Hope it's OK to start this myself - looks like we are due for a new thread! I am getting ready for our rink competition on Saturday (ISI Freeskate 3) and am alternating between and . . .

Bragging: Ran through the program again yesterday and it's mostly good - starting and stopping on time, the ending that we worked out (scratch spin, which turns into a back inside pivot, pull out of the pivot and then drop to a lunge position for the ending) works well with the music and I think I am getting enough revs in the pivot.

Dragging: I know this always happens the week before the competition, but I had a bad entrance to my toe loop jump in our club exhibition on Saturday, had to regroup and attempt it again to get a clean jump . . . darned if I didn't falter again on yesterday's run through. This is the one jump I never have trouble on!! arrgh. At least I won't be worrying/stressing too much about the change foot spin, I guess (my usually weakest element). Also had some problems with a front spiral (during the exhibition) which is something I never have problems with - so now I am a little nervous about that too, but I think taking an entry that is a little more curvy may help me feel more solid - will check it out next time I skate and see if that makes a difference.

To be determined: I am not absolutely sure that I am getting the 3 revs on the backspin in the middle of the change foot spin. Need to get my coach or DS to look closely and make sure. The transition itself is getting smoother though - that was my biggest concern (I tend to get overzealous and push myself off balance when switching from the forward spin to the backspin - have had to learn to take it really slow and easy!!).

Bragging: Had an amazing weekend skating. Landed my flip jumps with a lot of height and some speed. Worked out my spiral sequence for my program and other elements. Skated for 3 hours straight and had a blast. Practiced my spiral sequence and working on a back Y spiral to possible add to the program for Bronze. Also, did a layback! Not a full on one, but enough that I did 3 revolutions centered on the ice and it was actually pretty! LOL! I asked my coach to work on this with me. Could be another spin to add to my program if I can do this.

Dragging:Fell on Saturday doing a swing roll from an outside edge to inside edge, one footing it, placing my free leg in a crossover position, did a 3 turn and down I went. Yesterday, SPRAINED my ankle doing off ice jumping exercises.

Now I will be off ice for several weeks probably and not dancing either. I am uber depressed. I plan to do a lot of dance stretching and crunches to keep strong. Also some free weights for upper body. I hope I will be back in some semblance of form soon.

Bright side to this, I have time to heal and refine my program before January.

Good luck at the competition, Laura!

Hope your ankle heals quickly, dance2sk8.

Bragging:
-Learned some new footwork.
-Brackets and double 3s are still mostly intact after not doing them for 7 months.
-Competition program as a whole is decent (even though I skipped over the jumps).

Dragging:
-Couldn't jump today because my ankle hurt too much.
-Could barely do a camel-back sit. Completely fell over on one. Finally squeaked out a good one near the end of my lesson.

Bragging

Best practice since coming back from my broken wrist. 3 turns - all 8 of them - working well. I've been trying to work on these, and edges, at the beginning of every practice. Scratch spin - hit one fast, and perfectly centered, the others weren't too terrible, either. Even my always-iffy camel was cooperating. Jumps felt good. I started working on them with a little more speed and for the most part they worked well. Lutz is still a bit wonky but I did get a couple of okay ones in. Even worked on some axel exercises again.

Dragging

Tried a few cross-strokes...something I never really "got", anyway. And the fear factor definitely kicked in on the back ones, so I left them alone.

I'm getting an extra lesson this week so we had time to work on elements yesterday instead of just Moves and Free Skate test program.

Dragging Coach videoed my sit spin. Not pretty. Worked on the entrance and got lower, but still work to do in that area. Flips are flopping - why does this jump want to elude me?!?!?!? I even tried switching to a mohawk entrance. Ran through my program and fell twice - on the sit spin and on the loop. Coach was like WT???

Bragging Backspin was on. We worked on getting good arm position. I had a few that were super centered. Spiral is getting better and I feel more confident with it.

Dragging
Me, getting out of bed this morning. Ran late and arrived a few minutes late for lesson. Hadn't had my 2nd cup of coffee or woken up properly by the time I was on the ice.

Bragging
Lesson this morning. My edges & 3-turns are much improved and I am gradually learning to do what my new coach wants. It is challenging, but sooooo worth it.

Improving my scratch & back scratch too.


Dragging
More work required on back pivots to help with backspins and change foot spins.

We haven't worked on jumps in the 2 lessons since coach got back from overseas. I have a sciatic nerve problem at the moment, but I can still do most jumps. I get a bit fed up with so much of lesson on edges and only 15 mins on elements.

I know I need that work, I know my overall skating is improving a lot because of it. Just that I love to jump and I know my jumps need as much pulling apart & putting back together again as anything else.

__________________
Katz

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

Bragging: Ran through all 4 of my ISI programs for the competition in 2 weeks, and they all felt great. My little "Junior Coach" - 12 year old morning skating buddy who is at a very high level - said my programs were awesome and my flip at the end of the waltz jump-half loop-flip combination in my spotlight was huge and awesome. I knew it felt good, glad it looked good too. Junior Coach and I had a blast putting on each other's music, along with her mom's music - her Mom is a skater and another morning buddy.

Dragging: Coach is out of town and didn't see my great programs!

I got an extra lesson yesterday. We worked mostly on the Bronze Moves test. Since I am the test chair for our club, I can't run our November test session and take the test at the same time. Instead of skating on another club's test session, coach has asked a judge that we both know to come test me after one of the mostly empty morning sessions. Date TBD sometime in November.

Bragging Coach said Power 3's and 5 Step Mohawk are really improved. She said the back landing position was the strongest element in the test pattern (a relief because it's hard to get a full pattern on freestyle ice without avoiding someone). She said that the flow part is there. Even though I am not picking up any speed, it's consistent. Extension is pretty good.

Dragging The forward and backward power cross-overs are a little off axis so I have to be more aware of where I am. We had some time at the end to work on the sit spin. It's better than Tuesday, but still needs to be lower.

Dragging: Didn't get to ice skate this week because of work activities each night until 7 pm.

Bragging: DID get Thursday night free to skate, but went to the roller rink instead. I got a call from a skating friend who informed me that one of the adult roller skaters was turning 80 years old, and that there was a surprise party for her at the roller rink.

Dusted off the PIC skates, and headed out. I did very well - even with spins - even though I haven't been on PIC skates for a month.

The birthday party was an extraordinary success, and many people who have skated at the rink over the years came by to pay tribute.

This picture of her hands tying her skates says it all...



I hope I can still skate too when I'm 80!

__________________
Bill Schneider

God bless your friend. I'm sure the party was a blast!

Did a little bit of choreography yesterday and realized that I'm still struggling with CW turns of all kinds. I'm so frustrated with these skates. I couldn't even demonstrate a toe loop.

__________________

Well practice as a whole was 'ehh' today. Mostly due to me catching a bit of a cold and my skates were giving me issues. But anyways...

Bragging:

-Double threes/brackets were very good today as usual
-back power pull/bracket combo-really getting the hang of it
-twizzles
-Waltz/loops were good as were loop/loops
-Lutz was actually behaving once again..Yay
-I actually worked on my axel quite a bit and have full rotation and a good entrance...now it's just landing on one foot.
-Sit spins weren't too bad today
-2sals...started off bad, but overtime while alternating the attempts with axel...it was getting more comfortable. One instance I thought I landed on the right foot, but tapped down with my free foot. It's sooo close.
-Choreographed a bit of my artistic programme...mostly moves and grace elements.



Dragging:
-Spinning as a whole was really off today
-My fabulous flying broken leg spin...the one spin that I trusted in...was giving me issues
-My F*#$#in camel is just awful.
-Layback was giving me trouble as well
-Toe loop...not really anything too bad, it's just gotten so puny. But thats because before I was doing it 'wrong'
-Had to play dodge the hockey players while practicing axels...not a good combo

__________________
[i]Beauty May Be in the Eye of the Beholder
But passion is in the heart of a skater.[/I]

Bragging: I found my gloves! They were in lost and found, luckily. The guy at skate rental says they usually don't have stuff, so I guess I got lucky.

Too lazy to write about class tonight.

You are lucky! Un-luckily for me, my bracelet has flown and was not returned. Oh well, karma will get the person who snagged it.

Dragging: was feeling a bit "off" tonight, probably due to the muscle spasms I've been having....which are sloooowly getting better. Feeling a tad uncoordinated and kept tripping up on my toepicks or clicking my blades together a few times-man I hate that!

Bragging: freestyle session I worked on moves....I got to be the evil person going the wrong way and it was F-U-N! They are doing ok. Show practice was good. Then we had a show meeting afterwards to discuss costumes & props so I need to get my costume together (think Christmas Carol, sort of fancy). They did say "no hoop skirts" and I laughed thinking how funny it would be to see someone skating in a hoop skirt!

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

Dragging:

Only felt like skating 1 session tonight.

Double toes were horrid tonight...couldn't get up and rotate...

I need to start doing some axel/loops to control the landings...

Bragging:

I got one axel on video where I actually had my legs crossed!!!!

Last night, double toes were amazingly close to being landed...

Been on a double sal kick...they are getting better. Landed on one foot, but I need to work on finishing the rotation. I need to start doing walk thrus with a back spin that is the correct number of revs so that I know when to pull out.

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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

Bragging Had a lesson tonight. We focused mostly on jumps since we did Moves and spins earlier in the week. Loops jumps were good. Spent a good amount of time on the flip. I actually landed a few that coach liked. Yay! Worked on the footwork between the salchow and the toe loop in my program. That is coming along.

Dragging Salchow now has a funky skid in the 3 turn if I get up any speed. Coach is convinced that I need new blades. She knows how much I have been skating lately and thinks that I am not seeing enough progress for the amount of hard work I am putting in. My skates are old so I could probably use new ones.

Dragging
Me, still: low energy and just not feeling great. Taking ages to regain strength after swine flu. Sciatic nerve problem still plaguing me. Off-ice I can barely walk, can't even put my left blade guard on. I can skate though, as long as I don't do forward camel or sit spins.

Ice was rather cut up from a class before the session, so not good for edge work and spins today (- that's my excuse for not slogging at edge work anyway )

Bragging
Despite all that, not a bad skate this morning. I enjoyed it, and that's what matters. Did all my single jumps up to flip with loops on them (didn't try lutzes cos the ice was rough), which I haven't done for a while.

Actually got one decent back camel and one reasonable back sit. Upright backspins weren't great, but I managed a couple of decent ones.

Late in the session I realised I was too tired to do a lot more serious work, so I started just moving around the ice doing various turns & stuff. Felt great! I got some real flow into back 3s, and generally felt like a 'real' skater.

Came away happy and looking forward to another session tomorrow.

__________________
Katz

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

Bragging Just went out for a public to work on my forward stroking and basic skills to recover my muscle strength after the broken ankle. Am able to hold slow outside edges on the healed ankle. My FI mohawks are fine, but anything that requires me to be on the outside edge of the healed ankle is scary. Few more weeks just stroking before I get serious about a coach.

Dragging (edited) Am afraid still to move away from the boards for my weak FO3 and mohawks....Can't do left T stops because I can't get the turnout.....3 years down the drain.

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

^Awww, Agnes, I'm sorry. How frustrating

Bragging: My instructor fixed my catch-foot spiral today! I told her I keep falling on my face, and she said, "why not start with a regular spiral and then transition?" This sounded like a HORRIBLE idea to me and I told her I'd try it if she'd peel me off the ice afterward, but it worked! Foot to full height and I didn't fall over! (much--a couple times I lost balance but managed to only touch the ice--and once do an unintentional lunge-type thing!--rather than do a belly-flopper) I don't know why it works, but it does! Still having some trouble with the left foot, in catching the blade, but right foot was good. One of the guys who saw my unintentional lunge gave me a thumbs-up later when I got it right, lol. I know, I'm WAY more excited about this than I ought to be...but hell, there's very little I can do right but I CAN do a fair-to-middling spiral...so that's something to celebrate.

I sort of started to "get" the idea of one-foot spins today! At least from my pivot start.

Also, I got my blades sharpened, yay! They've only been driving me nuts for at least two weeks as I went skidding around turns and was afraid to try even remotely deep edges. *eye roll*

Dragging: Unfortunately, new sharp edges seem to have made my spins go away. *sigh*

Today was my last day of class at DSC. If I am ever rich, I WILL take BOTH classes. I like both places.

Bragging: Uh...not much, I guess. I've noticed lately that my forward 3-turns, esp. outside, have been improving a bit...backward crossovers seemed a bit better today maybe.

I walked to the rink and it was nice out. I like to walk or ride my bike to the rink when I can, but I'm always afraid I'll fall and get hurt and not feel well enough to walk home/to the hospital. I mean, I guess if I broke my leg I wouldn't be driving anyway, but...

Dragging: Spinning. Ugh. I don't know that I will EVER learn to spin. I don't know what my problem is. Even my two-foot spins still suck. The most depressing part is when I'm at the rink and see little kids who aren't that good of skaters, and they try to spin, and they do better than I do. I don't know why I just can't seem to "get" it. I keep hoping it'll be one of those things where one day it'll just click and I'll wonder why I couldn't do it before, but I don't know...

Backward 3-turns still suck. I know exactly what my problem is: I don't rock backward on my heel enough, or maybe I rock back forward too soon, so I catch my blade and it drags. Sigh.

Spirals were only so-so.

The kiddies at the rink were annoying as usual, and most of their parents didn't seem to care, as usual. I really need to get that rule list suggestion written up and take it to the folks at the rink.

I bit it really hard today. It was almost the end of the session and I was zooming around the rink, having fun going fast, when I saw a kid I'd have to avoid, so I cut my crossover a bit deeper so I could turn more sharply and I think that was my downfall--my blade must've slipped or something. I hit the ice really hard on my stomach, so hard that I actually jostled my brains in my skull (even though no part of my head hit the ice); also knocked the wind out of myself. My left elbow still hurts (I wish my pads were bigger! I might have to break down and make my own elbow and knee pads). I don't think anything is broken, I think I just hit it really hard. As soon as I fell I was just lying there, and I felt the kid trip over me and fall on the other side of me; he said "sorry" twice but I still couldn't breathe. It's rare that I fall hard enough that I have to go sit in the hockey box for a minute after I get up, but this was one of those times. At any rate, it gave me a chance to brush the copious amounts of snow off me. I'm fine now but it SUCKED.

Bragging: Went to a public session this afternoon. It was lightly attended, and the guards didn't care if I jumped or spun. I didn't push my luck doing them to excess though, so I worked on footwork at speed (three-turns, brackets, counters).

I felt fast today, even though the ice was fairly hard and rough. In particular, backward crossovers around the rink's end give me a "slingshot" speed for entering the straight section of the rink. The "wind in your hair" feel is so satisfying.

There was a visitor that showed up about half-way through the session who apparently had good skills. He was a younger fellow - about mid-40's - who did camel, sit and back spins, all jumps except the axel, and generally showed some expertise. Turns out he's visiting from Annapolis, MD.

After the workout (my goal these days), I left sweaty, tired, and ready for a shower.

That will have to satisfy my skating jones until Tuesday evening.

__________________
Bill Schneider

'younger fellow--mid-forties' Love that!

(Although it is interesting that at my 'new' rink, it's just like the old rink. The adult figure skaters get to know each other. Seeing a man in figure skating boots is great. I'm trying to convince a dad (who I knew from my old rink, who now is at my new rink) to get a coach. 'Oh, I just skate to spend time with my daughter.' He's working on his back spins. Self-taught. )

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

Dragging: me! I didn't sleep well last night (don't drink a caffienated drink before bed LOL) got up early to work....rink was ABSOLUTELY FRIGGID!!! RUTTED!!!! And I almost got taken out by a wicked synchro girl!!! Coach's advice-keep going!

Bragging: Worked on moves for the first 1/2 of lesson...then we worked on spins-scratch, sit, & back.

Scratch-I need to hold the edge longer.

Sit-actually "almost" did one (yay, first time since Hackensack!!!); exercise-backward glide then get into sit-position

Back-hold arms out for a smidge then bring them in...wow my spin got faster!

More advice from coach: skate like I know I can-don't hold back, be more confident, not so timid.

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

Bragging: I skated "against the book" in the rink's competition yesterday and got first in both my events! (FS 3 program and compulsories). not flawless by any means (see "dragging" below) but heck, it is only my second comp and my first gold medals, so I guess I will take them any way I can! (and hey, I survived!!).

Dragging: I continued my string of not being able to "hold the ending pose" - my program was SUPPOSED to end with a lunge. Instead I went in a little fast, my leg kicked around and . . . darned if I didn't end up sitting flat on my butt on the ice with my legs in a "V" in front of me. Ugh. what else to do but **SMILE** and hold my arms up high as if nothing was wrong. Yeah, it was SUPPOSED to end that way, right?? oh well . . . better at the end than the beginning, I guess!!


DS had a bumpy day yesterday (HE was skating at the FS 5 level . . . little whippersnapper!) . . . started out by taking 3rd in interpretive, which he usually wins hands down . . . and then he just couldn't land a clean axel during his program or compulsories (though he did land at least one in the warm-ups). Today I realized that my other son had gotten video of the good axel and the failed one, so we looked at them today and it's obvious that the ones he falls on, he was pre-rotating on the take-off . . . probably just competition nerves. Everything except the axel looked GREAT though, lutz, camel/sit, flip . . . man, I wish *I* could be 11 again!!

Congrats on the gold!!!!! I have seen skaters get 2nd and 3rd place against the book.


Bragging Had my group lesson on Saturday. Group coach liked my loop jumps. She thought my sit spin was good - lots of revs, centered - just needs to be lower. She learned to skate at 18 and went through all the adult levels(she's mid-30's now). She is convinced that the judges will be more lenient on it even though private coach is not convinced.

Dragging Flip - did lots and lots of exercises to help it. Only managed 1 good one.

Hi Laura

Congrats on the Gold.

Hi Kat12

You are not the first person to get frustrated with two foot spins. When I first learnt to skate more than 10 years ago, it took me at least 1 year (if I remember correctly), to master my two foot spins. Then another so so so many years (5 or 6 years) to master my one foot spin. Due to my professional exams commitement, I stopped for 4 years, only went back to skating in January of this year. Seemed to have the 1 foot spin clicked instantly, for no reason.

Try bending your knees, and leaning your body forwards and backwards, that may help with your 2 foot spin.

londonicechamp