My friend who has saw him said that he's a "hottie" in person! DRATS! DRATS! DRATS!!!

Oh, well! At least I didn't waste $300 fighting for rink space with a bunch of kids... (like last year...) But it sure would be tempting to go just to meet Scott. I wanna know if MK saw my coach's interp program dressed as her.

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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!!!

Mrs Redboots, yes, I actually managed several three turns while moving! Like I said, I was so excited to do them, especially since it was my first time even TRYING three turns. I was expecting it to take me a lot longer to learn them, but they aren't so hard as I'd imagined, really. Once I got it into my head that the upper body has to rotate first, it just all came together. The part that made me happiest was that I was doing three turns without making any noise. My coach had said that you know you're doing the turns right is you don't make any noise, and you don't fall over!

Certainly someone must have sent MK a copy of that performance. The skating world is really a small world after all I know I have a copy! I'd love to hear if MK saw it though.......If you ever find out, let us know.
The guy from Ledin said he made a fortune selling copies of that performance.

Pits: Couldn't get out on the ice

Olives: Went down to my usual session to say hi to everyone and meet a friend for lunch. My coach was still giving her a lesson, and I got quizzed as to what she was doing wrong. I got to coach on my own after my coach finished teaching. Couldn't skate, so coaching is the next best thing!

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

Well, I've heard that Karen Kwan has seen it... and that Danny Kwan wanted a copy of the tape too! So I wouldn't be surprised if it got to her already. But I do wanna hear what SHE thought of it when she first saw it.

I got a copy too (ironically from Ledin too)!!! I had to have SOMETHING to pick on him about!

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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!!!

Skated yesterday. WHAT A DISASTER. Well, the skating itself wasn't a disaster, but the rest of the day was! Ok, I was supposed to be going to a practice session on Wednesday. I overslept, giving myself 10 minutes to get ready, including packing 2 bags. We set off for the train station and missed the train by less than 2 minutes! I had no choice but to go back home again. The next train wasn't for an hour (meaning I'd miss most of the session), and I couldn't go to the later public session instead because they were expecting a group of 309 kids! So I wanted to skate yesterday (Friday) instead. Woke up in good time to go to the practice session - but my dad was stuck in traffic for ages taking my brother to work, so he didn't get back in time to take me to the station. I decided to go to the public session instead, as they were only expecting a group of 30. Getting there was ok, but I didn't get home till over 4 hours after I'd left the rink! I was stuck in train stations for over an hour and a half, and then when my mum picked me up from the station, we had to detour to pick up my 2 sisters. How I wish the ice rink was only down the road... Oh yeah, and once again I couldn't book a lesson because there aren't any coaches on the sessions I can get to! Uck! The longest practice sessions there are are about 1.5 hours long. Every time I've tried to book a lesson on one of those, there's either no coach on the session, or there's one but they're fully booked. There's no point me going for a 1hr long session, since it takes me 2 hours to get there and 2 hours back! And in the next couple of weeks, due to the summer holidays and a camp, the sessions have been reduced in both number and duration. This is so frustrating!! I've only had one lesson in the past four months. I haven't done dance properly in all that time, and I could really do with someone looking at my skating. The last thing I want to do is to get into bad habits. At the moment I'm just practicing what I can. My skating at the moment has no structure and no direction, I'm not learning anything new and I don't really feel like I'm improving. I almost feel like I've quit since my old rink shut.

(Sorry for the rant)

ANYWAY - cheering up now. My spins were better (control etc), and I was getting 4-5 rotations. Still not exactly centered, but I can't do much about that because I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I practiced both directions too, and they were pretty much even as far as standard goes, so that's good. Everything else was ok I think. (My FI3s have gone a bit funny though, dunno why). I spent some time practicing the BO3-mohawk sequence - I slowed it down and just did a couple of steps at a time, concentrating on control and positioning. It wasn't easy but I think it helped. I also practiced other step sequences.

Good news - someone recognised me! (I'm not exactly well known to the skaters/coaches yet). It was one of the coaches who I spoke to last week.

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

I had thought we'd arranged to go skating this morning, but my alarm went off and nothing stirred in bed beside me. So I went back to sleep for another 30 minutes, but suddenly woke up and was awake for the day. Decided that even going down to the rink by public transport, I'd have a good hour or more to skate, so showered, dressed and left, leaving his lordship fast asleep!

A very mixed session, really:

Pits: As always on a Saturday morning, it was a bit crowded, and lots of rather good dancers and free skaters who make it feel crowded, even when it isn't. My hips are still really sore and stiff, and my back started to ache rather during the session - I got off and sat down for ten minutes and chatted with a friend, stretching while I did so, and it recovered, but my hips still ache. Worked on my basics - my back stroking was fine, but somehow my back chasses were pretty diabolical, and we will not mention my back swing rolls! Tried to work on my back inside edges, but found that the technique (for our Field Moves) still eludes me - how does one change feet without changing edge? My tracings showed I was pretty flat anyway, and kept changing edge at the last minute. Grrrr.

Olives: My forwards chasses were fast and tidy - I still seem to have more knee-bend going forwards than I've ever had before, and am pre-bending more, too. My changes-of-edge were okay; I don't think my coach would have liked them very much, though, although I was better pleased with the inside-to-outsides than the others. My forward outside swing rolls were actually really rather good, I thought - I didn't lose speed changing feet, which is unusual for me! Worked on my closed chasses - I still can't cross my feet on the ice, it's almost silly! Also worked on FO 3s (okay; back edge after a bit clunky, though); Mohawks (as good as they ever are, which isn't very); and played around with FI3s and BO 3s. Not a bad session, and of course the delicious feeling of virtue one has when you get home and you've been taking vigorous exercise while himself lazes in bed!

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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!

This morning we had the ice to ourselves for the first 30 minutes - it suddenly filled up at about 7.45 am, and by the time of our joint lesson at 8.00, it was quite busy. We had a good session, though.

Olives: Somehow all our exercises are better - faster, less tentative, covering more ice. We are far more aware of where we are in relation to each other, and Robert is even beginning, rather tentatively, to be able to steer me to where I need to be. It did feel good! We also had time to practice together before our lesson - as well as work on the stuff we are working on separately - and afterwards were able to do a couple of dances to music, since it was being played.

The Pits: Nothing much, really. The end pattern of the Swing Dance when I am supposed to do my Mohawk is still not very good, but as the coach said, if the side pattern is good and one end pattern is good, it's a lot better than all of it being weak! If I remember to turn my head while doing the Mohawk, it goes a lot better, but I don't always remember.

No lesson next week, as it's the British Solo Dance Championships, and our coach is taking another skater. Oh well, we can always practice.

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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!

Only practiced twice this week because I hurt my ankle and had to wait for the leg to feel better.

Mrs. Redboots - I know what you mean, sometimes I skate on sessions and it feels like there's no room because a few of the skaters are practing 3's and double/double's and they cover the ice FAST.

Olives - I LEARNED A NEW MOVE!! This young skater was doing a RBOspiral 3-turn (leg stays up) into RFI spiral she had LOTS of speed I had close to none but I did it with my leg staying about waist height. Need to practice that more it feels really cool. Dutch Waltz was good, Swing rolls are getting better more on a lobe.

Pits - Lower back was tight so I had to work around that and the rink STUNK!! Yuck, kinda like sewage and ammonia.

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Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.
Maurice Setter