It was the Last Night of the Proms last night, which means that summer is now Officially Over - and the weather this morning feels like it!

Blackberries: The ice was good this morning, although packed out, and a very famous coach was there to critique some of the elites. I asked him whether he had moved back South (we were going to arrange to take some lessons from him when he moved to the USA, and now he is back, but in the North of England) but, sadly, not. However, it was nice to see him.

Programme run-throughs went well. Our spin actually has the 3 revolutions it needs!!!!! We are seriously pleased and surprised about this as we were convinced it was only two! The way our dance is at the moment, if we do it no worse than we did it this morning, we'll be well pleased - we'd like to do it better, and there are places where it still needs to be polished, but it'll pass with a shove, now!

I noticed in Church this morning that my left foot is a bit swollen - which I'm putting under "blackberries" since it has been sore, and it's good to have something to show for all the soreness! Thumb, which always has been more painful, isn't swollen at all!

Brambles: (Do you have blackberries in the USA? If so, you'll know, of course, that what they grow on is brambles.... you can get well ripped-up picking them, as I did a fortnight ago). My thumb started to hurt quite badly when doing the Canasta Tango; I suppose that hold doesn't work so well for it. And the start of our step sequence occasionally gets very untidy, but the coach says it doesn't look as bad as we think it does!

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

Opened the thread just to see if there was an explanation of "brambles" and was not disppointed! I think I just call them blueberries bushes, or maybe thorn bushes!

Are we allowed to include practices in here or is it lessons only? I didn't have a lesson today. I will anyway and you can tell me off later if need be!

Brambles: I noticed that my left foot was sore at church today as well. Hmmm, not swollen though.Just the bottom of my ankle and beginning of the foot. My laces need replacing after my new kitten has frayed them by chewing them without my knowledge. Went to the rink today with polka dot laces, which I had to take out of my boots, since didn't have time to go and get new laces!

My practice was mainly all brambles today, made a mental note to try the other rink on Sundays as this is the third or so time I've been since school's been back and the ice is terrible and way too many people to dodge. Only lasted an hour.

Blueberrues: My footwork sequence is going well, now that I can finally remember it!! I need to remember to check out of some of my moves better otherwise I'm not prepared for the next move and mess it up. Didn't really do much today except the footwork and mainly did that in stages as well. Did it about three times straight through, but only once at speed. Tomorrow is my footwork/edges lesson, so it'd better still be there tomorrow!

blackberries:
Skated this AM, second time this season, still no lesson. I was one of the first ones on the ice so it was nice and fresh and smooth. It was free, as the ticket collector had not arrived and the rink guy said go on in.

I seem to have kept my abilities from last year, other than spinning which I am ignoring/avoiding, so I'm very happy for the start of lessons next week.

I like to be prepared for lessons, my analogy to my coach, it's like cleaning the house before the cleaning lady arrives.

brambles:
The annoying rubbing part in my skate did not disappear from last year. Also, I didn't know, this was an open session to all, but it's usually skated by elites. I spent a lot of time glancing nervously around and staying out of the way. They were all nice to me anyway.

I'm guessing that Blackberries are suppose to be good in this thread.

I've been off of the ice now 10 days since summer skating school. I wonder if my loop and flip will be there tomorrow or not. I'm hoping that they will be so I can start working on the lutz and get that down by mid October or sooner. I also still need to do more than 1 and 3/4's of a backspin. Funny how it's enough to do a loop and a flip but not enough to get the backspin yanking around good.

In November I want to be working on my axel so that it's reliable for Adult Canadians where I'm going to be competing in Class 2 Adult Preliminary. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a double or two before Adult Canadians as well.
I also want to start working on flying sits and camels sometime around December or maybe sooner. In other words, I'd like to be ready to compete in Junior Bronze but not test until things are reliable, probably after Adult Canadians.

This year, I'm only competing in Canada for the 2004-2005 season. I'll compete in the US again during the 2005-2006 season, hopefully when I've got the JUnior Bronze elements down pat and 100% reliable. I'm also hoping to be competing in Junior Bronze for the 2005-2006 season. If not, I'll be doing Adult Prelim and Adult Bronze again but this time I'm going to be competitive even with the Young Adults and Class 1 skaters. One thing though when competing in the US if I've got my axel or any doubles by then, I'm going to have to make sure my body listens to do only single jumps if I do Adult Bronze again.

In Adult Silver upto what jumps are you generally allowed to do in US competitions? Here in Canada most of our adult competitions are using the Skate Canada StarSkate rules which have no restrictions.

Brigitte

PS:Brambles... Coach still has yet to send me an email or phone me with info on my skating schedule. Hope he gets it done today.

__________________
"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

BRAMBLES: Part 1: The ice this morning was the pits. It appeard that they didn't do much in the way of cutting it last night after late night hockey, and even managed to miss a few spots. Then they didn't cut or lay water this morning before the early freestyle/dance lessons. So...

While working on the end pattern of the American Waltz today, got too far back on my blade AND hit a bump in the ice. Went back-side first down onto the ice. Luckily I had enough flow that I slid a bit and didn't seem to bruise anything but my pride. Skating pants even managed to stay intact this time.

BLACKBERRIES: Tango was better today. I didn't nearly step on my own foot, and the promenade had really deep edges, almost as deep as what some of the kids do.

American Waltz end pattern was somewhat better... I had more speed and flow into it. Coach likes to have his skaters focus initially on the end pattern of the American since he feels that that's the toughest part of the dance. So later in the lesson we added on the next couple steps coming out of the end pattern (thru the RFO3) and I managed to do it with some flow twice. SO at that point, coach decided I should skate the whole end pattern to the music. I choked a bit at that point and we compromised and I skated it in an open waltz hold (facing coach, but hand to hand instead of traditional waltz hold).

Worked in my other lesson (with new coach) on the 3-turns in forward power 3's and American Waltz. She gave me some good advice on pulling up in the rib cage as I did the choctaws (step forwards) into the turns. Which really helped a lot and I was able to apply the same principle to the American Waltz later in my other lesson.

I'm stil in venting mode....

BRAMBLES: I went to a rink different from my usual one last friday, and I have to say they made huge improvements... they had all the boards replaced, even all the protective plexiglass everywhere... the hockey benches had been completely re-done, and everything smelled of new things & fresh paint (they also did paint all the ceiling, which was badly needed and there's much more light everywhere...).
Anyway, I was happy to be back on the ice again after the big pause - all the rinks here closed between the beginning and the end of June - and I was still skating a few laps around to see if I needed to re-tie my laces, simply stroking forward, without even doing slaloms or anything... Suddendly I felt something hit me hard in the back, sending me straight down like a bowling pin... I hadn't time to prepare the fall, hit both my knees very hard and fell down on my chest too, taking any air out of my lungs... it was a pretty bad fall! As I was falling down I also saw a hockey skate fly right next to my face, while the guy who had come crashing into me jumped over my falling body.... grrrr... I was scared and hurt, and while I had really not been doing anything wrong he insisted it was my fault - notice that I was skating quite slowly, going forward on a straight line, and he came from behind me, skating forwards too so he obviously cold see me very well... I am really, really mad right now. Why can't most of these guy just pay a little attention at what surrounds them, I don't know. Everyone has the right to skate, but observing a minimum of security distance between one skater an the next one it seems just sensible to me... grrrrr. In 4 years I had never had such disastrous "meetings" in any of the other rinks I attend.
I am going to call one of the managers of this rink for completely different reasons (I asked him to lend me the instructions manual of his digital camera, which is the same one I've got, because I have the manual in German and he has it in Italian... and I can't speak German! LOL ) and I'm of course reporting this thing to him, because I know from other skaters that these incidents are far from rare in this particular rink, and several skaters I know purposedly avoid this rink in the public sessions... (In Italy we don't have many choices - the hours at the rinks are 90% devoted to the various competitive teams and the classes, there's very little and undifferentiated space for someone skating on its own or with a private coach... so singles, dance & hockey guys have to share the same ice).
I rested a little on an hockey bench with some ice the rink staff brought me on my poor knees, and then I insisted on skating a little anyway, just to move the knees a bit and to find myself back on my skates immediately... I wasn't hurting much, in fact the next day I felt it a lot more. Of course I did very little- both because I was a bit sore and scared, and because the hockey guys were playing around so I remained in a little corner doing 3s and attempt at twizzles...

BLACKBERRIES: what can I say... I didn't break anything? That's the only good thing I can think of right now!

__________________
Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

Brambles: What can I say? My co-team lead is still not back from his vacation trip, my boss is incommunicado b/c of a NASTY migraine headache and guess who's left to fend for a weekend project that was going on? I had very little skating this weekend and I'm pissed!!! I did managed to put in time at my weekend rink, but I had to go to my alternate rink on Sunday. That rink's ice is "not as nice" (read: bumpy and full of rugrats!!!) And going to my home rink is out b/c of parking and b/c there's more rugrats at that rink on weekend!!! (Read: no alt. back crossovers or back crossovers to BO edges!!!)

Scratch spins were sucky! Sit spins were almost non-existant. And I know my secondary is gonna be on my case about those (both forward and back) crossovers!!! WAAAAAH!!!!

Blackberries: I managed to land a couple more flips and one loop! And my 5 step mohawks are there at least. Oh, and I'm becoming more stable on my intro-3's and the forward power 3's at half-speed (instead of slug-speed) on my weaker side. Now to "kick it up another notch!!!" (borrowing from Emeril) and get a good running speed going into it to match my stronger side. Camels and backspins are coming along better though.

__________________
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!!!

Blackberries: I was able to skate this week despite the fact that my back was trying hard to spasm just the day before. Ah, the miracle of modern pharmaseuticals. Cured the spasm the prior night, could skate the next afternoon! This hasn't happened before. I usually can't skate so quickly.

Also, while I was skating a public session, most of the kids were there for a birthday party. In the middle of the session, they all went to eat. Almost empty ice!

Lastly, while I was skating, an older Russian man and his young lady entered the ice. He was teaching her to skate. He was an AMAZING skater. Smooth, amazing edges, powerful - so good I took a second look to see if I would recognize him. He's probably famous.


Brambles: I continue to have a hard time fitting skating into my schedule. I probably won't be able to have another lesson until October due to schedule conflicts.

Hi singerskates--

How nice that you are able to jump back and forth between the Canadian and US competition levels.

In the US, there is only one limitation on Adult Silver skaters' programs: no double (and by that the implication of no TRIPLE ) jumps. There is no limitation on spins or footwork at all.

Is there a webpage where we can see what the requirements are for the Canadian tests and competitions?

Thanks!

BLACKBERRIES: Saturday night I hit some really nice change foot spins. I also did a couple of nice camel to sit spins (i just started learning those. I like them!
BRAMBLES: WARNING IT'S A LONG ONE!!!
I bought a pair of skates from HockyGiant at Disney Ice. When they
did the initial sharpening on my blades (MK Club 2000) the silver
plating came off in places. Instead of doing the right thing and
bringing it to my attention, they just put the skates back in the box
and let me go on my merry way. I discovered the plating problem when
I got home. So I had to go back down to the rink and complain about
it. New blades were ordered in for me. This was back in April.....
Now, on to my newest complaint....Well the blades finally came in last
week (4 months Yowza). I had them mounted on Monday. I skated on them
Wednesday and Friday. Friday night after skating I noticed one of the
back screws was coming out. I just figured they for some reason
missed it and didn't screw it in all the way. I tightend it myself
though it felt stripped to me, and went skating Saturday night. Well
it turns out the screw holes were stripped and WHILE I WAS SKATING
the back of my blade came off. Both screws pulled right out. I am so
lucky I was only stroking at the time. I can't imagine what might
have happened had I been jumping. I think the guys at Disney knew my
holes were stipped but again didn't say anything to me. My skate is
currently being fixed at another shop. I haven't heard of anyone eles
having these kind of problems witht the Disney Pro-shop, but I can
assure you I will never go there again! I was actually having a really good skate night on Saturday and had to stop Boo Hoo!!

Blackberries: I got my skates sharpened Sat. by a new guy and I was a little worried but they were excellent! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to spin or do much of anything today but I felt like it was a very productive practice, considering. I was real happy with my spins. Mostly centered for a change.

Brambles: I need new skates and I can feel one boot really breaking down fast. Today I was working on axels and when I landed I could feel something really weird in my landing heel-it felt like the inside of the boot was coming apart and somehow pinching my heel. I had to actually look at the outside of the heel to see if something was coming apart. Scary. So I guess I'll be going for a fitting htis week.... Greg

Blackberries: Practice last night was great! Nicely cut ice, not too crowded, mostly courteous people on the ice. I must have done several hundred back crossovers by the end of the session, both in moves as well as just plain around the ends of the rink. My coach has been working on speed with me and I did a bunch that filled the whole end of the rink and curved well, and were just about as fast as I do when he is there with me. It was very cool, and I was sweating and really tired at the end. Also worked on doing my waltz jump with more speed into and out of it. Don't know if I really succeeded in that or not, but my coach will let me know tomorrow I suppose. Also the alternating back crossovers to back outside edges move continues to improve, as does the 5-step mohawk. Yea! On Sunday in a mostly icky lesson, I also am able to do the RFO3 in the alternating 3's move independently, so that was cool. My coach helps me a little on the step forward into the LFO3, but that's okay, it will come.

Brambles Nothing yesterday, but Sunday was a disaster. Ice not cut even though the figure skating director promised me it would be cut after each session on Sundays. People wandering around on the ice barely able to stand up, parents walking on the ice with their hockey gear-clad tiny kids... and this was a freestyle session, not a public session! If that continues, I'll have to find another time for my lesson because I'm not going to pay the ice fee plus my coach's fee to skate on crappy ice and maneuver around people who aren't supposed to be out there in the first place! Some of them were friends of one of the coaches (you'd think he would know better), so perhaps it was a one-time thing, and I think some of them were there for the learn to skate program and it was the first day, so hopefully it will not happen again. Why oh why is it so hard to manage a rink, keep a schedule, and cut the ice? You'd think it was rocket science.

Sigh. Happy skating,
Pat

Blackberries: Went to our friends' rink last night, and got there in time for ther 45 minute patch that precedes the public session. Husband and Other Woman had tried to book a lesson, but no coach had time available, so they asked me to critique them! Well, they did ask..... actually, they aren't bad, but there were a few things I was able to point out to them, some of which they even corrected! They have decided to go for it, and have entered the Scottish Open - Husband and I are doing the elementary class and the free dance, and Husband and Other Woman are doing the intermediate class. Foxtrot and Fiesta. They need practice at both, but it really isn't at all bad.

That rink then has an ice cut, followed by a public session, but after 45 minutes there is a 15-minute dance interval, so we stayed for that. I didn't feel I was dancing well, though. Other Woman and her husband (who compete directly against us) were working on their free dance, so we worked on ours, but we couldn't do a total run-through on a smaller rink, 1/4 of which was coned off for a group lesson! But we did bits, although we didn't work on our spiral-teapot combinations, nor on our hydroblade. Other Woman was impressed by our spin - we were impressed by their twizzle sequence! They'll beat us, I'm afraid - they have more technical than we do. Mind you, they won't necessarily win if the couple who entered against us last year does so again - we can all beat them in the compulsories, with a following wind, but not in a free dance! Ah well - we'll have fun trying.

Brambles: Because we don't get home until very late, we decided not to skate this morning, but are going to skate this evening - which means a 2-hour practice, not 45 minutes! An hour on the teatime patch, then an hour on figure club ice. Ice won't be very fast, but we'll get a lot done, I hope. I think I'll take our "Waltzing Cat" piece down to play with if we get bored of the Caledonian Ball!

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

For Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning:

Extra-ripe, bursting with juice, delicious blackberries: Suddenly, last night, I managed to do "proper" back crossovers, without taking my outside foot off the ice! It's the first time I've ever been able to do them. I started working on them seriously last week in my lesson, and then, last night, I was watching a friend doing that exercise where you do a forward grapevine, turn, do a backward one, tried to imitate her, and found I could do them! I could only do anti-clockwise ones. To my utter surprise, they were still there this morning, and I was able to show my coach, and also do clockwise ones with his help. I did even manage a couple of clockwise ones on my own before I got off the ice today.

Ordinary blackberries: Ran through our free dance last night with no problems. Worked in my lesson this morning on conditioning exercises again, especially working on forward power circles. It is really, really hard to do a crossover holding each edge for 4 beats - my free leg always wants to come forward and hover! So it's really good for one's technique, as well as aerobic exercise. Anti-clockwise was better than clockwise, which felt clunky, but gradually smoothed out. I could probably have got a lot more power on the one-beat edges, but elected to go for technique!

With the back power circles, I still can't do "proper" crossovers well enough to do them, but did try! But it's hopeless trying to wait 4 beats, or even 1 beat, each edge - they have to be done how they will. I still don't get my weight far enough over the inside edge. And they do seem to be a totally different technique to the "dance" technique of lifting one's free leg over.

Brambles: Oh, how I ache in every muscle! I think I have skated too much - if I skate tomorrow, it will be 6 days running; I do plan to skate tomorrow as it's dance club, but then will take a rest day. Or two. Unless we decide to skate on Friday..... well, we'll see.

Husband decided to have a rest day today (I couldn't, because of my lesson); I did miss him!

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

Excuse my ignorance of English skating terms....
but what is a forward grapevine? How do you do it?? I've never heard about it (or maybe I have, in Italian, with a completely different name! )...
thanks|

__________________
Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

You probably have, in Italian! It's the move where you do a lemon (or swizzle, or whatever you call that move - feet move apart and then back together on inside edges) and continue, such that your feet cross one another - you then uncross, repeat the lemon, and this time cross your feet in the other direction (i.e. if the first time you crossed your right foot in front of your left foot, the second time you cross your left foot in front of your right foot). The trick is to turn while your feet are still crossed, and then uncross them and cross them again going backwards, then turn, etc.... easier said than done!

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

Ah! Grapevine. I've done those, but without crossing feet over, just doing the turn with the two feet side by side. That's one of coach's evil exercises but it was good for me to learn to rotate quickly on two feet which made 3 turns somewhat easier.

Brambles: Skating arrangements fell apart today to see choreographer, so went to the noon public ice and it was full of hockey brats - during the school day! A hockey coach was trying to get a little extra ice time in and brought them at lunch. So, not much done and I ended up just doing stroking laps instead working on nasty Fiesta mohawk.

Blackberries: Figured out how to do a toe loop on my own. It's probably not right, and will be completely picked apart on my next lesson, but my feet actually left the ice!

Blackberries: Loops and I had a pretty good pair skate in a public session this Wednesday night. We revamped some of our program and added more "pair-like" elements to make it look like we're a pair instead of 2 singles skaters skating side by side.

Brambles: While we were practicing a pair spin, she punched me in the eye! (by accident, right? ) My left eye is swollen, but the doctor says my vision should return in a few weeks. Just kidding. Well, some of my peripheral vision on my left eye is missing, but it'll come back in a few days. Now, I know Loops just saw "The Cutting Edge," but I didn't really want to reenact Doug Dorsey's accident.

It's just another anecdote from the silly/absurd book of adult pair skating.

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

I think I'm with you till here - I remember doing something like this in my classes, but I have no idea of how they were called...

(We call the swizzles lemons, btw.)

Now I'm almost lost.... I did this thing of swizzles with the feet crossing in front at the end of each swizzle - but in a straight line, going forwards...

( )
.x
( )
.x
( )

hm... now you tell me that you do the swizzle, keep going & cross the feet - and then turn from fw to bw while still with the feet crossed? How do you do this without killing yourself?? And then once you're going backwards, you uncross the feet, do a backward swizzle and cross again, turning fw with the feet still crossed, etc? Have I understood well?

__________________
Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

I think that is how it is done. As for how you do it without killing yourself - well, the skater who originally tried to show me the move prostrated herself at my feet..... But it is possible, I'm almost sure. As I said, when I tried, I ended up doing "proper" back crossovers - my coach had told me to practice back grapevines in preparation for doing them, so it was sort of serendipity.

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

yup.... I might be skating this sunday morning... if there's not to much chaos and I'll feel adventurous enough, I'll give this a try.... not really sure of what will happen.... I'll post the result of this experiment! LOL!

__________________
Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

More Blackberries this week: Worked on toe loop and salchow last night in the harness with my coach, and did make some progress on fixing both! One salchow was exactly right and completely on one foot and scared the heck out of me, which made my coach laugh. But it was good. And a couple of proper toe loops also, which also startled me. I think they were the best I've ever done, on or off the harness, with my left foot (I'm clockwise) scooting through completely before turning in the air. Scared me, too, but my coach was quite enthusiastic. I think we'll get these jumps fixed shortly; we're working on them every Wednesday in the harness because we expect that session to be quite crowded, although these last 2 weeks it's been empty! He is also very happy about my improving speed on my back crossovers. Me, too!

Happy skating,
Pat

More Blackberries: chnage foot spin is defiantely starting to look like a spin. It's starting to feel good too.

Brambles: what the heck??? I lost my toe loop. Well I still have it but it's all wrong. my check isn't checking and i'm swinging my leg. because of this when I plant my toe pick I'm skiming across the ice instead of jumping up. it's awful. 50% of the time I am also cheating the rotation and taking off in the wrong direction. this used to be my best jump.
Cid

Accident...yeah...that's it.

Then maybe we should hold off on that split twist!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.