Congratulations to IceT!

[flutzilla1]

...who passed her Cha-Cha with flying colors today! And three days before she will be competing in Silver FS to boot! :)

Congrats to my skating hero -- you are a Skating Superwoman! :D

[1lutz2klutz]

congratulations IceT! And best of luck in the Orange Blossom this weekend! Flutzilla- are you competing?

[FSWer]

I'm not sure what Cha-Cha is. But I still say CONGRATULATIONS TO TERESA!!!!!

[garyc254]

WAY TO GO!!!!!! :D :D :D

[flutzilla1]

FSWer:
The Cha Cha is a preliminary solo dance.

1lutz2klutz:
Yep I'll be there competing, but I honestly have no clue how I will do on the ice re: my program. I've only had this program for 3 weeks (well, only 5 days if you count the extensive changes my coach made last weekend!) My biggest fear is that no one will applaud b/c it will be so bad, and someone will yell "ha ha" like that kid on the Simpsons. ;) Oh well. At least I will get to see Ice T skate! Will you be there too?

[Mrs Redboots]

We call it the Canadian Cha-Cha, and it's not part of our test structure, but it's a lovely dance! Many congratulations, IceT.

Perhaps you can answer a question for me: we are working on it for the various internationals, as it's one of the selected dances for this year, and I find it very hard not to come round too far on the inside chasse and then be very flat on what one dancer I know describes as the "double whammy" edge before the slalom. Any ideas as to how to make that a good edge - I partly blame Robert for pushing me on to a flat, but it's not entirely him, just largely!

[jazzpants]

YAAAAY, IceT!!! :D :D :D

[Ice T]

WOW!! Thanks everyone!!

Wednesday was quite a day! I passed my Cha-Cha by all three judges, and with more points than I needed. On top of that, because it was just prior to our competition, my panel was made up of National level judges. I was so amazed by all of that.

On top of it all, earlier that morning, a news crew came to our rink and personally interviewed me and my coach, and then filmed me skating. I saw the clip this morning and it was so awesome!!

Mrs. Redboots -- your question about the Cha-Cha. When you do the inside chasse, make sure the last step it is a nice solid inside edge on your left foot forcing you to curve to the right, then bend the skating knee and make a big push onto your right foot, skating a diagonal line from the center of the ice toward the boards, putting your right foot on the outside edge. Then you do the slalom. Does that make sense?

[96.23??]

Wow CONGRATS!!! :d

[Mrs Redboots]

Originally posted by Ice T
WOW!! Thanks everyone!!

Wednesday was quite a day! I passed my Cha-Cha by all three judges, and with more points than I needed. On top of that, because it was just prior to our competition, my panel was made up of National level judges. I was so amazed by all of that.Please don't take this wrong, I really, truly don't mean to belittle your accomplishment or anything like that, but sometimes it's easier to get better marks, if you're a low-level skater, if you have high-level judges!

On top of it all, earlier that morning, a news crew came to our rink and personally interviewed me and my coach, and then filmed me skating. I saw the clip this morning and it was so awesome!!Wow!

Mrs. Redboots -- your question about the Cha-Cha. When you do the inside chasse, make sure the last step it is a nice solid inside edge on your left foot forcing you to curve to the right, then bend the skating knee and make a big push onto your right foot, skating a diagonal line from the center of the ice toward the boards, putting your right foot on the outside edge. Then you do the slalom. Does that make sense? It does, and that's what I do, but I find I'm horribly flat on the diagonal, I can't get it on to an edge. Deep sigh....

[Ice T]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mrs Redboots
[B]Please don't take this wrong, I really, truly don't mean to belittle your accomplishment or anything like that, but sometimes it's easier to get better marks, if you're a low-level skater, if you have high-level judges!

Mrs. Redboots, I'm sorry, but I do take that as a belittlement. You don't know how well I skate. I only just started dance last fall at YOUR suggestion (do you remember that?). So that's why I am at a lower level. Why would you say that to me? That was kind of rude. That does take away from my accomplishment.

[hehebebury]

Congrats IceT. I can't wait to see you at Orange Blossoms. Looks like we will be warming up at the same time but I will hopefully have time to watch you skate. Are you competiing at all in Dance this weekend?

[Ice T]

hehebebury: Yes, I think we will be on the same warm up. No, I'm not competing in dance. Just the freeskate.

Good luck on Saturday!! I look forward to seeing you skate again!

[garyc254]

Originally posted by Ice T
That does take away from my accomplishment.

No it doesn't. Your accomplishment is exceptional.

I'm generalizing, but:

Lower level judges seem to judge a skater's mistakes.

High level judges seem to judge a skater's skating.

A vast difference in the way they look at a program and a skater. They don't get to be high level judges by only finding errors.

As a low level skater, I would much prefer to test with high level judges.

In your case, you should be very proud because these high level judges graded "your skating" as excellent!!! :D :D

[Mrs Redboots]

Thanks, Gary. That is exactly what I meant - higher level judges do seem a lot less focussed on mistakes. As, so I'm told, do people who have judged for some years, compared to those who have only just reached a certain level. The more experienced judges have learnt to look at the dance, or programme, or whatever, as a whole.

And, incidentally "Low level" was intended simply as a statement of fact, not in any sense pejoratively; perhaps "elementary" would have been a better choice of words?

Edited to add: I've just realised why I used the words "Low level": our test structure no longer uses the terms "Novice", "Preliminary", "Pre-Bronze", etc, but says "Level 1", "Level 2", "Level 3", etc, up to and including Level 9 or even Level 10. So we who are what in the USA would be pre-Bronze, which is level 3-4 here, tend to refer to ourselves as "Low-level", and the dances we are comfortable with as "Low-level dances" simply as a matter of fact, with no reflection on or ability. My apologies if it was read the other way.