Merci, or no thanks May 15-21

[flo]

In honor of the Mountain Cup

Merci: Felt well enough to get to practice last night! Took an edge class with Mika - hadn't taken one in eons. It was a great warm up for the FS session. Worked on my interp and bits from the pairs program. I'll be leaving tomorrow!

No thanks: still need to pack! I think I'm going back to my Harlicks after this event. My Jacksons still blister my feet and just don't fit.

[Mrs Redboots]

still need to pack! I wish you hadn't said that......

See you on Thursday!

[*JennaD*]

Merci:

I did my skills without messing up and I actually skated FAST ENOUGH!! I'm also getting new skates soon:P And my axel is a bit better!

No Thanks:

Well this doesnt really have to do much with my skating, but there's a girl at my rink who I met recently and she is really mean! She talks behind everyone's back about how well they skate and thinks she's better than everyone..and she's no Olympic skater herself! Anyway i've heard what she's said about me ...and its not exactly good lol so I thought it would fit into this "No Thanks" section...:!:

[jshbo724]

Merci:

I get my new skates tomorrow, and get to skate in them on Wednesday!!

No thanks:

I have to break in super deluxe sp-teris................ yuck.

~Jess

[Skittl1321]

Merci: Signed up for Lessons (Basic 5) starting June 12.

No Thanks: No ice until June 12 :(

[Terri C]

Merci:
My backscrach was good today. Now where oh where did it go at May Day when I needed it most?

No thanks:
Now it's going to be a long hard haul to get the Bronze moves to passing. Today, Coach took apart my forward and back crossovers. In addition to that, she told me that I still need to train the freeskate program even though I have no plans to compete again until November.

[Rusty Blades]

Merci Another good session tonight - nothing new but constant progress with “things old”. I had a lot of fun stringing two-footed turns together in various combinations and found out that 4 half-turns in quick succession makes me dizzy 8O

Tonight’s lesson was a bit of everything from forward stroking to forward/backward stroking on the circle with two-footed turns in between. When I started throwing in combinations of turns on the circle (smartass!), my coach commented “Hum, you’ve got some footwork going there . . .” :mrgreen: Well heck, it’s finally become FUN again now that I have enough “basic skills” to start mixing things up!

Tabernac! I really DO have to straighten out my LFO edges - MUST figure out what I am doing different that makes the LFO so much worse than the RFOs . . . I also want to get my backward edges better so I can add one foot turns! When that comes together, I will have reached my September goal :-)

[AW1]

Merci : Had a mental health day off work today so went to the rink for 3 hours :) I worked on the preliminary pattern along with those darned mohawks which (miracle of miracles) I can still do left-right after discovering them on Sunday... Also it's my little girls 5th Birthday today so we're going out for dinner!

No thanks : Am sick - have the flu or something so I'm achey and horrid. My new skates STILL have not arrived, and the rink manager did a very good impression of Harry Houdini whenever I was around :twisted: And I still can't get my right-left mohawk ---- have conceited that it may never come since I really feel an issue with my hip when trying it :giveup:

[jazzpants]

No thanks!!!

Well, apparently, I did NOT get the test session I had signed up for. The schedule is really crowded and they didn't have enough room for me to test on the session. The problem I have with this is... I had signed up for this test back late April and the test was supposed to be for early June. At this point, I don't even know whether the test chair has my test forms and check and just didn't have the room to put me in the test, or whether he just didn't get my test forms. (My check has not been cashed yet...)

Needless to say, I'm not happy about it... but I guess the bright side is that I have an extra month to prepare for the Bronze Moves test and I definitely should be ready for the test then... but :frus: (I really want to get this Moves test over and done with. I have other things I want to work on this summer... like my Bronze FS test!!! 8O )

Merci...
In other news, I guess I'm not as stressed about the upcoming test session, (since I'm NOT on the list :twisted: ), my 5 step mohawks were pretty good tonight at the beginning of the session. I made a point of working on the extension, lowering the arms, and "neat feet." My power 3's weren't too bad tonight, FWIW. And pretty decent forward crossovers too for that matter (well...decent for me anyway... I don't want any chance of WeirFan06 putting me on the spot again with my coaches...) :twisted: :lol: :P

Update on my "No Thanks!"

Seems that our Mayor's Hockey Program is our bottleneck. The program took away an hour of our club time! :twisted: (Not that I'm against hockey, but couldn't they do it Saturday afternoon between the late afternoon and the night time session, since most of our hockey stuff is in the late afternoon, early evening anyway??? The kids would certain enjoy sleeping in... :?? ) Lucky for the club, it's temporary and the club will get back their hour by mid-June. And I hope our Mayor will be kind enough to donate to our Skating Club financially too.

The Test Chair says that he has a HUGE backlog of skaters looking to skate back in May and couldn't get in the June test session either. So he's looking into either doing another test session the following week, or have it in the afternoon, which would be MY preferred option, since I skate much better afternoons and early evenings.

[Hannah]

Merci: One-foot spin (scratch spin?) in my group lesson today. AWESOME! :mrgreen: I only went around a couple times before going back on my heel, but it was really COOL.

I can sort of do a 3-turn too. Sometimes. On two feet. (baby steps?) ;)

No thanks: Every time I skate, I want to skate all the time. Given the rink schedule and my low skill at waking up at 6:30am, I end up skating twice a week + the lesson. I should buy a couple more alarm clocks...

[Hannah]

Well this doesnt really have to do much with my skating, but there's a girl at my rink who I met recently and she is really mean! She talks behind everyone's back about how well they skate and thinks she's better than everyone..and she's no Olympic skater herself! Anyway i've heard what she's said about me ...and its not exactly good lol so I thought it would fit into this "No Thanks" section...:!:

You know, maybe it is because I'm skating only with adults, or maybe my rink is full of nice people, or maybe I just haven't been around long enough, but I've managed to avoid the nasty attitudes that I occasionally hear go hand-in-hand with skating. I guess there are bad apples in any sport.

This girl you are talking about is probably insecure with herself and her own skating- it is a pretty common phenomenon among people who put down everyone around them. :??

[Thin-Ice]

No thanks:

I have to break in super deluxe sp-teris................ yuck.

~Jess

TWO WORDS FOR YOU: Bunga Pads!

[bbowie]

Merci:Work on my camel change camel and camel jump camel ( for flying camel) and axel today. Seems a little tiny bit better than last friday! And i have my afternoon off tomorrow ( no school YEAH!) so i can go skating. And i didnt fall down too much today which is a good news cos my butts was so hurt for like the last 2 weeks which i kept falling everyday on the same spots.

no thanks : fell on my backspin! Silly me.And that hurts!Cant figure out how to do 3jump backspin. Kept doing 3jump turn turn n turns. My coach said cant really try axel til i get the 3jump backspin. Cos she said i would fall on my face if doing those turns in the air.

[Mrs Redboots]

Merci: Not a long session this morning as we are tapering down for the MC. Before our lesson, Husband ran through his programme (and landed his loop jump, but 2-footed his cherry flip. "Right in front of the judges!" as he said). Then we did some of our work on ice-coverage, and on our spin, but mostly played about with things like bracket-3s that we haven't worked on for ages.

In our lesson we ran through all four dances, and then Husband ran off to catch his train, so I ran through my Artistic as I had a few minutes of the lesson left. Tomorrow we will also do run-throughs, and the next time we skate after that will be on the 4:00 pm practice-session at Villard-de-Lans on Thursday! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Plus I'm now more or less packed, except for the self-catering stuff & the last-minute things.

No Thanks: Coach is being way pickier than he used to be, but I think that's a good sign really! Did a rather poor Cha-cha, as went off-pattern - spent some time working on the end pattern of it.

Husband is nervous - and I'm just beginning to feel that way, more at the thought of driving on what, for me, is the "wrong" side of the road, than about skating. But that, too!

[phoenix]

No Thanks: I've been buying stones for my new dress, since I decided to stone it myself so I can get more creative w/ how to do it. Man, they're expensive! I've spent $20.00 so far on ebay, & I need at least 3 more colors. There's no where to buy them locally around here, so I always do it online--I think for the rest I won't do ebay though; the prices aren't much better & in a lot of cases, they're actually more! Glad I did my research.

And before I do it, I need to give thought to how coach has hold of me throughout the dance, so he won't be knocking them all back off again. :lol:

Merci: Tomorrow I don't have a lesson, so that will be my day to really get back into the swing of things & start *skating* again. Saw my chiropractor yesterday, who also does massage & PT work, and feel much better! He worked out a lot of kinks in my lower back & shoulders, & fixed something in my neck that made my headache go away. Yay! And the whiplash soreness in the front of my neck is nearly gone today too.

And can I just say, I love my twizzle sequence! I'm proud of myself for being able to do it (did NOT think I could when it was choreographed), and it's getting more consistent & *slightly* faster.

[PattyP]

Merci: In the month following AN, I started over completely and relearned my lutz. I'm happy to report that it's finally fixed! Lutz, lutz-loop, lutz-loop-loop...all no problem now! I was terrified of that jump 2 months ago. My axel has been very consistant too. I am now able to focus my efforts on finally mastering a double jump and making some progress.

My bum leg seems to be holding up and I'm now able to do camel spins again after 6 month break from it and I think they are better than they were before.

No Thanks: Still haven't landed a clean double yet... :frus:

[becky_girl]

Tabernac!


Too funny! ... Ahem, technically spelling that would be "tabernacle" :P
However, I do see that you're doing the actual pronounciation! YEAH! hee hee.

Isn't Québécois swearing easy? Just use a religious symbol or expression.

English? Body parts or bodily functions.

Interesting to think about eh? :lol: Vive la difference!

[Rusty Blades]

I was wondering if anybody was going to pick up on that Becky :twisted: I grew up in the tobacco fields of Ontario and could swear in four languages by the time I started school 8O I also lived in Quebec for a year and a bit back in the early 1970's.

I tried to pick a French cuss word that was fit for mixed company :roll:

[cutiesk8r43]

Merci:
had a great skate today! worked on my program and did it good, coach thinks i am ready for my competition this saturday:D 8O

No thanks:
skatng tomorrow and hoping i will have a good skate too

~Cutie;)

[AW1]

Tabernac!


Too funny! ... Ahem, technically spelling that would be "tabernacle" :P


LOL and here I was thinking a Tabernacle is a type of church :roll: stupid aussies! LOL

[2salch0w]

Merci: Had a great time working with a professional choreographer for the first time on my pairs program. Really loving how the program is coming together. Landed our first sbs axels (she always gets it, but I finally got one), and it was during a run through. Death spirals are getting addictive.

No thanks: So busy moving this week that there's no time to skate.

[Mrs Redboots]

Merci: Final runthrough with the coach before the Mountain Cup! Did the Dutch Waltz (okay, but with some timing issues) and the Swing Dance - at long last we're filling the rink with it, but there is a very great deal of room for improvement. It would not, I understand, be passable yet.

Then we ran through our solo programmes, his free & my interpretive. It was the first time the coach had seen his free programme in full, and he was very complimentary, saying the basic skating was great, but the elements were not just so good. My own runthrough went okay, too.

No thank you: Had trouble getting the music, so couldn't run through all 4 dances, but we had done that yesterday so it didn't really matter.

And next time we set blade to ice will be tomorrow afternoon at Villard-de-Lans!

[becky_girl]

LOL and here I was thinking a Tabernacle is a type of church :roll: stupid aussies! LOL

Close... A Tabernacle is the 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 feet wooden box (all fancy schmancy with velvet inside) that holds the "chalice" (cup with 'hosts' , a.k.a. little thin tasteles cardboard wafers for communion).

Like I said, swearing in Québecois slang is easy: Just pick a religious thing or expression. Teeeee-heee!:lol: :lol: :lol:

"Chalice" is actually also a swear word in Québecois... Pronounced "Kah-LISS!" LOL!!!

For instance, A string on the occasion of stubbing your toe really hard (REALLY hard though!) (careful, u don't wanna over do it & risk looking like a heathen! lol) would be:
"Tabernac, d'hostie d'chalice!!!!!!!!!" (the middle one is 'host' -- the wafer communion thingie).

I love my half & half Quebec background. Dad's 'english' Mom's 'french' --- I could sing that Cher song... LOL!!

Ah yes..WACKY-TOBACKY in Ontario fields! The summer job .. tee hee!

[Rusty Blades]

No Becky, the "wacky tobaccie" is the stuff that no one ever sees. The green stuff in the fields is just regular tobacco - not that I would know the difference. No, not me - I am as straight laced as they come :roll:

[jazzpants]

No thanks:

My power 3's is faster, but I still have the choctaw problems!!! GRRRRR!!!! :frus:
Back crossovers to BO edge needs more extension!!! She took me off ice to show how much extension she wants from me. By the time she was done, I felt like I'm being pull and prodded in all directions and it's VERY UNCOMFORTABLE!!! I jokingly asked if this is some sort of ancient Chinese torture or something. :twisted:
Didn't get that much time to work on 5 steps...but I got homework to do on that!Merci:

My perimeter crossovers (both first and second move) were pretty good overall. She loves the flow and the speed.
Back crossovers to BO edge was okay speed wise.

[AW1]

Ok so I checked out the meaning of a tabernacle out here.. now I don't feel so stupid!! I just never heard of it as a swear word before.

tabernacle

(1.) A house or dwelling-place (Job 5:24; 18:6, etc.).

(2.) A portable shrine
(comp. Acts 19:24) containing the image of Moloch (Amos 5:26; marg. and R.V.,
"Siccuth").

(3.) The human body (2 Cor. 5:1, 4); a tent, as opposed to a
permanent dwelling.

(4.) The sacred tent (Heb. mishkan, "the dwelling-place");
the movable tent-temple which Moses erected for the service of God, according
to the "pattern" which God himself showed to him on the mount (Ex. 25:9; Heb.
8:5). It is called "the tabernacle of the congregation," rather "of meeting",
i.e., where God promised to meet with Israel (Ex. 29:42);

[jshbo724]

Merci: New skates are awesome!!! I can't believe the difference they make!!! Whenever I was breaking them in today, I was doing millions of waltz jumps, and I couldn't believe how the toe pic actually helped launch me into the air!!! (THANK YOU CORONATION ACE BLADES!!! lol) I can't wait until they're broken in so I can FINALLY start learning my axel and doubles. I've been held back until I have gotten my skates, my others were crap and wouldn't hold up. Now I can move on!!

No thanks: OMG!!! Breaking in skates HURTS like heck!!!! I was in SOOOO much pain today. I'm DEFINITELY getting bunga pads on friday, they're just so darned expensive, but they're worth it I guess. Ugh...... :giveup:

~Jess

[Terri C]

No Thanks:
The very minute I got on the ice today, I was served notice by both coaches that unless I was on my LFI edge consistently on the R over L power crossovers, I will not re-take Bronze moves. Apparently at our club's test session yesterday, the judges were ruthless!!

Merci:
Am back in Secondary Coach's Moves torture chamber and the moves are not that bad and finally got the idea of what needs to be on the forward power perim!!

[phoenix]

merci: After last week's horrific fall & subsequent cautiousness, I felt MUCH better today as an overall experience--much of the fear is gone & I was much more confident and comfortable again. I went through my program several times at a reasonable clip & also went through my Kilian a bunch of times. I have one more day to skate before my lesson on Friday, & I think I'll be ready by then to really dive (oops, bad choice of words there) back in.

No Thanks: Still have some residual issues from the fall--tweaky back, sore muscles, and some weirdness with the quad muscle in one leg that left me unable to lift it straight up today. Spent the evening with heat on my back and ice on my leg! :lol:

But the other good thing is today my chiropractor asked if I'd be interested in bartering our time, which I jumped on fast--so that will help a lot with my budget. I Lurves my chiropractor.......:halo:

[jazzpants]

But the other good thing is today my chiropractor asked if I'd be interested in bartering our time, which I jumped on fast--so that will help a lot with my budget. I Lurves my chiropractor.......:halo:Your chiro is your student??? If so... SWEET!!! :mrgreen:

[phoenix]

Your chiro is your student??? If so... SWEET!!! :mrgreen:

I wish! I'd train him up right & turn him into my dance partner!! (he's one of the 6 men on the planet who's taller than me.... :roll: )

No this is for my other "real life" career; I'm a graphic artist & I'm going to help him w/ some website stuff.

[looplover]

Merci: I passed my ISI freestyle 4 test despite never having done the program all the way through before AND a deltoid injury...and missing most of the jumps (but did them in compulsories). :lol:

I'll join U.S. Figure Skating when I get the axel, I think, but that leads me to.....

No thanks: I am quite rapidly running out of money to fund my figure skating and may have to quit right when I'm starting to get good :cry:

oops, I should have posted this in last week's thread, sorry! (I'm a newbie) :)

[Rusty Blades]

Merci Reasonable skate last night, despite being dog-tired - didn't lose much - didn't gain much either.

N'aboutir à rien Only 2 more session, 4 hours, and I am off the ice until 4 July :cry: Going into withdrawl! :( Suffering skate deprivation! :??

[quarkiki2]

Merci: Skated my lesson last night instead of Saturdy morning because my coach had a conflict. By the time I got there, I only had about half my normal warm-up time, but started right in on my one-foot spin, move on to jumps and finally on to turns. Then coach got out there and suddenly, quark has a one foot spin -- five or six in a row, even! Now I'm to work on pulling in to the scratch position. Coach even said "It looks like a spin, too!" Wonder what my previous attempts looked like...

Moved on to jumps. Started with the 1/2 lutz, which I actually did ont the first try. Then 1/2 flip -- my "money" jump because I can get that one every time I try. Did some two-footed toe loops, but was landing mainly on the RBO with a slight touchdown with the left foot. Coach laughed and wanted to know if I needed some more torture, then we started working ont he 1/2 loop. And I did that, too! So, apparently Saturday mornings are the issue... Some work on outside spread eagles, my leading foot grabs the outside edge for a minescule bit of a second, then I get my weight wierd and I fall onto the inside edge. It's not a problem with my turnout as my hips do turn out more than 180 degrees, so more practice is required.

No thanks: Spirals. What the??? These use to be a good move for me, but I had a funky slip at work involving the plastic carpet protector under my chair and a hyper-extended left knee and now I'm all wobbly and unsure on that side and my right side is my weak side naturally. It's not that I'm not hitting the position -- my free leg gets as high as my shoulders, it's that my coach knows I'm more flexible than that and should be able to get my leg above my head -- especailly since off-ice, I can do a vertical split at the wall.

And no-freakin-thanks: Gave myself a nasty, nasty gash on my right thumb when a plate I was washing snapped in two on Saturday evening. So now I have four stitchs in my right thumb crease. And I'm left had stupid. Not sure how I got my skates tied, LOL!!

[sunshinepointe]

Haven't posted here in a bit but I've had a couple of good days so... :)

Yesterdays lesson went well. We started off on spins at my request because I hadn’t worked on spins at all in such a long time. Went through two foot, scratch, backspin, sit and camel. Spinning was very off - but again haven’t practiced it at all so that’s probably part of the reason. Then we worked on jumps - ran through everything up to the flip and closed with the waltz 8 and 3 turn pattern for good measure.

Spins weren’t the best like I said, but I did realize a lot of the mistakes I was making and coach helped me fix a couple of things - namely my shoulders tend to get all out of whack throwing me off my center, and I’m not using my leg properly, i.e. not pressing down with the free foot. I tend to leave the free foot turned out as well, and it needs to be pretty much turned in. On the sit spin, I need to not keep my legs SO close together and only wait half a turn before sitting - once the leg comes around, its time to sit. My camel entry was way off - I wasn’t really rounding the edge and having a hard time getting into the spin…started to fix it but it still needs work. Stupid camel :P

We moved on to jumps. coach noted that the biggest thing with my waltz jump is that I’m so stiff going into it - and I don’t disagree at all. I try to relax and just let the jump happen but at the last second I freak out. I know it would be much better if I wasn’t so fearful but something about that jump makes me crazy. Salchows weren’t bad, although I need to work on the transition to make it less scrapy, and some better flow would be nice. On the toe loop I just need to concentrate on stepping “up and through” with the free leg.

Loops were next - biggest problem was that I was prerotating the upper body too much first, so I need to think about bringing the arms in only after initiating the jump. The other big thing is to keep the shoulders back and keep the chest lifted going into it. Then onto flips - I’m starting to get the feeling of the flip back, although I’m not really getting how to draw the foot back to make sure that its crossed, so I’ll need to really concentrate on that.

The waltz 8 pattern and 3 turn patterns weren’t bad, just need to clean up the 3 turns, remember to keep placement and have good strong checks of the arms. Also on waltz 8, count the beats to stay with placement.

Yesterdays lesson was capped off with this conversation:

Coach: I want you to consider something - just planting the seed in your head…I was at the State Games competition and just to let you know you’re far better than other skaters in Pre-Bronze and even some Bronze.
Me: Errr…
C: I think it would be something you’d do very well in
M: I did it before and it didn’t go to well….I dunno I’ve thought about it now that I have more experience and a better coach but I’m so competitive with myself and if I don’t skate very well I’ll be really upset…and I tend to put all this unwarranted pressure on me and I dunno, its just not good skating karma.
C: I’m not saying you have to I’m just saying you’d do well
M: Let me pass a couple tests and get some things a little more consistent and then we’ll talk about it in the future…I’m not totally ruling it out, I just don’t know if its something I really want to do

And that was pretty much it - on one hand I’m flattered my coach thinks I’d be extremely competitive with other skaters at my level, but on the other hand I remember how the last competition went and…I guess I’m not over it yet.

So after that I stuck around and kept working on flips and backspins mostly, just loving being on the ice. (And mind you, I was ON the ice a lot…many a fall)

Today: I had to warm up so coach had me do one legged squat type things on the circle on an outside edge. My legs felt like jelly by the time we were done, but it proved a point - I’m out of shape lol. Coach suggested I use that exercise to warm up every time I’m on the ice. Okay :roll:

After that she wanted to teach me some footwork - footwork is cool, so yay! She wanted to show me how to do double 3 turns. Eeep. A little scary, I have to admit. I’m not totally comfy with back inside 3 turns yet and at first I kept doing back outside 3’s. Eventually I got the jist of it and when I worked on them after the lesson they started to get some semblance of rhythm. We also worked on the other footwork pattern, with the forward inside 3 turn/cross front/back inside 3 turn and that was better since I had worked on that before. Most important thing I need to remember is to keep my weight in the heel/stay off the toe. These will come - apparently they’re hard to get so I was pleased with what I accomplished.

We moved onto jumps and same problems with stiffness in the waltz jump today, although it was a bit better. Went on to do a salchow and aside from a little scratchies on the landing the jump itself was good - I even checked the 3, imagine that! From there we went to the toe loop, and I finally got the knee up/leg through concept. On all of these jumps I was really looking down at the ice, or rather my legs to see what they were doing. Need to get used to looking up!

Loops were strange today…they weren’t “bad” but they weren’t good and surprisingly my loop-loop was better than my loop in isolation. Pulling the shoulders back really helped too, imagine that! We touched on flips at the end of the lesson but again, same problem getting the placement of the soon-to-be-free foot.

I worked on my own for a bit and got some help from a wonderful, experienced/seasoned teacher on the flip - I think I definitely have the whole how to pick in the foot thing, and starting to get the other components too. In fact once he showed me how to pick in properly I got some good spring on the jump. Now it’s just getting that free foot placement :frus:

Oh - I forgot to mentioned that we worked on spirals today for a bit. I went and did a very nice LFO spiral and coach was SO impressed. She made me do it again and then on the other foot and said “that’s it, you’re competing JUST so you can put that in a program”. Heh. I don’t think that’ll get me to do it but it certainly didn’t hurt my ego to hear her say that. I do love spirals. Just gotta remember to get the position down every time…I tend to forget to turn out the foot until the very end sometimes when I’m concentrating on straightening the skating knee.

So all in all it was a couple of really good skating days for me, and I was pretty happy to be back on the ice. I might try to go for a public session this weekend with a friend if she wants to go just to keep working on those couple of other things.

[jazzpants]

No thanks!!!

Not a good day to go ice skating today...

I don't know what's with me today but I just don't have the energy to go thru anything. Part of the problem was that I didn't have as much time as I would like to warm up before my lesson. (I was held up at a work meeting and the second that I left the meeting, I made a mad dash to the rink for my lesson.) Legs felt heavy. My lower back felt numb and I just didn't have the ummph to go thru all the moves. The only thing I could think of that might have contribute to this is that I was tired from last night's gym workout.

Merci:

The one good thing is that on the perimeter back crossovers I still maintained speed even though I had to dodge a couple of people. (No, the rink wasn't crowded. If anything it's better than FS the past couple of weeks. Just there are "casual skaters" that I have to watch out for.)
We worked on spin entry, which is still kinda wacky, but not bad.
A nice LOOOOOONG shower and a good evening's well deserved rest from all the physical activities I've gone thru all week. (No gym tonight! Gonna be LAZEEEEE!!!) :twisted:

[Rusty Blades]

I don't know what's with me today but I just don't have the energy to go thru anything.

We were just talking about that in the dressing room last night (coaches and adult skaters) - EVERYBODY is physically exhausted right now. Must be something in the air . . . :roll:

[jazzpants]

We were just talking about that in the dressing room last night (coaches and adult skaters) - EVERYBODY is physically exhausted right now. Must be something in the air . . . :roll:Well, I know for me it's 6 days of skating and/or exercising at the gym w/o a break that's doing me in. :lol: :twisted: My body is now saying "I'm ON STRIKE!!!" :giveup: LOL!!!

Primary coach asked me if I'm feeling "heavy" today. Too funny!!! :lol: :twisted:

[icedancer2]

And in the Pacific NW we, too, are exhausted.

Change of seasons perhaps?

Or, like jazzpants, just too darn much fun skating!!

[WhisperSung]

Merci: After a horrible twisting fall last Sunday where I popped my knee slightly out of socket on a lutz take-off, today was my first intensive practice. I landed ALL 3 of my double lutzes with nice run-out edges. I've NEVER done them this nicely before. . .I'm so happy. Now to keep them consistent!

No Thanks: Flying sit spins are hard. Enough said.

[tidesong]

merci:
Double salchows still exist, after two sessions this week, I dont ache everywhere, I am now at a stage where I dont wipe out on my jumps so much as land and step out. Not sure how good or bad this is, but it sure hurts less the day after. (I wonder/hope that maybe this is due to better body alignment learnt from ballet?)
Axel is ok, coach has to keep reminding me not to kick in too much.
Camel-layback-back sit is improving, I want to challenge myself and when coach said that it wasnt too good the last time I had to prove him wrong and went out and did a few fairly decent ones, so if all goes well I will have a new combination spin in my program instead of the usual camel-sit-backsit which I am sick and tired of doing.
Sit-changesit-changesit and Flying camel are also getting along pretty well.
Decided to go back to working on single toe loops from speed again to try and reduce the panic factor in that jump.
Coach corrected my split jump and it feels much more natural now... only problem is that it still doesnt really split... I want to try and get as close to 180deg as I can.

no thanks:
flutz argh...
Flying sit is still sluggish. I've done it the way I like it before... but something is wrong now :(
Forward crossovers in the clockwise direction... havent had an empty rink enough to practise that for a long time and it shows... after gleefully attempting it for a while I managed to trip and fall sprawlling forwards bumping my knee in the process. Luckily the damage was not too great and there is no sign of a huge bruise right now.

[Isk8NYC]

Merci <Bitte>
(Actually *begging* MERCY! *begging*)

Had my last Show run-through with my groups last night. They actually remembered the steps! I have most wonderful assistant this year, and she asked if she could go on to just "guide" the little ones. I said "Sure!" and staged an "impromptu" ending -- as the kids skate off, the older ones are going to call out "Thank you Miss ()!" That is, if they remember! LOL

Did some wicked sit spins last night at the pro practice. Was almost killed by the hockey guys ripping around, but it was worth it! I actually remembered all of the steps and finished on time. Biggest achievement: falling down on the ice without getting hurt! LOL Saturday night will be a great show!

No Thanks <Nein, Danke>

Our last pro rehearsal was last night (8:30 - 11:30 pm) I LOVE the program and music, but I can do with a bit more sleep at the end of the week. Just have to figure out how to get to my spot gracefully.

[jshbo724]

Merci: Good session today!!! Still in the process of breaking in sp-teri's, but they really aren't that bad in my opinion, and it's still only the 3rd day of skating in them. Worked on flip-loop and lutz-loop. Those are getting really really good now. I decided that I wanted to work on spirals today, (my coach lets me pick what to do sometimes, within reason of course, LOL), and they ended up being pretty good. Biellmann was good, I just have to stretch up a bit more through my stomach. I'm soooo excited!! I got to learn a new jump today!! A russian split!!! LOL. They are SOOOO FUN!!! OMG!!! I can't do a stag jump to save my life, but boy can I do a darn good russian split for just starting 'em today!! I actually did some really good ones, and I got to see 'em since the glass on are rink also acts as a mirror, lol. I'm so excited to have learned something new, since I couldn't learn ANYTHING for like, a month and a half because my old skates couldn't hold up anything else. GOOD NEWS!! I GET TO START MY AXEL NEXT WEEK!!! I can't wait!!! The moment I've been waiting for FOREVER!!! I have it off ice, and I'd be doing it on ice if it weren't for those darned old skates. Thank god for new ones!! LOL. So I'm really looking forward to that.

No thanks: Had some pretty awkward falls today. One was while doing stag jumps, I fell forward on the landing, I fell kind of smoothly, if there is such a thing, haha, but leg sort of went over my head, caught an edge, chunked a piece of ice of the ground, and it flew into my ear, HAHA. LOL. It was quite funny, I must say. Then one was falling out of a back spin, :roll: , I never do that, lol, but I completely slammed my legs on the ground and one of the coaches was like, "OMG!!! ARE YOU OK?!?!?!" But all I did was slam my heavy boots, and slide, lol.

QUESTION: Ok, I can't do spread eagles AT ALL, but I can turn my feet in to where the toes are in the middle. Can anyone else do this?? I had EVERYONE on the ice today completely cracking up over it. They said they had never seen such a thing. Please tell me I'm not alone!!!

~Jess

[dbny]

[B]QUESTION: Ok, I can't do spread eagles AT ALL, but I can turn my feet in to where the toes are in the middle. Can anyone else do this?? I had EVERYONE on the ice today completely cracking up over it. They said they had never seen such a thing. Please tell me I'm not alone!!!

~Jess

You are not alone. Unfortunately, I can do it too. I met Kathy Casey at a conference once, and she actually suggested turning this thing into a "pigeon eagle". Blech!

[Moto Guzzi]

Merci: QUESTION: Ok, I can't do spread eagles AT ALL, but I can turn my feet in to where the toes are in the middle. Can anyone else do this?? I had EVERYONE on the ice today completely cracking up over it. They said they had never seen such a thing. Please tell me I'm not alone!!!~JessLast year I skated on a session with a girl who could do that. It was the funniest thing to watch. She couldn't do a spread eagle, either.

[jazzpants]

No Thanks:
Lots of kids, though the ice guard was there, he wasn't doing group ice sprays at the skaters, so the rugrats were going every which way at the beginning of the session!!! :roll:

Merci:
To those parents for getting the rugrats out towards the last 45 minutes so I can do runthrus of my Bronze Moves and I got thru it okay. Still working on the choctaw part of it but getting there. The 5 step mohawks today was the highlight of my day today! It went pretty well!!! Spent the last 5 minutes when I was tired playing around with back cross roll and forward power pulls. It also helped that a skating parent noticed and complemented me on my skating. She said said that I looked "relaxed and floating." (WOW! I sure did a good session if I fooled her... :lol: )

And to totally reward myself from all the physical activities I've done today (pilates, cardio and then skating for 1.5 hrs... straight moves practice with 2 5-minute breaks to do spins and just play around with power pulls and forward and back cross rolls), I got myself a nice grilled veggie panini with veggie soup, followed by a nice 15 minute chair massage, where Mr. Massage Therapist got out the knots off my shoulders from the entire week's stress! Mmmmm!!! 8-) :D (And some of you know exactly what I went thru this week, so you know I had A LOT of stress.) :roll:

[Isk8NYC]

Merci:
Our skating show was a terrific success. I had a blast skating in the pro number -- we did the Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Thankfully, no one tripped over me in my sit spin. (Saved by everyone deciding the lighting was too dark for sunglasses!)

No Thanks:
I tried on and fitted the jumpsuit at least six times. When I went to put it on for the Show, the cheap zipper broken when I unzipped the empty outfit. Spent 20 minutes fixing the zipper.

From the "always have a dress rehearsal" category: at the end of the number, we all fall down on the ice. When I got back up, the velvet pants were more slippery than I thought and I plopped back down! (Even though we had a bunch of rehearsals in the late-night hours, none of us wore the actual costume.)

[jshbo724]

Merci: Worked on my russian split jump, it's going pretty good. My skates are getting broken in very well. They feel awesome. I've only been skating in them for 4 days and I'm already lacing them to the top! And they're sp-teri concrete boots!! LOL.

No thanks: Re-injured my back. Off the ice AT LEAST until next Friday or Saturday. Grrrrrrrrr..............

~Jess

[jazzpants]

AAACK!!! Feel better soon, Jess!!! How did you reinjured your back?

Merci: Moves were pretty fast and smooth...well when the ice was smooth and I didn't have too many kids.

No Thanks: Took a tumble on my knee while trying to push myself to do power 3's on my weaker side even faster. Though I can still bend my knee now, it's not that comfortable (minor pitch.) Needless to say, I cut my losses, packed up, and went home. (No elliptical trainer afterwards.) Then again, by the time this happened, I already skated a full hour and a half. I can walk. I think it's minor. I have no bruises (so far) or cuts on the knee but I think I just hit a nerve or something and I'd rather not push it for today. :cry:

At least my coaches should be proud of me today! I FELL!!! :twisted: (I know.. not that big for you guys who fall all the time but for a big chicken like me it's a big deal... and I did it while pushing myself off my comfort zone, which is exactly what they want!!!) :P (Hey, maybe this is a Merci??? Those as ISk8NYC nicely puts it, it's more like MERCY!!! :twisted: )

[beachbabe]

No Thanks: I had such an off jump day- couldnt land any of my doubles more than a couple of times and even my axel was off.


Merci: On the bright side, my intermediate moves are getting progressively better and I think i actually have a hope of maybe passing some time in the near future. Spins were good too, and my camel-sit-backsit and layback-sit were really good. Coach was very proud of me.

[phoenix]

No Thanks, get out & don't come back: Coach has been very unhappy that in the middle of my OD dance, I come up out of a lunge & very obviously drag my back foot to slow myself down before stepping into my twizzles. So today I spent my entire 1 1/2 hour session working on the twizzle sequence, trying it with more speed. Couldn't get it right even once. And by the time the session was over, even slow twizzles had eroded so I couldn't do them clean anymore, either.

So went to coach afterwards (he was there, but I didn't have a lesson today) & said, 'if I have to do them with speed, I need you to teach me *how* to do them that way.' And he seemed a little annoyed I was even bothering him with this, & said, 'you just have to do it a million times. You have to start out doing it slow, & the speed will come in time.' That's all well & good, but my competition is in 5 weeks, & I have LOTS of other things that also need to be worked on......so now I'm frustrated & tears in my eyes and I say, 'I don't have time.....' And he says, 'Well, then either take them out or just do singles.' (right now it's a set of 4 doubles) Which I also don't want to do...I CAN do these, I just can't do them going full tilt down the ice...so left the rink very discouraged & feeling like I don't have much in the way of options....

SO.......

Merci, and HA!: Driving back, mulling this in my mind, how am I going to fix this, I thought: what if there's a way to add an extra step or two that would slow me down enough without being obvious that I'm slowing down before the twizzles? Started thinking about possibilities. Realized there's a rink in a mall I was driving past, got off the freeway--- & lo & behold they had a public session going on.

So got the skates back out, & started working on the tweak in the choreography. It works! Ran through it a bunch of times, can do the twizzles clean, no one would ever know that the new bit actually slows me down, and only had to add 3 new steps to make it happen. I need to try it tomorrow w/ the music & make sure I can still do it, but I'm very hopeful I've found a solution that my coach will find acceptable & that lets me keep my twizzles.

***thank you for reading this long rant!!*** And for those who are thinking it, my coach isn't mean, he's just Russian & very much has that mindset of "shut up and do it" and there's just no mollycoddling going to happen. I need to build a little more of an external support structure for myself & my skating, because it's not going to come from him!

[Casey]

For instance, A string on the occasion of stubbing your toe really hard (REALLY hard though!) (careful, u don't wanna over do it & risk looking like a heathen! lol)
Psh, nothing wrong with looking like a heathen. I'd consider it something of an advantage, in fact. :P

Takk Fyrir (Thanks Very Much):

Got my last day of skating in yesterday, managed to fare pretty well. Have discovered a newfound love for spins. Got several compliments from the other people skating, which is always nice even if I don't feel I deserve them.

Þetta Er Tilgangslaust (It's No Use):

Earlier this week, I was in a hurry to get somewhere I had planned to walk to, and jogged a few miles. I'm not a jogger, but I figured this exercise would do me no harm since I skate all the time. WRONG!! I've been sore and fatigued ever since! Though this weekend has been better finally.

I'm also having a lot of stress about my new job that starts tomorrow, so that's sapping focus too. The joy of skating has ebbed off a bit over the course of this last week, and I think that's the primary reason. Of course, one of the major causes of stress is that it will be taking away from my skating, so I really ought to have been relishing the last few daytime sessions that I could...silly me. Hopefully things turn around once I start working and get used to the situation.

[sceptique]

No thanks!

This Saturday we had another closed competition and I was pretty determined to kick a** - with that thought in mind I started my practice and after a couple of unusually good spins I decided that it's time to turbocharge my programme a little bit and really add some speed. It felt fantastic up to the point where I pushed into the spin and felt my left blade not just shaking or stumbling or scratching but simply dissapearing altogether. Next moment the ice slapped me right onto my face. It didn't hurt too bad, so it was only when I saw my coach with a box of tissues I realised that wet thing on my forehead wasn't just some melted ice. Fortunatelly, the cut wasn't too deep, and I still skated the competition and did a clean programme, though, understandably, a bit slow-ish.

Merci
Outcome - another second place and a bit of a story to carry around. Next day all coaches were joking about "Olga becoming a real skater - the one who had fallen on her head". :lol: The scar looks quite sexy too - think Keira Knightley in "Domino". ;) I still wish I came first, but you can't have it all!

[NickiT]

No thanks!

This Saturday we had another closed competition and I was pretty determined to kick a** - with that thought in mind I started my practice and after a couple of unusually good spins I decided that it's time to turbocharge my programme a little bit and really add some speed. It felt fantastic up to the point where I pushed into the spin and felt my left blade not just shaking or stumbling or scratching but simply dissapearing altogether. Next moment the ice slapped me right onto my face. It didn't hurt too bad, so it was only when I saw my coach with a box of tissues I realised that wet thing on my forehead wasn't just some melted ice. Fortunatelly, the cut wasn't too deep, and I still skated the competition and did a clean programme, though, understandably, a bit slow-ish.

Merci
Outcome - another second place and a bit of a story to carry around. Next day all coaches were joking about "Olga becoming a real skater - the one who had fallen on her head". :lol: The scar looks quite sexy too - think Keira Knightley in "Domino". ;) I still wish I came first, but you can't have it all!

Eeek! Sorry about your fall and resulting cut, Olga. Good on you for still going out there and performing your programme after that, and congrats on coming second!

Nicki

[Skate@Delaware]

Merci: finally went skating, after more than a month off ice, AND managed to get my skates sharpened to 7/16" (vs. 1/2")....

Ok, so i got on the ice and stumbled around for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what the heck i was really supposed to be doing...just felt plain weird (different rink, out of skating shape, different grind, etc).

then it started coming together, slowly. Started with the basics...love the new grind! Worked my way up to jumps and spins...jumps were happening, but the spins were not. I think I was rushing into them too much. However, by the end of the session (2 hours on ice) I did manage to do a few passable scratch spins.

I also met another adult skater-lady who was there with her family-very nice woman, very nice family!

ps-hubby was there also, we worked on 3-turns, mohawks, and crossovers in preparation for a skating thing in 2 weeks. He didn't do too bad but took quite a few breaks. I only took 2 water breaks....

[jshbo724]

AAACK!!! Feel better soon, Jess!!! How did you reinjured your back?



Well, a while back I had fallen really badly doing a flip. And I mean REALLY badly. My feet didn't touch the ground on the landing, and I took a hard splat from 3 1/2 feet in the air full impact, onto the ice right above my tailbone. And EVERY SINGLE TIME I fall on it now, even if it is a very minor fall, it re-damages the muscle tissue, and creates a major bruise. This time it was a really stupid thing I fell on, a backspin. I'm getting used to my new blades (coronation ace) and new boots, so that's probably part of it. But anyway, the muscle takes the longest to heal and isn't usable until it heals. I can barely bend over to pick things up off the floor. I'm used to this happening now because I've done it at least 6 times or more since that fall. Grrr.....

~Jess

*sorry for the length of that. I just hate it when I have to miss a week of skating :cry: *

[mikawendy]

ps-hubby was there also, we worked on 3-turns, mohawks, and crossovers in preparation for a skating thing in 2 weeks. He didn't do too bad but took quite a few breaks. I only took 2 water breaks....

Looking forward to seeing you and hubby! ;)

[doubletoe]

No thanks!!!

Update on my "No Thanks!"

The Test Chair says that he has a HUGE backlog of skaters looking to skate back in May and couldn't get in the June test session either. So he's looking into either doing another test session the following week, or have it in the afternoon, which would be MY preferred option, since I skate much better afternoons and early evenings.

Hey, maybe this is a blessing in disguise! My MIF coach always says that in order to perform at 100% on test day, you need to be skating your moves at 130% in practice, since nerves always bring the quality down by 30%. So if you do end up having to wait a little longer, maybe it's the skating gods giving you the opportunity to get them up to 130%! :)

[doubletoe]

No thanks!

This Saturday we had another closed competition and I was pretty determined to kick a** - with that thought in mind I started my practice and after a couple of unusually good spins I decided that it's time to turbocharge my programme a little bit and really add some speed. It felt fantastic up to the point where I pushed into the spin and felt my left blade not just shaking or stumbling or scratching but simply dissapearing altogether. Next moment the ice slapped me right onto my face. It didn't hurt too bad, so it was only when I saw my coach with a box of tissues I realised that wet thing on my forehead wasn't just some melted ice. Fortunatelly, the cut wasn't too deep, and I still skated the competition and did a clean programme, though, understandably, a bit slow-ish.


Ouch! Did you have to get stitches? Yes, a little adrenaline is a dangerous thing. . . I think we've probably all had similar experiences when we've decided to try to skate "even better" in competition than in practice, LOL!

[Skate@Delaware]

Looking forward to seeing you and hubby! ;)
We are looking forward to it! He is scheduled for 1/2 day, I'm a glutton for the whole day, although I am not in shape (amazing what not skating for a whole month can do for you). It will be nice to see you again, and make some new friends!!!!:D