle session today to tape a few for reference. Then I will track my height and distance. My calves hurt from really using them...

I have skated since Sunday-4 hours on Sunday, 2 hours Monday and it's only Tuesday....I will have 1.5 hours today to do homework for my coach session on Wednesday and I want to fix my Salchow! I'm so frustrated (and a bit tired)! But I've sworn to only work on a frustrating element for so long then move on to something else; go back to it later. I realize I'm freezing up after the 3-turn, it just doesn't "feel" right.... :giveup:

Skate@Delaware

10-11-2005, 08:29 AM

I haven't iced, as it was several hours before I could get home. Now I'm feeling sore where I didn't know I would, but my back, which I thought would be bad, feels fine.

Someone else. I only wear knee pads and my knees seem to be the only thing I didn't hit today :lol:

Luckily, I landed sort of to the side, so I missed my tailbone and bashed the right side of my bottom instead. Altogether not nearly so bad as I expected.
I have been wearing the SkatingSafe tailbone pad-since I lost weight-I got nothing back there! Of course, since I started wearing it, I don't seem to fall on that part of the body!

Mrs Redboots

10-11-2005, 11:04 AM

Good title, DBNY - there's heavy rain over parts of the UK, but here in London it's been warm and sunny! Even our rink was boiling today, and it's a cold rink! We all wore T-shirts.

Shine: Managed to practice most things I meant to, including my solo dances for the next competition. Ran through the couples dances again, too, for the first time since the British Adults, and our Free Dance, all of which seemed okay-ish. We'll need to work them up a bit, though, between now and 6 November!

We also did some exercises, including doing chassés in waltz hold. Discovered, almost serendipitously (is that a word?) that if you hold your elbow right up, like the elite skaters do, you get much closer to your partner and the style is better! Hmmm, maybe we should do that more often!

Rain: The two spins we're working on (as opposed to the one we use in our programme) aren't at all working yet. And I bottled out of trying our new lift on the ice. Plus the first time we did it off-ice, our hips ground together and hurt! At least, mine hurt, don't know about his!

Spent rather too long just skating round and round with a friend discussing differences in Orthodox and Protestant religious practice..... of all things!

My Dance Moves were not just so good today, and my solo dances - well, I think the Dutch Waltz was okay, but my Canasta is still vile. Oh well....

sunshinepointe

10-11-2005, 04:48 PM

Rain I don't understand what has happened to my skating. It's gotten very strange - I'll nail elements one second, then on the next attempt I'm on my butt...then I'll do it again and I'll be fine, then again and I'll be on my butt. It makes no sense.

The zamboni left ridges in the ice where the extra water dried so if I happened to do a spin on one of these lovely ridges it was like I was on a rollercoaster.

I couldn't do my sit spin at all today. At ALL.

I took a hard fall on my first lutz attempt of the day. Wham bam, right on my knees...I landed the jump but must've been underrotated because I pitched right forward on my knees. FOrtunately the ice was smooth so I kind of slid across the ice but the initial impact was NOT fun. I'll be bruised tomorrow for sure.

I'm just going to stop mentioning the camel altogether. It's a waste of time.

Shine
I got to the rink on the early side and there was not a soul to be found. So I had the rink to MYSELF for half an hour. I didn't know what to work on first lol. I decided to work on a mixture of moves I've heard about. Ive discovered I can't do forward power pulls as well as I can do back power pulls. My back ones would pass the test, the forward ones are pretty weak. I can't seem to find the rhythm there. Oh well, yay me for trying. I also worked on power 3 turns and brackets and mohawks and everything else in between. I also did the spiral sequence from preliminary moves...at least I think that's what it's from....

I did manage a couple of good flips and loops in between all the falling. When I'm on, the jumps are perfect. It's all or nothing these days.

I did a bunch of good scratch spins. They're just not as fast as they used to be, but definitely more controlled and centered more often than not. I'll take that over speed. I did a couple of one foot spin variations that were nice.

I worked up a really good sweat today but I did take a break now and then to watch this girls exhibition program. Man, I don't care for country music but her choreography and her skating was so good that I was just mesmerized by her program. I want to skate like her when I grow up lol (she's probably 10 years younger than me, easy lol).

I wanted to start choreographing my silly christmas duet but I don't have the music so I'll have to wait until I can get it cut (after making a FINAL decision about it). I did get some good ideas watching the country-music girl.

Cloudy
The past couple of times I've been skating I've felt...blah. Two weeks ago I was having the time of my life at the rink, now it's like I'm going through the motions, even regressing a little. I know skating has it's ups and downs but man, I want there to be another patch of ups - I love that feeling!

Ah well, hopefully I can pull it together so my coach will show me the layback on Thursday. If I skate for him like I did today I doubt he'll have me learn anything new. :roll:

kittie067

10-11-2005, 05:06 PM

Shine!!!: i'm finally getting the hang of my loop!! Also my sitspins weren't too bad. i got third place in moves, and last place (again! :roll: ) on my freeskate.

Rain: Isn't much rain up here, weather wise or skating wise!!! :D

~kittie :D

cutiesk8r43

10-11-2005, 05:32 PM

shine:
my jumps were pretty big and high today, i had a dance lesson today

RAIN: coach cut my lesson because i was popping out of my axels, i didnt have the energy for them to day (sighs) hopefully i will be able to do them on thursday :roll:

~Cutie ;)

AnnM

10-11-2005, 06:45 PM

Rain:
Returned to working on the forward/back three turn patterns for Silver moves. Blech. A previous coach had taught me to do back three turns by letting the hips guide the roation. My current coach has told me to forget that and use my shoulders and stong checks before & after the turns to get them done. I understand her point completely, but it's hard to re-think the move in that way. So the bottom line is that I had the stumbliest three turns ever this morning.

Shine:
Despite the issues with three turns, I did manage to pull off some very nice BO three turns on both feet. At the end of my lesson my coach wanted me close out the day by trying a flip jump and doing a sit spin, just for the sake of doing something other than moves for the first time in three weeks. I got enough rotation on the flip, although I landed double footed. I was satisfied considering I hadn't even practiced it once for about five months. My sit spin was still looking good, despite weeks of non-practice. All the power pull and crossroll drills must be paying off because there was a loud, distinct "rip" sound as I was holding the BI edge before the entry. :D

Skate@Delaware

10-11-2005, 07:15 PM

I was all alone for 20 minutes-I played Enya! Then put on Ice Princess! Cool (yeah, I'm that weird!)

Rain: for some reason (I'm TIRED maybe?) my height wasn't on my waltz's today; couldn't or didn't really bend in the knee....and my sit spins weren't all that deep, more hunched over than anything (although one was 4 revs).

Shine: Eureka! I think I've made a breakthrough on the Salchow!!! I'm hoping it sticks at least through tomorrow (private lesson)....I did pad up quite a bit but didn't fall (don't know if that's good or not?) And, I did get some "coaching" from a 9-year-old who watched and helped me out...(hey, any port in a storm!) I did 2-foot some, but did 2 without putting my foot down! My spins were ok. Back edges ROCKED!!!!!!!!!! I had LOBES!!!!!! I only 2-footed once!!!!!!!

Then I had to leave early to get my son from daycare, stuff some McD's into him and drive him to Scouts, only to find out that they had called the house (duh, I wasn't there-they have my cell #) to say no Scouts tonight.......so we went back home, took showers and ate candy (shhhh! don't tell!) And for some strange reason, I've been incredibly thirsty today! Parched! Even with all this rain!!!! Weird!

Novice Spirals

10-11-2005, 09:09 PM

Shine-
Flying camel is back and so is low sit spin.

Rain-Fell on power pulls into rockers! GGRRRR. Saw my feet as I fell. Ouch.
I'm too old for this &^%*.

Tomorrow I hope to get brackets semi decent. Can't control the free hip. Something different! :roll: :roll: Why oh why do I do this to myself?
This is why I don't test, just practice!

aussieskater

10-11-2005, 10:59 PM

Sunshine (not that there's a lot around today - but we really need the rain down here):

BO edges this morning (these ones are my favourite of all the edges anyway. Go figure.) I actually managed accurate half circles (no cheating the entry) without putting the free foot down. Both feet. Yay! (Not every attempt, but hey, it's a start!) FO edges had an "aha" moment (many such moments are still needed on these) - I found that by placing the arms lower by my sides and passing them through actually touching the hips on the way, I maintained the edges and the lobes were accurate. (Sadly, this didn't work as well for the FI ones. We won't even talk about the BI ones.)

Plus dance coach told free coach that I "can" push hard and extend the leg and point the toe and keep the back straight and get a really nice line now, on the progressives as well as general stroking....

Rain

.....but I don't. Not all the time anyway. It's so hard to keep it up for every stroke! No wonder they say dance is such a good workout.

Also (perpetual whinge), my blades need re-setting, and I'm really starting to notice it. I know I need to do something about it, but I was hoping to get something done about the blades first. In another thread someone suggested I keep an eye out for secondhand blades, so I started that process this morning. My dance coach (who has some blades) said she'd check around for me.

While I was talking to the dance coach about the whole blade problem, the freestyle coach came up, and indicated that he doesn't want dance blades, but the dance coach does. What to do? To get out of a tight spot, I half-jokingly suggested they sort it out between themselves and tell me the correct answer in due course. Has anyone else encountered this? What did you do?

Cloudy (?)

I'm not sure whether this is rain or shine: why oh why are FI mohawks so much harder than FI choctaws??

Mrs Redboots

10-12-2005, 07:33 AM

We were forecast shedloads of rain overnight and all day today, but here we are at lunchtime and not a drop has fallen!

Rain: Had a really bad skating day today, one of those days when very little worked well. My coach was 45 minutes late, and by the time he finally got there, he was like, "What have you worked on, how has it gone?" so I was like, "This was cr*p, that was cr*p, the other was okay, but only okay....". Especially my back cross-rolls.

Sunshine, I think: Whereupon I proceeded to have one of those "inverse coach moments" when everything really worked pretty well! Better, in fact, than in my practice. Even the back cross-rolls were reasonable. After three reminders, coach did look at my solo dances for Oxford, but the only real criticism he had was that I need to point my toes more.

Overcast and cloudy: The big problem with having improved this year - and I have - is that I'm so aware of what I'm doing badly! I can often feel what is wrong, but can't correct it. Why do we do this so-frustrating sport???? There are times when it really doesn't feel as though I am any better than the first day I tottered into group lessons. The other day a friend commented on my improved speed during my FO swing rolls - I felt they were really slow!!!!

Skate@Delaware

10-12-2005, 07:47 AM

crayonskater

10-12-2005, 11:59 AM

Rain: I fell on a forward crossover. How dumb!

Shine: I learned how to spin today! So now I can do a two-foot spin and the beginning of a one foot spin. Coach says I might be a natural spinner and next week I'm going to learn a proper entry into a scratch spin. Ack! But spinning is a lot of fun.

We also revisited bunny hops and then I learned mazurkas. I have a feelings these jumps would have been much cooler when I was six. But I feel prancy! Poing poing poing...

sunshinepointe

10-12-2005, 01:22 PM

We also revisited bunny hops and then I learned mazurkas. I have a feelings these jumps would have been much cooler when I was six. But I feel prancy! Poing poing poing...

Lol....my skate buddy never fails to mention just how silly adults look doing ballet jumps and bunny hops. It's just something you CAN'T do cool, no matter how good you are if you're over the age of say, 10.

Skate@Delaware

10-12-2005, 02:00 PM

bunny hops are EVIL!!!!! :twisted:

Hannahclear

10-12-2005, 02:36 PM

Shine: Began the process of choreography this morning. We've got about a minute done. I really like my music (LOTR) and my coach came up with some good, klutz friendly moves. I performed just over a minute of the program at the end of our lesson. That's more than 1/2 because it's a bronze lady program. I managed to land lutz/loop, salchow and loop. I've got a sit/change sit and a serpentine spiral sequence thus far.

During my warmup, the backcrossovers to back outside edges were ok. The pattern needs sharpening, but I am getting four nice glides on each side and I'm not having trouble finished the entire sequence. I did two complete patterns.

Rain: Lots more work to do on 5 step mohawks.

jazzpants

10-12-2005, 02:45 PM

I do bunny hops as part of a section of my footwork in my FS program. But since I'm a grown-up, it looks more like "funny hops" to me! :lol: :P

Rain:

Sleep-skating again!!! http://degiorgi.math.hr/forum/images/smiles/zzz.gifI was barely awake during my lesson and was trying to absorb my secondary coach's instructions on footwork. (She made one minor change to my footwork on my existing FS program, never mind the layout of the rest of my program) Poor woman was frustrated trying to get things thru to me... and I was frustrated trying to get what she's telling me. :frus:
Lower back was complaining again after the lesson... Gotta be careful... :(
Shine:

The FS program is finally laid out!!! WHEW!!! Now to actually skate it to music... :evil: (It's much better now!!! VERY NICELY spread out and the jumps and spins are evenly distributed throughout the rink!!!) 8-)

luna_skater

10-12-2005, 05:15 PM

Rain: Back on the ice after 6 days and two Thanksgiving dinners. :D Felt rather shaky at first, and eventually got my feet under me, but I just hate that feeling of being unsure of myself after a few days off the ice. Worked on spins for most of the hour, and they were all crap. Backspin is a lost cause, and I couldn't even get my forward spin centered.

Shine: A couple was practicing some gold dances, so I played around with those a bit while the music was on. Funny how much easier they feel now! Did two loop jumps without any warm-up (usually work up from waltz, sal, toe, to loop), so that was a nice confidence-booster.

Blades felt a bit skiddy today, so I got them sharpened after the session since they haven't been done for a while. Hoping that will make a difference for tomorrow's lesson!

Terri C

10-12-2005, 06:20 PM

Rain:
The sitspin, ugghh!!! :frus: When will I EVER get this???

Shine:
Everything else, but especially my loop and skating the ENTIRE Bronze MIF test in 15 minutes with little or no exhaustion. Now, I can't wait to take this test, but will someone ask me that again closer to test day.

coskater64

10-12-2005, 08:05 PM

Shine: Getting circular footwork for freedance, already fast just working on making unison better. Getting better on some dances
Axel 1/2 loop d sow got 2 clean, several large easy d toes, and solid on flip 2 toe, very strange. Axel is also getting very easy and lazy. Spins continue to get better.

Rain: Something has to change soon, my luck is not this good.

The Ice Demon

10-13-2005, 02:30 AM

Shine (very sunny)
There was only 2 other skaters and my coach on the session, the ice was superb (first thing in the morning) and we got to play decent music Yay!!!!:D :D
My spins were fast and working well. I played around with spirals and discovered I can make it round in a large circle (ie a 1/3 or the ice) one and a half times on one spiral - I never used to be able to do that. I also mucked around with change edge spirals, I found I could change the edge but couldn't keep control of my upper body. Maybe I should just leave them for MK! lol

Rain
Jumps were off. I landed one really decent axel (after a lot of bad ones) and left it at that. Can't have everything go my way I guess. :roll:

Can't wait til I skate again...

Skate@Delaware

10-13-2005, 08:06 AM

Shine: My scratch spin was ok, coach says I'm too picky. Once I relax and go into it like that, it all comes together! Hmmmm. 1/2 flip was good; as was my toe-loop (ok, toe waltz, but she said it wasn't as much of a toe-waltz!). Worked on the crossovers in the figure 8 pattern, trying to get the cadence while dodging spinners...dicey but I can do that today at practice. Back crossovers-had a major breakthrough-keep head UP and don't look under my arm (duh!) and really push on that first stroke, then bring feet close together! Wow! really got some power going on that! Waltz jumps were really great! Worked on some waltz-waltz. Stroking is good as long as I don't keep my arms way up high!

Rain (torrential downpours): Salchow....Ok, it was better, but that's not saying much! She is soo patient with me on this! After the three, I was too straight and not paying attention to the timing, my free leg was not behind me....(like on my toe-loop) and couldn't help me. and I was trying to bring it around straight, but I really should be bending it up while scooping my arms (missed that part of the instructions). Oh well. I can work on that and fix it. I'm too critical of my skating... Sit spins-need to work on getting lower right away. Backspins from any entrance (insert dunce-cap here). Need I say more?

Mrs Redboots

10-13-2005, 03:48 PM

Shine: Dance Club this evening - more men than women, for a change! Got all the dancing I wanted, nothing too awful, and some things felt really good.

Rain: Except when I tried to do the Fiesta Tango solo, I bottled the Mohawk, which I never do.... oh well.

Giggle: One of our skaters has asthma, and her breathing wasn't going too well, she ended up hyperventilating after one rather fast dance. The coach came over to ask if she was all right, and she explained that she was hyperventilating.
"Oh," he said, "Would you like a plastic bag?"

This from the man who has to have done at least two first-aid courses to get to his current coaching level.... duh.... he then realised he'd meant a paper bag, and a plastic bag would suffocate the skater.... and, luckily, she laughed so hard her breathing went deeper and she was okay again!

Skate@Delaware

10-13-2005, 05:25 PM

SUPERSUNNYNOVA: SALCHOW!!!!! I actually managed to do 3 correctly, without 2-footing it AND I have video proof AND was able to show another coach (who was skating at the rink)...AND did 2 CENTERED spins, one was 10 revolutions!!!!! Anything can happen tomorrow-I don't care! I may not be able to do it again-I don't care!

Eating ice cream tonight! (and potato chips!)

luna_skater

10-13-2005, 05:51 PM

Shine: Freshly sharpened blades helped out the spins! Had a break-through with the sideways-leaning spin; discovered that I need to think about pushing my thighs forward in order to get my hips in the right place. Loops were pretty good; they feel more comfortable and consistent. Flips started off great and then...

Rain: I think the more I work on my jumps, the worse they get! Flips started out wonderfully, and then I lost them after I tried to do them in combination. Finally eeked out one good one and then left them alone. Lutzes also started out good and then went downhill. Arrgh!

jazzpants

10-13-2005, 06:54 PM

Shine:

Managed to get an almost lutz (one foot hopping instead of landing). Primary coach's Gold level guy is going "Ooooh!!! She IS getting VERY close to a lutz!!!"
My last camel attempts was a 2-2.5 rev. Primary coach was happy about it.
Sitspin okay. One foot spin okay too...
Rain:

Too bad the next 3 attempts were not even close!!! :frus:
No loops or flip with a one foot landing... and I sure as hell have tried!!! :frus: The closest I've gotten is either a "one foot hopping" or a scrunch down. (I definitely need a jump coach to work on the technique again...)
Program runthru is scary. 8O I need to go faster... but w/o trip over my blades!!! :evil:
EEEEEK!!! I found out thru the primary coach that I have entered in Skate SF as a BRONZE 3 FS skater!!! 8O Of course, when primary coach found out about it, he said to the organizer "So? So she's skating a level up. She's allowed to..." Needless to say, I told the organizers and primary coach that it should be PRE-BRONZE FS, NOT BRONZE FS!!! (Our local Bronze lady who's at my age level would probably chuckle if she found out that I've accidentally entered as a Bronze FS skater...)

sunshinepointe

10-13-2005, 08:34 PM

Rain

The ice was awful. I'm not talking "needs to be resurfaced" bad, I'm talking "coned off sections because you can't skate on them" bad. Apparently the Zamboni broke and scraped the ice in a number of places right down to the paint. Because of this, EVERYTHING was extra hard to do. Blech.

Shine

I started learning my layback tonight. It's not so much of a layback as it is a slight lean back with my arms up. My coach says I have decent position I just need to a) not drop my right shoulder (but that plagues me in everything) b) stay on the ball of the foot and c) lean back more. I have a very flexible back, it's just that the layback is just pretty scary. A girl at the rink says it's not as scary when you ACTUALLY do it right, but doing it halfway like I've been doing is terrifying. I don't see how leaning back MORE makes the layback less scary, but whatever. My coach got me on video so I could see the blasted thing so I know it didn't look TOO bad..but definitely not a "layback".

Despite the ice quality or lack thereof I held me own. I did a couple of very centered scratch and sit spins. My coach keeps yelling at me because I'm bending my free leg on the entry before the three turn. I lost my loop again, but towards the end of the session I realized where I left it and I did a couple of good, nice and high loops. Of course, my coach saw the ONE bad one I did. For some reason loops in combination have gone by the wayside, but I'm sure they'll come back - maybe when the ice is a little better (sure, blame the ice ;))

I landed a couple of great flips before the lesson then in the lesson I kept two footing the landing and then pretending like I landed it on one foot the whole time but my coach is smarter than that lol. Then he called some kids over to watch me work on it and I'm like oh gee, thanks. But then, bam, perfect flip.

I farted around with a couple of other things, mostly footwork and spirals and I was teaching one of the other adults how to do a 1 foot spin. It was a pretty good night, but not my best.

I'm pretty determined to do this layback since so far it looks halfway decent. I guess I just need to push the hips forward and layback, thus making it a layback. 8O

Hopefully by Saturday the ice will be back to normal - it's never "good" ice at my rink, but it's never this bad. And unfortunately the patches are right where our group lesson is.

I wish I could get the flip and the loop more consistent. It's like, one second they're great, the next not so much. I guess I could say that about ALL my skating though. That's why they call it practice, right? :roll:

mikawendy

10-13-2005, 10:37 PM

Rain
The ice was awful. I'm not talking "needs to be resurfaced" bad, I'm talking "coned off sections because you can't skate on them" bad.

Sorry to hear about the bad ice! We had one section at the rink I was at today that had a cone over it, but the rest of the ice was fine.

PERSUNNYNOVA: SALCHOW!!!!! I actually managed to do 3 correctly, without 2-footing it AND I have video proof AND was able to show another coach (who was skating at the rink)...AND did 2 CENTERED spins, one was 10 revolutions!!!!! Anything can happen tomorrow-I don't care! I may not be able to do it again-I don't care!

Skate@Delaware, congrats on your salchow and your spins! Can I borrow your salchow, pretty please? Mine has gone missing!!

Mrs Redboots

10-14-2005, 09:48 AM

Skate@Delaware - well done! I do hope they stay with you! Mine, alas, didn't. I had one session when I couldn't not land them, and they've never been so good since! Mind you, I haven't practiced them in a mighty long time....

Rain: We shouldn't have skated this morning! We were tired after dancing last night, and both of us really needed a day off. We should have had one, and then skated tomorrow, instead. Ah well, hindsight is a wonderful thing. As it was, neither of us could really face running through our free dance, so we ran through our two compulsories, and some exercises, and Husband ran through the 14-step, which he is doing solo.

After he'd gone, I ran through my solo compulsories, and tried to motivate myself to do my Dance Moves, but they weren't working, and frankly, I couldn't be *rs*d to try harder, so I came away at about 9.30!

Shine: Forgot to say that H & I actually stumbled and kicked our way through a Blues last night. So we ground to a halt for the Choctaw, so what? It was fun trying. "I think you're supposed to hold that back edge!" said the Husband. "I know, I fell off it!" said I...

This morning our Riverside Rhumba was okay, but we felt we weren't bending our knees quite enough in the inside swing rolls in the Golden Skaters' Waltz, and then I realised I wasn't extending behind enough, either, so we did a couple of laps of inside swing rolls in Kilian hold before having another go. We also worked on our runs (progressives) round the circle, but not the variable-speed ones (aka Evil Eights), which were fine in Kilian hold but awful in Reverse Kilian, which may just be lack of practice, but I did feel I was having trouble turning my torso into the circle, which may be me or may be him, or may be a combination! In any event, we need to ask our coach to look at them on Sunday.

And we did some swing rolls in waltz hold, which went a bit flat towards the end..... but then, we were tired!

Skate@Delaware

10-14-2005, 10:58 AM

Thanks for the kudos!

The Salchow has been a jump I've been struggling with for almost a whole year---sooooo, I'm gonna be a bit stingy and keep it until Wednesday night so I can show my coach, then I won't mind loaning it for a while :lol: So MikaWendy, you can have it on Thursday. I was so amazed that I thought I had done it-had to rewind the tape and watch again! :roll:

I'm glad my spins returned from their summer vacation! They are slowly returning to "center" mode. They could be better; and I keep looking down at the ice (yeah, at my tracing-bad habit) Sits are another story! (more like hunched-over squats).

Stay tuned for video links-Casey just got me fixed up!

TwirlGirl10

10-14-2005, 04:14 PM

Rain: My layback, its just not there. I don't see it coming back any time soon either :cry:
Shine: Well we replaced one of the axels in my program with a double sow (they are quite consistent now!!). I landed a double toe for the first time in about 3 weeks and secondary coach says we can start working on double loops and flips our next lesson!! So excited :D :D

Skate@Delaware

10-15-2005, 06:03 AM

Ice Show-Hubby and I got to the rink an hour before public skate began so we could run lighting checks for the show-how exciting! Felt like cheating to be on the ice with a video camera and street shoes! We tried some new spots and small floods for effect (overheads were off) and we really liked what we saw! The problem we had last year was not enough ambient lighting to offset flash from the main spotlights and it messed up the video quite a bit as well as making parts of the rink hard to see. So after class, we were talking to the new "girl" about the show (and she is going to take part in it) and we found out she used to to lighting for the roller rink productions! (and costumes!) She loaned us her services! Yay! I love adults! Next week she is bringing in pics of the costumes she has made. Cool!

Group lessons last night:
Shine: warmed (as always) with edges, these are getting better, although slowly (esp back inside). Then we worked on "Moves" and the power perimeter things...forwards was something I've been doing during warmups and public sessions (dodging people). Just not to the level of finesse expected for moves.

We ended the lesson with "pick a flavor" jumps-show the coach your jumps and I was able to Salchow again! Advice given-look over left shoulder and it will help with the follow through (yup, it works).

Rain: the back perimeter things-took a bit more coordination than I had last night! (post-migraine/medication jitters)

Mrs Redboots

10-16-2005, 12:18 PM

Rain: Coach wants to change our lesson from Sunday mornings to some time during the week, as he has a pupil who can only come then, and he has loads of free time during the week. I actually think we'll do quite well out of this deal, but said very firmly that we need our lesson next week since he will be away this week at the Scottish Championships.

Other than that, not much dire except that we can't spin. Oh, and Husband's solo 14-step - the annoying thing is that he can do it so much better than that, and I ended up wondering if he actually realised the music was playing! I'm going to put all the 14-step music I have (only about 4 tunes, and I'm not sure how many of them are ISU) on to a CD for him!

Shine: He was actually complimentary about our British Waltz! At least if, "It was a very great deal better than I thought it would be!" can be interpreted as complimentary. I've told him I want to work on it with him next lesson (not this week) as it is the step to forward that is dire.

He looked at our Riverside Rhumba and basically we need to make more of a distinction between the long steps and the short ones (like a tango, he said, but more sinuous! Bum-waggle time, I dare say!). The thing is, it's lovely to be close enough to our opposition now not to have to feel he's got to tear it all down and rebuild it again in a couple of weeks! Mind you, having kept the same dances all season has helped enormously. Not like working for the Mountain Cup and having to get these two AND our free dance up and running at the same time!

Coach was pleased with our free dance, too, although I wasn't, very! Not a bad mistake, but we are still having trouble coming out of the spin into Kilian hold, and I was annoyed about this and messed up the next steps, but the rest was okay.

Oh, and Husband has been working on his spins in order to take up a challenge from one of the other British men to compete against him at age-group Bronze III at next year's Mountain Cup (actually, I think it will be called Bronze IV by then - but as the Husband pointed out, rather crossly, he will only be 55, not in the 56-til-death class!). So I've promised to cut him some music and help him choreograph it before his coach takes over to tweak it! Am I daft, or what? Better get that done this winter before I have to start working on our free dance for next year.....

*JennaD*

10-16-2005, 02:12 PM

Shine:

I had a really good lesson yesterday! I started to practice the elements that I will need for my competition next month...and I found out that my new music will be from the Titanic!
My dance also really improved because I had a longer dance lesson...I am finally closer to the right tempo for the dance!

Rain:

I think one of the elements for the comp. is the camel spin, which I am so horrible at 8O ...oh well I guess I will have to do it! I was also too lazy to try any axels yesterday. :??

jazzpants

10-16-2005, 02:38 PM

I think lately my skating is like the weather in NYC the past week... :cry:

Rain:

Too crowded. I may have to start going into Christmas mode and skate mornings on Saturday... and I HATE SKATING MORNINGS!!! :evil:
For about a good 10 minutes during my lesson, I had lost the RFI mohawks, so had to stop working on them and work on something else.
Loops and flips... if I would just land ONE of these jump on one foot and stay landed on one foot, I'll be so happy... :frus:
Need more speed on my program... and it's hard to practice that when you have about 50-60 rugrats running amok!!! :frus:
Shine:

Got the 'ol FI mohawks back after the ice cut in spades!!! Zipped along on those 5 step mohawks... :D
I managed to speed up my weaker side power 3's just a tad. Cleaned up my RFO3's so I was able to flow thru them for the most part. Now to speed up the intro-3's...
Lutz - I came close to landing ONE cleanly... but didn't get enough speed to continue gliding, so had to step out. :frus: But happy that I'm getting close on this jump...

sunshinepointe

10-16-2005, 05:13 PM

Rain I missed my regular Saturday group lesson because of a final that I had to take for college. Blech. So, I went today instead - it WAS less crowded.

But there were also less people I knew there. While that's great usually I like when other adults are there. If I fall and break something I feel a lot better knowing competent people are there instead of a bunch of kids. But whatever.

I don't know what's going on with my spins, but I must be doing something funky in the entry. In fact I can FEEL that the entry into my spins just isn't right but I'm not sure what the problem is. I almost feel as if I'm snapping into the spin too soon after the three turn and it's throwing me off balance so the rest of the spin I'm struggling to find a center that can't be found from jump. My sit spins are the worst reflection of this - I can't even hang onto a sit spin anymore if it starts travelling. I showed my coach this issue on Thursday but he said it's just blade control. Personally I think it's something bigger. I'll just have to figure out what it is. Nevertheless my one foot spins, scratch spins, sit spins, camel spins (lol) all travelled and as tempted as I was to work on my layback, with the no-adult, no-coach situation combined with my crappy spinning as of late I thought better of it. I did make a couple of lame attempts but I kept chickening out at the last minute. Probably better off this way. 8O

For whatever reason, the ability to do combo jumps has totally left me. I can do great singles now, but if I say okay, flip-toe loop, the flip stinks. So, I try telling myself do a good flip and if it's okay, then add a toe, but my body still knows better. But if I just do a flip, it's fine. Same thing with the loop. Loops alone were great today, but if I tried a loop-loop, or even waltz-loop, GAH.

I wanted to talk to the skating director about signing up for the club but she wasn't there today. Boo. :cry:

Shine They seemed to fix the ice. The ice LOOKS absolutely terrible, but at least it was skateable. I swear my rink is so run down its not even funny. Like, I know it's hard to make money when there are like 6 other major competing rinks within a 50 mile radius, but considering they JUST did the ice a couple of months ago you'd think it would look that way. Okay, end rant.

I started doing walk-through choreography for my duet piece with my friend. I need to bring the actual music, so my boyfriend is setting up my old ipod and I just bought new cute sony earphones that won't fall off while jumping or spinning. You should have seen me in the store spinning as fast as I could and doing waltz jumps and loop jumps to see if it would withstand my average skating. People were looking, but I didn't care. In any event, it should be cute. I'm excited to really start working on it.

As I mentioned before all of my single jumps were great today. I didn't work on the lutz though because it was a little too crowded. I wish I had tried though since the rest of my jumps were so good today.

I did great spirals today. I can usually do pretty good spirals, but I felt like Sasha doing these. People were staring as I zoomed around the rink with great speed, HIGH extension, good turnout. Nice!

Oddly enough I was able to do forward swing rolls without a problem today. Backwards ones were giving me a problem. Not that I need to have either of them perfected for quite some time but I found that oddly refreshing.

That's pretty much it. I didn't stay very long today but I got in some good practice. I just need to figure out what on earth is going on with my spins. Especially my beloved sit spin. Grrr. :x

slusher

10-16-2005, 05:30 PM

Rain:
But it was my fault. I went to a party the night before, ate and drank too much (and left my contacts in too long) then skated at 7am the next morning.

No jumps were seen leaving the ground and spins were, mmmm, it was a good thing I didn't try. Although I didn't have a lesson, coach was nagging me to do things. So I held up the boards, that was my biggest achievement.

Shine
I'm trying to think of something that worked.

thinking.....

I've got my footwork steps memorized. Can't do them well, but at least I'm remembering them.

Next week will be better as I ruminate on the fact that my brain thinks I'm 21 again and my body reminds me that I'm twice that.

Skate@Delaware

10-16-2005, 08:05 PM

Went to the adults-only (ok, they lowered the age limit to 16) session with my daughter. So, we had a good time. Someone (hockey guy I'm told) broke the cd player in the box, so we had to give the cd up front (boo!) they played it REALLY LOUD!!!

Rain: I was really tired from working around the house this weekend (yes, I actually did stuff! Cleaned out the basement & got rid of about 1,000 pounds of stuff! 1/2 to donations, the rest was TRASH (can u say clean-sweep!). Anyway, I couldn't seem to get low enough for sit-spins...Oh, well. Show rehearsal came too early this am.

Shine: Salchow was still here! Yay! And, my waltz was cool because I could feel myself pushing off the toepick (even though I didn't push up that hard from the knee-I'm sooo tired). My spiral is very high! My skates are sharp now so things should be good (edges & spins).

And, I'm going to get new skates (again!)!!!! As soon as I find a brand I like (or stay with Jacksons). I will try some on at the pro-shop at Aston (I recall they had SP-Teris and Reidells in stock) when I go up for Halloween Classic. My feet are just swimming in these skates! :giveup:

kiwibabe

10-16-2005, 08:51 PM

Shine: Had my first competition on Thursday, South Island Masters games. I got a gold for my edges and stroking, silver for ice dance (dutch waltz, only had 2 practices for it), and our sync team got silver (and there were 3 teams in the competition!). It was heaps of fun.

Rain: My husband fell at the end of his novice program and banged up his knee and has a possible scaphoid fracture to his right wrist. He got a bronze for his program and silver in our sync team. He's feeling pretty sore and disappointed, I don't know what to say to him to make him feel better. The doctor didn't want to put a cast on his wrist so he's making do with a support bandage. Any suggestions with the wrist?

sceptique

10-17-2005, 04:25 AM

Shine:

Passed Skate UK Passport Silver and 2 elements from Gold.

Starter working on my programme - it's amazing how you get carried away when elements start feel like a whole!

Salchow is now rock solid.

Rain:

It seems like when I fix one spin problem, three more come to take its place. There are some marginal improvements but I'm still waiting for that "aha" moment.

And I can't get a clean loop no matter what. I have a good aproach, but then "take-off panic" just messes everything up. Actually, the best ones I landed so ar were during public sessions with crowds and dashing kids around. I was just so tired that I simply didn't care if I fall or crash with someone - and landed a few that were very close to clean. Surely, couldn't repeat them next morning on empty ice.

sk8pics

10-17-2005, 06:20 AM

Shine: Rain: My husband fell at the end of his novice program and banged up his knee and has a possible scaphoid fracture to his right wrist. He got a bronze for his program and silver in our sync team. He's feeling pretty sore and disappointed, I don't know what to say to him to make him feel better. The doctor didn't want to put a cast on his wrist so he's making do with a support bandage. Any suggestions with the wrist?

I'm sorry to hear about that! I have heard that scaphoid fractures are touchy and need to be handled just right in order to preserve the blood supply to the bone. So my advice is to make sure you have a good orthopedist!

Pat

blue111moon

10-17-2005, 07:42 AM

Like the weather the weekend was mostly rain, with a few moments of party sunny.

Rain: Thursday night I managed to pull something in my left heel/achilles tendon area on a loop jump. It felt like pins jabbed into my leg just above the heel. At the end of my lesson, I got off, took off the skate and iced the area for about an hour (during a club meeting). It felt decent to walk on on Friday but skating on it was - odd. So I did spins on the right foot and kept most of my weight off the left and it was pretty good.

Except that I had to teach my adult class afterward and it's pretty tough to teach marching and snowplow stops on one foot. In the middle of forward sculling, I slipped off the heels and went BOOM on my backside. :oops: Which led to incorporating Falling For Adults 101 into the lesson. :D

Sunday morning skating was iffy since I didn't know how my foot was going to feel. Turned out it was okay as long as I didn't do loops. I spent a lot of time stroking and spinning with a few jump attempts sprinkled in between.
Not a total waste of ice time but not super-productive either. Went home and spent the afternoon with ice packs and Ben Gay.

I'm on vaction this week so my foot with have seven days to heal before I skate again.

Joan

10-17-2005, 08:29 AM

Rain: Well, we need some rain here in Arkansas. We have not had any since the remnants of Katrina came through. In skating, I have been in new boots for the last week, so I have not been able to do much other than try to break them in.

Shine: I love the new boots (custom Harlicks) and I think they are going to work out really well. I'm planning to get back to normal skating activities this week.

Hannahclear

10-17-2005, 04:54 PM

Rain:

I am still having alot of trouble on the transitions on power 3s and back perimeter power stroking. I know that it's because I am weak on back inside edges. I'll keep working on it, but it's frustrating.

Anyone have any exercises for strengthening the back inside edge?

Other rain, I finally got my skates sharpened. It's been well over a year. Maybe more like two, I don't remember. First of all, I solemnly VOW to get them sharpened once every other month from now on. I like totally promise. It's just not worth it. Anyway, I can mostly do what I'm used to now that I've skated on the sharpened blades twice, but I feel a little stuck on jumps still.

Shine:

5 Step Mohawk pattern was pretty respectable. I also feel like I'm getting there on back crossovers to back outside edges.

doubletoe

10-17-2005, 05:33 PM

mikawendy

10-17-2005, 08:43 PM

Shine--
Went to a nice double session on Saturday and got to run thru my program 2x (once cruddy, once better) and there was lots of room for MIF practice.

Then last night, I had a really good practice and skated my program the cleanest I've ever skated it. It was *so* much fun--I felt like I was taking my time with each element. I really really want to skate it that way in competition. Right now I'm tinkering with bits to clean it up and hopefully ramp up the jump content a little (but I don't want to put in things that I'm not consistent on yet...)

Also did two patterns of the backward power perimeter stroking, pushing the hardest I ever had on them. After the second time round, my thighs were burning!!

Rain--
My spins are all wonky--still haven't recovered from vacation....

Kiwibabe--I hope your husband is feeling better soon!

Skate@Delaware

10-18-2005, 06:38 AM