My daughter didn't pass her Novice moves for the third time last night. And I felt so bad for her but I really have to remember how this all ties together for character building and teaching life lessons, that amounts to so much more than skating.

I don't really know what happened, she didn't seem nervous, might have been tired because it was 9 pm before she tested, but she did worse than the last time when she was so close.

Last time was very frustrating she fell on one move and around here if you reskate you only have to reskate the side you fell on but this time they asked her to do both sides. SHe had passed the one, so she does the side she fell on fine and then SHE FELL ON THE OTHER SIDE SHE'D already done passing. Anyway her scores were such that if she had a judge that didn't ask her to do both sides she'd have passed. But they did tell her she loooked really good and was very close.

But this time she wasn't that close.

BUT ...while she was testing, another mother in the club told me about how her daughter failed her pre-juv moves the same day and was so upset and didn't want to ever test again. The next day both girls were in the locker room and someone asked my daughter how she did on the test. My daughter very calmly and objectively explained what happened, with no rancor toward the judges and said cheerfully- I"m going to test them again next month." And that turned the other girl around in her attitude.

So after my dd vented a little last night with her "I'm never testing again" ...I told her that story and it made her cry and then later she said "Well I'll probably test them again but I really want to start learning my junior moves first, because working on them will make my novice moves better"

And I couldn't be prouder of her if she'd passed very test on the first try.

BUt now there is a show coming up and she has solo and 3 feature numbers so I think she should just have fun with that for awhile

J

Bravo for jskater49's DD!
Good sportsmanship is the most difficult lesson for athletes to learn.

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Good for your daughter!

And she's right - she needs a break from Moves right now, and focussing on her various show numbers will help.

And she's also right that working on the Juvenile Moves for awhile will help - my coach is always reluctant to enter his pupils for tests until they are ready to pass the next level up!

I expect that in a week or so she'll feel differently.

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Mrs Redboots
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Ice dancers have lovely big curves!