Shown Up:

For real!

Managed to get up early and drag my butt to the rink before I had to get to work this morning. I was only able to skate 30 min before I had to book it to work (I'm supposed to be at work at 7:30 and it's a 40-minute drive from home/my usual rink).

Warmed up with junior outside rockers, which were good, then spent the rest of my short time on the ice focusing on my step sequence in my program. Worked on incorporating the changes my coach made after Wyandotte that I wasn't able to do at Easterns this weekend d/t my ankle issues. They're getting more comfortable, even the rocker choctaw on my weaker side. Still can't double the LFI twizzle like I want to (and was doing earlier this year) because my left ankle doesn't really like that yet.

Scratched:
Played around with blade grabs on twizzels for a few minutes, damn that's hard. I have short arms in proportion to my legs/torso and by the time I got my blade in my hand it was time to get out of the twizzle, not to mention trying to get my leg up high enough resulted in popping my free hip up and the twizzle was all sorts of wonky.

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

Shown up Jumps were feeling good especially the flip. Added a toe on the end and that was good. Coach and I changed the placement of the flip in my program and that has been a big help. Back sit felt better. I know it's not low, but I was getting 3 revs more consistently. Quiet ice - only 3 of us. The last 15 mins I had to myself. I was able to run through my program 3 times but without music. Trying to remember to breathe during the footwork. Had plenty of room to stretch out on the spiral and get up some speed.

Scratched Camel spin - while better in isolation is still crapping out in the program.

Lesson tomorrow and competition on Sunday.

Shown Up:

My new boots came in today (Reidell 2010s) so I got the blades (MK Gold Stars) mounted. Tried them out at public session. Boots feel pretty good, I like the cut of the back. I'm not used to having such thick padding in the tongue, but I'll get used to that. Didn't really notice the slightly higher heel. They were a little stiff but comfortable, fit feels great, and if I weren't also adjusting to new blades, I probably could have gotten right into working on my usual stuff.

I've been in synchro blades for years, so the blades felt so awkward, and they were REALLY sharp so that didn't help. I was on a very crowded public session (riff raff night at the rink) so I couldn't do much other than skate around and try a few scratch spins, but after about 30 minutes they were starting to feel a little better. The longer heel didn't bother me so much (yet), it was the angle of the bottom toepick that was strange.

Think I'm going to like the boots, not so sure about the blades yet. Hopefully I'll be comfortable enough with the blades to compete in them at my next competition (March 20), otherwise I'll go back to my old skates for ANs and worry about the adjusting to the blades over the summer. Luckily I'm not in a position where my current boots are broken down and I absolutely need new ones and have to get them broken in quickly (like last time I got new skates), I just needed new blades and knew the time for new boots was coming in the next 6 months too, so I ordered them while I had the money set aside. Once I get back to testing dance, I might order some dance blades and turn my current boots into dance skates since I don't think I'll like doing pre-gold/gold/international dances in freestyle blades.

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

Shown up Ran through program and coach pronounced that is had it's good moments. Backsit/forward sit has enough revs now, but backsit is still high. Camels in isolations were improved.


Scratched Washed out on the camels in my program. Arms were up in the air on the lutz. Need to get those crazy high arms down to the right spot.

Only Shown Up for me - had 2 good lessons yesterday, one with each coach, both of whom pronounced it a "good lesson" and "hard worked". Today, I am in Tulsa so my husband can run a 50K tomorrow and I can see one of my best friends who doesn't live to far from here. Skated at the Tulsa rink this morning and it went fairly well.

Shown up:
Well...I showed up! Which is the major thing. This is my first time on the ice post-accident, sporting my sexy bike helmet. I just stuck my braid down the back of one of my tops and it seemed to work fine and stay out of the way. I suppose I had a "tail" hanging out the bottom, but what can you do?

Spins still improving. I'm still not quite getting past the "stork spin" stage, but I'm trying to work on getting that free leg over there. It's veeeeeerrrry slow--gotta figure out my balance doing that--but the fact that I can spin at all on one foot makes me go SQUEEE!!! I love spinning the best, I think, so it was really killing me that I couldn't do it. I did get in some great stork spins...nice and fast. Question, though...exactly how much is my toe pick supposed to be scratching the ice? I mean, I can hear it...is that too much?

Worked a bit on all my three turns. Tried a few back 3-turns even--haven't touched those in months. Actually they weren't bad. Esp. my LO ones. I was actually surprised by those ones.

Mohawks weren't too bad today. Again this is "not too bad" by MY standards, but still.

Had some good salchows today. And by "good," I mean "good for me," as in I didn't fall too much and a close observer might've actually been able to tell they were attempts at salchows. They still need a ton of work--a TON--but I didn't spend half my time flailing around too much this time. How does one pronounce "salchow" anyway? I always pronounce it to rhyme with pal-cow and I've heard others do the same (IOW, pronounce the way it's spelled with the L and all), but I also read something once that suggested it would be pronounced like sow-cow, to rhyme with wow-cow.

Only got in a couple spirals at the end when everyone else cleared off and the zamboni was coming out on the ice--and I hate doing them then because by then the ice is so gouged up it's hard to get any sort of speed up, at leat for me--and they were okay but not great.

Was playing around with some crossrolls at the end and WHEE!! were they ever fun and swingy today.

Scratched:
Toe loops weren't so great. Dunno what's with me. But oh well. Actually, I think the one time I actually fell, it was on a toe loop. Ah well.

Ever get that thing at the rink on a public session where you're about to work on a jump (in my case, I work on sal and toe loop from a standstill to work on my technique before I speed them up, hence why I can manage to practice them at a public and not a waltz jump), and then you see a kid with an ice walker headed for your space. So you patiently stand and wait for them to pass....and that's the moment they pick to fall down like right in front of you? So you're standing there...and standing there...and standing there...and they take forever to get back up...and.... (and it always seems, too, that where there's one kid cutting across where you're working, ten more need to follow).

And I did not see my rink buddies today, which makes me sad as I haven't seen them in forever (one of the other regulars told me he hasn't seen one of them since the Olympics started, lol). Tried to call one of them a couple times and left a voicemail, but she didn't call me back. They could be busy. I didn't see them last time I was at the rink a few weeks ago either, but we might just be ships passing in the night.

Showed:
-All single jumps
-My axel attempts were actually getting closer
-Sit spins
-Had a really nice layback- held it for for several rotations
-I brought back my 'music box' artisic programme and ran it a few times:-)
-Sit/sit is getting really close to being consistant...had a couple flubs but overall it was alright
-Interpretive runthrough went well, its just hard to block it without music on hand
-The kids in the exhibition Friday did an encore show for all the LTSers. I had to lead the little level one-ers/mini skaters and help them out. But it went well!
-Belliman spiral(slightly to the side) is holding longer and smoother.



Scratched:
-Ughh my legs did that jello thing again
-Skates majorly need sharpening
-Fell on my flying broken leg spin
-Nearly fell on a SCRATCH spin
-Fell on a backspin
-Catch foot spiral wasn't nearly as good as last week
-Backspins felt wonky
-Camels were pure crap
-My computer was being it's tempermental self, so I couldn't cut my music, which is why running it felt strange
-I was alittle rushed because I had to give two hour long massages an hour after practice.

Yep I definately need to go during the week and get my skates sharpened and work on my spins once again. The jello leg thing is odd because I properly warmed up before hand, stretched more on ice, did some squats while on ice and a couple other additional warm up/stretching things. Oh well, maybe next practice will go better.

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

Holy crap! That's nuts, it's more than a marathon!!

Showed Up:

Saturday was day 2 of new boots/freestyle blades. The longer heel and proper toepicks didn't bother me too much, I only almost tripped over the heel once.

I learned what it's like to jump/spin with proper toepicks. I tried jumping in the new boots/blades, got through a flip (lutzes were a little scarry and the new boots really bother my L ankle so I couldn't stay down in my knee, so I just did some lutz take-offs). Noticed a difference right away, I actually have that bottom toepick that's supposed to be the last thing to leave the ice and the first thing to hit it on jumps. The toepick doesn't slip when I do my toe jumps, it just makes a nice little toepick mark in the ice. Tracings of take-offs and landings of my jumps were so incredibly clean and the landings were much softer. Even though I was jumping very tentatively/cautiously, I was getting really good height on my sal, toe and my loop felt awesome. (Flip was a little shaky because my ankle hurt on the 3 turn setup.) This makes me very optimistic about getting back to work on my axel and doubles after ANs.

My coach constantly tells me to hit the bottom toepick before rotating in back spins, and now I finally know what that's supposed to feel like.

In the long run, these new boots in combination with these blades should force me to break a lot of bad habits.

Scratched:

Can't for the life of me find the sweet spot to spin yet, especially on back spins (they were scarry). I'm still not sure of where exactly on the blade various turns need to be done. The spot on my old blades was much farther forward, because every time I tried more than a single twizzle I hit my toepick. My old blades were MUCH more forgiving! But when I did actually find the right spot for turns (was doing some rockers and counters) the tracings were perfectly clean.

I think I'm going to give these skates a few more tries before I go back to the old ones through ANs. Even though they'll make my jumps better, I don't want to sacrifice my spins and footwork or make costly mistakes in ANs in 6 weeks because I wasn't used to these blades, especially when medaling in 2 events is a realistic goal. I know I'll get used to them eventually (they're the same blades I passed my novice moves in 10 yrs ago), it'll just take more time than I thought and it's more of a summer project like I initially planned.

The boots also really bother my bad ankle because the lower profile in combination of where turns need to be done on these blades forces you to really bend your ankle. My left ankle can't handle that quite yet, and it's REALLY sore after I skate.

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