Mental note: must go visit relatives in Ohio

Bright Eyed
Uh, nothing. How about that all my skating bills are paid up to date. I like the summer lull, I feel rich. Most of the year I'm scrambling to pay this fee or that.

Sleepy-Head
Change edges. I do them in my dreams, I can FEEL where my arms and legs are all supposed to be. It doesn't translate onto the ice and got even worse when I was in a lesson. So, I'm going to pick up some ice today and get some more practice. Simple skating is the hardest.

Bright eyed - got the spin back, yeah! didn't have to sharpen the skates to stop the skidding, had to get my weight further back on my blade during the 3 turn! yahoo!

Sleepy-head - back 3 turns, why do I feel like a total clutz!

Joined a group lesson for the summer. Just needed a change of pace.

Bright Eyed - Apparently loops are consistent from the 3-turn entry. I'm not quite sure when that happened. Began working on them from a different entry.

Sleepy-Head - My class is a weird combination of skills. For the most part we fit but one girl obviously does not. It really splits the instructors attention.

Sit spins - Yeachh

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Happily defying the laws of physics when I skate...and not in a good way

If I could meet ole Axel Paulsen, I would kick him in the teeth

President and Founding member of the I hate Toe-Loops Club

Still a member, but trying to get out of the Pre-bronze peanut gallery.

Visit my skating journal

Bright Eyed:
Still making progress on the spin repair. Forward scratch on lesson today was sooo nice and centered and I couldn't help but ask myself where the #$% were these spins when I tested three weeks ago or so. Sitspin is not legally low enough yet, but am told that I'm making the effort to get it there
Forward crosstrokes and power pulls were not bad either.

Sleepy Head:
Had a nasty fall on of all stupid things, a half lutz. Hit a hole in ice caused by another skater's double lutz when I landed forward and fell right onto my right knee and elbow. Have a nice strawberry on right knee now, along with a bit of swelling.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Bright Eyed:

I'm walking! Well, just barely scuffling along. It's nearly 6 weeks since I massacred my ankle in 2 places & got it stitched & welded together (5 screws and a plate; someone said "sounds like a band name" and I replied, "How about we rename our synchro team--average age probably 55 or so--Five Screws and a Plate?" Dr allowed me on Wednesday to start putting weight on the injured ankle. It's sore, sore, sore, but after 4 days I can in fact put all my weight on it without pain. My coach greeted me today--I went to the ice show as a spectator rather than a participant--with "Hey, Crip."

Sleepy-Headed:

Actually BENDING the ankle is another matter entirely. A good amount of pain depending on the degree and direction. I suspect it will be several weeks until I feel solid enough to take a gander at skating. I feel rather out of shape. I am actually looking forward to getting to the gym to build back up my stamina and strength.

Mostly sleepy head: It's a strange transitional period at our rinks - it's a week before the kids get out of school, there are competitions coming up, tests, etc., the ice is down at the rink where I usually go to a dance session and my coach is threatening to retire (again) after the competition at our main rink next week.

The skating itself is about as good as it could be considering my broken and torqued foot of 4 months ago - turns still feel uncomfortable, I am nervous about stepping after turns (or that darn Power 3s to the right and 5-step mohawk step forward onto the previously broken foot), but so what else is new?

Hopefully will start lessons with dance coach again next week - but my primary coach - who knows? Maybe she will just take the summer off (she's done this before) and I look at it as a time when I can save money...

Bright-eyed? - Well, I like going to tests and competitions and see what all the adults and kids are doing. There are a lot of dancers competing and it seems that more and more of the young kids in the area are getting into dance and so that is great!

Oh, because of my foot I can't do any dances solo if there are turns (okay, anything beyond the preliminaries, LOL -) so I've made up my own steps so that I can do all of the other dances going forward only - combining the mens and ladies steps and making them into all forward dances! A friend from the rink (who is also injured, actually), thought I should tour the country teaching these "new dances for injured/aging ice-dancers" - could be the start of a whole new career!!

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Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

LilJen, I love your positive attitude and sense of humor! You represent all that is good (and a little insane) about adult skating! Wishing you a rapid recovery and a happy--and safe--return to the ice.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

this is probably a little late, but my best advice is to try and relax and let your coach present you very well. If your coach is who I think she is, she is very experienced at doing the Pro-Am with her students.

You will do fine today!

My biggest Pro-Am concern is will there be any more unforeseen issues at the facility today. 2nd to that is standing up, keeping my feet together on turns, and surviving 2 patterns of the Open European Waltz, 2 1/2 or almost 3 weeks after I got cleared to skate again after finishing rehab from my knee surgery. It went well (at least for 1 pattern at a time) in practice Friday afternoon. How well it goes this morning on the 2nd pattern is anyone's guess.

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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...

I'm taking too long to get over jet lag! So...

Sleepy head in the morning:
Lesson on Friday morning, I was really half asleep... and it was really a waste of lesson.

Bright eyed at night:
Many of my evening sessions were spent trying out the spins and spirals... and they were fun!

This afternoon, I also had one "almost" double loop.
This is the one jump I really can't tell how far I have rotated! Most of the time I try to looking at the tracings, and often I have another less-than-half-but-more-than-a-quarter rev to go. The "almost" one felt it got around farther, and I could glide backwards when I landed... but I couldn't find the tracing!

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Blog: http://chowskates.blogspot.com

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/chowskates
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Hey, congrats! You sound like you're doing very well! Have you started PT yet? Make sure your surgeon sends you!

I myself have only 4 more PT sessions left! On Friday, I stood on my bad leg (ankle) on a foam pad and tossed a 2 lb ball at this trampoline backboard and caught it 20 times without losing my balance! My physical therapist was pleased and a little surprised. I feel like Caine on that old TV show Kung Fu: "time for you to leave." Anyway, last week was the first time I could feel all the little muscles in my foot and ankle able to engage and correct my balance. It's a very exciting thing!

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August 22, back on the ice!

Indeed! A therapist could make a mint off us--only we don't wish to be cured of the insanity!

Congrats back at you, sk8pics! That's wonderful news. I asked my dr about PT and he wrote a non-dated order saying, "If you really don't feel like you're improving after a week or two, then go." A bit odd, but whatever. I'm going back to my post-ankle sprain exercises of last fall--balancing on the foot, pressing in each direction and such--and we'll see how it goes.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of surgeons don't really care much about PT. But I know it helped me a lot, and you might want to go try it anyway and see if it helps or if they show you new exercises. They really helped me with stretching for range of motion. After this second surgery, I could see a visible decrease in swelling after the first PT session. I'll be glad to be done, though!

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August 22, back on the ice!

bright-eyed: went skating after more than 2 weeks off! forward spin is so much better, and I managed to do a slow, but actual, backspin.
loop entry is beginning to work.
can already do a teapot in these unbendable skates.

sleepy-head: was breaking in new skates. I have suspicions that my toeloop, although it feels ok, is still a toe waltz. also have suspicions that I shouldn't be doing a toeloop on brand new skates.
salchow is still flightless. I've got the entry, I've got the exit, but the jump is missing.
spiral really needs to be higher.

something to wake up the sleepy-head: our rink now has a loud foghorn type noise to announce the end of a session. Argh!!

and something cute, though not deserved: little girl: "are you professional?"

hahaha!! professional

one guy here who is about the same level as me has a wonderful waltz jump. gghhh. gotta practise.

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bright eyed:
yay sunday evening rink is open for a while so I get to practise in nice quiet rink
tried a few double salchows from high speed and managed one or two? It felt kinda wierd though I have some odd bad new habit my legs feel a bit sluggish in jumps recently...

Still I decided to focus on my sit spins with their change of edge thing

Managed ONE more than one round outside edge forward sit spin and ONE more than two round inside edge back sit spin... ok... maybe I'm getting some progress.. a friend noted that I was falling too far back on my inside edge back sit so I concentrated very hard to keep my cg in the same place on that plane between forwards and backwards... and it worked for one amazing attempt!!! It didnt wanna work after that though Gotta try more

also chow reminded me about the back sit and knee butt rule so I was trying them lower too and I think I didn't manage them perfect yet but its not totally impossible to get low and change that is something I realized...

I still can't get more than a few rounds on that split spin thing .... wierd oh well...

Can't believe that I didnt have time to work on beilman either in the end...managed one attempt and some spiral positions before they were doing the ice for the night

sleepy-head:

some really underorrated double loops and not a single double toe loop underrotated or not... and but yeah well I decided to focus on spins and I did...

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Tidesong

Bright eyed: I made it though the pro-am event yesterday without falling down, which was really all that I was hoping for. My coach was pleased with me, but I have admit that my legs were wobbling. This competition business is not going to come easily to me. However, it's done and I did what I could, so I can go back to skating at low pressure for a few weeks until testing starts to loom. I also got in some unexpected practice yesterday afternoon: After giving me a hard time about pressing him to be ready on time, my son arrived at the rink yesterday without his skates. I'm on duty for that session (for which he usually gets to skate free), so without his skates (and with mine) we had to swap jobs, so that I got to practice while he made change. That'll reinforce the learning process, and I don't think we'll see a recurrence of the missing skates anytime soon...

Rob

Very Sleepy eyed

So I signed up for Learn to Skate again and decided to take freestyle 1. First day - Sunday night at 6:15 - when did I leave Quad Cities after a 4 day competition, 6 am practice and freestyle competition? About 2:30. How long of a drive is it? 3 hours. So we drove right to the rink. DD had to teach LTS

Bright eyed Guess who's teaching my freestyle learn to skate that I'm paying $60 for 5 weeks??? My very same $55 an hour coach!!! Whoo hoo!

Tonight they were short some coaches and there was only one freestyle student so they combined my class with these two adorable basic 8 girls. I was fine with doing basic 8 stuff. Forward outside 3 turns? No problem...but then ...uh oh...

INSIDE 3 TURNS! I don't believe I have attempted an inside 3 turn for oh maybe 4 years? I managed to do one on my left leg - which is my preferred turning direction - right leg - could not do it. How embarrassing. Back many years ago when consectutive 3 turns were on the adult pre-bronze test I could actually do the inside better than outside. This is what lack of practice leads to.

Guess I better work on those.

Then the little girls begged to do waltz jumps and I can always use work on those. In basic 8 you do those from a t stop which I found extremely difficult. Good for me though, because that does make you hold the edge and tend to rush this jump. Toward the end I went back to doing them from a back crossover.

j

Rob was too modest about his Pro-Am debut performance.

Bright-Eyed Hospitality at Pro-Am generally went well. The only major hiccups were out of our control (Rink had plumbing problems on Saturday).

Sleepy-Head: Knee isn't ready to spend a weekend going up and down stairs working hospitality, followed by trying to compete the Open European Waltz. Survived the practice ice. Got on for event warm-up and the further I got in the warm-up, the more the knee hurt. I was afraid I would re-injure it or injure some other body part, so I said to coach that it was a no-go. We skated over to the referee and I withdrew.

Knee is still very sore and achy 24 hours later, after lots of ice and Advil and BioFreeze.

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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...

Bright Eyed:

• Well, still working on my program from Sunday but I think we're close to finishing the program.
• Also gave primary coach my music for my interp program. Well, I never thought I would say this but after the session primary coach says that I can wear TROUSER/PANTS for this number!!! (I might do it. I might not still.)
• Primary coach asked if he thinks I'm up for two upbeat FASTER programs this year. I said "Well, what other choices do I have? You already shot down one of my other choices!!!" (Turns out he HATES the American Idol number I had in mind and one of his other skaters is doing Enya...) He then says "Nah! I think you're more suited for faster numbers!" YAAAAAY!!! (Note: Another BIG goal I've been trying to reach is to be able to skate fast enough where I have the option of skating faster numbers. WOW!!! HUGE compliment for me!!! )
• Primary coach confirmed again that I definitely have a back-sit and we're going to do a backsit-attitude combo!!! YAAAAAY!!!

Sleepy Head:

• Still no camel in position during my lesson. I did a couple of good ones about a half hour before my lesson too!!! GRRRR!!!
• We're still working on the entrance to go into my footwork sequence. (I needed more speed to go into it or the bigger lobes he wants for my footwork ain't gonna happen!!!) New entrance number #3 to try this week.
• No lesson with Primary coach 'til the 21st!!! He is booked this week and has other plans for the next couple of Sundays.

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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!!!