Isn't anybody skating this week? I quite thought the thread would have been started by now!

Back on the ice today after a 2-day layoff. Husband skated with Other Woman at her rink yesterday morning, they were able to have a lesson, but I didn't go, and we decided not to skate yesterday evening.

With Husband, we ran through both compulsories - people were also working on Blues and Midnight Blues, so we were able to do the Rhythm Blues to music. I think I know what probably happened in the competition - I rather expect I missed the lilt.... I have been known to.... Decided not to wave an arm at the judges as I went past (I always want to raise 2 fingers, and have to be very careful not to), as I think that is what is putting me off.

In the Canasta Tango we can see where we differ, and this just needs practice. Ran through Free Dance, but not to music today.

Lesson was really good. I decided that, from seeing the video clips my daughter took, I really need to work on extending the gap between my rib-cage and my pelvis, so we focussed a lot on that in the lesson. Had to do inside 3 exercises, and inside 3-turn is gradually improving. Then did "power circles", runs round the circle, first holding the edge for 4 beats and then for 1 beat. Coach made me do 3 circles of each. Forwards in both directions. And he was complimentary!!! Except he did yell something about knee-bend on one of them. It is easier to push, I find, going clockwise than going anti-clockwise.

Anyway, everything went well, except for my Mohawk exercise, which I have no idea why I can't do, when babies who haven't got Level 1 yet can do it quite beautifully.... sigh.....

Did not stay on the ice after our lesson, as this is the week we go to Tashakat's old rink for a group lesson followed by social dancing. Plus I have housework to do.

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

Stiff legs: Well, I was pretty stiff today actually, haven't skated since Saturday since I haven't be well. Got to the rink today for my lesson and there were SO many little kids there I couldn't believe it! Holidays finish tomorrow thank goodness. The ice was terrible, which is what you get from so many people.

Bent knees: my lesson went pretty well today considering number of people I had to share the ice with! I started off telling my coach the info about Mountain Cup...took all the info and we decided I would do Bronze Free, Young Adult Interpretive and maybe one of the figures. I am not sure about the Bronze Improvisation. Anyway, that was something to get a bit excited about. Have to add/take time off all my music and then we'll start the programs.

My actual lesson was "easy" today, since I still didn't have much energy and I had to share the ice with so many others. Couldn't do anything at speed, which I was kind of grateful for, since my step sequence was hard enough trying to dodge people. Why oh why can't I remember to look up? I KNOW I am looking down, but I don't realise it till my coach has already noticed, then I look up at the last minute and kind of do a sheepish smile and she says "again!".

My check on my three turns (LFO and RBO) has completely disappeared, making the moves I do afterwards completely impossible since my weight is all wrong! Grr! My left arm wants to swing around all the time.

Still, at least my lesson on Friday will be probably just coach and I on the ice, since the kids go back to school. Lots to work on if I want to go to Mountain Cup and not look like an idiot (no way I need to pay to go all the way to France for that!) but I felt good today anyway.

Stiff Legs
Having not skated since the competition on Sunday it was back to the rink today but I didn't have a good time. First off I didn't take ibuprofen and my hip pain which has been increasing over the past two weeks as my pre-comp training has increased, was worse than ever today. To the point that I was wary of doing anything on my right side.

On top of that my coach decided we'd do bronze field moves in my lesson today. Anyone who knows me will know I hate these with a passion. Take into account I've been slacking on them and I have horrendous pain in my hip, and all in all they were rubbish today.

Only managed half the session. I was in a lot of pain and was ordered off by my fellow skaters and sent home for a long hot bath which I've duly done. Hip still hurts though so it looks like it's going to be back to the pain med.

Nicki

Not nice - poor you! Have you any Ibuleve gel to apply after skating, not before (don't want to injure it badly)?

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

Stiff all over: Still having problems with the new skates and blades. Ouch pretty much sums it up.
Almost finished our team costumes!

Haha. Loops (pairs partner) is on vacation and my singles coach is at south atlantics, so no skating for me. The break is a nice change. Had been a week without skating--I think that's the longest abstinence from me in many years!

Hey Loops, are you in town yet? Holler back!

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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.

Bent Knees: Saturday I took my skates in to be sharpened and was talking to Mike about needing the skates seriously punched out. Ended up leaving them overnight (even though it meant another 80 mile round trip) for him to do the super stretch on. And it is GREAT. I had forgotten what it felt like to have instantly comfortable (in the ball) boots... and how nice it feels to take my boots off and not be in pain as the ligaments on the bottom of my feet stretch out.

More Bent Knees: Am consistently getting my 3-turns at top of lobe, not just slightly early. And Blues Choctaw is getting better. And I was getting a good underpush on the first 2 lobes of the Blues, enough that maybe I'll be able to make it look slinky one of these days in the far future.

Stiff knees: My intro-3s. But I am working on those solo with my other coach and she noticed that I had my weight in the wrong place (in respect to the circle on which I am supposed to be turning). So maybe there's hope yet.

Bent Knees: Well, at my practice Monday I did several good (meaning 2 revs) backspins. The problem is that it only seems to work when I have my free leg at my side - if I try to do a regular scratch position, I start leaning forward as soon as I cross my foot around and end up on my toe. But hey, at least I can actually spin on that foot.

I landed my sal-loop combo a couple of times at speed. I also was able to do my camel-sit, although I'm still leaning to the inside on the sit part.

Worked on the 5-step mohawk at my moves lesson Saturday and my moves coach was impressed. In my practice Monday I was able to do the whole pattern around the rink - although I can't vouch for the quality - I think I may be stepping to a flat on the 4th step.


Stiff Knees (literally): Power 3s! I was fine on Saturday when we did them across one of the lines (it was my first lesson on them). Then on Monday, when I tried to the pattern, I was way out of step trying to do them at speed. Plus, I have to learn to keep my free leg extended - I did the alt 3s with my free foot next to my ankle/heel. And I keep messing up the pattern for my alt back crossovers to edge glides.

Stiff Knees:
Now that I'm back to regular lessons on Monday, I'm finding that the hour of skating before my lesson is enough to warm me up, but it also tires me out! Because my coach made me work on prelim power threes last week, I knew I had to practice them before my lesson, and did manage just a little. I was seriously distressed to learn that I have been looking down the whole time, and found it difficult to correct. I'm also having trouble holding the three to the top of the lobe, especially on the left.

The freestyle session on Monday was a looney bin. Initially, there were only four of us on the ice, the other three having lessons, and all of them either skating programs or (worse) learing a program. I could not complete even a simple edge pattern for the entire first half hour.

Bent Knees:
In spite of still being scared of the power three pattern, and being tired from teaching the tots for an hour, and the rink being a deep freeze, and no ice cut, I did manage to do them once on each foot today, and did manage to keep my head up and my gaze in the right direction each time. Not sure if I rotated my arms properly though....it's a lot to think about all at once. I am finding that keeping my head up and looking in the right direction is a big help to the pattern and makes it a bit less scary.

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Well guys,my coach is back from South Atlantics- she didn't have any qualifying level skaters there this year! I didn't get a break from lessons- she took me last Thursday morning before flying to SC and with Halloween Classic coming up in three weeks, I really can't to afford to miss lessons at this point.

Program run throughs are going okay- but I still have stiff knees on the scratch spin mid program- maybe because my music is 100 miles an hour!

Bent knees this week is the beginning of my program that has a Ina Bauer into a back spiral, stepping forward into a attitude spiral!!

Next week will be interesting- I've proposed to my coach that I want to do double run throughs of my program- we'll see what happens!

Bent Knees In my lesson yesterday, we worked on the spiral sequence (outside to inside edge) in my interpretive program and my coach commented on how much better my spirals are, how easy it seems to be to get my leg up to the required height and so on. It was nice to hear, even though I know his next effort will be to get even more height out of me, . He also wants deeper edges on each spiral, but it's coming along. The other good thing was some improvement on the power 3's. I, too, am a bit anxious about the step forward for the 3-turn, and my coach has been helping me by holding one hand. He holds my right hand for the right power 3's, and my left one for the left power 3's. So yesterday I was able to start letting go of his hand as I stepped forward. He was very excited, and I am happy about the progress, too. Hopefully it will continue to progress.

Stiff Knees Only real problem yesterday was the ice was icky around the ends, so I was not happy about doing crossovers around the end of the rink in either forward or backward perimeter crossover stroking, but it wasn't too bad. It felt like going over railroad tracks at one point, and my coach was laughing about it. I'll practice more tonight.

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

Bent knees: This for our visit to the "foreign territory" of North London last night (ask any Londoner - you will hear about the Great Divide between North and South London!). The class was fun, I could do almost everything, some of it even well! It was mostly Field Moves and Dance Moves exercises set to music, ranging from the incredibly easy (for me) continuous forward inside swing rolls, and chassé, forward outside swing roll, repeat, to the ones I found harder, but could still do after a fashion, like inside 3, step to forwards, crossover, inside 3 on other foot and repeat; outside 3, back crossover, step to outside 3 on other foot; and a Mohawk exercise that I kept getting muddled with, as it's subtly different from the one I have to do in my lesson. I think it's FI Mohawk, back crossover, back edge, forward edge, FI Mohawk in the other direction, but I kept leaving an edge out and doing something that might resemble the 5-step Mohawk sequence in the USA, with the Mohawk on the same legs each time. Much easier!

Then they turned off the music, and we had to all go to one end of the rink, get up speed, and then standing on two feet, raise alternate feet off the ice while bending the skating knee. Not as easy as it sounds, especially as the foot had to remain parallel to the ice, chassé-fashion, but once you get the hang of it, easy enough. Ditto backwards, which I found far, far easier than I expected, and I got far more speed than I very often get pushing!

Then we had to get up speed and sail down to the far end of the rink on one leg with our free leg extended behind, again rising and falling on the skating knee. Again, easy enough, although I was afraid my knees would start to hurt, but luckily they didn't.

Then came nemesis!

Stiff-Legged: Doing that exercise backwards! Oh dear...... I could not control my shoulders! Went all over the place. The coach there said she wondered if I dropped my knee in when I bent it, so it wasn't directly over my toe - but I hadn't actually got as far as bending my knees.....

The other major stiff-legged event was when some folk wanted to see our dance spin, which the "leader of the pack" at the club was telling them about. Needless to say..... yes.... we both went off-balance and had to put our free feet down long before 3 revolutions had been spun! Sigh!

Other that, social dancing was fun, although there were too few men, as always. Did dance with one other man apart from Husband, which made a pleasant change (I like dancing with this man), and he had his Other Woman there, and even his Other Other Woman, so he was in clover! Except their Foxtrot is still awful..... oh well.... their Fiesta is okay, but too slow. It looks good, though, very tango-ey and soft knees. I like it, I just wish they'd skate it at twice the speed.

Most people gave up at around 10.00 pm and went home, but you can never get Husband off the ice before the end of the session at 10.15 - honestly, for the first 20 years of our married life I couldn't get him on a dance floor for love nor money..... but we had our 25th wedding anniversary on-ice (the only way I could be sure of dancing the Last Waltz with him!).

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

I'm back! And can't wait to get on the ice.

OK, all the cuts and bruises have healed ... can't wait to get back out there tomorrow!

__________________
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.

Bent knee: I actually managed to complete an entire program so far w/o stopping. Well the only stop was at the end when I did a waltz-toe... and landed on my BUTT!!! (And everyone cheered... particularly my primary coach... b/c it's the only way for me to show that I push myself to skate better!!!) But I was "in the zone" this morning... especially when I went thru my program to the music and I had this almost straight-line footwork all the way thru the rink to the end... and noticed everyone watching (and I wasn't paying much attention beyond that.) I had no idea so many people watch the footwork part of my program! WOW!!! My coach asked "What was I thinking when I feel?" Unfortunately... absolutely NOTHING!!! It was just this zone I was in... didn't think anything beyond just getting the job done...

Stiff leg: The program is still not perfect and there's only 30 seconds more and 1) no loop jump, 2) no backspin or forward spin.... EEEEK!!! How the heck is my primary coach gonna put all that into my program within the last 30 seconds? Also, both coaches aren't happy with my Bronze Moves again.

Secondary coach "witty" comment of the week:
I had trouble with my hair falling in front of my face during certain moves. She says "You look like 'Cousin It' with all that hair falling right in front of your face during the moves." THEN she threatened to have my primary coach come with scissors and cut my hair off. Needless to say, I wore a headband the next morning.

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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!!!

Friday morning:

Stiff Legs: One word, presentation! I have just looked at the photos of our Canasta Tango from the British Opens, and when I look at ours, and then look at those of our friends, I can quite see why they won that dance! Presentation, presentation, presentation!

That was the primary focus of the Junior couple this morning; the other couple is at a competition, and one of the senior couples is having a rest day. So the other senior couple was coaching them, and requiring them to focus on their presentation. And oh, the difference it made when they did. This particular couple has always been good, technically, but when they think what they are doing and present it, it lifts it several levels higher. I looked, and I learnt! But whether we can do it with only one more lesson between now and the Scottish, I don't know. Probably not, but I can try.

Bent Knees: As a couple, we ran through it all this morning to the music, as the ice was quiet. Not bad, not bad, I don't think, but how can you tell without a video? Anyway, it was all clean, and that's one of the main things. And after Husband had gone to work, I was very good and worked on all my exercises, even the ones I don't do very often! Oh, not forward cross-rolls, or changes of edge, but back inside edges, and a lot of the exercises we had done on Wednesday night. Plus my stamina-building exercises, expecially the fast and slow runs round the circle (4 circles of each, this time!). And speed work to finish! Nearly killed me, but it's good for me. Need to focus on presentation more, though, even if all I am doing is speed....

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

Bent Knees: Pretty much everything! The last couple of weeks have been awesome! I'm waiting for the other skate to drop...

Stiff Knees: One thing, and that's that my coach has found a problem with my new blades. It's a factory problem though, so I'm getting new ones for free. They should be in soon, and in the meantime I'm not having that much trouble with the messed-up ones.

Best thing: I went to a local dance shop the other day for new tights, and I found a cool dress in my size that had been marked down to- get this- $12 ! I have a competition coming up next month, so I'm going to stone it and it'll be perfect (I think- still have to get coach's approval. But I don't have anything better to wear...) You know you got a bargain when the stones cost almost quadruple what the dress cost!

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

Can parents post on these??? My 9 year old skater girl had a surprising good lesson yesterday and I was so happy. I tried to tell my brother about it and he said 'Does ..name.. do anything else besides skate.' I wanted to share with others who know how hard this is.

Stiff knees With brand new silver star skates, my skater felt awkward on her backspin and told her coach her lutz was terrible. She had not done one since the new skates.

Bent Knees Her coach worked magic. She helped her with the backspin and explained how is it different because the blades are longer. After a few attempts, I saw some nice backspins. The coach told her to ignore the fact that she had new skates and my skater actually did. You could see the difference in her skating. About the lutz, the coach said - Let me be the judge of that- and my skater did a great one on the first try. Then they worked on the axel. She is super close, and the coach said that next week they will start her FS 5 program and that she wants an axel in her Christmas program.

Bent Knees: Not on-ice related, but I received my gold dance pin yesterday! Other than that....the title for this thread is totally apt for me this week, because REALLY thinking about bending my knees (and ankles) made all the difference in my LBI brackets and LFO rockers yesterday. My multi-threes and brackets exercise has come soooo far. I have no trouble going into the first bracket at speed now. I do chicken out a bit on the third one, but it's getting there. Rockers exercise is still really solid and coach loves my choctaws across the end. We're going to look for a test day at the end of the month or early November!

Stiff Legs: Everything made improvements over the past week; the only think I really have to complain about is that I'm so swamped with schoolwork right now that I barely have time to skate. I barely saw the light of day last week; I was in the dark room constantly. Now I'm going home for Thanksgiving weekend today, so I won't get much work done and I will be twice as stressed next week. I should get to skate at home tonight, but if not, I will be pretty rusty when I have my lesson next week.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

stiff legs:

I worked all week (and I stand up all day at my job) so I really have stiff legs in real life. I whimpered to the coach for some slack and got three turns in place of crosscut practice. Some exchange, I fell right on the first 3 turn in the pattern and have a big bum bruise, and I had just taken off my jacket so had ice burn on my arms because I fell and ---------- slid ---- and slid some more.

bent knees:

OK, despite my stiff legs, I've got pretty good knee bend. So besides 3 turns, I got mohawks and choctaws, and they were pretty smooth and got a coachie smile. I also learned a new jump but until I can actually do it again, won't brag, so despite my achy legs, I had a good lesson this week.


PS. Mrs. Redboots, you looked absolutely lovely in your competition pictures (from the other thread) and very nice Canasta tango.

Stiff legs: My skating overall wasn't that bad but when I went to do my solo I was so tired after it . Gotta keep working on that endurance!
Bent Knees: Landed everything that I was doing before break plus I got to start some more double axels!

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~*Sammi-Sasha*~

Thank you! But the other couple look a whole lot better, I think. One of our photos is pretty awsome, though! I've been in touch with the photographer, and she hopes to have pictures of the other dances up soon.

Newfieskates - endurance training on-ice is actually quite fun; it is harder than you'd think, though! I'm enjoying it.

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

I used to have this problem and always wore a headband. Then I got a new hairstylist, also a skater, who HATED the headband. Since I've been with her, she cuts my hair "for skating" and I've never had a problem since -- and I have bangs, and I have sometimes longish shoulder-length hair. I think she's a genius -- I call it a "skating cut".

Anyway, just a suggestion. Find a stylist who is a skater... and viola, no more headband!!

Stiff legs: I had an awful skate on Wednesday. During my group session I couldn't get any spring into my jumps. I had a back ache which was probably the problem but my coach kept commenting on it. frustrating. I want to skate this weekend but I just found out I'm over drawn at the bank and I don't get paid until NEXT Friday. Yikes..what did I do with all my money? No skating for me this weekend

Bent KneesI'm learning to hydroblade. It's kind of fun. Started working on a footwork program.
Cid

Stiff legs: I've been off the ice for 2 weeks with what my coach thinks is severe lace bite. I don't know, I can't belive lace bite would hurt that much. I think I bruised the tendon in that area...who knows. I will only have 2 weeks to prepare for Skate SF

Joanna, I will go even if I can't skate just so I can see everyone!

Bent Knees: I can still run and I will be running the Long Beach Marathon tomorrow! Hoping to break 4 hours!