In keeping with the glass fusing jewelry class I took this weekend.

Polished: My foot is feeling better from being tortured by my evil skates. The inflammation is less and I'm ready to skate again.

Cracked: Planned to skate Sat. am before class, and the pooch tore her dew claw (anyone know why it's called that?). Sooooo, another trip to the vet and one sad pup with a bright green bandage on her paw. Perhaps skating tomorrow night!

Hope all is well with everyone!

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Well, in a moment of insanity, I decided that maybe I'll try to put together a bronze FS program to sneak off & test somewhere. I haven't done jumps or spins in about 5 years........yeah. So the jumps are okay, not great, but probably good enough. The sit spin is marginally recognizable, needs to be hugely lower, & the backspin is, in fact, a series of twizzles (wonder where that comes from?? ) So it will be fun to play with anyway. It will also give me something completely different to do besides my dance stuff, & will help keep up some of the freeskating skills I worked on so hard this summer for the OD.

So I did my choreography today! It's fun....but our boom box was MIA, so I couldn't do it to the music, so I have no idea if it's too long or too short...I have a feeling it's too long. I kept the first half of my footwork from my tango, & have other footwork elsewhere, & probably I'll need to cut down on that to get in all the *sigh* jumps & spins. I kept thinking, what a shame I have to waste all this time jumping and spinning when I could be *skating*!!

I also borrowed some Gus Lussi spin technique tapes this weekend from a friend, & found some very useful info. My spins were much better centered than before. And when you're 6 feet tall & in dance blades, those spins just ain't gonna be real centered....

Hmmm, let's see.

"Cracked completely": ongoing, pathetic, work on the loop loop, and flip loop. It oughta be on a blooper reel!

"Cracked with hope": mini-improvements in "sit spin". Figures this comes AFTER passing my Bronze FS test....

"Cracked but glossy": and on the way to being "polished"? I finally, finally, got back to the point where I was when I quit working on my remaining two PB ice dances, the Fiesta Tango and the Swing Dance. I'm starting to get the angle on the end pattern mohawk again, making it easier to bring the free foot to the skating heel, and remaining checked and "up" over the right hip.

Precluding life interrupting,which is entirely possible, given things coming up outside of skating in the next two months, I could actually be on track to test these two dances in November after all.

"Polished": I can't come up with anything!

Polished

Skated as well as I did on the session on Thursday - which was a good one.
Had my free lesson today and started a programme!!! I'm SO excited, honestly I'm 32 and worse than a little kid on Christmas Eve lol!

Coach has picked a really nice piece of music, slow enough to keep up with but not agonisingly slow. Only did the first ten seconds but I love it already. Maybe, just maybe if I work really hard I'll be able to skate it well enough to test/compete in the new year.....only hope I can do it justice.

Cracked
Well, overall I'm feeling postitive, but the negative aspects of my skating is, if you like, the consistency - or, lack of it.

I mean, overall my spins aren't too bad - I'm definitely more of a spinner than a jumper, but I would feel a lot happier if they centered more of the time, for example.

My jumps do not have a great deal of height, but that's partly down to fear of landing, as my right foot is still not completely better. I can do loop and flip, but not consistently - for example this evening I landed about 4 loops and 6 flips - both fully rotated, legs in right position etc - but by the end of the evening I couldn't do either.

S xxx

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

Polished

Never thought I'd say this but my free skating programme feels ok-ish for the British Adult. I will still struggle against some of the other girls but I want to skate well and do all my elements. We switched spins around - camel sit is now a change foot sit and layback is now camel sit.

Axel was good. Coach only made me do it twice. And then progressed to flip-loop-axel combinations. Still doesn't look like an axel but its rotated and its on its way to being axelyfied as coach said.

Dance coach was positive about spin, steps and compulsories. I looked confused as this is a rare occurence. Not that he's negative but he always wants more - pushes me for more. I like that but its even better when he says good!

Coach gave me test papers for bronze field moves. Argh. Lots of work needed on double back threes on right foot and the brackets sequence. But I'm happy she thinks I can do it. I really want to get it before the system changes. (A while back there were whisperings at trying intersilver too but I think thats craziness. I cannot do the choctaws down the rink. )


Cracked

Fell over twice straight on my backside doing firstly the mohawk in the willow and then the back chasses. The second fall - my feet just went up in the air and I slid into the barrier. Very funny. But a bit painful.

Back outside twizzles have decelerated to half speed. Worrying

Crossroll on fiesta still drives me crazy.

Only 2 weeks til competition. Argh

Btw other dance coach thought I was 21. Or thereabouts. Wahey!

Cracked

Last week's work on salchow entry (yes, this is a WEEK ago!) did something funky to my sartorius (outermost quadricep) on my right leg, and my glute & hip aren't happy either. If I move the wrong way, OUCH!! Don't think I'll be making it to the rink or the gym this week unless RICE makes a huge difference (hasn't so far). Grr! And I was so excited to be starting work on my first full-rotation jump!

Polished:
Had a awesome lesson with Secondary Coach today. Ran through the Bronze moves (geez, I'm going to have to get through Halloween and Thanksgiving before I take this test ) and will be ready to put this puppy to bed in December.
Freestyle was good too on lesson- had two sitspins that sat, according to coach and two, yes two HUGE salchows!! Toe loop and forward and backscratch spins were good too!

Cracked ( and bumpy to boot):
Remember last spring when we had consdensation problems at the rink soo bad that there were huge ice craters all over the place? Well, that problem is back.
It did get a little better when more skaters got on the ice, but then you have a crowd to weave through, which I had on the moves portion of my lesson today.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

[This forum has gone STRANGE! If I edit a post, it has a habit of throwing away all the text that WAS there and only keeping the NEW text!]

Cracked:

ME! (As usual!)

My left knee was still feeling weak today - don’t know what I did to it but that’s three sessions in a row now. RBO was ok but LBO was pretty sad! Still not getting enough turn-out of the hips to bring the forward Mohawks together - guess I am going to have to get quick enough that nobody will notice if I cheat on them a little

Polished:

Ok, at my level of skating "polished" might be a bit of an exageration - how about "dull sheene"?

Finally started hitting some 3-Turns so-so (without two-footing them!), back Mohawks were both working half-a@@ed (which for me is good)

In solo practice after the lessons I started playing with stringing turns together. The Back Mohawk into a forward 3-Turn works into a back Mohawk and 3-Turn on the other side works realy nice! I think I am going to have fun with these (while making myself dizzy)! I can start to see how much of this will work into my choreography.

Despite starting with a weak knee, the session was VERY encouraging! Of course it helped that the coach and I were getting silly - it was the end of a LONG day and a Monday to boot! With sessions like this, I am optomistic that I might actually make Nationals with a program I am proud of!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Do you mean your coach has you doing a flip-loop into an axel, or a flip-axel and loop-axel? I actually do a loop-axel in my program (I like the way the loop landing gets me over my right side before I step out for the axel), but I can't imagine having enough outflow if I had to do the axel out of a flip-loop!

Polished:
The ice at YB!!! Oh, it's really smooth and glossy skating on the ice today.

Cracked:
Can't do jumps or "drilling" scratch spins on it... and no wonder! It was also very "concrete ice." You can barely get an edge on it, never mind push on an edge on it. The ice has absolutely NO GIVE to it!! Then again, they're still doing work on filling up the ice, so maybe it's intentionally hard for a reason. I'll wait and see what happens after the first few days...

I did nothing but edge work: Loop entry, FI3 backspin entry, alt 3's on a line (ala prelim move... and formerly Pre-Bronze Moves.) and BO3's. Very relaxing work except for the BO3's...which probably means I did them ALL wrong!

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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!!!

Rusty Blades, sorry your knee is giving you curry, and hope it feels better soon.

What is a "back mohawk"? I understand FI and FO mohawks (not that you'd know it looking at mine ), but I can't picture a "back mohawk"?

Back Mohawk starts from a BO or BI, similar step to a front Mohawk, and comes out forward on the opposite foot, opposite edge. For some reason they are easier than a forward Mohawk, probably because you step onto a forward edge.

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Yep - flip-loop combination into an axel. Its tough. I really need to ensure I'm in the correct position after the loop. Flow isn't too much of a problem - its more the weak check and tendancy to swing my shoulders.

Her other one is axel-axel-axel combinations. I'm sort of dead by the 3rd axel.

Ah-hah, just a difference in terminology across the water. I think what you're describing is what my coach calls a step to forwards. I agree with you; I also think they're easier than the fwd ones.

That's it exactly Aussie - the same thing!

(I also have the problem of having been in this sport many years ago and coming back after 36 years away. There are many terms used today that I never heard of "back in the old days".)

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

That would be "the olden days", right?? (As in, "Mummy, when you were at school back in the olden days..." Excuse me while I park my walker-frame - complete with blades on its feet - at the door of the rink!)

Well, Aussieskater, one of the competitions in this country has a trophy specifically for couples whose combined age is over 100. This is known as the Zimmer trophy, and the trophy itself is a miniature Zimmer frame on a stand! And yes, I have competed for it, and last year Husband competed with another partner and came third, to his surprise.

Anyway, back to the present, and today I had two lessons because the coach isn't in tomorrow because his wife is taking him on the London Eye which was closed last week because of the anniversary of the "9-11" horrors (why is it called that when it happened on 11-09??? but that is another story).

Polished: we continue to refine and rechoreograph our free dance - the Coach was horrified, but realised that we had to! Only one tiny bit, luckily, but it was just too obvious the way it was. Now it just needs polished and practiced.

Cracked: Our compulsories aren't much cop, of course - we did a Fiesta that wasn't just so great. The end pattern is as good as we're going to get it, I think, but the side pattern could be better. One of the coaches was standing in exactly the right place on one run-through, which made the pattern curve much more! We can do better edges than we did.

In my solo lesson I was, as usual, working on the level 3 dance moves. Which didn't work as well as they did last week - the ice has been very bumpy lately, and I haven't practised them as much as I could have. And paid the price, alas.... still, the ice was glorious this morning. But the rink was very crowded when we arrived! The crowds thinned out as school-time neared, though.

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

From talking with our rink and skating directors (and getting a very good understanding of rink operations) the first few weeks of new ice is intentionally hard...they want a good base for the top coat (which probably isn't down yet if you ask). You know that ice is made up of layers instead of one giant flood....so to get a great surface that will stand up to tons of abuse, they crank the compressors up (the temperature goes way down, our ice surface was down to 14 degrees). Makes for ice that is hard to grab onto but also holds up to abuse.

They should turn the compressors down once the top layer is on. Usually after two weeks or so. Ours is already getting softer, I believe he said the temperature was up to 28 degrees!!!!!

I'll shut up now...

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

--because in the U.S. when we say or write a date by numbers, we put the month first, then the day, then the year....so in the U.S. you'd say 9-11-06. And since the attacks happened here everyone just refers to it by saying "9-11".

polished: first lesson in weeks since popping a disc in my back. Chiropracters magic worked again and back felt fine.

crac'd: coach didn't turn up!!!!

polished: He arrived late having completely forgotten I'd said I would have lessons again from this week. Luckily I still got a lesson since his next pupil agreed to move her lesson later and the session wasn't busy.

Crac'd; having already been on for 45 mins of patch my boots which were not fully broken in when I stopped, were killing me!

polished: Most of the moves etc seemed to be right where I left them and one or two had actually improved without my doing anything. Couldn't even remember my programme so am very glad that i decided not to do British Adult champs thsi year. Even managed a loop or two and a flip

crac'd: loop and flip were rather poor.

At least I'm back and while my feet didn't thank me for it I was happy to be out there again.

I am such a wimp. . . Even though I do the loop-axel in my program, I've never even tried an axel-axel (and I've had this jump for 3 years). I hear you about being in the correct position on the loop landing! If I mess up my axel, it's almost always because of the loop landing position or the transition from the landing edge to the takeoff edge of the axel. In order to land the axel out of the loop, I find that I need to make the loop rather small and controlled, then I need to check that my shoulders are level and squared on the landing edge, then check again that they are level and squared as I push off onto the takeoff edge. I just think, "Shoulders" on the landing, then "shoulders" on the step-out, or "Out" on the step-out to get my to push out of my circle. I suppose it's about time I try an axel-axel, but since it's not in my program, that's been my excuse not to, LOL!

I think we've finally cracked it! In the good sense of the term - our free dance. We worked and worked on the new section this morning, and I think it's finally going to work. We did two full runthroughs of the dance, and the only bit that really needs attention now is the end, as we tend to finish fractionally late.

Okay, so bring on the Championships, we're ready! At least, I hope so....

Skates being sharpened tonight, probably quite mad but one of our rivals is doing them. Hope he doesn't decide to nobble the opposition, but I don't think he will!

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

Cracked? Is that bad? I'm always cracked in the sense of "Mwah-ha-ha-ha!!!"

Had a make-up lesson last night: Worked on tango stop used in Syncho program -- which I can do if I'm barely moving. Of course, I'm not barely moving in the program... Also on bracket from footwork sequnce -- I'm barely two-footing this and anticipate that I will be more confident in line as the skaters I'm next to are very secure and I am tremendously comfortable skating next to them.

Worked on the scratch spin that is oh-so-close to being a scratch spin -- entrance is almost always good, spin is usually good, I can occasionally get my foot crossed or step correctly into the spin. Never all of these things at once. Coach actually said to SLOW down getting into the spin -- that I can work up to entering with the power I'm generating on the crossover. I laughed -- when have I EVER wanted to skate faster than I need to??? On the other hand, the crossover has a niiiiice rip on both pushes and the RBI edge before the dreaded step.

Coach has been watching the video of the adult MIF and started me working on the back crossover to BO edge -- which actually went very well considering I'd never done that particular exercise before. Again she suggested that I not skate with so much power until I had the pattern down a little better. Again me: "I'm skating with too much power?" Not intentionally...

On to jumps -- salchow. Good three turn, good check, good rotation, no jump. I'm actually forcing myself NOT to jump. D'oh!!! At the end of the lesson we discovered that I MIGHT get off the ground if I try sal from over-rotated 1/2 loop. Will give that a shot next time I practice. Coach says I'm a dork and weird for learning jump combinations before individual jumps. Still laughs at me every lesson for having 1/2 loop and no waltz, sal or toe.

Miscellaneous: Another adult pupil of my coach was working on choctaws while recovering from an injury. Asked me if I'd done them and I said yes, but generally not more than one at a time -- more of an edge exercise than a '"grapevine". So I tried and did about six RFO/LBI choctaws in a row -- surprised both me and other skater. She said "Wow!" showed her the little bit of footwork in the beginning of my program, again "Wow!" I said "Well, I'm a chicken weenie when it comes to jumps and spins, so I work a lot on edges and footwork."

Finally, I HATE LESSONS ON PUBLIC SESSIONS!!!!! Grrr!!!!. It wasn't even crowded. Four lessons happening, but the people in lessons were all spread out and working well to not be in each other's way. There were a couple of LTS kids practicing EVERYWHERE on the rink -- one ducked under my arm while I was setting up a spin (center ice where I was supposed to be). A dad had his three or four year old girl and was teaching her to skate by playing "Follow me." Apparently he thought it was safest to have her weaving in between the skaters in lessons on center ice. And through everyone's jump and spin set-ups. Because sticking closer to the boards where there wasn't a lot of people would be, what? too safe???

Polished:
Worked on moves mostly in last night's lesson (first in 2 weeks due to rink maintenance delays) and coach was pleased with most of them. She said my power pulls are getting better. They're nowhere near passing, but at least she didn't have a horrified expression on her face like she did when she first saw me trying them. Cross rolls are better, and coach says my spirals (Pre-Prelim/Silver) will pass - hey, at least something's passable!

Sit spins felt pretty good and backspins were OK - if only I could put the 2 together for a change-sit.


Cracked:
No flips to be found. Camel still nonexistent. And the sessions were insanely crowded, due to my regular weeknight rink still being closed. They actually were turning people away b/c the sessions had reached capacity, but they did allow the people who had lessons.

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Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Haven't posted for awhile, mostly because have been working on minutiae like forwards/backwards power pulls. My goal is to be able to do a full length of the rink each direction, each foot (e.g. Left forwards, right forwards, left backwards, right backwards).

Today BEFORE my lesson (always BEFORE the lesson) I managed the feat.

I did a full side each of the power pulls.

The last quarter of each side didn't necessarily have A LOT of power but they were change of edge pulls. Now to work on improving the timing of the knee action and to get more growl.

Next goal after that is to do them consecutively w/o stopping with just perimeter skating around the end.

Then go for the gusto and work towards doing a full lap of each.

Many thanks to Phoenix for telling me about her power pull exercises ....

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...