Hi everyone!

Like AnnM, I've passed Bronze FS, but I have a challenge in getting to Nationals in 2006 -- distance! My husband was laid off from his job last winter and since he works in such a specialized industry (animation), the only location we were able to secure a job in was -- you guessed it! -- Sydney, Australia. I still would very much like to attend AN in Dallas, but how I am going to manage it with the expense of flying from here, the vacation days my husband will need to take while I'm gone to watch our 4-year old, and the whole 18-hour time difference/jet lag thing is a complete puzzle at the moment. Plus I will be one of the oldest skaters in Bronze I....I won't be able to skate in Bronze II until 2008 due to my very late-in-the-year birthday!

As for the location of the rink, I for one would love it to be in a mall. The rink I skate at here (Macquarie Ice Rink) is in a mall, and it sounds similar to the one you guys are talking about in that it's not within the mall, it's attached at the very end, although people at McDonalds and the food court can watch the skaters through the windows. If the qualifiers go later in the morning or day, being at a mall has one big plus in that it allows you the option of getting your hair done for the competition, which always makes me feel better before a competition (one less thing to worry about that I messed up on...!). Browsing the shops/eating at the food court there will also allow us to have something non-rink related to do to distract us while we are all waiting for the results to be posted.....

Keep sk8ing gr8 everyone! I hope I'll be there so I can meet you all, especially jazzpants!

When I was in my teens I skated at the Galleria in Dallas and at another one of the mall rinks. You just kind of tune out the "mallees" and do your thing. This one looks okay, it's just in Grapevine, but you can visit either Ft. Worth w/ it's fabulous contemporary art museum or you can do some serious shopping in Dallas @ the Galleria or Lemon(sp) ave and the Highland Park area. The food is very good but some areas are dry and you have buy a "membership" or something. It's not very difficult to get a cocktail if you want one. I don't know if they ever fixed 1-75 a little 2 lane highway through the center of Dallas, traffic was so bad that they thought about having ski jumps at the ramp entrance so the cars could just hurl into traffic.

la

Yep, I-75 a.k.a. Central Expressway is much improved these days (3 lanes each direction) and they've moved on to tearing up other sections of the city. Liquor laws here are convoluted indeed--getting a drink in a restaurant is easy but finding a liquor store or a grocery store that sells beer & wine (none of them sells liquor) can be challenging.

Of course, we will all be Serious Athletes In Training, so no need to worry about any of that. Steamed vegetables and Evian water all the way!

Nerd,
You're now on a mission- to find Dallas area liquor stores that sell vodka nips!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Sure and we're gonna do arm curls with dumbbells (instead of bottles of Stolis) too!!!

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Maybe the rink could dispense the nips in a vending machine? After all, some rinks sell skate tape and laces in their vending machines!

Heck, if they had that in the vending machines at my local rink, I probably would have done better at Skate SF last Oct...

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Hey that could be a fundraising idea for the LOC. Or, Bill P could do it for the Mountain Cup fund!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Easy schmeezy--we live about 5 minutes from a whole strip of liquor stores and I know the one we usually go to has miniatures of all kinds!

Riiiiiight, and I didn't go to the rink with a slight Guinness hangover today.

Well at least at that time (it may still read the same now), the requirement read "toe loop, salchow and an additional single jump". My coach interpreted that to mean not necessarily a single revolution jump. So my jumps were a toe loop, salchow, and a waltz -toe loop. I wasn't sure it it would fly with the judges, but I have my bronze test certificate. The only thing that nearly caused me not to pass was a shaky backspin in the program (I had to reskate the spin). It was a risk, but in this instance it paid off.

Interesting. The judges 'round here wouldn't have accepted a waltz jump as a single, nor would they allow a combination to count as a single jump. You totally lucked out.

Actually, the requirements, at least now, are a toe loop, a salchow, another single, and a waltz-toe combo. So the judges may have just overlooked the missing jump - unless when you took it, the requirements were different - I've heard the adult FS tests used to have different requirements than they do now, but I've only been skating for 3 years so I have no idea when these changes happened. In any event, congrats on passing the test. Hope you can make it to AN next year.

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

Debbie,

Then perhaps it was an additional waltz jump in my program apart from a waltz-toe. I now remember that the waltz-toe was required too. I took the test in 2001(?), so I don't have an exact recollection of the requirements (or my program apparently!). But I do recall that my coach took a very technical interpretation of "single jump".

I took my test through the San Francisco Skating Club, which has a fairly "competitive" reputation from what I've read/heard. Keep in mind thought that it was several years ago and adult skating has changed considerably since then.

AnnM: I remembered it being a waltz jump... The reason I remembered was b/c at my next lesson I told my primary coach what happened and asked him about the "single jump" requirement. I don't remember what his reaction to that is, though.

I've been trained all along though that the "one other single jump" has always been a loop, flip or lutz, though. Practically all of my primary coach's students who took Bronze FS test did a loop as the one other single jump. I know I am expected to also do a loop jump as the one single jump too. (Unless of course, my flip gets better than my loop, THEN it'll be the flip!)

I could always say that I could have taken the Bronze FS test with AnnM's program back then so I would be eligible for AN. However, in the end, it would have made life difficult for me in terms of competing and being able to go over skating foundation stuff that the Bronze Moves does so well. And I'm in no mood to compete against those Bronze ladies w/the flying camels, the lutz-loops and the camel-sit-backsit either.

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Since AN 2005 is a few weeks away, I've re-started this thread.
Started on Bronze MIF this past week with major work on the back power perimeter stroking. Have warned Coach #2 that power threes would be one whole lesson or more!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Hey, my power 3's have taken up multiple whole lessons, and counting!

This past week was my spring break from grad school when I was *supposed* to be getting a lot of skating done. But I fell on my right knee on Monday and developed this annoying cough that has sapped some of my energy and made me a few steps slower on the ice when I did skate this week, making me feel like the progress I have made on moves the past few weeks has gone down the drain.

And to top it off, I may not be having lessons for a few weeks. My primary coach can't make our regular lesson time b/c of an extra lesson she's been having in order to prepare for AN and we're having some difficulty finding an alternate time that works for both of us. My moves coach wasn't able to get to our rink this past week, and may not be able to this week, due to events at his primary rink. So on I go..... I hope I can at least get a lesson with moves coach because I'm worried that I've developed some bad habits on the 5-step, namely stepping to a flat on the 4th step.

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

Geez, maybe I should start a " Skaters without lessons support group" thread!
The week of CRC, we had that freak storm that caused my coach to cancel lessons, despite the fact that it was sunny by 3pm that afternoon. The next week, I had planned to take the week off from skating, though in the end I had a serious family issue to deal with. Last week, mom was discharged from the hospital on lesson day,so I had to cancel then. This week, damn spring break made rink management "assume" that the all the kiddies had the week off. Quite a few are either away or in private school, so they won't be there. Coach then decides to take the week off. Hopefully, I'll be on a regular schedule by next week, barring any freak occurances! Thank God for coach #2!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Ah, the memories. I had this habit on the 5-step too...for some reason, it was the hardest thing to get my shoulders to roll around from backward to forward just before the initiation of the 4th step. Try to add some speed, and it got worse. I'll still do this when I run through this move for kicks. But in the meantime, while you're waiting for a lesson, you may want to slow the move down and feel how the shoulders and hips come around on that 4th step. If I kept the skating shoulder back and let the opposite shoulder come around, that seemed to help some, and it helped set up a ripping sound on the 5th step's inside edge.

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All that glitters has a high refractive index.

Har har!!! Terri and Debbie -- I got you guys beaten!!! I've been working on GAWD AWFUL power 3's for over TWO YEARS!!! HATE 'EM!!! HATE 'EM!!! HATE 'EM!!! And right now... I CAN do the power 3's move now, but there's not enough power on it still to justify testing at this point. Occasionally I still trip myself up on those FO3's too!!!Currently I only have one move that I do exceedingly well. The other three moves are still slightly below passing standard right now and won't be enough to balance the power 3's.

At the rate that I'm going, I think my primary coach is gonna wait 'til the new skating season for me to take the Bronze Moves test b/c the primary focus will change (from "power" to "strength and flow") He thinks that I would have a better chance passing if the focus was changed to that. I have a funny feeling that in the end this would be my best course. My secondary coach recently acknowledges that I have a LOT to work on if I ever want to get my moves to passing standard as well too... So... *sigh* I guess NOW we'll see if I'm gonna take the Bronze moves test sometime this year...

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Well I hope to be able to compete at 2006 AN wherever they may be! I have my work cut out for me. I am now working on Bronze moves. I have worked on the forward power stroking, backward power stroking, 5 step Mohawk, and the alternating to BO edges with my coach. He will probably start me on the power 3's soon. I guess I would have to pass on the first try in order to be able to compete at the Bronze Men II level. As far as the Freestyle test, I only need to greatly improve my spins. My jumps are all there, including(from what I am told) a very good Lutz. I will do the waltz, toe combo for the test but will probably change it to a waltz, loop, toe combo for competition.

BUT!!!! I got to get through those damn moves first!!!!! KILL ME!!!

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

If you skate faster, it makes everything look better!

Like you, MSF, I have the jumps, (albiet no lutz yet, but that and flip will hopefully make appearances in lessons very soon) but cannot spin worth beans!

Relax about passing the first time out, though. The application comes out around November and the deadline is January 15, so there's plenty of time to get the tests in!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

I have total faith in you. You're a strong skater who works very hard, and you have an awesome coach! And yes, your lutz is to die for!

2006 AN is definitely in Dallas, and it's being held 2 weeks earlier than this year's AN (which makes me upset because I have to go to a meeting in Atlanta, March 26-30. Grrr!).

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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.

Is this to assume no AN 2006 for you???
All that work that Jazzpants and I will do for nothing!!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Well ... I'm very good at getting out of work commitments (remember the Halloween Classic fiasco when my managing editor forbid me from leaving an advisory board meeting early and then I just didn't bother to show up for it on that Friday? ). This will be trickier ... but hey, I've got a whole year to connive and scheme! And really, I have zero desire in going to Dallas.

__________________
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.