A Holiday-themed thread to finish out 2009...good/bad isn't too drastic.

Enjoy the holiday season, everyone!


Snowflakes: Sharp blades made turns and spins better.

Sugar Plums: Still waiting for my new boots to arrive.

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Snowflakes: My sit spins are very consistent and centered compared to all of my other spins. Clean on the spin, too. No toe pick grinding (slight sometimes when I spin). Footwork sequence is just about ready for competition. Might add a few more elements if I can squeeze them in.

Finding my toe loop and tacking it on the end of a salchow jump for my program. Will be included in my program!!! Yay! And I am getting some nice height off of it. Pleased that I am now getting more comfortable with combination jumps.

Backspins! Not as consistent as I want to be, but now am not afraid of them at all. When I do get a good spin going, I now know what it feels like to speed up on a back spin when crossing the leg over. Weird but cool. Strange that it seems easier to get into a back spin than a forward spin. Anyone else think this?

Flip jump! Got it back and realized I had been hesitating for the LONGEST time before picking into the ice and jumping. Grrr!!! Why had I not figured this out sooner?! I end up all weird with my arms and FORCING the jump. My coach has been communicating this to me all along and now I get what she meant. If you hesitate, its harder to get a natural jump out of it.

Did I mention I love spinning?? LOL! Camel spins are there and getting better body positions. Doing camel catch as well. Not consistent with my entry though into my camel spin. I hope that starts to come soon as I am with my sit spin. I love camel spin and spirals.

Sugarplums: Camel spins. LOL! Sometimes they are amazing and I have some speed, others, not so much and terrible entry edges. Still doing a bit of twizzles into my back spin. I want that to stop. But I know I have to be patient.

Nervous for Wyandotte. Trying to get myself into track mode so as to not be nervous. After this week, its run throughs and perfecting some spots in my program. Also, more ice time and training to be ready.

Can't wait to meet some of you!!!

I am skating Monday through Thursday this week. No skating over the weekend. Booo. But that's ok. I'll be very refreshed for Monday. My day off, plan to get 4 sessions in.

Happy Holidays!!!!!!

UGH! I do this too. I wait too long sometimes and then it is hard to jump.

Plums Flip - working on not hesitating. Camel - couldn't get more than 2 revs this morning. Sit spins were lower, but couldn't hold it.

Snowflakes I love loops today. They were good from the first one - usually it takes 1-2 tries. Since they were good from the 3 turn, I tried them from back cross-overs and they were small, but landed. Woot! That encouraged me to try salchow-loop. Landed it first try...okay came to dead stop after the loop, but I did it! Subsequent tries were better and I left the ice feeling very happy. So happy, I plan to buy on at one of DD's sessions tonight. DD and I are going to work on our family spot light for the February competition. We found out we have competition in the family spotlight from a girl at our rink and her Dad.

Backspin is also good - was able to get down into the d with my feet crossed. Waltz jumps are finally getting that feeling back...the floaty feeling where you hang in the air for just a split second before coming back down. Love that feeling!

For flip,what seemed to help me is to count 1, 2 ,3 and on the 3 I pick into the ice. Now I am working on the muscle memory thingy.

That is what I was going to suggest is counting it out. I don't do this unless I am working on doubles, but I do a 1 ((turn)) 1 ((BI edge)) AND ((bend knee)) 1 ((pick)). My singles are HUGE when I do this.

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Well it was snowflakes all the way.

26 inches of them.

Rinks closed. Coaches cancelled lessons. The entire state of Virginia apparently ground to a halt.

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

Sugar Plums: (I thought those were a good thing..?) I've never been so sore in my life! I fell backwards twice saturday (I'm a sub-beginner lever skater for those who don't know me yet ). Landed on my arm once which was bad enough, but now my neck muscles are crazy sore from trying to keep my head from hitting the ice, and my abs too though I don't really know why. Now I'm getting sick too, yay.

Snowflakes: I'm actually really impressed with my progress. I'm anxious to get started with lessons next month.

Thanks for the tip! I'm going to try that.

Snowflakes Picked up another session with DD tonight. We worked on our family spotlight for about a half hour. We are stealing part of this idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg but adapting it for the ice. We ran through it tonight and got lots of good feedback from several of the skate moms.

I also ran through my program with the changes I'd like to make to it....salchow-loop instead of salchow, doing the sit spin before the toe-loop instead of after it, changing the toe-loop to a lutz, changing backspin to camel backspin.

Plums lutz didn't work out so well.

Ouch! If you're falling backwards, it's possible you've got your arms too high for your skill level. Some coaches, mainly those who've skated their whole lives, have everyone hold their arms straight out and high. For beginners, it's much safer to hold your arms at belly button height, and just in front of you, as if on a table you are belly up to. This will lower your center of gravity and help you reach for your knees if you lose your balance. OK - just re-read and saw your last line (also just finished martini ). So, if you haven't had any lessons yet - then do what I said with your arms. Keep palms facing the ice and push your knees over your toes when you grab them if losing your balance. You might also consider wearing a helmet - some schools require all beginners to do so. Also, pack some ibuprofen in your skate bag and take it immediately after any fall; you'll feel like a real skater then!

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Snowflakes: Had a two hour session last night. My coach and I worked on my program (and finished it!) for over an hour. I feel very confident. I have lots of great elements and combo spins. Woohoo! Very happy! Even got my split jump in there (not really splits although one day I hope to get close to being able to do that when I am more comfortable)

SugarPlums: Exhausted after two hours of go! go! go! I ran through parts of my program several times and was destroyed! But, I know I got a good work out.


Skating tonight again, tomorrow (with coach), and Thursday. Getting used to the new footwork sequence I have in my program. Its really cool.

Can I clarify this? It says the right thing, but I think it might be misread. Just in front of you means a little in front of the horizontal line created by your shoulders. Thinking about putting your hands out to the side of you, but on a table that is in front of you, as dbny suggested, is a great idea.

(I read this first, dbny, as if you were telling her to put her arms straight in front of her- like in a dip-)

As a more advanced skater, my freestyle coach likes my arms just below shoulder height and just barely in front of my shoulders; but this drives my dance coach crazy, and any time I'm on the ice I'm shouted at to lower my arms, almost exactly how beginners are taught.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Sugar Plums:
Student sent me an email and voice mail yesterday, asking if she had a lesson. I replied "Yes, I'll be there."

Turns out the family was going on vacation (I had no idea; must have been an oversight) but their flight had been cancelled the day before. They caught a flight at the time of the lesson and no one let me know.

Snowflakes:
I choreographed her new program since I had the music on my iPod.
Don't like the version though, so I might look for a different artist.

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Sorry, but I have to reverse the good and bad here. I'm sick of snow already. Anything related to sugar can't be that bad....

Sugar plums (i.e. good): Nice empty ice yesterday. They had pretty much their regular schedule, but since all the kids are off school, the evening crowd came in during the day and there were only 8 or 9 of us on what is normally a packed freestyle that I usually go to after work.

Jumps all behaved well. Still working through back-outside-edge-a-phobia and the lutz has been erratic. I landed all of the ones I tried last night...they weren't as big as they used to be, but I'll take it.

Used my camera phone to take a couple of video clips of my spins and was happy to see that the sit is back to where it was pre-injury. Can always be lower, but it at least looks decent again. Camel behaved too.

Snowflakes (i.e. not-so-good): Went through the pre-pre moves test today. Some of the elements I've done before. The waltz-8 is completely new though. Definitely harder than it looks. CW front crossovers...ick. There's a reason I don't like to work on those. Felt like I was going to fall right over. And I've somehow acquired the habit of having my arms reversed from what my coach wants on the forward edges. I think it's from working on 3 turns so often as opposed to the edges themselves. Still, I think this test is well within my capability to pass if I force myself to spend time on it. And there are plenty of back outside edges so I will be working on my phobia at the same time.

Thank you. Did I mention I had just finished a martini?

That lower arm position is also what we used in roller dance.

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Yes, definitely focus on keeping your knees right over your toes. In fact, you should keep your CHEST over KNEES over TOES. That means you need to push your chest forward and arch your back, like a semi-squatting position, when you skate. That will keep your weight on the balls of your feet, where it belongs.

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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

Thanks for the advice everyone. I believe I am generally holding my arms as you say, though I couldn't guess where they were at the time. I am focusing on keeping my knees bent, but I was under the impression your weight should be on your heels. Maybe it's the crappy rental skates, but I slow way down if I put my weight closer to the front, to the point that I would fall forward if I did that while moving quickly. That makes more sense though, I couldn't figure out how to get one skate in front of the other or crossover while standing on the heel. I have much to learn...

Yep. Same here. When I take my time on my flip and count it out (rather than rushing into the jump), I pull one of those huge flips where you finish rotating with that little bit of "hang time" before you land. Love when they're like that!!

What's good and what's bad? Snowflakes or Sugar plums?

Anywho:

Bad:

Started out the session in a bad mood. My ankle was sore, it was cold, I was up early (after being up late last night) and wanted to just be in my warm, cozy bed. I was supposed to have my first lesson since my injury (last lesson was 2 mos ago today). I was mad my coach was either late or forgot about me altogether. He was 15 min late because he wrote down 7:50 but told me 7:30, I had to be at work by 9 and it's a 40 min drive to work, so instead of 30-40 min I only got a 20 min lesson. In retrospect that's probably a good thing because he pushed me harder than I've been skating the past few weeks in my lesson (see below) and more than 20 min of that may have been overkill.

Good:

I thought my coach was going to make me do more stroking and edge work, but we delved right into junior moves. Did power pull quick rockers on the R side (they were bad, hadn't done them in 2 mos and the first few times I was really hesitant). Just did power pulls on the left--last time I skated (Saturday) I could not do these on the L yet, it was really painful. Today they were fine!! Not planning to add the turns in for a while yet though. Luckily the L was my better side when it came to this pattern, so once my ankle can handle it, they shouldn't be too bad.

Also did outside rockers (again, first time in 2 mos). I had tried these before (including last Saturday) but my ankle wasn't quite ready. He wasn't gonig to have me do the left foot but I started on the left just out of habit, and they actually weren't bad and didn't hurt much today! Obviously they were not as edgy as they were pre-injury, but it's a start. The right were actually worse, but those were the weaker ones to begin with (and since the left is used more to push on that side, I couldn't get good pushes).

So now I feel better that I'm working on my moves again and can add 2 more things to the list of stuff I'm able to do again.

Also worked on some spins, mainly fixing technique things that went away or got sloppy while I was off the ice. Tried a few camel spins, those were a bit shaky, couldn't get as low as I wanted in a sit spin because it still hurt. But my back sit and back camel were much improved.

I feel like I can start skating more frequently again, and start to build back up to 2 hr practices now that I can handle 1 hr. We have ice 6-10am tomorrow morning so I'm planning to drag my butt out of bed and get there before work, hopefully skate for an hour and a half.

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2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

Snowflakes: no skating today (haven't skated in ??? days???), was called to work. Seems no one wants to work because of the holidays. I'm ok with it, it's a quiet place to study (I'm in between semesters but I need to review).

We are supposed to get some rain and it's going to be a mess, as we still have a lot of snow on the ground. We are expecting some flooding.

Anyway, I'm hoping to skate Christmas Eve, then on Saturday (freestyle). Our rink was closed last Saturday because of the storm.......I should have my blade re-mounted by then (yes, I'm re-doing it.)

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

Didn't go skating Christmas Eve, had toooo much to do. Went today, only 2 others on the ice. Messed around with my blade alignment, now I'm 1,000% sure it's ME not the blade (hey, I had to try!!!) So, now I need to figure out what to do about it. Put blade back on the "old" way, might drop in to public tomorrow before going to Easton just to make sure it's 100% (or not it doesn't seem to really matter).

Sugar Plums: did some nice sit spins, actually got my legs to touch and r-e-a-c-h-e-d instead of hunching! Toe-loops did some concentrating on position. Salchows were strange because of my blade. Back spirals were ok, still going to take some doing, cause I'm curving around so much.

Snowflakes: the music box is off-limits unless you ask, because too many fingers have been messing with it. Scratch spins were nasty (it's me) keep going up on my toe. (but my sit spins are centered, so that tells me everything).

All-in-all it was a decent skate, for what I could squeeze into 50 minutes!

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

Snowflakes:
Had a fun skate tonight. I got to skate by myself for a few minutes to some beautiful music, and it was wonderful. We then had a great pairs session and are really making progress.

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

this is for last night, I was too lazy to post when I got home.

Sugar Plums: worked on scratch, sit, back spins. Had some insight on the sit, i.e. how far I'm NOT down but it's good because I really cant tell how far I am from the ice when I'm spinning. Tried something new to compensate for my back/quad weakness but it didn't quite work (I'll keep trying it when I practice).

Backspins were awesome! Coach had be keep my arms/free leg out a smidge longer before bringing them in. I mentioned I had problems ending/gliding out of the spin....she mentioned I need to bend my skating leg-doh! That was the key part!

Salchows were next and she had me do them from BO3-mohawks which were interesting! Faster tempo, something fun to try.

Loop jumps were the last thing worked on.....traditional entry (RFI edge-right mohawk) grrrr I just lose speed and oooomph! So she had me try a RFI3 and wow! I can do them AND take off/land from my toepicks! This was a MAJOR breakthrough!!!!

Add all this together AND a relatively empty session!!!!

Snowflakes: none, our snow melted because of the rain, it was near 50 degrees yesterday; and the rink was even warm.

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

I actually got to skate a few times over my 4 day weekend - finishing up with a public skate session (not too busy either) from 2-4 yesterday.

Snowflakes - Santa brought me a FLIP for Christmas!! I have been really nervous of this jump for some reason, have been doing walkthroughs, half flips and other exercises for some time, just couldn't get up the nerve to pick in and do the full jump. With DS along to bully me into it, I finally did it!! (he's been doing them since he was 7 or 8, so it is all very HO HUM to him). He finally convinced me to try the mohawk entrance, and darn it, that was really easy!! However, he wasn't with me yesterday and I couldn't figure out the whole entry sequence to be able to do it again. Just couldn't figure out how to get INTO the correct mohawk, and I'm not good enough just to do it from a standstill . . . so I tried it from the outside 3 entrance (I like 3's much better!) and was even able to land them that way as well, they just weren't as high, (Ok, they were tiny) but I did a couple million of them just to try to get the muscle memory working.

Backspin also going REALLY well, I have been working hard on the backspin and back pivots and I think it is paying off.

Feeling so good, had to throw in a few Bauers just to show off. Gotta use those open hips to my advantage when I can.

Went right home and emailed my coach to set up private lesson to show her "what I did over Christmas break" and sort all this out. Also need to work on getting a consistent loop and sitspin sometime in this lifetime, no time like the present.

Sugar Plums: uggghh that forward sit spin. Or more precisely, the entrance to the forward sit spin. Need to figure out some way to trick my body into reaching the correct position - I have the quad strength, I'm just not getting a good center on the spin itself, to get my knees together and make the sit happen. Worked on back shoot the ducks and back pivots to try to get a better feeling for the correct position.

Congrats on the flip and backspin progress!!!!!!

As for the sit spin, I had my coach position me by the boards, to show me how (not low) I am. I don't have the quad strength (nerve damage) but am working hard on building my muscles off-ice (squats, one-leg squats, lunges, etc).

Her advice? Keep trying, enter lower than you think you need to be (if you fall, you are close anyway), enter slower. I know you've heard this all before.

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

Snowflakes
-Skated a session with Daisies and Doubletoe! Brought a friend to the adult only freestyle session and we had a blast.
-Jumps were all pretty solid. 2lutz is smaller than I'd like but the edge is good and I'm not swinging my arm around--essentially managed to fix my bad habits. Landed a miraculous 2flip+2loop that I just randomly decided to go for, AND I had witnesses. That combo has been more or less MIA so it was nice to land it.

Sugar plums
-Was having layback issues, but I also spent quite a bit of time on them on Saturday so my back was a little sore.
-2axels I don't feel like I'm getting any closer. They were actually less rotated than usual, but I guess I haven't worked on them that much. It's just frustrating because for the most part, there isn't anything TECHNICALLY wrong with the jump, I just can't quite get it. I guess it'll just take time.

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