Christmas crackers/Christmas turkeys: lessons/practices 23-29/12/02

[Mrs Redboots]

So it's Christmas week again, and I've just skated for what will probably be the last time this year.

Christmas crackers: We had a good lesson. The vilest exercises you can imagine, you can't think how nasty they were, but they were possible, and our coach said we'd "Done very good work today!" which is praise of the highest order.

We started off doing inside edges but finishing with the free foot tucked behind the skating leg. We were allowed to do these separately, which is just as well, as Robert had huge trouble controlling himself and did at least one FI3 by mistake. I saw the coach grabbing him and forcing his shoulders into the right place more than once! Then we went on from there to do runs (progressives) round the circle, at first separately, then in Kilian hold (both directions) then in reverse Kilian hold, also both directions. Then we had to do slide chasses round the circle in Kilian and reverse Kilian holds in both directions. Then we had to do chasses round the circle, this time in waltz hold, both directions, first with me going backwards, then with Robert going backwards. That was awful!

Then we finished with doing swing rolls, this time around the rink, and I got really good back edges on mine, no toe-rakes, I was on the right bit of the blade, and we were fast! Ta-ra!!!! What a lovely Christmas present (but I still can't do them solo). Going forwards wasn't so good - the coach said Robert was opening his hips too much and forcing the edge slightly (I could have told him that!), but apart from that not bad.

Christmas turkeys: I didn't really do the runs very well, and some of the exercises round the circle were harder than others. I found the chasses especially hard - when I was going backwards, it felt like Robert wanted to overtake me on the outside, and when I was going forwards, I was told I wasn't skating quite "at" him. But they were better than last week.

The worst is we now have a break from skating - and as all our holidays this year have been skating holidays, this is our first break for the year, and we probably need it. But oh, not to skate again this year......

[mikawendy]

Originally posted by Mrs Redboots
So it's Christmas week again, and I've just skated for what will probably be the last time this year.

Christmas crackers: We had a good lesson. The vilest exercises you can imagine, you can't think how nasty they were, but they were possible, and our coach said we'd "Done very good work today!" which is praise of the highest order.

Annabel--your coach must know the fellow who taught the edge classes I took last month. He made the young ones in the class do power pulls and back power pulls with arms behind their backs, and double threes with no arms and lunge-turn-backward lunge, and other evil things (and they did them welll! Us adults, even the advanced ones were groaning as he told us what to do.)

Anyhow:
Crackers--
Tested my basic skills this week and passed (with big compliments from my instructor on forward spirals). Spins are doing better (well, CW that is. CCW is still hopeless).

Turkeys--
FI3s were terrible (they were better in practice than in the test). Too small, not enough of an edge, skiddy on the FI edge. My instructor blamed my dull blades and the ice conditions (the ice was hard so we were skating around on top of it rather than in it and even the pickup hockey players complained). I think she was being nice and I definitely want to practice these. She wanted me to go to the next level up since I can do all the elements from that level except FI closed mohawks....

[Blue Line]

For my lesson this past Thursday, which I have just found the time to reflect on!

Christmas Crackers: I made it to the rink on time! After the debacle on Tuesday, I was a paranoid sleeper. I woke up every half-hour from 2:00 until 5:45 - there was no was I was missing my lesson!

After I told Coach that I had an exam at 10:30 that day, she was just happy that I decided to skate on such a day. And then she was shocked at how well I skated. I explained to her that I would do anything that wasn't studying with a lot of enthusiasm!

Unusually big salchow-toe loops that had Coach rather stunned! She wasn't expecting it, that's for sure, and I hadn't done salchows with the mohawk entrance for her since she suggested a change.

Scratch spins were more centered and faster than usual. Again, a shock to Coach, but these came as a shock to me!

I think that I received my Christmas gift from the skating gods a little early this year. We'll see if this carries over to my Christmas Eve lesson.


Christmas Turkeys: Edges, edges, edges. My brain was strained from all of the homework and studying I was doing. It was impossible to concentrate enough to make these truly decent (and decent is only as good as I've become at these), so I settled for mediocre at best and decided that I'd tackle the problems on a day when my brain wasn't fried.

Forward stroking is improving, a lot, but not as quickly as I would like it to. The pattern itself is a bit shallow, which I just need to remember while I'm doing it (and not after I'm already through).

[nutty-ducky]

i did my skating show tonight, and it went very well. it was only 45 minutes though. i think it was the last time i ever do that program. i am going to start working on my new program very soon. this is my last lesson before christmas, but i have a lesson on new years eve, so that will be my last lesson this year!

crackers:
i did my program very well i the show and in my lesson. i feel happy that i did well! :D today in my lesson i was working on my forward outside and inside edges, and they were very well, i just have to keep them under control a bit more!
oh and i landed my fisrt ever toe-loop on ice today! yippee! i was sooooooo excitted i wanted to run across the ice and show how excitted i was. i also got my new skates on saturday, but i havent got the blades yet. i should be getting them in the new year.

turkeys:
i fell over twice doing a 3-jump, but then i noticed that i was falling over because my skates were losening, so i got off, tightened them up, and landed the jump again! also i fell over doing a spiral, and it was a hard fall! :oops:

[flo]

Christmas Crackers: Ran through my program at the club session and the fs session the next day with the coach who choreographed it. He liked what I had added to complete it for the show last week. It's moving along nicely, so I think I'm going to enter the Northern Virginia competition.

Turkey: My hip injury is still not fully recovered, but is much better. I'll also be off the ice for a week while on vacation.


Congrats to Debbie and Mika!:) :D

[quarkiki2]

Christmas Crackers: They didn't have me take the Beta test -- said I passed anyway. Which is good because my CCW Back crossovers are pretty scratchy.

Christmas Turkeys: Didn't pass Gamma, no surprise as I can't quite do the FO3s. Comment on my test form was just to keep polishing these elements.

More Christmas Crackers: I asked my instructor to show me the stuff from Delta so my brain doesn't turn to mush. She showed me the lunge (which I can already do) and the forward edges, which she said I was pretty good at and should be able to do easily in a few weeks. Then a funny look passed her face and she said, "Oh, you're so close with Gamma. You should really be working on Delta right now, so see if you can find a Gamma/Delta class instead of a Beta/Gamma class. Your Gamma stuff is just a matter of practice." Which is good because if I have to spend another 8 weeks on *just* Gamma stuff, I'll go batty.

That's the biggest issue I have with group lessons and the ISI curriculum -- just because I'm hung up on FO3s I can't move on and work on new stuff. What if I never get a FO3? I don't really think that will be the case, but will I be stuck in Gamma forever? I know FO3s are in integral skill, but I don't see why I can't be working on edges and lunges and bunny hops as well. Maybe I'm one of those people who struggle with FO3s but can do FI3s easily? I know, if I want tailor made curriculum, I need to be in private lessons. And not every group lesson instructor is tied to the curriculum, so maybe my best bet is to send in my registration for the next session with a "X instructor says a Gamma/Delta class if one is not offered, I'm requesting Y Instructor." Our Learn-to-Skate coordinator likes it when we request instructors.

Well, anyway, enjoy the holidays as I will be out of touch until the 6th! Christmas will be bonkers, then we have a friend's wedding, then we're traveling across country to visit friends. I'm bring my skates across country, maybe a change of location will inspire the FO3s and I'll not have to worry about being in Gamma after the new year!

[mikawendy]

Originally posted by quarkiki2
That's the biggest issue I have with group lessons and the ISI curriculum -- just because I'm hung up on FO3s I can't move on and work on new stuff. What if I never get a FO3? I don't really think that will be the case, but will I be stuck in Gamma forever? I know FO3s are in integral skill, but I don't see why I can't be working on edges and lunges and bunny hops as well.

Quarkiki, I know what you mean. I can do everything in USFSA Basic 6 except for really good FI3s, and everything from Basic 7 except FI closed mohawks. So I was dreading my test for Basic 6 because I didn't want to get stuck in 6 again. My instructor passed a me and few people up to the next level who are, like you and I, hung up on one element. She'd rather see these people work on new skills while they're mastering the one they have trouble with, instead of staying frustrated and getting bored.

If you can't get into a mixed level class, maybe you can say something to your instructor before or after the first lesson, so that you can work on a few things from the next level while you perfect the FO3s. Maybe you could demonstrate the skills you know so that you don't have to focus on them in group lesson?

By virtue of the small numbers in the upper Basic levels, I've usually been in mixed level classes. Sometimes that means I have to work on crossovers with everyone else for a large part of the lesson--practice that I can always use--and I don't get to learn the elements that I have to test on in X weeks, but my instructor is also good at "assigning" me something to work on while she works on different skills with the other folks in the class. It's good for the quick learners in the levels below--there was a girl in my class who started out two levels below me but was doing stuff from my level and the one above with ease--she was learning things even faster than I was!

Good luck!

[singerskates]

Christmas Crackers: Had a Christmas skating party with my skating club on Sunday, 3 hours of skating from 3 pm to 6 pm. Brought my 16 yr. old daughter and her 2 friends.

I was spinning centered, jumping alright and just interpreting the Christmas music they had playing for the first part. All the skating members got free drinks(pop), chips and hot dogs. And there were candy canes for the kids.

Christmas Turkey: Lot's of kids on the ice with people who can't skate at all or barely skate including my daughter's two friends. Trying to teach them to stop and spin and turn was hopeless. ROTFLOL Playing tag was a bore as my daughter and her friends didn't want me to tag them so the hardly tagged me. LOL

No session for intermediate skaters on Sunday because the party was during our session.

Only ice for both Mondays until after New Years Day and that's at the junkie rink. I'm skipping tonight's ice because I want to spend time with the family. Christmas is only once a year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Brigitte

[sk8er1964]

Christmas turkeys:

Everything was a bit off to the right today on warm up - dropped the right shoulder and fell on the salchow, fell on the lutz, fell on the sit spin 8O . Felt the lesson would not go well, but......

Christmas crackers:

Coach had my new music done and I loved it!!! :D We've had so much trouble finding something we liked. Started sketching together the new program - first comp is in February so lots of work to do. All I need to do is master three jumps, correct bad muscle memory on the fourth and I'll be ready to go...8O .

Mrs. Redboots - can I have the purple crown? Christmas crackers are a tradition that I loved when I lived in London and have brought back to the US. I miss England so much....wonderful people, wonderful history, wonderful weather :roll: ...ok, so everything can't be perfect!!!

Merry Christmas to all!!!!!

[JDC1]

- This probably won't be a big deal to most of you but I skated on my FIRST LEGITIMATE freestyle session. I've skated in freestyle sessions with really mixed levels but this was the first time on strictly freestyle session without my coach or anyone I knew. I was pretty nervous particularly when I saw 3 these teen age girls in skating dresses. Anyway, I decided to go ahead and do my best and hopefully not get in everyone's way. I NEVER skated so fast in my life!! Anyway, I calmed down after 5 minutes and I fit in just fine. I did everything pretty much slower than everyone else but I was able to stay out of their way and get my jumps and footwork done so it was a success.

Christmas crackers - having the guts to do the Freestyle session. Getting very nice pop on my toe loop and waltz jump. Actually spinning again after 5 week break. Am doing some weird thing where I stay on the very bottom of my toe pick but am getting around 6-8 times.

Christmas turkey - Nasty fall on the loop must now buy expensive hip pad as I cannot lie on my right side at night.

[melanieuk]

Crackers
My last skate before Christmas day.
No coach and no lesson, but I had 2 or 3 skating pals in with me.

I really just played about with spins - mainly the backspin and change foot sit spins. I'm sure the backspin's coming back, but then again, maybe not. :??

Merry Christmas to everyone.

[jazzpants]

No coach... :( Can't give him his Christmas present. (I keep running into him at times that I don't expect to run into him and when I expected to see him, he's not there! Go figure!!!) :P Anyway, primary coach was part of the Christmas show (but didn't tell me about it!) But he was not skating in the show (at least not that I know of...there were some skating elves later on in the show...) He was doing some Hawaiian slow dance thing (and no hula skirt either! :P He was dressed as a Hawaiian man this time...) with adoring kids watching him from below before they go off to do their Hawaiian group number.

Anyway...

Turkey:
Everything was pretty much a turkey at the beginning of the Monday night session. It's Christmas time, so they have holiday hours instead and they allow everyone, including high school and college brats who are just scary to skate with. 8O My edges weren't working well and I don't even want to go into my sorry state of a backspin or loop jump.

Crackers:
Then my mojo walked in... in the form of one of my skating buddies that I normally see on weekends! He's not the perfect skater, but he sure skates BEAUTIFULLY! The Monday guys who were there were drooling!!! :D Anyway my loops started coming back and my spins though not perfect, was much better!!! And apparently I give him good skating mojo back too, since he's been trying to get his double flip and only nails it when I'm there. (He also gets his camels when I'm there too and he has a nice one. Unlike me!!!) :cry:

As soon as he steps off the ice to go home, my mojo is gone again...and the bratty high school and college kids crowd got MUCH bigger!!! 8O Time to go home!!! :P

[dbny]

Turkeys:
Arrived at the rink after an hour of fighting traffic to find that the freestyle session had been cancelled in favor of a "Holiday Schedule" public session. Too bad they didn't think to tell up about this last week! I went ahead and skated.

Crackers:
Did my best spin ever. Got three revs with freeleg extended, then pulled it into passe and got another three revs. I know where the spin spot is now! Tried some BO closed Mohawks and did manage a few. FO three turn phobia is still gone. Managed a few iterations of the five step Mohawk pattern. Fear of LFI Mohawk is still decreasing and the turn hasn't deserted me again.

[icenut84]

This is from last Saturday, first chance I've had to write it up.

Christmas Turkeys:

The session was a Christmas party - was absolutely PACKED (I'm guessing at least 200 people 8O ), ice was chewed up, and both my private lessons were cancelled. :( There wasn't a dance interval either. And my blades actually felt a bit funny - don't know why. Hmm. And it was my first skate for 3 weeks!

Only tried a few jumps (zero room to practice them in) and they weren't too hot. Ended up leaving half an hour early because there was no room at all to practice anything, and they also stopped the session a few times for a game for the kids (Christmas party).

Christmas Crackers:

The group lesson was fun, we did things like crossovers, chasses, slip chasses, closed chasses (and a mixture of them), and other steps. We also went through various stops - it's something we haven't really concentrated on much before. We did forwards and backwards snowploughs, T-stops, and hockey stops (I've never actually learnt these before, but I picked them up very quickly and it's nice to know I can stop quickly in an emergency! I plan to practice them at more and more speed to get really confident on them).

2 foot spin was mostly pretty good (there were 2 men standing near me watching, and then trying to do one themselves!). 2 foot into 1 foot was ok. The FO curve into a 1 foot spin was better too, I actually felt like I was stopping on the FO edge before the spin a few times too, which I haven't really got before, and I also tried to hold the open position before pulling in. Most 1 foot spins weren't that great though (that goes in the "turkeys" section).

Footwork was pretty good (definitely my strongest element over jumps and spins) - pivots were good, all 3 turns were good (I practiced doing FO-BI double 3s in forward crossovers - fun! I like doing that. Also practiced different 3 turns in sequences and in crossovers (forward and backward). Mohawks and edges pretty good too. Only thing I didn't get round to were turns like brackets and rockers. And I did some nice springy bunny hops :)

Happy skating y'all! :)

Rachel

[Blue Line]

Christmas Crackers: A quiet, quiet rink with ice all to myself! Well, okay, I was joined by another 20 minutes later, but from 7-7:20 there wasn't another soul around! I'm already feeling sore legs, and I'd definitely have to blame that on the skating like a maniac to get all I could out of being all by my lonesome!

Coach came towards the end of my session. Mostly a jumping day for the two of us. Salchows (from the mohawk) started off pretty ugly/out of control but evolved into pretty, high little works of art (beauty IS in the eye of the beholder!) when we stopped working on them.

Coach was rather pleased with my half-Lutz, which I did for her for the first time since she introduced them to me (maybe 3 weeks ago?). We looked at my tracings on 3 of them: the first was slightly on the flat of the blade (boo), the other two were strong outside edges (whee!), which I think is very cool, because I was concerned about cheating it.

Christmas Turkeys:

I started off with line-drive types of waltz jumps (covering a lot of ice, but not getting into the air), and looking down at my darn feet. Arg! I feel like these should be much better than they are, because I work on them frequently and I don't find them particularly difficult. My second set of 4 in a row were much better, however, so I'm not too down in the dumps about them.

My brain wasn't working! Coach asked for a 1/2 flip-toe, and I did a toe (?) and then realized I was completely wrong. Whoops. Coach had to say, "left three turn, jump, right three turn, jump," and I still screwed it up! Where was my mind on that?

Scratch spin. Eh. Far from being my worst, but far from being my best. Coach says the entrance edge doesn't hook enough. Hmm. I don't know, this just seems very on-off for me. I practiced yesterday, and they were fast and well-centered. Today they just weren't there. Blah. They never seem to be there when I have a lesson with my coach.

Overall? Basically, it was impossible to follow up the great skate I had last Thursday to my own (high) expectations. But it was a fun time, nonetheless.

[garyc254]

Turkeys:
I took off a little early from work (it was a slow day) to skate a public session.

The ice was horrid. No ice make before the session and another public session had just ended. The rink guard explained that they didn't incorporate Zamboni time between the sessions because normally only two to three skaters were at the first session. Before my session was over, you could see the concrete coming through the ice.

The session was crowded with lots of youngsters and their "walkers" all over the ice. Had to chase a couple of youngsters out of the center circle.

Felt very unstable at first, even stroking. Mohawks and 3-turns were iffy at best. Felt a little better before the session was over, but by then the ice wasn't ice anymore anyway.

Crackers: This was the first time I've been on the ice since my surgery on November 11. :D :D :D How wonderful to be back on the ice again, no matter the condition. Sure I was shakey, but who cares!!! I'm on the ice again!!!!

I'm sure my leg muscles will let me know about it in the morning.

[sk8er1964]

Crackers - Gary's on ice! :D :D

Turkey - Sk8er1964 hasn't since Christmas Eve :cry:

However, my mother-in-law did cook a terrific Christmas turkey......

[dbny]

Originally posted by sk8er1964
Crackers - Gary's on ice!

I second that! Congrats Gary. It sounds to me like you are off to a good start at regaining your skills. Three turns and Mohawks....I'm impressed :o

Crackers
I skated outdoors on Tuesday and was the only figure skater in the crowd, and was again at a public session in NJ on Thursday. Both times, strangers told me I was "so graceful" :D :D :D It did feel rather odd though, to be the "best" skater, as I know I can really do very little.

Seriously though, I am really doing those nasty FO threes without any fears for over a week now, and I'm sure if I can just tighten up the tummy a bit, I will be in complete control at last.

Turkeys
"I know I can really do very little" :lol: :lol: :lol: oh well, someday I hope to have all the one foot turns, speed, grace etc etc etc.

[Mrs Redboots]

We had to come home early from my sister's, as she wasn't well - so I thought, oh well, at least we can skate on Friday and perhaps on Saturday. Alas, famous last words - when I woke up on Friday morning I had caught her bug, and couldn't get out of bed, never mind skate! Am better now, but there is very little chance of skating before Friday, although if it stops raining I might go along to Broadgate Ice Arena tomorrow lunchtime, just for fun.

[dani]

Congrats DBNY! I am very happy for you!

Ditto to Gary!!!

I haven't had a lesson in almost 2 weeks, but I did have a real cracker today! I set up for a lutz and had speed and jumped the hugest, bestest, cleanest lutz I have ever jumped!! And, this is the good part, MY COACH SAW IT!! ;-)

Hugs!
Danielle