No Thanks, get out & don't come back: Coach has been very unhappy that in the middle of my OD dance, I come up out of a lunge & very obviously drag my back foot to slow myself down before stepping into my twizzles. So today I spent my entire 1 1/2 hour session working on the twizzle sequence, trying it with more speed. Couldn't get it right even once. And by the time the session was over, even slow twizzles had eroded so I couldn't do them clean anymore, either.

So went to coach afterwards (he was there, but I didn't have a lesson today) & said, 'if I have to do them with speed, I need you to teach me *how* to do them that way.' And he seemed a little annoyed I was even bothering him with this, & said, 'you just have to do it a million times. You have to start out doing it slow, & the speed will come in time.' That's all well & good, but my competition is in 5 weeks, & I have LOTS of other things that also need to be worked on......so now I'm frustrated & tears in my eyes and I say, 'I don't have time.....' And he says, 'Well, then either take them out or just do singles.' (right now it's a set of 4 doubles) Which I also don't want to do...I CAN do these, I just can't do them going full tilt down the ice...so left the rink very discouraged & feeling like I don't have much in the way of options....

SO.......

Merci, and HA!: Driving back, mulling this in my mind, how am I going to fix this, I thought: what if there's a way to add an extra step or two that would slow me down enough without being obvious that I'm slowing down before the twizzles? Started thinking about possibilities. Realized there's a rink in a mall I was driving past, got off the freeway--- & lo & behold they had a public session going on.

So got the skates back out, & started working on the tweak in the choreography. It works! Ran through it a bunch of times, can do the twizzles clean, no one would ever know that the new bit actually slows me down, and only had to add 3 new steps to make it happen. I need to try it tomorrow w/ the music & make sure I can still do it, but I'm very hopeful I've found a solution that my coach will find acceptable & that lets me keep my twizzles.

***thank you for reading this long rant!!*** And for those who are thinking it, my coach isn't mean, he's just Russian & very much has that mindset of "shut up and do it" and there's just no mollycoddling going to happen. I need to build a little more of an external support structure for myself & my skating, because it's not going to come from him!

Psh, nothing wrong with looking like a heathen. I'd consider it something of an advantage, in fact.

Takk Fyrir (Thanks Very Much):

Got my last day of skating in yesterday, managed to fare pretty well. Have discovered a newfound love for spins. Got several compliments from the other people skating, which is always nice even if I don't feel I deserve them.

Þetta Er Tilgangslaust (It's No Use):

Earlier this week, I was in a hurry to get somewhere I had planned to walk to, and jogged a few miles. I'm not a jogger, but I figured this exercise would do me no harm since I skate all the time. WRONG!! I've been sore and fatigued ever since! Though this weekend has been better finally.

I'm also having a lot of stress about my new job that starts tomorrow, so that's sapping focus too. The joy of skating has ebbed off a bit over the course of this last week, and I think that's the primary reason. Of course, one of the major causes of stress is that it will be taking away from my skating, so I really ought to have been relishing the last few daytime sessions that I could...silly me. Hopefully things turn around once I start working and get used to the situation.

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
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No thanks!

This Saturday we had another closed competition and I was pretty determined to kick a** - with that thought in mind I started my practice and after a couple of unusually good spins I decided that it's time to turbocharge my programme a little bit and really add some speed. It felt fantastic up to the point where I pushed into the spin and felt my left blade not just shaking or stumbling or scratching but simply dissapearing altogether. Next moment the ice slapped me right onto my face. It didn't hurt too bad, so it was only when I saw my coach with a box of tissues I realised that wet thing on my forehead wasn't just some melted ice. Fortunatelly, the cut wasn't too deep, and I still skated the competition and did a clean programme, though, understandably, a bit slow-ish.

Merci
Outcome - another second place and a bit of a story to carry around. Next day all coaches were joking about "Olga becoming a real skater - the one who had fallen on her head". The scar looks quite sexy too - think Keira Knightley in "Domino". I still wish I came first, but you can't have it all!

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Eeek! Sorry about your fall and resulting cut, Olga. Good on you for still going out there and performing your programme after that, and congrats on coming second!

Nicki

Merci: finally went skating, after more than a month off ice, AND managed to get my skates sharpened to 7/16" (vs. 1/2")....

Ok, so i got on the ice and stumbled around for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what the heck i was really supposed to be doing...just felt plain weird (different rink, out of skating shape, different grind, etc).

then it started coming together, slowly. Started with the basics...love the new grind! Worked my way up to jumps and spins...jumps were happening, but the spins were not. I think I was rushing into them too much. However, by the end of the session (2 hours on ice) I did manage to do a few passable scratch spins.

I also met another adult skater-lady who was there with her family-very nice woman, very nice family!

ps-hubby was there also, we worked on 3-turns, mohawks, and crossovers in preparation for a skating thing in 2 weeks. He didn't do too bad but took quite a few breaks. I only took 2 water breaks....

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

Well, a while back I had fallen really badly doing a flip. And I mean REALLY badly. My feet didn't touch the ground on the landing, and I took a hard splat from 3 1/2 feet in the air full impact, onto the ice right above my tailbone. And EVERY SINGLE TIME I fall on it now, even if it is a very minor fall, it re-damages the muscle tissue, and creates a major bruise. This time it was a really stupid thing I fell on, a backspin. I'm getting used to my new blades (coronation ace) and new boots, so that's probably part of it. But anyway, the muscle takes the longest to heal and isn't usable until it heals. I can barely bend over to pick things up off the floor. I'm used to this happening now because I've done it at least 6 times or more since that fall. Grrr.....

~Jess

*sorry for the length of that. I just hate it when I have to miss a week of skating *

Looking forward to seeing you and hubby!

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Hey, maybe this is a blessing in disguise! My MIF coach always says that in order to perform at 100% on test day, you need to be skating your moves at 130% in practice, since nerves always bring the quality down by 30%. So if you do end up having to wait a little longer, maybe it's the skating gods giving you the opportunity to get them up to 130%!

Ouch! Did you have to get stitches? Yes, a little adrenaline is a dangerous thing. . . I think we've probably all had similar experiences when we've decided to try to skate "even better" in competition than in practice, LOL!

We are looking forward to it! He is scheduled for 1/2 day, I'm a glutton for the whole day, although I am not in shape (amazing what not skating for a whole month can do for you). It will be nice to see you again, and make some new friends!!!!

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