Oh why is skating with a partner so difficult???? In some ways its easier, one can go far faster (at least, I can), but when you start fouling each other, and each blames the other for doing it wrong..... not a good practice today! The problem was our outside swing rolls - I reckon Robert was anticipating, and he said I was. I wasn't! I know where I put my foot, and it was straight into the centre of the rink, by which time he'd twisted his upper body to the point that I was going past him. Or else he left his shoulder behind so that I went ahead of him anyway, whereupon he blamed me again! Men!!!!

But we had quite a good lesson on the rhythm blues, trying to get our act together on it. I think my main problem now is learning to rebend in places like the lilt. And maybe the inside swing rolls, which I still find hard to get right every time.

We are also beginning to be able to slalom in kilian hold, but it's still not easy......

Solo we had fun warming up, as the elites had put a can-can on as warm-up music, which is always hard work! I was totally breathless after doing Russian stroking to that music. Also forward cross-rolls - I decided to leave the changes of edge for another time..... Sir, meanwhile, wasted it all by getting off to go and get his gloves!

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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!

Good morning!

Well, as promised in last week's thread, I have gotten back onthe ice and into lessons, yay!

Everything was pretty much a frown, though, as I was so wobbly and unsure after not being on the ice for a month. And my feet cramped up because it's been so long...

Except spirals. Spirals are always a smile, even if I'm not getting them as high as I want quite yet. I know it's unfair, but I can get my legs to passing level without leaning and my instructors are now insisting that I lean, grr... It's my own fault, though, they call me Sasha Cohen when I stretch and now they want to see it on the ice. At least I'm steady in the spiral, even if it's not the position I can get when stretching off-ice...

Back inside edges came back pretty easily, though my lobes aren't quite big enough.

I also worked on straightening out my mohawk for the 1/2 flip. I'm not checking my right shoulder enough.

Anyway, happy skating!!

frowns: i dropped my skates off to be sharpened, and forgot to pick them up in time. oops. that means no skating for me today.

grins: at least when i get to skate, my blades will be sharp!! i let them dull too much, and i started falling ALOT before.

Frowns: my stupid staff meeting went late and I was late to get on the ice. My backspin went for a walk today and I couldn't for the life of me do a decent one

Grins: YES...got a camel spin!!!!! Ok, its pretty sad looking but i know how to do one right and i managed to do 5 good ones with at least 3 rotations. I know what they feel like now and so i just have to practice them lots so they improve.

Frowns: I take a cup of coffee with me to the rink, and I have a machine that makes it straight into a padded cup for this purpose. So today I click the switch to start the machine - and five minutes later discover, to my horror, that I hadn't opened the lid on my cup, so the coffee was all over the floor. Sigh. So I was late to the rink.

Actually seemed to skate very little, as was not motivated at all! However I did run through all my exercises, although neither well nor fast.

Grins: Have organised the booking of the "Starlight Room" (vile name!) for our Silver Wedding party. Now I can start to think about invitations!

The elites had their parachute out to play with - their coach said I ought to have a go with it, but I declined on the grounds that I didn't think the harness would fit round my middle! (And I wished to be spared the embarrassment of finding out that it didn't!).

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Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Frowns: still haven't called to doctor aboutmy leg so skating is getting quite painful...last night i had to get off to fix my skates b/c they we're not behaving, Tango still lacks the right emotion, my mom said that when i do it i lookliek i am going to throw up

Grins: when i finally get everything working properly i did a really good pattern of the Rocker and an okay pattern og the Tango...the steps are good they just lack...uhm whats the word...oh yes, emotion finally looking up when i skate now...wheeee no kneck brace for me ^_~

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Waffles & Vodka

Breakfast of Champions

Frowns:
Freestyle session yesterday was as cold as outdoors. My breath froze in the air before me and it took me 40 minutes to warm up and stop feeling totally klutzy.

All spins have completely deserted me, so I am back to two foot spin from pivot, paying close attention to posture and foot position.

Grins:
FO threes are almost back to their pathetic normal state (yes, that's actually a grin). Hubby did FI threes with me, moving with arms extended (thank you ISK8NYC) and afterwards I was able to do a few very tentatively, but both R & L with no spot and away from the wall.

For some mysterious reason, FI Mohawks are getting better, even the L, which I find very awkward and scary.

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Brr. No skating tonight due to the storms. Hopefully I can get in some practice before the competition this weekend!
Ta

Too cool!!! When is the big day?

A fairly normal skate last night except that for the first time I was "taken out" by another skater. I was standing at the rail of the hockey box talking to a "new" adult skater who was retying his laces (he used to play hockey 25 years ago). His sister was skating by and tried to stop at the hockey box door. Unfortunately for her, she hadn't learned how to stop yet. She bailed out flat on the ice, but in the process took my feet out from under me. Luckily, I had my hands on the rail and only went to my armpits.

I wasn't hurt and she was okay. I helped her practice snowplow stops afterward.

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Frowny Face - gosh, I'm SO behind on posting my practices, it seems like time is just sliding away. Last week just must have been a bit "off" for me, as my third practice (on Wednesday) was also "frowny" despite having the ice mostly to myself. You know how sometimes you just get down on yourself? Well, I've been so preoccupied with work lately, and my not-so-new skates are still causing me roving pain, and there's just soooo much in my program that needs work -- and I guess I just let it all get to me. I then spent 4 days at a trade show, standing in high heels on concrete for 8 hours each day and eating unhealthily. Yeesh! What a mess!

Grinning Like An Eeejit - so I decided to start this week off with a bang, and yesterday's practice was so much better than I'd thought it would be. Despite getting in town very late the night before, I had the day off, so I had two wonderful hours before the tiny tots kicked me off. There was only one other person on the ice the whole time. I worked on various parts of my program, trying to feel more "comfortable" while I'm doing them so that I finally can add some style without pitching to my face. One of the coaches gave me some pointers on extension and locking my knee and pointing my toe (I'm just horrible at this!), and it really made a difference. She also showed me how to "punch up" the moves I'm doing, so they don't just all flow together in an unrecognizable blob.

It must have paid off, because today's lesson was excellent. My coach came in all full of beans and energy (must have been fighting the gigantic snowstorm, got her adrenaline up). Anyway, HER enthusiasm was contagious! We started off with a 10 minute warmup to simulate the one I will have at Mids. She wants me to do each element once and only once, combining several of the spins and jumps to save time. I'd give myself 7 out of 10 on that one, with a bit of a shaky flying camel, but a much stronger baby flying sit. Jumps were good, with the lutz surprisingly the best. Then she had me run through the entire program, leaving out the 2sal and the flying sit, but everything else was in. Even though I "fell" on the 2toe, the whole point was to force me to recover quickly and get on with the program. Then I warmed up two footwork sequences and she made me do the program again (!), this time with the 2sal & flying sit in, but the 2toe and the flying camel combo out. Of course, my legs were already turning to concrete, but I made it through without dying and actually got some compliments from another coach who watched. THAT made me feel really good, like maybe there is hope after all.

My coach was so encouraging, I think it will carry me through for practices tomorrow and Friday. I've got a lot to work on, but she was reminding me of how far I've come in only a year and a half, when I had lots of bad ingrained habits still lurking about from my childhood skating days.

Since I KNOW what needs to be fixed, it means I just have to get out there and keep plugging away. And so I will!

Frowns: The weather is rotten here. We got freezing rain, snow pellets, large flakes, rain and you name it. Makes for messy driving and walking.

Found out that I won't get to compete this weekend because no other adults entered by the entery deadline. A new skating buddy of mine from another area club tried to enter but was turned away. Three other adults also got turned away. I was the only adult to enter the competition on time but I still don't get to skate.

Coach is looking into having me compete in Sarnia, ON at the WOS Winter Invitational Competition. Only thing is, if I it is possible for me to compete, the deadline to enter is tonight and they'd have to fax my entery and also get my friend's enter faxed there on time too.

I didn't enter the Bernie Deveau because of it's location and the fact that I'd have back to back competitions each week with little time to train in between. Plus, on competition would have been a Canadian competition and the other a US competition with each having different program times. This means, I'd have only 3 days to change things around in my programs.

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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

Was down at the rink just after 7.00 this morning to watch various friends testing, all of whom did very well, only one little girl failed - level 1, it doesn't seem possible to fail level 1, but the judge thought she was too "steppy" and hadn't learnt to glide yet.

Everyone else passed, though, although some only just.

Then on to the ice for my lesson - it was one of those lovely days when it was just me and my coach's other pupil on the ice - she was working with my coach's wife.

Frowns: While some things worked very well, others were most odd, and I couldn't quite see why. My changes-of-edge still aren't what they should be - I find it hard to extend my free leg after the change and then bring it forward again for the run. Also my forwards cross-rolls were a bit "toe-y", and when I finally managed to do them without a toe-push, they were much smaller!

I've decided that next week I'll take my camera in and get my coach to video the various moves - my digital camera will take 30 second videos, no sound - so I can see what I'm looking at.

Grins: Of all things, my waltz 3s! I'm hopeless at them, but today I managed 3, consecutively, with no toe-rake noise!!!!. Now this, for me, is serious progress. Couldn't quite make it round the circle, though. And still a bit of toe on my RFI waltz 3s.

Question: Presumably when you work on your bracket-3-bracket field move, there is a change of edge involved - at what point do you change edge?

After my lesson, I hung about a bit watching my coach boast about his "perfect" lutz take-off, and then laying himself wide open to criticism by doing a lutz that he made a nonsense of landing! And his wife said his toe was in the wrong position..... I wouldn't know. Her pupil was working on her double axel, and we spent some time working on her take-off, which isn't quite forceful enough, apparently. And I started playing around with inside 3s again - LFI 3 is coming along now; RFI 3 is still dire unless cheated....

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Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Grins
Finally back on ice after yet another ankle injury... this time it was the left ankle. This year has been a year of ankle injuries, I really wonder what I am doing that made myself so prone to them.

Anyway... landed my double salchow once and axel a few times near the end of practise so i was really happy

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~
Tidesong

I havent been on the ice since last....oh saturday maybe? and that was only for about 35 minutes in all, so it's terrible! But I skate tonight so that's great!

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Grr. Due to the snow and ice and power outages I have not been able to skate all week. I went to a session on Sunday with Mika and we took edge class and stayed for the freestyle session. It was a bit crowded for me to run through the program, but it was good excercise. The class coach commented on how well Mika did in class!
Monday - snow. Tuesday - snow. Wednesday I was on my way to the rink and was called on my cell because the power was out! It was also out at the other rink. Grr. it will be an interesting competition this weekend.

In roller skating we called such turns "flats" because we really were not on edges at all. It's the same on ice, but because of the direction of rotation, they are considered technically to be bracket-3-brackets. That's the way my coach explained it to me when I commented on the "flats" in the Novice moves test. Please feel free to correct me or to add anything if I've gotten it wrong.

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Frowns: For some reason my pick just wouldn't pick tonight and I kept hitting the lower bottom of my toe pick for toe jumps. It was so frustrating.

The little bobbsie-twins on my session are driving me bonkers. There is 2 of them and sometimes a 3rd that practice hydroblading in the lutz corner. They get in everyones way. Tonight someone was working on double axels and they kept getting in her way. No matter what end you went to they seemed to follow. GRRRRRRRRRRR

Grins: My skates are finally breaking in and when i land my jumps i'm getting the soft knee. I still have to work on not tightening up but it is much improved. Did a couple of nice camel spins to boot.

HEHE..got a compliment from a fellow skater who i was taking with. She's a late teen/early 20's gal and she couldn't believe it when i told her i was 27. She thought i was 21 or something. HEHE Made my whole evening,.

Grin: Finally had the chance to get to the rink tody for some practice before this weekend's competition. This evening I was also able to get to the studio and we cut the final copy with the voice overs.
Frown - I'm almost out of great apple cake that Mika made (and braved my frozed street to deliver)!

Frown:

• Forward power 3's... what else??? Actually, at least NOW I can do them on both sides... just not with power and speed!!!
• Didn't do that great of a job on the alt back crossovers or the FI mohawk on the first run of the 5 step mohawk. (When I did remember to do the FI mohawk right it was better then!)
• Was in such a rush to get to the rink this morning that I totally forgot my wallet! Thankfully, I have an emergency credit card to pay for my FS session, just in case. WHEW!!!

Grins:

• Both secondary and primary coach were asking me "So...have you set any goals on when to take the Bronze Moves test?" I think June, secondary coach wants me to humor her and do it in May. Primary coach thinks "Oh, PHEW!!! You could pass it even earlier than that if you keep improving on what you had this morning."

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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!!!

Frowns: Being hauled out of bed at 6.30 this morning by over-enthusiastic husband! Grrrr. I said things, but I wanted to skate, so got up anyway - tt was that or change the sheets myself later, and I'm hopeless at turning the mattresses!

Spent most of the first session with my husband working on forward stroking and outside swing rolls in Kilian hold. The outside swing rolls are still a bit odd, but while we were practising them, someone put a Starlight Waltz on, and whenever we did them in time to the music, they worked perfectly! Hmmm.....

Worst frown of all though was after he left, when I decided to do a solo pattern of the Canasta Tango and the Rhythm Blues when that music was playing. Because I have been working on them, every time I do a swing roll in those dances now, I find the running edge - and deliberately find myself holding back so I don't go as fast as, technically, I am able. Don't do that with a partner, so perhaps it's a good thing I'm not doing much solo dance now!

Grins: We managed a whole length of cross-rolls in Foxtrot hold - a bit "toey", but quite fast and we were with each other, not fighting. We also did a superb lap of chasses in waltz hold - really fast, flowy, they felt great! His back cross-cuts really are good now - he's just about ready to test them, I think. Only thing is, e loses his posture about half-way down. I had a go at mine this morning and, while far from ready to test, they are actually a lot better than last time I tried them - on edges, even gaining a bit of speed. I can't quite last a whole length of them yet, though. Nor are my back cross-rolls (the other half of that test) anywhere near standard yet, but at least I can do something that looks like them! Once again, though, fear is my biggest enemy on that one.

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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!

Frowns - Oops, forgot to post about my Wednesday practice.

Grins - Wednesday's skating practice started off a little slow (more boot pain), but I pushed through it and then it was just awesome. I DID work through my program twice, and while I could nitpick a hundred things that need improvement, I DID make it through both times and pushed myself harder than I usually do. And it was FUN! I can see that I'm on the verge of a breakthrough where the program does NOT seem like a marathon run, which allows me a little more time to actually breathe and maybe .. just maybe ... enjoy myself out there. Oh happy day, please come soon!

Not that I don't enjoy the skating part -- oh, I'm in heaven out there. It's just that whenever I do my program, I go into a techncical trance and I'm so focused on landing things or completing elements correctly, it looses all its flavor and excitement. Think the squinched up forehead and clenched hands of sheer determination. Hardly a good, flowy look on the ice!

So I'm looking forward to Friday's practice, which is in the afternoon and not at the crack of dawn, so I should be extra energetic and will attack all of the elements AND the program and try to whip them into shape.

Frowns
This morning I had my first lesson in over 18 months. Getting out of bed at 4:45am was quite painful. My skates were quite painful as well! We did just basic stroking, crossovers, two and one foot spins and waltz jumps. Everything, however, was quite a mess -- too much leaning over, scratchy edges, traveling spins, etc. And now, about a hour later my muscles are starting to complain, especially the ones that I didn't even remember I had.

Grins
This morning I had my first lesson in over 18 months. There was only one other person on the ice during the entire time I was there. My coach pushed me to do more than I thought I could. I even landed a nice waltz-toe. After a few attempts, I managed to stay off my toepicks during spins and had nice even circles. Even though it's frustrating to know that I have quite a bit of catching up to do to get back up to par, I had fun. Gosh I missed this. Best of all, I can legitimately start posting on this thread again!

Frowns: About a bazillion kids on the ice today because there is a competition this weekend. Coach and I almost took out one kid and one coach doing the Harris, and later I got kicked by a kid trying to do a spiral. I haven't had a chance to check out the damage to my leg yet! Biggest skating-related frown is the Blues choctaw. I just can't get the LFI edge deep enough or quick enough. The RBO edge coming out if it is fine, though. ARRGGGHH!!

Grins: Harris, Kilian, Prelim Skills, and Jr. Bronze skills! The two dances feel great, and skills feel solid as well. I'm testing all three dances and the two skills in two weeks.

I'm excited to do the Harris and Kilian, a bit worried about the Blues. The skills will be interesting, because although I am confident while doing them, I have NEVER been on the ice by myself in 17 years of skating! So hopefully I can just control my nerves, and everything will be fine!

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Grinning like the Cheshire Cat - oh joy, oh joy. Is there anything in life that's better than 2 hours of fantastic skating practice???

Frown Town - Actually, the session started out a little dubiously, because instead of the usual 4 people on our public practice ice, there were around 30! ZOINKS! Turns out that a group of adults who live with brain disorders were having a special outing. My annoyance factor at having to run a gauntlet of non-skaters was quickly replaced by awe at seeing what these brave people were trying to do out there. But it WAS a little hazardous, because we also were inexplicably joined by a speedskater (!), 3 hockey players, 4 women who haven't skated for about 20 years, and a youngish girl (beginner) who really didn't belong out there at all (on adult ice).

Grinnin' Again - So for the first 20 minutes or so, I aborted anything with a pattern and contented myself with working on spins. The ice was beautiful, and the spins were gratifying, especially the back sit. Did back scratch, camel/sit/back sit/front sit, flying camel/sit/back sit/front sit. Then when the ice cleared, moved to jumps and ran through everything through the axel. The axels turned out big and beautiful and I'm finally learning to straighten my leg(s) and keep my back up. I got two huge compliments from experienced skaters on these. Woo hoo! My only complaint was my lutz/loop still has a scratchiness at the end that tends to interrupt the flow, so it's 100 more or so of those to try to correct that problem.

We were down to only 2-3 people on the big ice, so I started running through pieces of my program, trying to get my body posture and arm gestures to stop resembling someone using choppy semaphore to be rescued from a deserted island. Must have achieved some success, because two other skaters remarked on how "SMOOTH" they thought I was looking these days. Oh joy!

I completed one full program run-through with music after having skated for an hour and a half, and I was still full of energy afterwards, which means the endurance training is paying off. And speaking of, I closed out the two hours with 10 minutes of power stroking in the CW direction and then my poor tootsies just couldn't take another minute and I reluctantly left the ice. What a great practice!

P.S. Oops. Forgot to mention one teeny, tiny little incident that I've blocked out in all my joy. Tripped when I lost my concentration on my Tigger footwork sequence and somehow landed with the back half of my newly sharpened right blade slicing into the inside of my left thigh. Didn't think much of it except ouch. But when I removed my leggings (sliced) and tights (sliced & bloody), seems like I tried to salami cut my own leg! Yeesh. Two bandages (it's kinda long) and some bacitracin and it should be o.k.

Frowns: My backspin went buh-bye. GRRRRRR. I have the worst sore throat ever. I managed to dirnk lots of water and suck on sore throat lozenges the whole time i skated. Luckily its not in my head or else I would have been one dizzy girl.

Grins: Lots today. My camel spin is finally becoming a 3 out 5 five attempts. Though it is still weak i managed to do a couple good ones including my first ever camel sit!

My coach worked on my flip and finally i got the timing back. He actually said i was getting nice height when i didn't rush my 3 turn into it. We then worked on a sequence: salchow-mazurka-flip. It seemed to work well since I don't rush the take off into the flip because of the previous jumps.

Coach said just before he skated away to his next lesson that we'll have to try the axel soon. YIKES!