I don't usually skate on a Monday, but I knew some friends were working at a temporary ice-rink in Canary Wharf, so decided I'd go up there and see what the temporary rinks are like. Expensive, is one way of putting it - but I'm glad I went, all the same. The ice quality wasn't totally great, but could have been a lot worse - there had been a storm on Friday and I gather they had huge problems with leaves on the ice, and some of the leaves are frozen in now, which looks very attractive. And the Zamboni is really a Zambonini, you've never seen such a tiny one!

Flowing: It was a lovely morning, with blue sky and sunshine. The rink itself is tiny, but as there were only 2 other skaters on it apart from me (just wait until the Christmas holidays start, it will be a very different story!), I could do what I wanted to do. It was fun trying to get all the way up the rink in just two pushes, stuff like that. Worked on all my edges and dance moves, and enjoyed showing off to the office workers who had come out on cigarette break.

Frozen: Why is it that when I skate fast, I lose all extension and toe-point? I could feel myself doing it. Grrrr. And I still can't do back cross-rolls, even on a tiny rink, although to be fair they did improve as the hour went on. And I have just remembered I forgot to practice my twizzles, which would certainly have impressed the office workers!

Oh well, it was great fun, anyway.

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

Flowing: Our ice show was a huge success on Saturday, 1000 people turned up. I got a bouquet (? spelling) at the end for being in charge of props/stage. We had our adult session last night, DH and I were practising the dutch waltz, we have now got the pattern in the right place at the right time.

Frozen: Tired and bruised from shifting heavy props around. Our extension in the free leg for the dutch waltz is really bad. My 3 turns are still non existant

Flowing:Axels are coming along. Haven't really practiced them in 13 years. Just need to jump a bit higher to give myself time to rotate.

Frozen: My left knee hurts after doing said axels. It was really cold in the rink which probably didn't help.

WOW! That's a lot of people! We are hoping for a sell-out crowd, which will be around 200-250 for two nights (less than two weeks to go).

Hubby is now looking forward to ice dancing and wants to learn the dutch waltz....that's the only pattern I can remember without my "cheat sheet." I showed him the other day and he thinks he can do it. Of course I was doing it really slow....wait until I show him at tempo

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

Frozen: The evil mohawk in the 14-step got me on Saturday morning dance session. Complete Bambi followed by 30 feet of Zamboni Imitation, almost taking out an eight-year old doing a Dutch Waltz.... aaak. (just missed her by inches...) I am still stiff all over and this morning the eight-year old is still afraid of me.

Flowing: The three-turn after the swing mohawk in the Harris Tango is coming along....... still scratchy, but not so scary as it was last week.

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If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

Flowing: Lovely friends who know what's best for you. We are having a skating exhibition this coming Friday, 12-9-05, and I have not had motivation to practice my new program during adult session, using the overhead speaker, as on the day we will skate. My friend "made me" do it today, and that was great! I even landed my waltz / loop combo, which I usually do not land within my program!

Frozen: Hmmm, a lot of the rest of this program, particularly the four changes coach has made in the last two weeks. Even if the change is only a different arm movement.... Not to mention the dreaded left mohawks, not my best suit at speed! The exhibition skate date looms large.....

We are lucky that we had people with advertising connections (free radio time, free local TV time, free newspaper space).

If you want to see pictures from the show:
http://www.skating-news.co.nz/articl...1206-onz1.html

I'm in the bottom right hand picture but I'm partially hidden so you cant really see me.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your crash, and I hope you will recovery fully soon, but oh, I had to laugh at your comment about the eight-year old still being afraid of you the next day! Must have been some spectacular crash!

As for me, one minute it's frozen and the next it's flowing. Yesterday, did my first run through of my new interpretive program with the jumps and my coach occasionally spotting me, and it was pretty good. Today I could barely do a waltz jump and my salchow was completely screwed up... did get it sort of sorted out, but geesh. For once in my life, I'd like to actually make progress two lessons/days in a row!

Pat

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August 22, back on the ice!

We got the date of our in-house exhibition...thankfully, it's been moved from December to January. So, it gives me a bit more time to finesse my routine (and recover from the ice show) and get it really honed before I mess it up in public!

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

Flowing:
Finally, a moves free lesson today!

Frozen:
Coach spent the lesson at my request, on jumps, because I had not been jumping much in order to get my moves test ready. My toe loop decided to fall apart on me, but after a reminder to bend my knee going into the three turn, it was okay.
Same with the loop- couldn't get a RFI edge good enough for the takeoff!
I was also reminded that I still need to practice jumps, even though I was spending so much time on moves.
Remember that thread from two weeks ago "So much to do, so little time?"

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Boy I hear you there, skate@Delaware! We have an exhibition at our rink 12-9, then a holiday show 12-18. I have a new program, and found myself thinking today that it IS entirely possible to have "Bridge Over Troubled Water" be a comedy.....isn't it?!

It's right up there with that thread "so much to do...." but it's renamed for December, "so much to do in such a short amount of time!" We are thankful that someone thought about all that was going on at our rink this month and moved the exhibition!! We also do a big thing for New Year's Eve and it's a big 3 1/2 hour skate! What a nice way to end the year!
When did you start working on your program? Is this your exhibition piece or are you competing this year?

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

Ow, Raye, I hope you didn't bash your tailbone. at the 8-year-old still being scared of you.....

Frozen: We had a celebrity training at our rink this morning (not sure what for) and great mutters and mumbles among the coaches as they'd been told the wrong time so wanted to use our ice. In the end that was okay, and they didn't take up any more room than any other skater & coach, and worked hard, but it meant missing a few minutes of our lessons while the coaches agreed among themselves and Said Things to the manager.

Meanwhile, in that lesson we worked mostly on our chassés and swings in waltz hold, which needed attention, and at the end of the lesson we did a run-through of the Fiesta Tango, which was awful. I will accept that as being 90% me, as Husband's solo Fiesta is very good indeed, but it is still 10% down to the partnering! But I know what I think I need to work on now. Swing Dance will, I think, be getting fairly respectable. At least the coach diagnosed the problem with the waltz hold - Husband wasn't remembering to lead with his shoulders. When he does, it's way better.

Waltz 3s in waltz hold were a bit of a disaster - at least we can do several now (I got dizzy), but on our RFO3 ones, which are my better side, Husband over-rotates and it makes life very difficult! Only our LFO3 ones I didn't have neat feet, but at least I knew I didn't, so could correct it.

We are going to have to rethink the hip lift, as it really does make my back ache.

Flowing: The coach actually saw our spin, and was impressed! Ta-daaa! And my twizzles are coming on, and I almost did a whole lap of cross-strokes without a "spotter".... and my cross-rolls felt okay, too, but I think my feet were a bit far apart. Oh well....

Solo lesson tomorrow, yikes....

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

Hi Annabel,

I believe they are putting together Strictly Ice Dance again. Martin Platt (don't know his real name) ex-Coronation Street was at the Championships on Saturday being filmed watching the Ice Dancers as he is going to be dancing with MH.

Sorry for the long answer, but as you can tell, I LOVE to talk. Except when I'm skating.

The choreo for this program, though it's been changed a couple times, and many changes recently (like in the last two weeks), was done some time ago.....like late summer. I think it was the end of August, though have to admit it's a blur.

But then, we didn't really focus on the new program. It was like about one lesson out of the month, attempting run throughs. We focused instead on Bronze Freeskate technical program, and decided in October NOT to test it this year (which we had been aiming for November) as the sit and backspins are not good enough. Plus the loop was coming and going within the program.

So then it was back to focus on the dramatic. My performance goal for this program is a USFS competition in April 2006. It will be my first time ever competing at Bronze (with people who have been at that level for four or five years now.....EEEK!) I think it is going to take until April simply to improve it. I'm very slow to learn programs, and to combine the elements with my version of "artistry".

My plan was to do the exhibition with this program as it is now.....not great, but I can get through it. Then do the Holiday Show on the 18th, as another practice in front of people thing. After that I'll be off ice for some time with home stuff. When I return in late January, we will push again the month of February for ice dance and Bronze Freeskate testing in March, hopefully. Along with working the dramatic for April USFS event. Too much to do, too little time.....AGAIN!!!!

frozen:
wore the wrong kind of socks today.my feet were actually frozen!! coach didnt show up

flowing:
christmas program was ok,axels were good!!

~cutie

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Skating is suppose to be fun , no PRESSURE at all

~*Courage*~*Confidence*~*Consistance*~

Sounds like a good plan! My coach planned for me to skate in a few ISI comps to get the feel of competition, then hit Halloween Classic (USFSA) as a no-test. Then I can test pre-bronze. She says a lot of skaters rush into testing before they are really ready and it hurts them.

We had a snow delay of 2 hours this morning, and I took the boy to school on my way to work. Hubby took daughter to a walk-in clinic to get her throat looked at, it wasn't strep but some infection so they stayed home today.

Frozen: So, when I went to the rink after work, I had it all to myself for 45 minutes!!! Ewwww! I could hear every scratch of my toepicks on my back crossovers! And, I managed a few stupid falls. I think my blades need to be sharpened again.... and I had a senior moment and forgot how to do the half-flip...tried segments of my routine (the sticky parts) and they are still sticky. Didn't work on the loop at all.

Flowing: Notwithstanding dull blades, spins were good and the free leg is coming up higher which makes it easier to cross, and waltz and salchows were nice. AND.......I tried bending more on the 3-turn for the toe-loop and I was able to make it pick more and hardly waltzy!!!! YAY!!!! It really felt like a jump! I could actually spring UP on it!!

And, got a free cookie from the guy at the snack bar (only because I made a face at the name cranberry-choco chip....so he gave me one to try. They aren't bad!)

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

flowing - got my skates sharpened in desperation after the megasplat on Saturday. A pro shop job, so not the best, but I didn't have the time to arrange for a sharpening pro at the other rink.

Am now skating Saturday mornings at one rink, and Wednesday coffee club at another before work. New schedule is working nicely.

Today was not bad, still a bit sore after the megasplat, but was mostly trying to iron out the kinks after a few average sessions in a row.

Bunga pads have arrived in the mail (only 1 week! wow!) so will try them out on Saturday.

frozen - spins were off, again!

Frozen
nothing went bad today thank goodness, unless you count back inside and outside figures Oh, and I didn't try any axels. Ah, and I thought about trying flying camel jump to forward sit that my coach showed me and then after spinning in back camel position for a while decided it was not for the faint-hearted!

Flowing
Due to the "Change in skating style over the year" thread and the Tim Wood clip I played around with various jump combos including half-flip - flip and then played with split off a lutz entry which I often do, but doing an inside mohawk after split landing and going into salchow and weird things like that, just to be interesting. Don't know if I achieved anything, but I've certainly never seen anyone do this combo before. I love playing round with unusual moves/combos etc. Inspired by that clip I'm determined to get my walley and learn how to land split jumps backwards, both of which I have toyed with in the past.

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Mark Twain

Thanks, Max. And by the way, you and your team did a superb job at the Championships! I was only there on the Saturday, but everything seems to have run very smoothly. Your flower-children were gorgeous...... can we have them for the Adults again next year, we missed all the trimmings this time!

Back to training.....

Frozen: Oh, how I hate taking everything up a level, which is what happens in winter training. You always feel as though you can't even do basic vanilla stroking!

Flowing: Having said that, when you suddenly get a breakthrough, it's the best feeling in the world. And I have discovered that an awful lot of what is wrong with my back crossovers is to do with my upper body - if I focus on keeping it still, everthing immediately improves.

Plus I had another breakthrough (yes, two in one day!) on the FO swing rolls. I kept getting my shoulders stuck, but when I thought "ribcage" instead, everything went into the right place and I even gained speed!

And I haven't even finished skating for the day - it's our monthly class and social dancing at Alexandra Palace (Tashakat, are you going, now you're back?!)

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

Oh, aren't those quiet times at rink the worst?! It's quite the wake-up call to hear that lovely scratching!

Good job on the spin work.....and the evil toe loop....never been my favorite jump. My coach put me back on the boards for six months, doing this drill, then trying the drill on ice. I finally got it corrected.....and I still don't like it!

The cookie was the best part of a good day, huh?

Another day with the back crossovers!!! This time we aimed towards getting myself to BEND my knees AND do a reach into the circle to get more power on those crossovers while still looking behind me.

Frozen:
Only got one out of two. I managed to stay down on those crossovers. No bobbing up and down either!!! I go down and STAY down for the duration of those back crossovers!!!

Sorta Flowing:
My weaker direction (CCW) is now my technically stronger one, mainly b/c I still need to practice the same exercise in the CW direction... And it seems to be unianimous that there's improvement on those back crossovers now!!!

Should be interesting also if I keep this going tomorrow at my lesson with primary coach tomorrow...and then some!!!

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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!!!

Frozen--
Me, literally, after 3 hrs. on ice during show rehearsal Sunday. Then in my program run-thru, I tried really hard to make my waltz-toe BIG, which resulted in big SPLAT flat on my back after I landed the waltz wonky and went for the toe anyway!

And then it snowed during the week and I discovered that someone had nipped my ice scraper from my car a month ago when it had been broken into! The only things that turned out to have gone missing were my bag of free AAA maps, a blank notebook, and the ice scraper. Not the music or the money. Grrrrrrrr

Flowing--
Had a good show rehearsal on Sunday (I'm really looking forward to that show and also the show that flo's club is putting on). Worked hard on moves afterward. (They're sorely in need of work as I had a 2-month break from working on them in lesson!)

p.s. Good to see you starskate6.0! Sorry to hear about the job situation. Will you be in our neck of the woods (with stilts?) for any of the holiday shows coming up?

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Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Frozen I had decided (or suddenly realized) that my whole problem with my jumps is the left back outside edge going into them (I'm clockwise). I can do alternating back outside edges, I can step forward from a jump landing, I can do those alternating back crossovers to back outside edge from the bronze moves test. But when I'm going to skate on that left back outside edge and then step forward into a waltz jump or toe loop, I always curve it very sharply and really I'm leaning forward instead of sitting back on the edge. Blech. It works when I'm not going too fast but as soon as any of my coaches start pushing me to go faster, it doesn't really work. And then I get freaked out, and then that makes me more insecure on that edge, and so on and so on. So yesterday I asked my spin coach to work on that with me instead of spinning. He of course sees my toe pick scratchiness on that step forward as an even bigger problem but did agree that the two are connected.

Flowing So we basically did that for 20 minutes. I'd turn backwards, do one crossover, push onto the LBO edge, and hold the position about 1000x longer than I usually do and then step forward. Oh and he held my hand lightly throughout all this. I have to say, it really helped! I hadn't realized how bad my position had been until he had me correct it. After he left, I practiced it with some waltz jumps and salchows near the boards (so the edge wasn't as long, but still better than it had been) and I think I made some progress. I'll work on it some more tonight, but it's nice to feel a little bit of progress and see the light at the end of the tunnel --meaning I can imagine being able to do this with a good waltz jump relatively soon. I'm sure my primary coach will be happy to see this tonight, too!

Happy skating everyone! Good luck to those in shows! Mika--more snow is coming!

Pat

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August 22, back on the ice!

Had a fairly decent lesson last night:
Frozen: "forgot" how to do the flip (again) and had to have her show me . Waltz-8's are wacky and lopsided. Program run-thru is fun when you are doding people who are where you are supposed to jump! Need more speed and control on stupid toe-loop, and 1/2 flip. I'm now to do 3-4 run-thrus of my program at each practice session and not bail on my jumps (yeah, or rush my salchow, because then it looks like a "sour-cow")

Flowing: Waltz-8 3-turn was where it should have been, as was the change of foot!!! Coach said that it was better, but to practice (yeah). Toe-loop is looking better. Did a great scratch spin in my "program"....Oh, I had "Barbie" hands, coach said that was better!!!

Yeah, all that ice I had to myself the other day, I should have practiced the waltz-8 and I could have seen the pattern and counted out loud....will I ever learn??

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