New practice thread for the new week.

Flying: I did 2 run-thrus of my program and hit all my jumps.

Falling: I am consistently missing one or two of my three spins, and I am ending after the music. I need to get my program fixed by this weekend!

Flying: I landed a few good double sals and axels.

Falling: I need to work on my backsit and make it lower.

Flying: I now have a pretty consistent catch-foot camel spin! And I can manage to do it at the very end of my program.

Flying - We finished setting our pairs program last night. Now to practice practice practice.

Falling - need a nap.

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Falling: Despite the half-term holidays allegedly being over, rink was packed with school-age children. Left early as we weren't going to be able to practice anything.

Falling: Still scared of the Rhythm Blues.

Flying: Did a decent lesson behind the cones. Small breakthrough doing backwards skating, trying to get on outside edges, when coach told me to use the hockey line as a guide, but wasn't allowed to put my other foot down until I'd crossed the line with the skating foot. Couples portion of lesson went well. Worked on little bits of Golden Skaters Waltz - seem to now be getting the hang of the wide step.

TOTALLY TOTALLY FLYING!

I had the best skate of my life at Adult Sectionals in Hillsborough and got 2nd place! I nailed everything! The lady that got first had skated as a child and was really gold level but hadn't had a chance to test yet.

PLUS,

i tested my Adult Gold MIF today and PASSED! I am beside myself! I feel like i am having my own Olympic moments!

Congrats, miraclegro! That's great news!

Congrats Miraclegro!!!!

I haven't posted in this thread before, so here it goes

Flying - Had a HUGE breakthrough on the Axel today. Something clicked today and landed a bunch of them on the toe, but I also fell a lot too. I have 8 weeks until Nationals to get this consistent.

Falling - Though i had the breakthrough, I fell a lot. I stood up on 2 or 3 axels and fell on the rest.

Flying/Falling - Sectionals this weekend didn't great. I stood up on everything, but did not place well. But I skated better than last year despite what the placement said.

CONGRATS Miraclgro!! That's HUGE!!! What a rush!!

Flying: Had a great lesson today - finally getting the hang of 'following 'instead of trying to lead my coach through dances. dance is fun, fun, fun...so far.

Falling: My back STILL hurts!! Uggh.

Bunnyhop - let me guess what is scary re: Rythm Blues? the back cross- step behind thingies? If so it scares the you know what out of me too!! Especially trying to avoid my big ol' heels of my Pattern 99's.

Congratulations, Miraclegro!

I'm working on Gold MIF and hope to pass it....someday.

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Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Congratulations!

As for me:

Falling: No lesson today, as poor coaches not very well.

Flying: However, blessing in disguise, as it meant we got a lot of work done consolidating the choreography we were given on Sunday, and trying to go ahead with a little 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!

Flying - *finally* well enough to be back on the ice. I've been coughing up a lung for three weeks and it has sucked. I had today scheduled off, so checked out the new World Ice Rink in Corona, this is the one that is replacing the World's Fair rink, and it finally opened.

The facility is shiny and the ice was very nice. It is rather unfair that the swimming pools have a huge glass wall fronting the park, while the ice rink has a big grey cement wall, but I guess that is just standard for ice rinks.

Falling - after three weeks of no skating, or any exercise really, I'm a creampuff. I skated around an hour and a half, with several stops to rest. Everything was pathetic, although it started to get somewhere reasonable by the end. At least I won't completely waste my lesson time tomorrow.

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It's all about the dress!

Flying: I learned the basics of the Dutch Waltz and Canasta Tango last night. According to my coach I picked them both up rather quickly. It was a lot of fun!

Falling: I started learning the two ice dances because the tentative schedule for ISI Worlds is not work-friendly for me, unless I miraculously pass Freestyle 4 in the next month or two. Competing in solo ice dance and/or the production team is a possibility, but I am a little bummed that I might not get to do a freestyle or artistic program.

Flying: Flip and loops were there.
Falling: Loops left the session early and took the lutz with him. JUMPS! (Said in the same tone as Annabel says "Husbands!" when she's frustrated with DH. )

Falling today b/c I caught my DH's cold. Of course, he made the intention of making sure that I get in Zinc in and "enough sleep." He intends to return the favor to his "Florence Nightengale." (Actually, he calls me his "Flo Jo." I'll let you figure the connection. LOL!!!)

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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!!!

Jazz - I've seen your nails, they're not that long. j/k - get well soon.

Flying: I did a layback tonight after teaching classes - the kiddies all went "Oooooo" lol That was priceless. Another decent camel-change-camel - go figure.

Falling: My right ankle hurts a lot, but I'm still planning to knock out some work and head out to skate with friends tomorrow morning. I think my blade's still misaligned.

Cut my thumb (badly) so I've been keeping it clean and bandaged.
I had three students grab that spot tonight - OUUUUUUCHCCHHCHCHCHC!

I have a new tackling student, lol. I have one in every session who comes flying down the ice out of control and slams into or grabs me to stop. I told today's offender that it will hurt her more than me when I fall and land on top of her little body, lol. (They're being affectionate, but it's dangerous and makes me uncomfortable.)

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Flying
-Started doing 2flips from mohawks and I can actually feel myself lift THEN rotate. Don't get me wrong, I've never had super tiny spin-y jumps, but this is a feeling I can't even describe. Like time pauses for a second, then I'm suddenly sucked into a whirlpool...or something like that!
-Intermediate moves are feeling pretty good! My jump coach saw me doing them, and he commented on how nice my posture and body line were, which is NOT something I hear often. I'm testing in...wow...2.5 weeks! omigosh and I have to have my freeskate ready by then too. Ohhhh crap.....moves, ok, freeskate, uh oh.
-Did axels and double sals from the entrance in my program. Axels are from chainé-type toe hops and double sal is right from a mohawk (RFI mohawk, jump, no 3turns).

Falling
-Footwork sequence. Yikes. It's got everything, loops, counters, rockers, twizzles, counters, toe turns, brackets. I don't know how I'm going to be able to get myself to SKATE it.
-Double axels. Ugh. I'm really starting to get frustrated. It seems that every time I work on them another person tells me that I'm "so close." I'm sick of being so close. My secondary coach always tells me, "3,000-5,000 attempts, 3-5,000." I guess I've never had to spend too much time on any one jump before, so it's really hard for me to feel so hung up on this double axel.

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Youtube Videos

Flying
Something clicked and I managed to become aware of my arms in an axel and so rather than having them hang like a gorilla by my sides they actually moved and sort of came in and the result was a much easier axel. Still underrotated less than a quarterbut then I'm used to that now. And hopefully now that I have regained control of my arms I will get some more height and rotation.

Falling
Flying camels did not happen. Not that I have really worked on these for a while but they were better than this. I think this all stems from my poor ordinary camel.
Oh dear months without dance lessons has made my compulsories very very bad indeed.

Flying: I made it to morning ice and I found out I can skate on morning ice tomorrow also! I need to do as many runthrus of my program as possible before this weekend. I foresee double runthrus tomorrow (or at least 2 if I skate one session and 3 if I skate two sessions).

Falling: I fell really hard on the spin at the end of my program. I could feel going into it that it wasn't going to end well but did it anyways. Now, I have a painful bruise on my elbow.

Flying: My program felt tons better today. I didn't skate it with as much energy or conviction as I need to, but I got through it mostly clean (minus the fall on the last spin and possibly a mistake on my second spin with the change-sit part that may or may not make it to the competition) and I wasn't completely out of breath at the end.

Falling: Only two more days until the team leaves for UPenn! I'm super excited, but I just found out that we are now officially leaving Philly to return to Boston Sunday morning which means I am losing ALL of my weekend and will be gone from Friday morning (I'm excused from class) until Sunday afternoon! And I have a paper due Monday morning. Ugh. I love intercollegiate skating and the team, but the scheduling of the competition sucks.

the only problem with this thread title is that I don't fall much but that's not necesarily because I'm flying

My coach is torturing me with back crossovers. I just cannot sit back and hold my weight on the back leg enough. I can lift up my foot and hold the edge...no problem, but when it comes to putting it crossed in front, I break at the waist, and all bets are off. I hate back crossovers now.

Then we worked on the 5 step. It's pretty amazing I passed Bronze moves because step #4 is rarely on a true outside edge. At least now I hit it sometimes on my good side and it's flat not an inside edge which is probably what I did on my test. Ironic that the mohawks are the best part of that move for me now.Part of the problem is that my half circles were not very round - she had me think about skating out of the circle on the first inside edge and that actually does round these out nicely.

We jazzed up my moves program a bit - so that instead of stroking I do forward progressive edge holds and I add back chasses to my circle of waltz 3s. She says my power pulls are starting to actually look like power pulls.

j

Can I offer a drill for the back crossovers? Practice the first push, then draw that foot in front of the other (both feet on a hockey circle works well) so that you are gliding backwards. It really works the hip and knee muscles that you need to stay in alignment for the full crossover.

I had a late-morning skate with jwrnsktr today, which was delightful, as always. We had the entire rink to ourselves - whooo hooo!


Flying:
The few jumps I tried, I nailed. Even my dinky little split jump wasn't bad.

Couple good layback and camel spins, but the backspin felt wonky today. No good back sits or camels.

Thought I nailed the Prel power threes, until I noticed the "too much noise" caution. Oops. I'm not scratching, but my edges are ripping throughout. Guess I'll have to tone it down a bit.

Falling:
I hate the threes on the line. There, I said it. Not too thrilled with the PreJuv three turns down the rink either.

I am really struggling with RO anything, grrrr!

My twins are (hopefully) catching up to me on tests next month when they try for Pre-Prel MITF. I have to keep up with them now - maybe we'll all test Prelim together later this year.

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Flying - I still have to recover my strength, but things are better than I expected. My new dress came in the mail. It is sparkly

Falling - I'm weeks behind now in learning my new program. I'm going to have to work extra hard this entire month to not look like a sparkly purple dork for the end of season show.

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It's all about the dress!

Yea - that part about both feet on the ice --one in front of the other? That's the problem. Coach tries to get me to do that. I just don't do well with my feet like that.

J

Congratulations!!


Falling:
Ugh. I didn't skate at all from Friday until today so my knee could get better. It didn't. It really hurt and made weird popping sounds when I tried to skate tonight. I guess this means I should get over myself and call the doctor already. It's like I'm cursed with getting injured at least once a year.
Here's hoping for a miraculous recovery so I can still test Gold Moves in a month.

Flying:
Well, I did a lot of spirals. I did some halfway decent change of edge spirals, and some good forward and backward catch foot spirals.

It takes a lot of practice and we never finish practicing, right? Do it in socks on the kitchen floor. Hang onto the counter and don't fall, try to lean over that "inside" hip (the rear foot). If your weight is distributed correctly over the back leg, you should be able to easily pick up the foot and hold it over the tracing from that position. I hope you get it - it's so frustrating sometimes. (BTW, if you're leaning forward, that position is near impossible. Be sure to sit on that back foot and keep the knee over the toe instead of stretching forward to put the swizzle foot in place. Free advice is overpriced, sorry.

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Flying: I was off the ice for two months due to my job and moving, and I didn't lose any of my skills! In fact, my spiral is higher, I'm skating faster, and I'm closer to getting my loop jump. I can thank the Navy for getting me in better shape, thus improving my skating.

Falling: Going through serious skating withdrawl. I'm used to skating at least three times a week for an hour or two at a time, with five different rinks to choose from. If I wanted to skate, there was usually a rink with a session available. Now due to my work schedule, fewer rinks, and very limited ice time, I'm lucky to go once a week!

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My Blog - FINALLY updated!
Living out my childhood dream

Welcome back to the ice!

Flying
-I did, quite possibly, the biggest double loop I have ever done today. The distance between the take-off and landing was probably close to 4 feet! I wanted so badly to get a marker and trace my take-off and landing. I remember just a few months ago when my coach was telling me that my double loop didn't get nearly enough distance for how much height it got. It used to be like a foot and a half between take-off and landing.
-Double flips continue to be much better with the mohawk entrance. Still can't over the fact that I'm going up THEN rotating. What a concept! Did some 2flip+2loops too. Just 10 days ago I was despairing over the disappearance of my 2flip, and now they've back and better than ever!
-Did a few 2lutzes that had the same up then in feeling that my coaches keep trying to get from me.
-Starting to get the hang of my step sequence.

Falling
-Ice was scary today. It was far too hard and was chipping and cracking like crazy. Just the edge pressure of a powerpull put huge ruts in it. And it was so LOUD!
-Step sequence is still not nearly as good as it needs to be
-Double axels
-I really need to work on my stamina for my Intermediate moves test. WHY did they have to put the back crossovers w/ power 3s right after the power circles?! It's exhausting!! Couldn't they have shoved the power 3s somewhere in the middle?
-Took a really interesting fall on those power 3s. I caught my blades together, not on the back crossovers, but on the actual 3 turn!

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Youtube Videos

Falling - OMG, the recital is March 30 and I'm only just learning my program. I am dooooooooooommmmmed

Flying - so I'm going to get my tail out on the ice several times a week from now until then, I've got an extra lesson scheduled tomorrow and I practiced today. I've learned maybe the first 20 seconds of the program. Loop is gaining credibility, flip has regressed since I only barely had it before I got sick. I got complimented on my proto-layback by another skater.

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It's all about the dress!