Mrs. Redboots,
What are you doing right before you go into the pivot spiral? Are you doing a back or a forwards spiral? You can go into one from about anything. One of my favorite ways of going into a forward inside death spiral was from a spiral sequence. My last spiral would be a back outside, then I did a back outside 3 and into a forward inside death spiral.
A very pretty way to enter is for you to skate forwards, your partner backwards. The two of you will be facing eachother and holding hands withyour arms extended. Then I would lift up my right arm, and he his left, release and I'd go into a forward inside death spiral (almost right under his lkifting arm). You two could easily do this into a forward pivot spiral.

I'm getting custom Harlicks with orthotics!!! I've tried their stock boots (Competitior) and their toe box around the pinky toe feels like it's scrunched in and the arches are WAAAAY too high! (I found out I have flat feet, narrow heel and "Geez, no wonder I'm pronate inwards!" Major, major $$$, but well worth it for the amount of skating I'm planning to do the next 2-3 years.

Oh, I forgot to add that I'll be trading in my black boots for PURPLE leather boots too!!!

Annabel: the funny thing is that I expected my LFO3's to be bad b/c of the injury and everything was actually great then. What I'm more upset about was the spin entry, b/c if I had done the push off into the spin entry correctly (i.e. push on the entire blade instead of the toe pick), I would not have the problems I have now! (For "ask8ngcat", I could hear Mistress Coach yelling "See? Didn't I tell you NOT to push into the spin entry with your toe picks???" in my head right now!!! LOL!!!)

And in a way, my current injury is a good thing b/c it forces me to stay on the back of the blade instead of halfway in between, b/c if I go halfway in between it would HURT!!! (Jay was thinking "Hmmm?" when I told him that...followed with the look.)

But in any case, I'm off the ice this weekend for sure and I probably will cancel next week's lesson too.

Re: Gary

I see you finally met "Matt", huh? Who knows. You might be able to say in about 30 years from now that you met "Matt Tkuchuk" too!

Edited to add: TashaKat's Harlick boots were my inspiration for getting the purple boots!!! I was drooling over it from day one!!! And I think b/c of that, TashaKat has more of the honor of calling herself "Ms. Purpleboots!" than I would calling myself "Mrs. Purpleboots" :-P (Maybe "Mrs. Formerly Blackboots?")

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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!!!

At the moment, I'm doing a back spiral, although if we can't get it working properly, this may change! We are trying to go into it from a Mohawk in Reverse Kilian hold, so we are then both going backwards, but somehow we then find it difficult for himself to get far enough behind me....

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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!

Mrs. Redboots,
I would suggest that when you are ready to set up the pivot, you open up your dance hold so Robert can get behind you. It can look very pretty if you can gently slide apart from eachother, but sill keep holding hands with your right, and his left (and then he will change to his right). Both of you will need to keep your circle large enough so you don't swing around or past him when he begins his pivot. The man sets the edge as you get into your position. Then his circle becomes smaller, and he toes in for the pivot. I'm not sure where your mohawk is - if you are both going backwards (?), you don't need to turn around. If you are both going forwards, do the same thing - and also use the mohawk to get him apart from you.
Play with it, and see what works for you!

working

At jumps class today my salchow was actually working well for a change - still needs a lot more speed to go in my programme though.

Afterwards we began the choreography for a small group artistic which was fun. We have an adult pair in our group and at one point the lady of this pair suggested that I should try the move where the man bends down and reaches through his legs for the lady who goes through his legs forward (sort of in a teapot type position) and then is pulled up to standing facing him. I thought she was joking but they persuaded me to try it. The first go I landed flat on the ice. The second go I got the feel of it more and then we went over the hand holds again and on the third go I got it just fine - it was great! If only I could find a man to do pairs with properly - though I'd have to lose a fair amount of weight before I could get any man to lift me I fear!!

Idling

Loop - still eludes me
Flip - coming along but cant' land it except on two feet
Lutz - another jump invented by some seriously twisted personality - though my daughter loves this jump - it feels terribly awkward to me.
sit spin - where did this go? - I used to have one - not today....

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'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

LOL .... it's ok, as I don't skate much at present I'll let you have that honour!

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The best whisper is a click

Working: To my delight, all of my dances, today! It was possibly my last lesson before test day (I MAY have one more on Monday) and I feel quite good about all three dances (Paso, Starlight, and Viennese). My coach thinks they will be fine, and I feel comfortable with all of them. I've worked VERY hard on them for the past couple weeks, and today they sort of all came together.

Idling: (1) My confidence, and (2) my brackets. I'm a bit nervous about the dances because I REALLY want to pass the two sr. silvers so I can skate the Viennese. I just have to convince myself to take each dance one at a time, but its weighing on my mind nonetheless. I'm a bit frustrated with my brackets, as well. I am sure they will pass (Sr. Bronze Skills), but I want each one to be perfect!! LOL.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Is this just for Bracknell, or will you be doing it at Solihull as well?Not as much as I should have to! Which is almost a good reason for not, in my opinion. I don't think Robert and I could do the move you describe - I can't get down low enough in the teapot and might easily hit him in an Awkward Place with my head.... I want to be able to do the move where he holds me as I go down in a teapot in front of him, and then I come up again, but thus far we haven't managed.

In the meantime, I have found the CD which has the song we liked on it, and have sent off to Amazon for it, so we may yet decide to abandon our waltzing cats in favour of it.

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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!

Thank you!!! And aren't those the most beautiful boots???

Does Harlick provide you with the purple laces as well or did you get them somewhere else? (I prefer matching ones!)

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Cheers,
"Mrs Purpleboots" (aka jazzpants)

Thanks for the tip

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

Hi, yes they're gorgeous aren't they

Harlick DID provide the purple laces and spares AND matching pigment for a small charge! Don't you just LOVE Harlick?

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The best whisper is a click

Idling:
Well, first of all I just found out that the mandatory rehearsals for our ice show are on my last day of finals, and the show itself is on the day of my ACTs.... I'll have to ask someone about the time of the show because if it starts before 12:30 I'm screwed.

My new boots still haven't come in so I had to start lessons with a new coach in my old skates which are getting seriously dull. Didn't help to make a good impression when I kept skidding on 3 turns... I switched from our Adults class to the Freestyle class, which is not divided by freestyle levels. Our rink is small so there's like 4-5 kids in that class all doing singles. The coach is much more demanding though, and he was having us run from one thing to another. It was difficult because I haven't done any of those patterns of moves before. Plus I've never learned some of the turns like brakets and counters. And I have zero backspin... All in all I didn't really think I fit into this class any more than the Adults class. I think after this session I will start looking into private lessons...

Working: Well my spins were better today, I could stay on the right part of the blade for 6-7 revs and it felt smoother. Also, the coach has us doing connecting steps into every element so I think that will really improve my skating. Actually the whole class should do me good because I will have to learn many things that I haven't done before. My loop was very close to landed today.

I forgot to post earlier last week...

Had a good practice, although I struggled with flying spins. Managed to pull off loop-loop-loop on the second attempt, but they didn't look too pretty. Recently I've been having problems with toe-jumps, somehow I'm sliding my toe pick on the ice instead of placing it in the ice. Landed an amazig flip though, several coaches saw it and they all loved it. So did I.