Melting:

A friend of mine has gotten tendonitis after a few months of skating, to a worse degree than mine ever was. She's seeing a doctor for it, who has told her that she needs custom boots. Don't know how much ice time she'll be getting in now...

Nicely Frozen:

Went rollerblading at a roller rink again. Did more stuff this time around on the horrible no-rocker rental inlines... Managed to learn forward 3-turns (harder than backward ones when there's no rocker) and...*drumroll*...loop jumps! Most did not get landed cleanly, but a guy on nicer pic-like skates wanted advice so I did what I could. Anyways got a good workout in (everything take...and then last night I went ice skating again and...wow...

Yes, dealing with the horrible yet challenging rental inlines has apparently worked out muscles that are not used as much in ice skating on rockered blades, but boy did it help, especially with jumps. I think maybe because you have to be a bit more precise with flat blades because they won't shift to compensate if you're off... Anyways a trip to the roller rink is I think going to become a weekly activity for me (there's no ice rinks with Monday evening sessions anyways).

Melting:

Learned the hard way not to wear a certain sweater ice skating. After finding myself covered in an unusual amount of sweat, I looked at the tag and read, "100% Acrylic". Absolute evilness, I say.

__________________
Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

I'm the opposite...my skating sweaters need to be 100% acrylic! I like the softness AND the warmth of them without the weight! I don't sweat, though. (really, I don't, I have a lower body temperature, being a woman). My weirdness with them is getting the ones that zip up the back...and wear them backwards so the zipper is in the front because otherwise they are too tight; I'd prefer v-necks but they are impossible to find.

Do you usually wear cotton sweaters?

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

Nicely Frozen ABSOLUTELY FANDAMTASTIC! It was $100/hour ice ('cause nobody else showed up) and I had the whole rink to myself for an hour. I had forgotten how MUCH a body can skate in an hour, how much you can get done when you're not always looking over your shoulder or wondering who's going to step out in front of you! (And how much you can get done when you realize it is costing $1.67 a minute!)

Since I had been going into withdrawal after being 3 weeks off the ice, that was the perfect "fix" I stayed on the ice until two ringette teams started looking for a rope! (I was going to get every minute of MY hour )

Soggy Around The Edges $100/hour! Three weeks away and my backward skating all but evaporated and my left forward edges deteriorated. Fortunately the forward edges came back (somewhat) by the end of the hour.

Toward the end of my hour, I asked myself when was the last time I had a rink to myself? It was 36 years ago, the day I blew my axel landing and tried to put my knees through the boards the last time I skated until January this year. It took 15 years for my knees to get back to normal. Nope, no axels yet, not for a LONG time! (Never, if I am smart, but "smart" has never been one of my strong points )

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

Nicely Frozen: We now have our props for our Couples Artistic. We were having fun trying to choreograph the routine this morning, with everybody wondering what on earth we were up to (I had the music on my MP3). We will have a proper lesson on it on Tuesday with Coach2 (Coach1 is away next week, so our lessons are all with Coach2), if we have time after she's had a look at our free dance!

Melting: Ran through my solo Artistic, too, with C yelling at me that my wig was crooked.... oh well. First run-through was a disaster, but second run-through okay. Back cross-cuts.

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

Nicely Frozen:

We continued choreography on my 1st-ever interp program this week. It's hard and pushes me out of my comfort zone, but that's EXACTLY why I'm doing it!

I also landed almost every lutz I attempted and even landed the 2 lutz-loops I tried! I feel like I'm building more confidence on this jump, so I hope to get it completely consistent soon.

My camel-change-back sit is also coming along quite nicely. I'm getting more speed throughout and, hopefully, more revolutions per change.

Melting:

Since I haven't gotten my skates sharpened in 3 months, my edges slide all over the place! But, I'm going to be ordering new skates next week and am being stubborn about spending the money to get my current skates sharpened when they'll be replaced by the new skates shortly thereafter.

__________________
I've got mad salchow disease!

Melting:

Just got the grim news from my doctor who says that the radiologist has spotted a fracture on the recent x-ray of my left ankle. Which explains why the swelling and pain have not been getting better. I have to pick up an air splint this afternoon and get an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for next week. Mind you, my left foot is The Good Foot, at least compared to the damage existing in the right one, so I'm not a happy camper just now.

OTOH, I skated last night, in no more pain than I've been in for the last couple of weeks. Two of "my" students from the adult class will be coming for an hour on Thursdays to work with the pro coach who took over for me for the spring session, and I was able to spend a few minutes with one of them, working on her three-turns. So it wasn't a total waste of ice time for me.

Oh dear, BlueIIIMoon, I do hope you heal quickly! Poor you....

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

Usually I wear lightweight thin cotton sports sweatshirts. I don't really need too much warmth in most rinks, but I hate skating in short sleeves because the air against the skin makes me colder. There is one rink where I do prefer short sleeves, but they have heat blowing down from above.

I used to wear a t-shirt underneath but then I get too hot.

My legs are significantly less picky than my upper body, probably because they actually have some strength in them (yeah, I need to work out more...).

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

That's actually pretty cheap for private ice! Around here it's $285 or something.

I dream of one day buying an hour though, late at night, blasting my favorite music at ridiculous volume, and skating around like a complete loon. Not yet though, to be sure. Maybe if I ever get an axel AND make it consistant I will do that to celebrate.

Congratulations on your hour, it must have been really fun!

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

YIKES! There's no way I would have bought 3 hours of ice at that price!

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

Our rink has literally been melting this past week, due to a broken part needed for freezing the ice.

Hopefully we'll be nicely frozen again really soon!

Nicely Frozen: Competed in the Chesapeake Open today. LoopLoop and Allskate each did a great job in their event. I had never done this comp before, and I'm glad I did - it was great to only have to travel 25 minutes for a comp. And competing in your home rink is always nice.

Melting: My performance. OK, I guess it wasn't that bad - I landed a loop; unfortunately, I had 2 loops in the program and totally flubbed the first one. My sit spin, which has been giving me trouble lately, went haywire, and then immediately after I was finished the spin, right before the footwork, my music started skipping and making weird sounds. Oh, swell. But the music problem was only temporary, thank goodness. I felt very slow and tentative. I have no idea why I was so nervous - I went into the comp knowing that not only was I skating up to Bronze, I was also competing against a very strong group - one is planning to test up to Silver after this comp, and the other two are probably closer to Silver level than Bronze level, too. I knew that I'd probably finish last no matter what, so why was I nervous? Oh well, a learning experience I guess.

I think I'm going to keep the 2 loops in my program for my Bronze test to give me an extra chance to land it, and put my toe loop at the end of the footwork. Now, if only I could squeeze in an extra backspin opportunity....

I'm debating whether to test up in the near future, given my placement and performance today, but I feel that after competing in Pre-Bronze for 3 seasons, it's time for a change, and I did pass the blasted moves test, so I might as well.

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

This is for Thursday, as I took Saturday off:

Nicely frozen--
Forward cross-strokes feel stronger, with better flow. (However, my backward ones are scratchy and slow and belong under "melting"!)

Backward power pulls also feel stronger, especially on right foot. (And here, my forward ones should be filed under "melting")

CCW backspin has been cooperating lately (however, CW has not!)


Melting--
BO3s are a bit wonky on the FI edge after the turn, and they're slow. BI3s are VERY ehhhmmmmm "interesting" in that they grind to a halt after the turn.... but at least I feel like I can get my free hip up during the preparation for the turn--previously, anytime I'd set up for a BI3, my free hip would drop (the kiss of death for these).

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Nicely Frozen:

sk8pdx drove to Seattle today! Yay! Not only that, but a pairs skater from another Seattle rink visited and taught us a bunch of basics. I feel like we made a lot of progress and now have a variety of stuff to work on until the "coach inavailability" situation remedies itself in a couple months...we worked on forward and backward pair crossovers, waltz lifts, and side-by-side spins and jumps. Still plenty of room for improvement but we're definitely doing a lot better compared to last week and slowly getting better at getting the timing down. This pairs stuff is WAY harder than it looks, but a bundle of fun!! I can't describe how great it feels to actually be pursuing pairs skating, even if it does make me feel like a complete skating newbie.

I paid for my new skates today... I'm kind of scared to admit how much money I spent (okay, I guess I'll just spit it out - a bit over $1300), but I figure a good set of well-fitted custom skates will be worth every penny in the long run. Today I misplaced my four bunga pads that make my skates bearable and skated for an hour and a half or so without them, and my feet were in utter agony.

A small bit of background, my last fitter told me I needed size 11 stock Graf boots, which would be a good fit for my feet. I instead bought the size 10.5's that they had in stock, which I quickly realized were still too large. Not only are they too long, but the toebox narrows in an uncomfortable manner and the heel is too wide. After being fitted for the new skates, we discovered that I would need an 11" blade, even for a toe-to-heel mounting, compared to my current 11.75" blades. Oh well - live and learn...

Melting:

Tried a few lutz attempts today, got ridiculous amount of power and height from the entry, but could not for the life of me rotate the darn thing all the way and ended up with half-lutzes. The flip (usually my best jump) was really off today, I think I must have been picking at the wrong angle because I wasn't getting enough height and landing sloppy as a result.

Realized the hard way that I haven't tried any back pivots in about a year. Need to start working on those again, because apparently those silly pairs death/etc. spirals require them...

DIY Compressor Plans ( ):

I'm going to try to start going to either the gym or freestyle sessions at a rink bright and early every weekday morning. How exactly I'm going to be managing that when I hate mornings I'm not sure, but I'll figure it out. Am going to be driving to Portland most Saturdays in order to work on pairs stuff with sk8pdx, excepting the times she can drive here. Working full-time during the days again is a bit frustrating, because I can't skate my beloved empty daytime public sessions, but on the bright side it allows for new skates, regular lessons (soon), weekly trips to Portland...

__________________
Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

Nicely Frozen:

• Did get in a lot of Bronze Moves practice towards the end of the session.
• Spins were good, well what little bit I've done.
• Jumps were okay to do. I had ONE clean loop!!! out of 4 loop jump attempts!!!
• Alt 3's from the prelim moves test were progressing.

Melting:

• Lots of kids at the beginning of the session but I still managed to get thru the crowds of kids for the most part in my Bronze Moves practice.
• Tried spirals from the prelim moves test. Ummm....next?
• I got one gossip bit: I was on the ice with a gal who's definitely ummm... not in her right mind. She was trying to pick fights with EVERYONE on the ice. When I was approacing her like any new skaters (friendly), she came off antagonistic towards me. I said "Okaaaay...", turned tail and avoided her the rest of the session. I found out thru a regular at the end of the session that the woman on "medication" and had said some not so "kid-friendly" words to the regular's 11-12 year old daughter. OMG!!!

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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!!!

Nicely Frozen:

Forward perimeter
Backward perimeter
Power 3s
Back crossover to BOEs

All of these were pretty decent. My left set of three turns could have been a little more steady, but all in all, I feel these four moves will be test standard or above, even with nerves.

Melting:

5 Step Mohawks: I'll be thrilled just to get a 2.5 here and I'm not counting on passing this move. I'm counting on my other moves to be good enough to guide me through. I have timing issues, can get a bit choppy and my edges are questionable at times.

I went up for a lutz/loop today and got a bit stuck on the landing. Managed to kick myself right in the shin with the back of my blade. Will have nasty little bruise I'm sure, and a little cut. At least I know I was in the proper rotational position though!

Hannahclear: you're essentially having the same issues I have here with the moves, so I'll go on with the rest (of my entry here.) Good luck with the test and let us know your test results and stuff. I'm quite curious to hear about it.

Nicely Frozen:

• WOW!!! Nice empty ice! Only about 7 people on the ice.
• I guess this counts as a good thing -- since I have empty ice, I got thru my Bronze Moves elements in a shorter time. Of course, I also got more TIRED in a shorter amount of time too...
• No crazy lady skater!!! (And apparently this crazy lady skater is quite well known at my weekend rink too! )

Melting:

• Something's wrong with the Zamboni. The water stuff wasn't coming out evenly and you'd see patches were it was like a dry cut and patches where it was smooth! EWWWW!!!

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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!!!

Casey and Sk8pdx,

A BIG CONGRATS TO YOU TWO ON YOUR NEW JOURNEY INTO PAIR SKATING!
VERY VERY EXCITING!!! SO GLAD TO HEAR THAT YOUR TRYOUTS WERE FUN AND SUCCESSFUL!

Lovepairs and Pairsman2

Congrats to all on the Chesapeake open. Was it well attended?

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