Ripe Wheeeeeeeee waltz-loops are so much fun! I did the babiest waltz jump into a teeny tiny loop, but I did it. I don't know if it's coincidence or not but my loop jump overall has improved - my coach told me tonight that I'm making great strides in my loop and he can tell I've really been working on it and he's proud of me

He showed me a trick to get more "pop" in my salchow to get it up higher but we never got around to the toe loop. He's pretty happy with my toe loop, but I'd like to see it get even bigger. Maybe I'm just greedy. Lol. He's also working on getting my waltz jump delayed even more...he says I get good hang time

The rink was nice and quiet tonight. The skating director says she's not happy with her ice so she's going to adjust the temperature - it HAS been rather frigid, but today was much better. I was able to work in peace and solitude until my lesson started and I went through basic moves and spins and jumps without dodging too many kids.

My coach also had me do outside edge spirals and says I look like Sasha Cohen I'm flexible and all, but that's a big compliment!

Moldy What on earth is going on with my flip - I have great position in the air, but I'm on the back of my heel on the landing. I can't figure out how to fix it...I did a couple of good flips tonight but mostly the landings were back in the heel. Because of this I didn't bother with the lutz at all.

Camel spin, camel spin, camel spin....ugh, I finally did a decent one, or so I thought, and my coach was like, thats great but straighten your legs. Sigh.

My spins in general have been off. I don't know if its because of the ice, or because of my blades (I desperately need a sharpening!) but I DO know that I've been lifting my right shoulder for no good reason and it's throwing me off. I go through these peaks and valleys with my scratch spins.

Sit spins were okay, but again VERY travelly.

Random My coach was on his way to the hospital after my lesson to be with his wife - she was induced today and they should have a beautiful baby girl by tomorrow. Congrats to Rosie and Erik Larson on their new little one, Annabel - she's going to be the next great skater of her generation

All moldy, unfortunately. I skated today, Thursday, for barely over half an hour because I physically wasn't feeling too good (female trouble). When I was traveling to the rink I felt decent enough to skate and tried to pull through, but after 40 minutes there I'd had enough. I feel like I didn't practice adequately and it's like I wasted a trip there. But I guess 40 mins isn't bad.

(Today was my 1/2 hr lesson and I didn't want to cancel it. I hadn't had a lesson since last week Monday.)

Hey AnnM--

It sounds like you and I need to get together and trade elements. My forward crossrolls are much better than my back ones, and for me the 8-step mohawk sequence is better in the counter-clockwise direction. How about if we each do our strong parts on each other's tests?

And such a wonderful choice of name, too! Let's hope she skates better than this one!

Mouldy: Why is it that the more Husband and I dance together, the more we find places where we don't push, where we slow right down, where things just go pear-shaped???? Actually, it's serious progress, but oh, so disheartening!

So last night was dance club, and after an hour's social dancing (and the ice is slow by then, so you have to push hard!) I was exhausted. And we never got to do a Swing Dance together, as my boots needed attention when it was on, and it turned out to be the only Swing Dance of the evening.

Ripe: We actually danced a Foxtrot together without having to stop! Okay, it was awful, you've never seen a worse Foxtrot (at least, I hope you haven't!), but we got through it. And a 14-step, although not quite so successful. I'm determined to get these dances to the point where I can do them socially comfortably, then I only have to master the Hickory Hoedown (and I wanted to try that with a different partner on Wednesday, but then couldn't go) to be able to do all the level 6 and under dances and start thinking of adding the Blues and the Tango and perhaps the European & American waltzes to my repertoire. But that's next year... this year is Foxtrot and 14-step.

I'm delighted by the way I can do my intro-3s, they are getting much more powerful and far less tentative. And Husband and I did a really good Prelim or British Waltz together, even though my free leg did go all over the place..... okay, so it wasn't really good, but you know what I mean.....

Anyway, it was fun & tiring.

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Ripe:
At last, I'm back on the ice, even though it was just a public session. At first, I was so stiff and uncomfortable that I really just wanted to turn around and quite. In addition to not having skated all summer, except for twice, I'm still not used to my new orthotics. I stuck with it and pushed myself to do the things that were easy for me when summer began, such as F and B crossovers, and the pre-pre edge patterns. I finally loosened up and went on to F power crossovers, did FO and FI threes, F & B power pulls, and spiral stretches. Surprisingly, the moves that came back the fastest and most secure were the F and B cross strokes!

Mouldy:
I really barely did the three turns at all, just enough to prove to myself that I could still do them. The only patterns I skated completely were the FO edges, FI edges, BO edges, F crossovers and F power crossovers. Everything else I just dabbled at. The orthotics have helped my FO edges, but now FI and BI edges need a little attention, whereas they were dead simple before.

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Ripe - well, as Mrs Redboots predicted a couple of weeks ago, DH and I are now allowed to step through the Dutch Waltz. And after some serious practice, we now expect that we will be able to complete one half of the rink (ie: one full repetition) at close to stumbling speed. We're not doing it to music yet as I for one am still learning the steps.

Mouldy - several things, mostly to do with not having practised it enough yet. I expect that flow and speed will come with time...(a very long time).

Also, we are nowhere near getting it in time to the music yet. Our count aloud has made others who hear us smile, especially on the second half of the first swing roll: "PUSH-2-3-Change-5-s-i-i-i-x-and-a-h-a-l-f-f-f". For some reason, we are not able to complete the first swing roll in 6 counts (3 on the back swing half and 3 on the forward swing half). We do manage it on the second swing. Not sure why.

Mrs Redboots and/or other dancers who post may be able to help with this and the following question: I find tracking when I need to push with my left leg is hard, in that I invariably end up in front of DH, so that if I was to push back at 45 degrees (ie: not straight back and not straight sideways), I would collect his boot and either one or both of us would go down.

It's especially a problem in the fast progressive after the second swing roll in the Dutch Waltz - I've tracked in front to push with my right leg and DH can push with his right leg behind me (good), but I can't get back behind him to push with my left leg for the second part of the progressive. Means I get no power there at all. How do we manage this? (You may recall that DH and I are both new to dance.) DH at first thought I was just not pushing strongly enough (he's much faster than me usually), but when we did the thing hand to hand rather than in Killian hold, I kept up easily, as I had room to put some guts behind the push. Any suggestions?

Ripe:

Started learning backspin today, and it sort of kind of started out OK - once I even managed 3 rev from a standstill pushoff, but them my left leg twisted around right one and I had to struggle really hard to stay up.

Moldy:

Got "Pinoccio legs" again - stiff like wood. First half an hour struggled through feet crumps - so annoying! Warm up doesn't seem to help much.

What the heck is wrong with my LFI 3-turn? This is the only move where I have such striking difference between left and right leg. RFI is shaky but still more or less there, but LFI....

Errr.... I'll get it eventually. Just a couple of hundred more years of practice...

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Ripe: Got back on the ice again last night(Friday)-it was warmer in the rink...Spent some time teaching hubby edges, 3's and then we progressed to dreaded back crossovers I know he swears I'm evil. In between, I worked on my stuff, which was mostly ok. Did some spirals, which were way high!!! And I can go from one blue line to the end of the rink (and smash into the boards!) I'm working on a change-edge spiral, I'd like to put that into my routine as it would take up some time (don't have much in my little bag of tricks for the Halloween Classic).

Moldy: Ok, my spins are crap! For some reason, my free leg is on strike and refuses the command to raise up! Oh well. It will come. I know the strength is there...maybe I should try hypnosis! And there were crickets on the ice!! Ewww! Some were still alive, some had been zammed! Yuk!

Anyway, hubby gave up on crossovers after 5 minutes and got off the ice....said he was tired. I suggested he should work on something else for stamina-like stroking or just skating around. He said he was tired and afraid to fall down. Oh well.

So I got my skates heat-molded (finally) after the session. They were pinching my ankle bones and hurting my bunions. Hopefully, that fixes the problem! I will find out tomorrow, during adult skate!

PS-our ice seems a bit harder-the rink manager is right. But I'm still pitching onto my toepicks slightly-but if I try not to, it makes my behind stick out....

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Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Mouldy and past it:
For some reason, I didn't take the week off from skating after Peach. The way I felt on the ice yesterday, I wish I had. I'm having pressure in my ears and my sinuses.
Five step mohawk:
Got to hold every step so I can get on a edge. Demonstrated it today at a PSA seminar, where I thought it was done okay, but got canned for my posture with my coach giving me the "I told you so " look!

Beautifully ripe:
Power threes- that is one thing that was back on the practice agenda post Peach.
Back to work on the camel and the flip!

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I can think, off-hand, of two possibilities here. The first is you are anticipating on that RFO push - could you be thinking that the run (progressive) ends up towards the barrier and already stepping that way? That first edge should still be going towards the centre of the rink, and you only start to come around with the LFI edge.

Alternatively, perhaps you are not pushing enough into the LFO swing roll - you are on the outside of the curve here, as it starts off towards the barrier and finishes towards the centre of the rink, and the person on the outside needs to push harder than the one on the inside to keep together.

If I were you, I'd practice endless laps of outside swing rolls in Kilian hold. Make them six-beat rolls, too, so that you are also practising keeping your free legs back. It's a bore, but you'd be surprised how even 2 laps per practice session will improve matters!

Here in the UK, we start with the Prelim Foxtrot (aka Novice Foxtrot), which is literally a matter of progressive runs and swings - you start with a LFO/RFI run (2 beats each edge), then LFO swing (4 beats), then RFO/LFI run followed by RFO swing.... which you repeat ad nauseam around the rink, in time to the Foxtrot music. It's actually one of those dances that is surprisingly hard to do well, and it's always good practice for your edges, runs and swings!

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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!

To add to Mrs. Redboots who had an excellent explanation, I would think that a little knee bend in and around the top of the curve of the swing roll would bring you back on track. Knee bend = lean, and leaning into the lobes would keep the inside person inside and the outside person outside. Knowing the pattern on the ice is very very important, if you think that you have to aim towards the centre, or the barrier, the lobes do get more lobe-y. Coach has been known to draw them on the ice with marker for the pattern-challenged. (me)

The fun thing about the Dutch waltz is that, well, you're going dutch! If something is wrong, it's not always just the one person, both of you have to work at it.

Mrs. Redboots, I've also been "advised" that the fourteenstep is on my dance agenda for this season, so we can commiserate together. I wasn't pleased to see a x-behind in the fourteenstep, I'm worried enough about the mohawk.

Moldy:

I know it's been discussed elsewhere, but I'm having contact lens problems, one eye is hard to fit and I've been fiddling with different curves and brands, today coach asked me if I could see yet. (I should use that as an excuse). I ended taking the miserable one out and skating one-eyed. Interesting. In a drunken way. I wonder how I can work in obsessive blinking and head shaking into my program. My problem with glasses is that they fog, they do always stay on when I fall.

Spectacularly Ripe:

I landed a fully rotated, perfectly toepicked flip today. Then I did it two more times. I'm very interested to see if it will show up again next week.

Mohawk isn't too bad, as long as you do do the proper closed one - if you do the open Foxtrot one by mistake, it's a bit disastrous. I still tend to do a slight choctaw. I've known the steps of this dance for simply ever, but it's always felt too fast to want to work on it until this year (but with loads of work on the Festival Quickstep & Riolado Samba, which are dumbed-down versions of the Quickstep & the Silver Samba, and hoping to work on a dumbed-down Kilian which is becoming popular here, the 14-step isn't as fast as it once was!). The cross-behind is awful, not because it's there (after all, we're quite used to them in dances like the Fiesta Tango & Golden skaters' waltz, to say nothing of the Rhythm Blues), but because it comes straight after the step to forwards - you want, or rather, I want, another beat to get my balance before going into it! I just aim my feet any old where & hope for the best!

My coach doesn't like us wearing glasses (although Husband does) because one of his pupils wore them on the ice in competition and spent her entire programme pushing them up her nose. And since I went to bifocals.... so I wear contact lenses when on the ice, but take them out when I get home as I don't see so well as with my glasses.

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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!

Beautifully Ripe--
Had a great practice today! Worked on adding speed to the entry of some of my jumps, and toe loops (and waltz-toe, sal-toe, and loop-toe) were cooperating today. Of course it's likely that "the coach effect" will rear its head when I go to show them to my coach later, lol!

Also got to run through my program with music and without music today. A friend who's competing tomorrow put my music on for me and I put hers on for her. Her program looks great--she's going to creme me at Halloween Classic, I do believe.

Moldy--backspin is pretty cruddy, and my forward scratch hasn't been centered lately. And my waltz-loop is just awful--I'm not converting my weight over to the skating/landing side for the loop.

ETA: Moldy--Arrived at rink today to find that freestyle rates had gone up due to increase in energy costs and insurance rates. This is the second increase at that rink in less than a year, I think. I think the rent for the pro shop and snack bar also went up.

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Ripe Ripe Ripe Ripe (Pardon the bragfest to follow!)

Okay, I had a FABULOUS day at the rink.

Group lesson went VERY well....we were working on FO-BI and FI-BO 3 turns and I actually got them - my group coach was impressed and told me to piece them together, which got me really dizzy, but it was fun.

Public session after was just FUN. I was doing toe loop-toe loop-toe loop-toe loop-toe loop-toe loop...well you get the idea...I just did as many as I could, trying to make each one even better than the one before and it was SO much fun. I kept going until I just got way too dizzy. My regular coach was watching while he was in another lesson and winked at me. They must've looked good I took into account the advice some folks gave me in another thread and they felt very big today.

Waltz jumps were great. Very floaty. Salchows were good - I'm getting much better height.

MY LOOP IS BACK BABY! And BETTER than before! I was crunching out GREAT loop jumps today. Good speed, good height, good flow out of them. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

My flip has resolved itself - not only am I not landing in my heel anymore, but I'm flowing out of them with nice speed. It's a miracle!

Sit spins - awesome! After they resurfaced I did a bunch of "butt spins" to make the kids laugh.

Scratch spins - getting back to the way they were. A little girl I know skated up to me and she said "I can't even see your face when you spin! I only kne it was you because your braids were sticking out to the side!". Woohoo! I'm still a little tilty with the shoulder, but I'm working on it

I did one of my spirals and my friend told me I almost have it at 180. Gotta keep stretching!!!

But the best part about the day was that I was having FUN - that's the way skating should be every time. I played with the kids, I had a "private lesson" from an adorable (albeit bossy) 7 year old who said I was her "best student ever" lol. I also just felt like I was flying in everything I did, and all eyes were on me. Yes, I'm a bit of an attention....person.

I didn't have room to work on my camel today or the lutz, but I'm happy with what I did. I couldn't believe how quickly the session was over and I was just so elated when I was leaving.

I think the adult crew is going to do a group number with "step out solos" during the holiday show and I'm very much looking forward to it - I've never done a show before! Maybe I'll ask my coach to throw a little solo number together for me...or better yet, choreograph it myself.

Okay - enough rambling. NO MOLDY FOR ME TODAY!!!!!

Thank you so much for your help. Reading your post, I had a sense of deja vu - yes, I did think the first (fast) progressive heads to the side; and yes, I probably am not pushing hard enough on the second roll.

And, yes, we do endless laps of swing rolls in Killian (and hand-to-hand); and yes, it has made an enormous difference, with a lot more improvement still needed. (Mind you, for those thinking about taking up dance, spending 2 hours straight doing *nothing* but 6-beat swing rolls around the perimeter in Kilian hold does get a *little* boring....)

I have to say, though, that that particular exercise proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that dance provides at least as much exercise as freestyle (more, given my pathetic freestyle). I get tired doing those laps, because you just don't stop. And as for the thighs...maintaining the knee bend the whole time really works the quads!

Any sage words on why we're not getting the first swing roll done evenly or in six counts (see original post re counting to 6...and a half)? We can do it in the laps (finally), but not after the last (fast) progressive before the first swing when attempting the dance.

Novice foxtrot sounds like fun. I'll ask my coach about it when I see her tomorrow.

Mouldy: I went to my alternate weekend rink today b/c I had a funeral to attend. WAAAAAAY too many teenage kids for my (or a few others') comfort. It's date night!!!

Lost blade guards. Probably still at home rink... better check with them and/or get new ones...

Ripe: What I can do with the moves seems solid!!! I feel ready for moves tonight... Spins are okay... well, when I'm not spinning into some rut from the ice b/c the session was so busy that the ice was already slush when I got there. (Got on the ice a half hour after the session started....)

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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!!!

Ripe: Oh yea, I had a fab lesson, even though I was supposed to work on my program but more of that in the Mouldy section. I officially started my parallel (camel) with my coach, which went very well, he said it was excellent for my first real attempt, I love love love it! I actually got about...5 revolutions!!! I started my chage foot spin too but it isn't happening just yet. Also got back to work on my loop, it's been neglected for so so long. I'm actually feeling the ability to land it sometime soon and get it consistent.

On Mondays, I have a free period first thing in the morning, I was thinking that I could go skating for the morning session and walk to college afterwards. And the same with tuesday evenings.

Mouldy: I got my program music on my minidisc, and lo and behold, it DIDN'T WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very very p****d off!!!

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[QUOTE=aussieskater]

Any sage words on why we're not getting the first swing roll done evenly or in six counts (see original post re counting to 6...and a half)? We can do it in the laps (finally), but not after the last (fast) progressive before the first swing when attempting the dance.
QUOTE]

It might be something to do with how you start the swing roll...The last step of the progressive is a left outside edge and therefore the left hip is leading and your weight is over the skating foot with your free foot extended back and turned out. From here you must draw up and re-bend for the next step with your weight still over the skating foot but as you get to the end of the re-bend you change so your right hip is now leading strongly and push onto the right foot(e.g.start the next step which is the swing roll). Again your free foot must be extended back and turned out or you will not be able to hold a strong edge. If your weight is in the right place when you change from the last step of the progressive to the swing roll you will have more power on the swing roll, and the turn out will allow you to bring the edge round more tightly to complete the swing roll in time.

I hope this makes sense, it's easier to demonstrate than give a written explanation!

Anna

What Briar said, but also, it's a matter of practice! When you start off your laps of swing rolls, start as though you were starting the dance - Left, right, then do a progressive run, a 3-beat edge, and then start the first of the swing rolls. If you are still having problems, even though you are just doing swing rolls in waltz time, not dancing, then it's almost definitely to do with weight shift - and make sure that you are starting the swing towards the centre of the rink, not stepping straight towards the barrier. And also make sure your feet are really close together as you change feet (my downfall!).

If she is originally from Britain, she'll probably know it as the Prelim Foxtrot; it only changed its name about 3-4 years ago.

You and my husband, who left his in North London - anybody else?

As for us, we had a good practice this morning.

Ripe: Coach has given us some new steps to put into the transition between the end of the first section of our free dance & the start of the step sequence, which I think will work very well. I've bought an MP3 player so I can listen to the music while we work on it, at least on those sessions where it's safe to do so. It got to the stage where we were better to leave it, and work on it together, rather than waste any more time in the lesson.

We had great fun playing with changes-of-edge - this time we even began to work on inside-to-outside changes-of-edge in Kilian hold, and did outside-to-inside in waltz hold. Which was fine when I was going backwards, but didn't quite work when the Husband was..... We also played with bracket-3-brackets on 2 feet, in Foxtrot & waltz holds.

Mouldy: Our lesson was late starting, so only got 20 minutes; we'll make it up on Tuesday though. At which point, the Husband announced he was on duty at Figure Club on Tuesday evening - now he tells me! - so it will be Tuesday evening, not Tuesday morning!

We didn't really run through our compulsory dances; instead, we played with the Foxtrot and the Prelim (aka British) Waltz (level 5 dances) since the music for those was playing. But we had a good skate. Won't start panicking about the British Adults yet.....

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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!

Ripe

Had the first session with my other coach (I finally decided to have two sessions a week, but with different coaches). And he suggested we do a bit of "fun stuff" - things that are slightly challenging for my level. So we ended up working on jump combos: waltz - half loop - salchow and toe-loop - half loop - salchow. I really loved it!

Mouldy

We tried also a loop and a flip, but I kept doing halfs - landing on left foot instead of my right one. After the lesson I tried about 100 loops or so - and all of them were two-footed. No instant wins!

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Ripe
I was in Pennsylvania this past weekend, visiting my in-laws. I skated at a rink in Ardmore (The Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society rink). It was very cool. There are no boards, which was very strange, considering I have been know to slide into them on my Novice moves. However, it was such a fun rink because the sun shines in through windows on the side and also on the roof. There were only about 3 or 4 of us there. I landed some nice double loops and a few axels. I also did practice my moves and I helped my husband on his forward crossovers and I showed him how to do back crossovers. I told him that he could be my pairs partner.

Moldy
My layback was giving me issues, but so is life.

Hey, if you got him to do back crossovers there's definitely hope for him! Want to try with my husband next?

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I need a detachable left foot!

I've actually heard that learning the half loop first can make learning the loop harder because your body gets into the habit of putting the "wrong" foot down. What worked for me was really lifting the free leg high, which also helps with height, and refusing to land on anything but the right leg - if I fell, I fell. Surprisingly, I didn't fall and I landed my first loop right away. See if it works for you

Thanks, I'll sure try next time!

I think, what my body is confused about is how you can take off from and land on the same foot. All other jumps so far - waltz, toe, salchow - have different take-off and landing feet, so I do keep putting down my free foot before I realise - oops! wrong!

I won't get on ice till Saturday so I'm going to review ISU videos and "habitize" the technique off-ice.

I didn't "learn" half-loop - we just put it in combo between waltz and salchow, and the coach said that it was really good - bold and high. The irony is that out of the combo I can't quite figure out where my free leg should be - I noticed that it swings back right after the take off and I rotate with legs apart. Well, it wouldn't be so much fun if it were easy, would it?

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Loops...maybe our husbands should just practice together.