I bought my patch tickets today and used my very first one! The ice was clean and smooth, it was absolutley excellent! I've never experienced that sort of ice, as I always get the remains of the morning patch session. I found it much easier to skate on, and I was perfecting slight things, it was pure bliss! I'm going to have my private lesson moved onto the patch ice, as you're supposed to, though nobody minded that I was just practicing. In two weeks I'm hoping to go on the morning patch aswell (Just saturdays).
I'm just so happy I thought I should tell you all! YAY!

Go ahead, make us jealous! Am happy for you that you even have patch ice and have the opportunity to really enjoy learning about your body/blade/ice connection.....

I always have my lessons on morning patch too. There are usually no more than three of us on the ice and now that they've scheduled a resurface just before the hour I go on it's brilliant!

Nicki

This is great -- where do you all live where there is a patch session?

We're going to start having one (I think) at our rink here in Portland, OR. Fingers crossed!

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

I am the only one at my rink who does patch.

Should have seen the looks on the younger skater's faces when I brought out my scribe. They had never seen one before.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

patch ice= club freeskate ice, not figures ice

Yay for you, congrats!!

How come freestyle ice IS called patch in the UK, anyhow? It's confusing a lot of people, I'm glad I'm not the only one who though it was figure ice. I know here we call it patch because each skater gets their own "patch" of ice within which to do their figures. I've never done it because I don't do figures (thank God) but I've seen it before. What do you (UK) call figure ice, then?

It's just a hangover from the days when people did figures. Very few rinks have dedicated figures sessions anymore, but where they do they probably call it patch too, or perhaps 'figures patch'. It's pretty much understood though that patch these days means a freestyle/dance session.

John

All ice that is dedicated to serious skaters is called patch ice at our rink and generally it is used for freestyle, dance or moves. I don't know if it is still the case but I know that at one time we had a patch dedicated purely to field moves only. However on the whole all ice for serious skaters is called patch ice!

Nicki

The patch for just field moves used to be 4.30-5.00 on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I think, might have been Wednesday as well. I did it when I first started skating at our rink, but gradually people started jumping and spinning on it and weren't corrected, so it became normal patch.
There isn't special patch ice for field moves any more which is a shame because it is useful to have a time to practice them without people jumping and spinning in your way.

The reason I was given (by the head coach) for not having Field moves patches anymore was because not enough skaters were using them and the rink weren't making enough money - it was never officially announced though as having ended but once all the coaches knew, it became ordinary patch. It made life easier for me as my kids had a lesson during that time and it was frustrating when they could only do field moves and not get a chance to run their programmes at all. It did make it a lot easier for people to practice field moves though.

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'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

Thanks Twinkle and Batikat. I thought that was the case as I haven't heard about the field moves patch of late though I know we did have one as I had the odd field moves lesson on it!

Nicki

There's a patch session Sunday mornings at Lloyd!

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- Ashley

Oh yes, I've been there -- they switched the time which doesn't really work for me -- we're thinking of having one at Valley, which is where I usualy skate...

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