In honor of the felines, Violet and Capers who kept me up all night.

Purr - got to skate Saturdy at club, and had a good practice. We're considering having an upper level freestyle for the first hour (it's 2 1/2 hours) and then the group lessons. By the time I teach group lessons and play with the kids I'm frozen and the ice is icky. So I moves my lesson to first thing of club.

Hairball - no news on the new skates.
By the way - congrats Nova on your 1 1/2 rotation on one foot.

Anyone need a roomie for Nationals? I'll be going in right before the silver events, and then right out.

Thanx for the encouraging words, flo.
I hope to eventually get the tango camel/pair sit as well.

Purr: Singles coach called me this morning and told me that she is moving my lesson to Tuesday morning (hockey season is finally over). It had been on Fri. morning, but it was scheduled at the same time as my pair lesson, which is at a different rink. So hooray, I'm back to a normal lesson schedule. I'll have those doubles in no time.

Hairball: New lesson time on Tues. morning. I usually skate on Monday night in a lovely gossip-infused adult public session, and of course, I ain't gonna give that up.

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Purr:

-- Got skates sharpened on Saturday at a different skate shop, and also got my blades realigned. Blades feel 100% more stable and centered than before.

-- More nice changes to the Tango today. My "new improved" copied from the American Waltz intro still works much better than the traditional intro with a progressive-LFO3. Coach is happy about that other than I'm flicker-footing the free foot a bit (which I probably would be doing no matter which intro)

Hairball:
--the "c(*&" corner in the Tango is still really rough, especially on the 2nd pattern. So it gets special attention on my next 2 lessons.


Only 6 more days until Test Day... fingers crossed I skate well....

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

Purr: Had two lessons in the last week, and they are probably the first lessons I've had in over a year!
The first was learning the tenfox on noon ice iwth oly one other adult The second on a public session that was not crowded at all. On public session I tried the tenfox with my partner in crime.........we did get thru a pattern or two!

Hairball: I guarantee you, our tenfox is UGLY!

Jen, where did you get your skates sharpened?

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Where are those knives when I need them?
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I need a detachable left foot!

Paul Friedenberg at Wings of Steel.

Very happy with the result, even if it is a haul to get there (and probably about the same distance for me as going to Waldorf would be).

He's more expensive, though.

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

Where exactly is Wings of Steel? Is it in that shopping center at the intersection of Rts. 29 and 198?

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Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Purr: I got my own ice skates on Saturday, yay! They are Risport Antea which fit me really well, which are fine for me since I'm just starting out. And I have a lesson tonight yay, I have to work on my crossovers.

Hairball: My ankles are sore due to me trying to break in my skates, I've been padding my ankles up and they hurt less, hopefully the skates will break in soon. Also I now cannot stop on my new skates, the blades are so much sharper and I keep digging in to much. Oh and my cats woke me up at 4.45 am this morning wanting breakfast.

Close. If you're on 198 heading west, it's just past the shopping center on the right. There's a Chinese and some other sort of restaurant, then an attached small house with a red roof that sits back a bit from the other buildings. I saw the sign and turned and drove around behind the restaurant and back up to where he's at.

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

Woohoo, I started working on the loop jump on saturday. I'm desperate to try it out, as I didn't get much of a chance. I'm wanting my mum to take me to an early morning session before school tomorrow as we're making an early morning trip to the airport, and it would be conveinient. But no. She did say she'd drop me off, but not stay, meaning I'd have to get the train back, and wouldn't make it to school in time. It's really annoying me.

Not so good: Still can't center spins.

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http://www.yourphotoalbums.co.uk

More info is available on their website.

They ARE the sharpest tool in the shed!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

NoVa Sk8r,

How dare you call our Monday night a gossip-infused session! Boy, am I gonna have things to tell the others about you tonight...LOL!!!

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Why are you skating so slowly? Get out of my way!

If you skate faster, it makes everything look better!

It's a good thing the session is 1.5 hours; with all the drama/gossip, I can at least get in 30 minutes of skating.
I'll be there tonight, so watch out!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Purr: i did some nicely centered sit spins and camel spins yesterday, and am going to try reproduce them today. yay!

Hairball: *chokes on hairball* pfft. axels. horrid, mean jump that tortures me to no end. i keep landing sideways then falling. ouch.

i'm off to get ready for skating! toodles!

I'm sooo jealous- adult public session here in SE VA- what a concept- never mind the fact that you can do freestyle on it too! I feel like a deprived child!

For my practice today- the loop was purring and the sitspin was coughing up hairballs- if it showed up at all!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Purr: I have a new coach who has a much better attitude than the last one who used to yell at me all the time.
The camel, and sit spin are slowly getting better positions but there's still alot of work to do on them and the jumps are slowly getting more consistent.
Hair Ball:All of my elements need to be more consistent. I haven't made too much progress sometimes i feel kind of stuck.-

Synchro:
Purr: Our routine!! This will really kick-butt for the spring show!
Hairball: she wants to add another number for us to do, even though we haven't worked the kinks out of this routine

Spins:
Purr: Scratch spin!
Hairball: don't always hit it and sometimes I really travel !

Overall:
Purr: I feel really good about my skating, even my crappy inside 3-turns aren't quite so crappy!
Hairball: Jumps are planned for Fridays class-I'm not very good at them. Also, after the spring show, the ice melts and I have to find someplace else to skate for the summer

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Purr:
I think today's lesson was the best I've had in a year. First, I've been coaching every day of the week since December, so I've been on the ice every day even if I haven't had much time for practice. I think it has finally begun to pay off in the comfort I feel right away when I get on the ice. Second, I've been teaching the two foot turn in place/moving to a lot of my students, and it has made the F threes start to click for me like they hadn't before. I've always rushed them, but today (I've been feeling them get better all week), I seemed to be much better able to take my time.

I could hardly believe that my choice of what to work on first was Prelim power threes. They are so much better. Hubby said I do not look klutzy at all (I believe him), and coach also said they were flowing and much faster. We went on to the alternating FO and FI threes, both of which I was able to do (not yet to passing standard). This was the very first time I have ever done the FI threes across the line without a spot on every turn. For the first time, I really have hope that I can pass Prelim moves in the forseeable future.

Another surprise was my one foot spin from a pivot. Even my two foot was lousy on Friday, but when I saw my coach coming today, I just bit the bullet and did two one foot spins, no problem. Did it again in my lesson. I'm still leaning to the right, but definitely making progress. My coach always says I am too hard on myself because I have more technical knowledge than others at my level, and so I expect to do everything right immediately. You'd think I would know better by now

Hairball:
Spins leaning to right, not enough speed on power threes, still a lot of work to do on alt threes. Relieved that I didn't have to tackle the five step Mohawk today.

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Amen! Exact same "hairball" for me!

Purr Choreography for my FS program is finally starting to feel comfortable. I had a good runthrough this morning with the exception of the "hairball" jumps listed above. Getting excited about Pac Sectionals!

Yup, and it was relatively uncrowded tonight. Some of the 'usual suspects' did not show up, and it was a drama-free night. Haha!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Heya nova,
How's monday nights? Obviously i havent been there lately. I am on my lazy kick these days.
I should skate more there at Mt. Vernon, since I might relocate again to nyc soon.

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Tim David's Website

Monday night is great ... there are no group lessons, the idiotic hockey skaters have been staying away (do no take the syntax to infer that ALL hockey skaters are idiotic ... just the ones who skate at my rink ),and there are a few new faces (like MusicSkateFan).
So where've you been? My night is not complete without sassing/razzing you and trying to imitate your program moves.

And what's this? Moving back to NYC? What would we do without you? No longer feeling the lurve from DC? We were all looking forward to seeing your new Out of Africa program (wait, M. Kwan ddn't skate to that! What's up with that? ).

(Oh, did you see ... your former coach, Derrick Delmore, was invited to skate in the Marshalls U.S. Figure Skating Challenge cheesefest. That's kinda cool.)

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Niiice.
Yeh, I'm not finding this VA-DC area too kosher. I miss my friends and family too much.
- LOL, I know it's a new program, of course I have not tried it on the ice yet. I have time before Nationals. I think it might be the time when I start moving to nyc. So we will see how it goes.
- I am very happy for Derrick for getting invited. I hope he gets televised.

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Tim David's Website

Oh, I thought you said you weren't going to Nationals since you didn't complete your silver tests. (I must be thinking of someone else?)

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

I will be competing at the Bronze level - class I, since I did not pass that damn Silver test.

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Tim David's Website