[Snow Day]
Worked on footwork and moves today, which was relatively low risk because I didn't want to smash my knee again today.

Moves felt good. Worked on the CW power 3s and my brackets.

Also did the footwork from my program and worked out another smaller set of footwork that I was having issues with (back cross strokes into bracket-3-bracket straight into a flip/loop). Now we'll see if I am able to do it when the music is on...

Bought two new pairs of skating pants today a pair of six-o over the heel pants and another pair of under armor. Now I won't need to do laundry in the middle of the week just so that I have skating clothes!! That's what I get for adding 2 more days of skating this semester...

[at Work]
Tortured everyone with the metronome CD so that I could work on my power circles. I'm off on the timing of those, but not horribly...

Fell forward on the glide out of one of my power circles straight onto the OTHER knee...luckily, I didn't screw that one up too!

Brackets were giving me problems again I am so done with that pattern!

Yes there is only one surface but apparently there is room to put in another surface somewhere if they have the need. It is the newest and nicest facility presently in our area but is kind of far from Portland proper and so I think they've had a little trouble getting their skating program really together - BUT Portland's hockey team, the Winter Hawks, practice there, which is pretty cool. AND the ice is good.

It's a cold facility.

AND the ice is good.

I hope you like it - what events are you doing?

I was kind of hoping your coach would do the "Coaches Interpretive" (you know, your coach who is a former Olympian) but I noticed that only 3 people registered for that and they are all local. Oh well.

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

Well, I am used to cold rinks, but I'm glad to know that a cold rink doesn't always mean concrete hard ice! My primary coach is 63 and kind of been-there-done-that at this point, and my secondary coach is way too busy now with international competitions for her elite student, so it will just be me. I'm doing Gold Ladies III and Championship Gold.

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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

And now you can add "gold medalist" at X event to your sig too!!! Congrats!!!

At Work:
Still me... at my JOB!!! Literally!!! (Well, not physically AT work but doing work from home...)

Wishing that she was at work....
My secondary coach, who got sick and had to leave before I got to the rink. She gave the front desk lady specific instructions to tell me that she went home sick but "I still have to practice!" HA!!!

Snow Day:
Lucky for her, I had incentive to stay and skate. I got my boot punched out at the ankle bone section yesterday and my left ankle bone feels MUCH MUCH better now!!! THANK YOU, PHIL at Harlick!!!

My back sit spin was usually smooth on the spin part! No idea how I got it that way though except to "take my time on the FI edge on the FI3 spin entry to the back sit spin!!!"

After a couple of shaky jumps, I managed to land a few good loops, loop-loops AND even flips clean.

At Work Again:
Of course, I still have dud loop-loops and flips too. And I didn't attempt the lutz b/c I kinda started feeling like I was running out of steam by the time I get thru with the flips and I wanted to leave the rink on a good note... and w/o a parking ticket too!

My show stops for my interp program are much better, but it still SUCKS!!! (But good enough that primary coach is putting it in my program, so I have one month and change to get it JUST right!!!)

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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 Work:
There was a 20 kids group on the ice when I got there. Thankfully most were beginners (i.e. wall huggers) and I can still do my runthru of my program!!!

Also at work...My EWF program! Some transition stuff has been changed a bit. I had to fight to keep this one section of footwork b/c I really like it and was going when primary coach changes this one section where I was doing 5 step mohawk seq. to now 8 step mohawk seq. Ummm... I fought to get that a while back and he said that since I didn't have a FO mohawk that he didn't want to put that on. I told him "I STILL don't have a FO mohawk and you want to put that on now???" He said "We have a little more time to put that footwork in now."

Of course, in the end I just shut up and be thankful that I finally got what I wanted in that program!!! But I did give him a just b/c it took him long enough to finally realized that it would be good to put that footwork on there!!!

Snow Day:
Program runthru for this program is fine overall. We're not worried about this program as much as the FS program and this runthru confirms that general feeling.

Confirmed that Harlick's fix of punching out the ankles helped with my ankle program and I'm back skating as well as I normally have now.

Jumps:
Loops: Check
Loop-loop: Check-check...
Flip: First one was a dud... second and third one was just fine.
Lutz: First one was a dud... second one was my best one on both takeoff and landing. Third one was landed but the takeoff was cheated and there could have got more flow into the landing of the jump...

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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!!!

Work: The ice was absolute CRAP again today. The water heater is broke and they have been flooding with COLD water so the ice was rough as a country road. It was also bitterly cold in the rink again

I still haven’t got over being stiff (from digging my truck out after getting stuck Monday) and between that and the cold I just couldn’t get loosened up today.

Snow Day: Coach and I worked on the Freeskate program, tweaking here and there to try to improve it, and she feels it is well enough along to work on the Interpretive program now. I just MIGHT get to skate two programs at (Canadian) Nationals after all. (Either that or coach just likes working my tail off to remind me how OLD I am! )

Work: Speaking of which, they replaced my computer at work today. That took half a day and will take two days to recover!

P.S. (I forgot!)
Snow Day: I actually stood up for myself on the ice today. While on program, I hollered "COMING THROUGH!" and skated through a lesson

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Snow Day:
Had a almost clean runthrough of my freeskating program today!!
Got my skates sharpened and they feel great- I was actually able to spin after a sharpening.
Am now as of today .7 away from a official 10 pound weight loss!


At Work:
The salchow is again keeping me from the Dream of a Clean Program. Will be in Secondary Coach's Salchow Dungeon tomorrow at 7:30 am to get this cleaned up.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Snow Day: I landed loops yesterday! It doesn't seem real since last year at this point, the only consistent jump I had was a waltz jump. Last night I had a spin clinic with some of the very important people at the rink Me, a little pre-pre skater, getting spin advice from some of the best in the world. She convinced me that I do actually have a sit-scratch combination spin and the beginnings of a camel!

At work: Not much really, just having trouble adding speed to things without completely messing up the timing.

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~Always Dream!~

Check my progress at www.freewebs.com/sk8tegirl06

[Snow Day]
Found someone to hold the duty phone for me for work so that I could go to the rink

Worked mainly on moves and footwork again. Did do some jumps, but didn't want to push it. Didn't do my program but that's okay! It's more important for my knee to not get bruised again, than for me to do my program...

My flip jump was huge again today...hopefully it stays that way. Lutz was good as well...

[At work]
Moves felt good again, I am still so over the bracket pattern... Did the Novice bracket-3-bracket pattern for kicks today and was able to do that no problem...not at speed, but the actual turns...ugh...now why can't I do the brackets in the field pattern?

Defnitely at work--forever!! I didn't skate yesterday but I did an hour of yoga--I'm a little stiff today!

I'm starting in on a program of getting more flexible & more upper body strength as I work on losing enough weight to see if by some miracle my coach will be able to lift me enough to do free dance tests. I figure the weight loss will take upwards of a year, so in the meantime I can work on the other things too.

I'm studying videos to find examples of lifts that might work--I'm almost 6' tall, my coach is about 6'3". So it looks like I'll need to either be wrapped around him in some way to compact the weight distribution, or in some kind of leverage lift, where our respective weights offset each other & he won't have to use brute force.

Like this-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=fzNL-cDWGUQ
or this-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=33YtG67VVXM

And then, when the time comes to actually try it, I'm going to go to an aquaintance who was a theater arts ballroom dancer (they do mostly lifts). He & his partner own a studio nearby now, & I figure they can help train me to hold myself correctly, and also figure out the lifts that will work best for us. I think if they can't make it work, no one can. They're fairly close in height, & she's quite tall for this type of dancing. (of course, they used to train by him doing overhead pumps--using her as the barbell!! Like the position in their final trick here.)

Here they are: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JL9ls7D4jJE

Whew--that's going to be a lot of work over a long period of time for something that might not even work in the end!

phew - just watched the dance links on Phoenix's post and am How do they do that??? Very impressed with his splits while holding her overhead!

Anyway.....

lesson and practice today. Spent more time on the ice than I usually do - nearly two hours when my norm is more like 45mins a session - so my legs are aching now. Even more so since I'd had a week off for the holidays.

Worked hard as I have an upcoming test and am a bit worried about it now - maybe should have left it a while. Although really the only thing that is somewhat iffy is my backspin.

snow day: loops and flips were good and sitspin better than I thought. Test program run throughs were OK although I did change the step sequence on the fly the first time as I forgot it

elements all OK except for

workday: back spin. It is improving but my success rate is still not great. Thing is I have been competing with all the level 2's for years so think it really is time to take the test - of course lots of them took it when the backspin was not one of the required elements!

After lesson I helped daughter to learn the steps to the swing dance as she has entered for a dance comp. but we don't seem to be able to get her any dance lessons. Last time she learnt 3 dances in one 45 min lesson but this time it looks like two dances in zero lessons and one of the dances I am not familiar with - will be amazing if she can pull this off!

Both: My offices are closed, but I'm working from home.

Skated this morning for a very short time and it wasn't very good at all.
Too many things on my mind, too many distractions, and not enough time.

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Snow day: Had an excellent spin day. Camel is progressing nicely.
Boots have arrived. Will hopefully have them ready to go by next week.

Work day: Can't do a sit spin to save my life.
Still not feeling my best so I leave the ice miserably cold.
The weather.

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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

Snow Day:
Got my salchow cleaned up and skated a clean program for Secondary Coach this morning!!

At Work:
Had a nasty fall during our salchow clean up session that was so hard that it went straight to my neck. Am now wearing a neck wrap I got two Christmases ago from SIL.


Half and Half:
Got a phone call from work that one of my colleagues that was supposed to work 3-11 tonight has called in sick. I was given the proposal of working 3-11 tonight, then the secretary working day shift today would work my day shift tomorrow, when I was originally scheduled, giving me tomorrow off.
There is freestyle ice at my rink tomorrow, so of course I said yes!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

I haven't posted on the practice thread in a while...

Snow Day: It's a literal one here today. Son is off from school but ordinarily skates (and has a lesson) in the afternoon, so he declined to accompany me to the rink this morning. Checked with primary coach and she saw no reason why we couldn't manage this morning's lesson, so we did. I'm working on three things these days: bronze moves, Willow Waltz (next test) and Ten Fox. Coach says the five step mohawk is OK, and the back crossovers (which are turning out to be the hardest thing for me) are improved considerably.

At work: Improved considerably doesn't mean ready to test. There's still a lot of work to be done on that. We put the willow music on and I was startled to see how sloppy I'd become about counting when practicing without; tracking into mohawk at the end pattern of the ten fox is still frightening/giving me fits. <sigh> Another practice session tomorrow, so I'll be ready for a lesson again by Monday, I hope. Sometimes it just doesn't *feel* like there's much progress...

Rob

I landed several clockwise loops today in front of the coach (I'm a ccw skater but as long as I can't jump ccw cuz of injury, I'm not gonna be hanging by the boardings boring myself out of my mind) which I think is pretty decent given that I've been trying only since last week. Also, clockwise salchows now work with some speed and clockwise waltz is picking up height.
Clockwise flips and toeloops aren't working at all and I'm not even trying the lutz yet. I do have the weight over left on the takeoffs for the lutz and flip though (without rotation, just takeoff-landing) but the picking is still a bit of a problem.

Sit spins weren't working at all and scratch spins were pretty bad. I blame ballet for stretching out my core muscles, lol!

Work: Didn't get out of work until 3:15am last night, so consequently overslept for 1pm practice. Just what I need two weeks before a competition is to not skate for four days!

Snow Day:
-Yesterday, due to an ice storm
-Learned the Cha Cha today. Fun! (except for another annoying cross-behind like on the Rhythm Blues)
-Started working on Gold Moves.
-Worked on improving my jumps. I think I made some progress on flip and lutz, especially. I was double-footing the lutz at the end, but the jump itself was better.
-On the last camel I tried, I finally got my free leg straight!

At Work:
-Today all the ice outside melted, so I am at work
-Eek - those power circles on Gold Moves scare the bejeezus out of me. I get going so fast that I'm afraid I'm going to wipeout and smash into the boards. Today I tripped and sat down hard. Ouch.
-Old habits, especially on jumps and turns, keep coming back to haunt me. It's annoying.

Yup that's part of what makes them so much fun! One of the coaches at my rink always thinks I'm going to hit the boards when I exit because I get so much speed out of the circles that I end up in the corner and generally stop inches from the boards I like to think of it as a practice for the power circles in the Junior moves where you have to hold the edge all the down the ice

But, I have seen people (and have done it myself) catch an edge and slide a ways down the ice...as long as I'm not near the wall, I'm okay...sometimes a good fall can be fun

This is for Wednesday night...I'm consistently getting later and later....

Work: it was all work and I was depressed. 2nd to last coaching session before operation. Mentioned this to my coach and we discussed how far I've come and how hard I've worked on "unusual" things since my injury. Such as 3-turns, backspin, jump set-ups, edges, arm position, etc.

So, we worked on backspins and opening up my hip more (on the freeleg) and going into the setup using one leg instead of skating on two-feet (which I was doing because of my left leg weakness). This is to give me more power from that edge.

We also did some jump setups and worked a bit on the salchow which is really rocking!!! The toe-loops. We didn't get to the flip but skipped right to the lutz. She wants me to ride the edge more and get comfy with it cause it feels so different.

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

Yes, and one of those 3 is my coach, and she is going to WIN! (is it unethical to place bets on your coach? :-)).

I love Sherwood. The ice really is pretty much always awesome. There is an empty field right next to the current facility, just waiting to have another ice sheet built there... maybe some day. the area is growing so I'm sure it will happen eventually.

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Gordon Zaft
http://sk8rboi.blogspot.com
School figures are skating's equivalent of the Latin Mass.

I had a lesson with my secondary coach where she pitted me against a gal who JUST passed Gold Moves the week before that. Yes, I was supposed to catch up to her on the power circles. Funny thing was... she tripped and slided across the ice... My secondary coach yelled across the ice "HEY!!! Jazzpants is supposed to fall and slide on the ice on this move, NOT YOU!!!"

Needless to say, she wasn't happy with my power circles. Too slow for her.

__________________
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!!!

Wow, do i feel lazy for not buying more skating clothes! I should buy some more myself...I wear the same stuff Sunday-Wednesday and all I do is air it out in between skate days...but I don't sweat much. By Wednesday, it does need a washing though

I never thought of using a metronome for power circles! I'm beat-challenged (makes me think of that Steve Martin movie "The Jerk"...) and that might help me! Do you put it on the boards or in a pocket? How many beats do you use-do you just mess around until you find beats that fit? Or do you start slow and build up to faster once you gain skill?

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

Generally, my skating clothes could walk away when I'm done with them, even after just one session I tend to skate pretty hard and work up a good sweat...I even skate at a cold rink and one of the things I tell the younger skaters is that if I'm cold, I'm not skating hard enough

The metronome track I have starts slow and gets quicker so that you get the feeling of the gradual change in tempo with the power circles. There is a "beat" for every push with the cross overs...and it is timed out to exactly 15 crossovers...I find that it helps...plus, the beat tends to stick in your head I have it in iTunes (so that I can burn more copies if I need to), so if you PM me your e-mail address, I should be able to send you the file....the "music" repeats about 10 times, so you can get in all 4 patterns, plus extras...

Oof, what a practice, will start with the good...

Snow Day: My loops are consistent again and a couple of them felt pretty big today! That was good. I did one pretty low very fast sit spin and a decent backspin. Footwork was pretty good and I like this twizzle we stuck on it. Did a bunch of double threes though not according to the pattern I'll sooner or later need to pass, I was just messing around with them when the other stuff went to pot.

At work: Sheesh my flip is just completely gone. That is so frustrating since I already passed those in ISI, but didn't practice them for a long time after switching to USFSA. Back to square one. Out of maybe 20 attempts I landed two, the rest were either two footed or I landed them on my left foot. I was infuriated at myself which certainly didn't make them improve. Camel spin - nice that I can get two revs, but I can only get two revs and it peters out, not sure why...I have to put my right leg down. Skated on club ice today which freaks me out for some reason, it's like a freestyle on speed. There were a ton of lessons going on. Didn't even bother to try a lutz. These things are in my program...uh oh.

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Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)