It's an awful dance, you don't want to go there. You do the forward steps in reverse Kilian hold, then, when you do the Mohawk, you change to Kilian hold, so that you and the man don't have to change sides - he is always on your outside.

Loved: Nothing

Loathed: Being so cr*p at skating. Dont' know why we bother. Don't think I will bother any more.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Help,
I have just learned the foxtrot and I am having trouble w/ the mohawk at the end before the 2 inner, inner steps that start the pattern. Exactly how high does my leg need to go? My coach is saying waist high but my leg is so long it takes 4 beats to get it up and then I'm late....

It's a bit up to your coach, as it's very important your legs match as you come around that corner. BUT, it's also a bit of an illusion--your skating knee rises as you raise the leg--so you aren't actually raising the leg as high as it looks like, because your knee straightening will raise it for you. Does that make any sense? I loved the Foxtrot!

I've only seen kids get it so high - adults just lift it as for a swing roll! But whatever you do, if you are dancing with a partner, match! The judges won't like it if one of you lifts your leg really high and the other doesn't!

Not that I do it very well anyway..... don't yet dance it socially, even, never mind competitively. Husband does, but with Other Woman - she's better than him, and can help him a bit, but not so much so that he doesn't have to work very hard at it! I find dancing it with Husband hard, as he doesn't know how to help me on those bits I need help on. I do, occasionally, dance it with a really good partner, but opportunities to do so are few & far between!

Maybe one of our judges or trial judges could answer your question better? Jen????

As for me, I think I'm quite, quite mad - at our coach's suggestion, we've just signed up for a course in ballroom dancing lessons. My husband, on a wooden dance floor? I think the end of the world must be here.....

Anybody know what one should wear?

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Rats! This morning when we had a break from lessons, I asked one of the other coaches, who is a young woman that I know had been a dancer. She didn't remember, but got the book and decided that the change of hold must be at the BI Mohawk before beginning the second side, so that one skates the first side in Kilian and the second in reverse. It made sense to me, but now you've told me we were all wrong . Maybe I'm ready for a dance lesson?

I have never seen you so negative about yourself. It is totally undeserved! You are not allowed to quit. I've been looking forward to the day when I can skate with you and Robert, having missed out in 2001 because of my wrist. Now you are slimming down, and your skating is steadily progressing, as you yourself have been telling us. Besides, I will need you and Robert to demo some dances for me, as the diagrams do not tell all

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Most people don't raise the free leg in the Foxtrot nearly as high as they do nowadays in the blues. What's more important than how HIGH you raise the free leg is getting a nice stable BO edge with good soft knee bend, and for style, using about half of the 2 beats of the RBO edge to raise the free leg, then roughly the last half of the 2 beats to draw the free leg back down to prep to stroke onto a true LFI followed by a true RFI (it's very easy to flatten out the 2 FI edges or even make the RFI edge into an RFO... plus at test/comp those edges are often right in front of the judges, so it's also very obvious, and will get you marked down)

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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...

That is the biggest peice of bullsh*t I've heard all week, especially from you of all people. You've accomplished loads and you aren't crap at all. Look at all the wonderful interpretive pieces you've done, and competitions You LOVE it, you don't need me to tell you that. If you quit, you shall face the consequences. We'll all gang up on you, and troop down south and drag you back on the ice. Kapish?!

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http://www.yourphotoalbums.co.uk

Congrats! You'll love it!

Just wear comfy clothes to start out--I usually wore jazz pants & a cami top or something similar. Later when I got more serious I'd also often wear a leotard & wrap skirt--same as on the ice. Principle is the same--fitted clothing that will move with you & let your instructor see your body line.

Shoes: if you own any "dance" shoes with something other than a street sole, wear those. Otherwise, for you, a comfortable shoe with a bit of a heel. For hubby, something like an oxford or something w/ a leather sole. Definitely no sneakers (unless you have dance sneakers)!

If in doubt, call the studio & ask what they recommend.

Annabel, if you quit skating, I will have Patsy from the Parlor send Guigi and Luigi after you, physically scrap skates on your feet and put you out on the ice!!! KAPISH??? Besides, you've worked hard on losing ALL that weight from last year! Doncha wanna at least take the time to show off your new figure in a lovely skating dress???

Ballroom dance is fun!!! I wish I could go back to it, but hubby has two left feet and I just don't have the motivation to go if I have to go dancing on my own. Wear comfortable shoes and layers (like you would if you were going to the gym.) You will be quite warm by the end of the lesson if I recall the last time I did ballroom right.

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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!!!

Fiesta Tango, I'll post since I've passed the test so therefore I am supposed to know how it goes

Lady starts on Man's left and stuck together hip to hip. When entering the RFI mohawk, both partners lift their joined hands out and to the side, do the mohawk and hands come back down to the hips but you're going backwards together. Oh this is hard to describe in words. Then after the backwards steps, both of you do a nasty crossstep L over R, and again lift arms up and out as you step forward and then come back down on the hips after changing direction.

You never let go of your partner's hands, although you might shift fingers around a bit to adjust to the holds, and the man gets slightly forward of the girl to be in place after the change from front to back and back to front.


Mrs. Redboots I've had crap days too. Don't give up, I like doing dance via internet and across countries (Canada to UK ) with you. I skated this Saturday morning and felt so old and creaky that I joined the adult learn to skate group for a change because doing swing rolls was a challenge. However, I felt better just because I made the effort to get out there and am hoping for a better next week. Hope you have one too.

So you are in reverse Kilian down the long axis while skating forward, and in Kilian on the ends for the backwards part. That makes more sense to me. BTW, I love that XF before the BI Mohawk, but only because it is so common in dance that it brings back my old roller dance days. It is also in the 10 step Mohawk pattern in Juv moves, and gives me fits on the CW circle!

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I finally got back on the ice last Friday after a couple of months of absence - early december I started a job in another city, and I had time to join my dance club just a couple of time before Xmas (rushing out of the office, catchig a train for my city, retrieving my skates and rushing to the rink... yes, I'm crazy, I know...). I had no chances at all to skate here, because I was just too busy working - I worked for the OC of the European Championships, you can imagine what stress that was!
Anyway, I finally managed to catch again that famous train and last week I actually skated!!!

I did better than I expected. After a couple of warmup laps I had some muscles screaming for mercy, but it passed quickly. I had a lot of fun, we did so many different exercises... at one point I even found myself doing a particular silly sequence easily while most of the others were struggling (with my coach saying "I can't understand why you don't get it! You can do much more difficult things... it's all in your head!" and she was right - it WAS a really easy thing) and I realized it was beacuse I had dne it in my last synchro number! (BTW I also bumped in my former synchro coach while getting into the rink, I had not seen her since I left the team and did't really know what to say... she was all happy and nice, while I couldn't stop thinking about the awful things she had written me in one of her last e-mails... grrrr... what a double faced girl...).
I managed a quite decend rocker a couple of times, but at half speed - the only time I had gotten a bit of confidence and tried going faster, I got the weight wrong, fell on the tail and had a quite spectacular fall on my backside, feeling very clearly that sensation of being in the air, hopelessly falling with legs and arms flying everywhere...aaaargh! Thankfully the fall was only spectacular and not serious at all - I got up laughing and went back to the rockers - even if back at my previous slow pace!
The other exercises we had, working on mohawks and choctaws were fine - I still can't come back to the first foot/edge after I do a choctaw (as in RBO/LFI.....aaaaaarghhhRBO... it has surely something to do with my poor control of my shoulders and possibly I'm not keeping the hip open enough...) to make them in series, but I think I was improving a bit, and if I manage to get back skating regularly, I am positive things will improve...
I struggled a bit trying to remember any of the dances I had been learning, and ended up working mostly on the american and european waltz - getting a couple of nice pointers about my posture from my coach.
Apart from my fall, the only bad thing I did was getting a cut on my finger while wiping off some snow from my blade but overall I had a lot of fun, did better than I expected and enjoyed immensely being back on the ice and with my friends!

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Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

Thanks, guys. Yesterday was a really bad day, I was in a vile mood for most of it! Thankfully Husband isn't the type that lets my moods affect his.

But anybody would be upset if, after nearly 10 years of trying to skate, they get told they are still not good enough to pass a LEVEL 1 BRONZE test (that's about pre-pre-pre-pre-preliminary) with their Free Dance. Sigh.... and I do want to pass it before we have to build it back up for competition.

Must rush - off to Slough tonight to skate with Other Woman. Tee-hee - they haven't been able to organise a lesson, so I get to do the coaching!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Take heart. You still may not be able to do what you want, but you obviously know a lot and can teach it! I'm in the same situation. I can teach things I can't do . You will get there!

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