Smooth Sailing: only 3 of us on the ice this morning. Had good run throughs of Hickory Hoedown. Finally got second slide and knee thing. Was forgetting to do that.

Crash Landing:New Cd player did not have fast forward, reverse or track skipping ability sooooo could not use my dance CD. Lovely. Rink manangement did not care either.

Smooth Sailing Had my lesson. We worked on Bronze moves, Coach thought they looked pretty good (even the left mohawk on the 5 step) so we worked on extention. Waltz jump, salcow, toe loop, and waltz - toe were good. Scratch spin and change foot spin were good. I managed a few good backspins.

Crash Landing I haven't been sleeping very well this week so camel and sit spins were crap. I mostly gave up on spins, because they were making my too dizzy and tipsy. Loops were crappy too. I didn't attempt any flips.

In between Coach asked me when I wanted to test Bronze Moves and Free skate. She doesn't want to test them on the same day like we did last time. I suggested October for the Moves. She seemed to freak a little and said - That's next month! I think she wanted to do the Moves in November because she thought there was a consolidated test session. I am the test chair so can't test(& run the session) on our club sessions. There are 2-3 test sessions a week in our area so it shouldn't be a problem to test somewhere.

I saw it too! Very, very nice backspin. I also saw Liz do a graceful, flowing and correctly edged 5 step mohawk pattern.

Crash Landing:
Almost everything . I just felt like a fish out of water today, and really, really needed my coach, who is away for a long weekend. I can barely manage the RFO circle on the FO figure eight, and that's after pushing into the heel so hard my ankle was in pain. I know there's something wrong somewhere - but evidently have to wait for my coach to find it. I could barely make myself attempt anything with 3 turns, including the pre-bronze 3 turn pattern, which I have to refresh a student on this Sun. Just a total lack of confidence.

Smooth Sailing:
Okay, there were a few exceptions. FI figure eights were a piece of cake, in spite of having struggled with the LFI previously. Somehow, with no practice in months, it just happened exactly right, over and over. Got a few decent one foot spins from T push, stopped when they went consistently wonky, and came back later to a few more good ones. Got LB power pulls cooking again. Was able to do a little of the Canasta Tango, which flowed without a problem, and did just a clean up on the Dutch Waltz end pattern.

Flying:
My Chinese dress that I got on ebay and was a little too big is now a perfect fit thanks to the sewing skills of liz on Ice. She also gave me a black velvet Mondor dress that is a perfect fit. I now have 3 lovely black velvet dresses and only one occasion on which to wear a dress. Guess I'll have to work harder!

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The right blade never felt quite right before. Now it feels perfect !

Right up til 1/2 hour before skating this morning I was prevaricating about whether to switch back to the Freestyles. Having been sick, I just wanted to skate well again. But I decided to persevere with the Phantoms, and am glad I did !

Smooth Sailing
Realised that not only do my edges feel more secure, for some reason I don't need to tighten my skates every few minutes. I just feel more comfortable on the longer blade. I can glide so much better, and even did some spirals today!
Recently spirals have been really awful, tripping over the toe-pick, really insecure. Suddenly both forward & backwards feel secure ! Bonus!

Crash Landing
Spins ! Better, but still not good or easy. Can't do sit or camel at all, still struggling with basic scratch. It's weird because I am only getting 1 tracing instead of 2, and it is a rather wide, deep looking tracing compared to before - but the blade is noticeably wider, would that make a differrence? Backspins MIA, though I notice the tracings are circles, no matter how bad the spin, rather than the twizzle tracings I was getting on bad ones before.

I figure, what the heck, I am not a natural spinner anyway. Spins will come back, but if everything else feels good, I'm sticking with my new blades !

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

This is for yesterday:
Smooth sailing: Waltz jump is good, nothing for coach to pick on (not even arms) except for lack of speed. Backspins were really on-worked on picking up speed (going from old lady speed faster LOL)

Crash Landing: getting back into things so we worked on scratch spins, which have been bad. Several things I need to focus on-
-lengthening entrance
-keeping free leg behind me longer
-keeping free leg more in front
-not being in a hurry to bring free leg across
Sit spins were bad, I have every excuse for these (weather made my back hurt, tight hamstrings, weak quads, new boots, etc) and I could not get close to the position I was in at Hackensack (grrrr) but the last one was closest to resembling a sit. Suggestions:
-do a few at each skating session
-back shoot the ducks
-off ice exercises & stretches

Waltz-8...well these were ok but my circles were lopsided although they were evenly lopsided! My focus needs to be on:
-making them round
-not moving my arms around as much
-actually counting each of the segments

Smooth Sailing: Last night's group class was good, except we ended up with "adoptees" from the other groups, so we went from being an adult class to mixed with kids which was just weird (skills ranged from FS3 to Delta)
Worked on: crossovers and proper pushing and edges. Next week will be jumps (yay!).

Today I worked on:
scratch spins and getting things straight. Backspins and going faster. Salchows and scooping free leg across. Waltz jumps and trying to go faster (this was impossible as club ice was almost unsafe-all levels and kids playing games made it hard except towards the end).

I have been toying with the idea of punching out my boots but I might just wait a bit longer, either the areas will slowly mold to my feet or my feet will slowly mold to my boot . I will give it about 2 more weeks.

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

This is for Thursday...

Smooth Sailing: Attended a roller skating session with the fellow old-timers. (Heh! I was the youngest there at 59.)

I did one spin on my PICs that went on forever (relatively speaking!). It was probably only 5 revs, but that's significant for me on wheels.

Said goodbye to the other skaters at the roller rink until April, because....

More Smooth Sailing on a Reach with the Spinnaker Unfurled: ICE SKATING BEGINS NEXT WEEK!!! Woo Hoo!

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Bill Schneider

Today I skated my best ever in competition (at the Greater Chicagoland Fall Invitational) and brought home the 1st-place trophy!

However, I was a little disappointed in my 19.96 IJS score. those judges weren't terribly generous....

(EDIT: It was Adult Gold FS! )

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This space has been put on hiatus for retuning....

As some of you may recall I broke my ankle in a FO3 in June. The ankle is almost well. However, it turns out when you break one ankle the opposite knee is damaged by the stress of carrying so much of the responsibility of hauling you around. So I'm now seeing yet another orthopedic surgeon for the knee after it collapsed while I was walking downstairs (thank goodness I put in rails last year). It's taken so long to get an appointment with the knee doctor that it's almost well already.

Now my friend The Big Guy, tore his back up in a loop jump. He landed the jump (really well) and said he suddenly felt a pain like being run through with an ice pick. He spent the next week sleeping on his back....on the floor.

So just as I'm getting ready to go back on the ice, he'll now be off the ice for months. We're totally out of sync.

The only good thing is that since we're both off the ice, we had a chance to go see the latest Star Trek movie in IMax. Coool....

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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

Black Sheep, a win is a win, just run with it; maybe some of the judges were taught from the old-school where "no one should get a good score" line of thinking

Agnes, I'm sorry to hear about your knee and the Big Guy! Hope you both get better & in-sync soon!

on another note, I need to get some cheap blades similar to my Coronation Aces (cause I can't spend the $$$ for another set) I'll mount them on my old skates for skating on the synthetic ice for demonstrating stuff when we are out and about at festivals. I don't want to ruin my new boots/blades so I'll just ruin my old boots and cheap blades.

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

Congradulations on your 1st place. In what level were you competing? What jumps, spins (including code), footwork or spiral sequence did you use?

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Hi Black Sheep

Congrats on getting first place in the competition.

What level were you competing in?

londonicechamp

Awesome!

It can suck if you feel the judges didn't realize how great you did, but as long as YOU know you did awesome, that's the most important part (IMO it's no fun, for example, to win knowing you did badly and you only won because everyone else was worse, etc.)

I typically skate "against the book" when I compete which is no fun at all but my scores reflect my placement (skating ISI) and the comments made to my coach afterwards.

Smooth sailing: went to the public session today, hoping it wasn't too crowded or busy and I was pretty lucky! I got there an hour late but considering it was a 3-hour session for only $6 that was ok.

Worked on a bit of everything except for jumps (not allowed on publics). Stroking, crossovers, edges, 3-turns, scratch spins, backspins, jump setups were all great. I wore my heavyweight pants and I really got nice and warm, my sore legs got warmed up in no time (they were sore from my gym workout).

Crash landing: could not jump (boo!!!) so nothing was accomplished with them; boots started really hurting after an hour; migraine really bugged me along with the Disney channel station on Sirius (so I put my iPod on-both ears, yes I'm bad); and my back shoot-the ducks were blech along with my squat-spins.

All-in-all I'm glad I went! I give today's session two-thumbs up and it helped to lift me up and re-charge my motivation!

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

CONGRATULATIONS!

Sorry about the knee, but maybe it has healed on its own and you won't need any treatment, or at least, very little.

How cheap? I can give you a name and number of someone who has Aces for $145. Also there are Wilson Club 2000's, which should be under $100 and are similar to the Aces. Finally, you could try finding a used pair.

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I'm thinking of going the used route...the synthetic stuff we have really tears up your blades (i.e. you need to sharpen every 5 hours AT LEAST). Thanks for the info. I'd buy used off of the girls here BUT I have the biggest feet at the rink (besides the guys and they all skate hockey).

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

Any chance you could PM me that name and number?? Blades here are horrendous - a pair of Aces will set us back around $400 - and that's allowing a favourable exchange rate with the greenback! Any wonder we buy online and have things shipped?

congrats!!!!!

first level feature: All three positions (camel/sit/upright)
second level feature: broken leg

8 revs aren't a bullet in the upright position, has to be sit, camel or layback.

The risk is that your camel has to be called and the sit has to be a true sit to get the three position bullet point. If you miss either the sit or the camel it's a level 1.

Your coach should be on top of this.

Sent it. Check your PM's.

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I'll have to check the 8 rev thing out closer, I guess.
Really, I'm working on getting the 3 revs in my Camel first before trying to do all three positions. It won't be until I have all three proper basic positions, that I'll add the broken leg and then the 8 revs.

I had no idea that doing all three position was a feature. Hmmm, you learn something everyday.

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Or a *difficult variation* of an upright position, such as an I spin, Y spin, or A spin. The only 8-revolution difficult upright variation I've seen has been an I spin by incredibly flexible young skaters.

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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

Forgot to mention (for the above post):
Crash Landing: worked on sit spins, did several and my "homework" is to do backward shoot the ducks. Ok. The problem I'm having (seems simple but not to me) is going down and getting my leg to stick out straight. I get "stuck" and then I stop. Grrr!!! I'm not sure if there is a special technique or if I'm dysfunctional (or maybe both). I watched some youtube vids of girls doing backwards shoot the ducks and it seems easy...in theory. My back inhibits me from achieving this move without moderate pain and tightness.

don't know if I'll get to the rink today, as I have a big test tomorrow, and I don't know if I should skate (and feel guilty) or stay home and study for a million more hours and be mad cause there is not more skating (for me) until Friday.

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

The lower and farther forward you hold your free leg, the easier it is to achieve the correct position and hold onto it. The knee of the free leg should be farther forward than the knee of the skating leg, and the inside of the thigh of the free leg should be pressing against the calf of the skating leg (i.e., free leg thigh is dropped below skating leg thigh). That gets your weight farther forward and makes the balance much easier. For a back shoot-the-duck, you want to be on the ball of the blade to keep your weight forward and keep from falling back and sitting down.

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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