No, dear, we want you to do a bracket, not just try one! You will - if I can (and I can - BI ones, anyway, which are the easiest), anybody can.

As for me, Presents: Just being back on the ice. Husband and I worked hard in our various holds, getting used to it again.

Lumps of coal: Wretched dance moves.... the cross-rolls are okay, but the cross-cuts are still not there. I can do the things if I stroke into them, but you have to do them from back crossovers, and I do find it so hard to get my weight in the right place, then end up lurching forwards and that's the end of that! grrrr.

Tried to finish off with a lap of backwards Russian stroking, but couldn't work out if I was doing it right or not. Will ask coach next week.

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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!

But have you done FO to BI ones alternating down the line??? That's what NYC coach tried to get me to do against the wall and when holding onto my hand. And of course, he has just GORGEOUS edges and footwork... and thinks everything's easy!!! If only I can skate half as beautiful as he does... *sigh* (Those of you that have watched "Skating's Next Star" or have seen him skate in person know what I'm talking about...)

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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!!!

Took the twins roller-blading yesterday at Woodbridge to try out their gifts from Santa. I borrowed an old pair of my oldest DD's rollerblades. One of the twins is a natural - she was whizzing around, skating backwards, turning front-to-back-to-front! The other preferred the carpet to the rink flooring! I loved the DJ and lights/music - why don't we do that at ice rinks?

I think rollerblading must really strengthen your knee position for ice skating - straightening up was difficult in those boots. Of course, you can't really point your foot, but you can bend your ankles. Nice off-ice training exercise/warmup.

I skated forwards fine and with speed; managed to cross over slightly around the ends. Then I decided to try skating backwards a bit, but I couldn't figure out how to stop and ended up on my knee. Nice bruise there, now. DD's thought it was funny because I also couldn't figure out how to get up safely with one knee!

Afterwards, we ate at the nearby Wegman's and I talked them into going ice skating. We stopped at the outdoor rink in Menlo Park, but their session was ending. (Who does a one-hour ice cut? Maybe they're not using a resurfacer?!?!)

Taking a page from LilJen's Roving Rink Reports: We ended up at a crowded holiday public session in Warinanco Park. The crowd thinned out after they called for the rental returns. Very nice covered, but open-air, ice rink a bit rundown and dirty for mid-season. Too bad the fireplace wasn't lit in the warming house - it's charming.

Bring guards: the rubber matting has gaps with concrete underneath. The ice has leaves and feathers embedded in it, but they do ice cuts every hour, so the ice is well-maintained. (And colorful!)

I skated at a Club there (now defunct) so, I'm sentimentally blind. The kids love going anywhere new.
Wore my new skates, which I'm still breaking in and retying every 15 minutes.

Lump of Coal:
Couldn't center spins, especially back spins.
Mohawks are really difficult in stiff skates!
Didn't try jumps.

Santa's Presents:
MITF were okay, as long as I didn't tie the skates too tightly.
Three-turns are much stronger, probably because of the support.
Managed some scratchy brackets, counters, and rockers.
Crossovers are really strong; much smoother and controlled.

Best present: My knees only hurt today because of the roller rink fall.

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Awes, when did you guys go? and when is the next time? hopefully I get to meet you guys Im skating at Warinanco on Sunday 1pm to 5:30

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Tim David's Website

It was late - 4:30pm after the ice cut. I updated my original post with the link to Warinanco's schedule. They're on a holiday schedule this week, so check the times before you go; I'm sure the AM sessions are less crowded.

BTW, Woodbridge was empty yesterday from 11-12. (School break schedule - I think their groups are on vacation.)
We roller-bladed instead of ice skating, but both rinks had sessions at the same time.
It didn't start getting crowded until noon.

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Yeh the adult figure skater groups skate on the 10:30am sessions.

Im not too fond of Woodbridge, due to its smell It always made me light headed and dizzy at that rink.
I only skated there twice. It was because I had to do a christmas exhibition

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Tim David's Website

Ice skating yesterday was a spur of the moment decision. During christmastime, I keep my skates in my car because of house space limits. My DH refers to it as the "Skate Mobile." I had (4) helmets, (6) pairs of ice skates, and (3) pairs of rollerblades. Nine pairs of skates, a new record for my car! ROTFL

I don't know about Sunday - it's New Year's Eve and we have a celebration planned.

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Ooooh yes, I forgot oops, I guess I have to skate on Saturday instead at 10:30 to 3:00

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Tim David's Website

Lumps - still 2-footing the landing on loops.

Presents - At least the free leg is up and in the correct position on the loop jump finally! and the 1 foot spin off of 1 foot is getting better and better.

Yes; I can do them on one foot (the right, I think), but not on the other. They are also great fun to do 2-footed, especially with a partner: you stand facing your partner and hold your hands up to his at shoulder level, and then you both do them on two feet down the line. Good waist-whittler, and leaves a lovely pattern on the ice!

They do, here. On evening public sessions, at any rate.

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

Today's rink: Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, NH. Decent standard-sized rink at a residential school (presumably of the upper-crust, college-prep type). Adequate Zamboni job just before I stepped on the ice and I was the first to start slashing it up. It was QUIET, too, and I so appreciated the lack of bad radio-station music (forgot the mp3 player, naturally; oh well). For the first several minutes of the session, as I tried the bronze power stroking moves, I could hear some nice rips on some edges.

Presents: consecutive edges are feeling increasingly secure. And I managed multiple (albeit sometimes interrupted and sometimes merely marking steps due to the crowd) runthroughs of all three prelim dance patterns. I think I have rhythm blues memorized now, hooray!

Coal: The rink got very crowded very quickly with lil hockey players--population about 2/3 half-pints under 4 feet, 1/3 hockey parents. It was a game of dodge-em, and there was no way I was going to get any waltz 8 practice in with kids slashing through the middle of the rink in every direction. Bleah!! Plus, I couldn't duplicate my spinning success of the other day.

This is for yesterday and today:

Santa's Presents:
All of my single jumps are back, including the pesky loop!
Starting to get comfortable with parts of program.

Lump of Coal:
Forward scratch spin and sitpsin are giving me fits- the muscle memory on them is either completely gone ( the sit) or not quite back yet (forward scratch). I'll address this with Coach on Saturday.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Today I was conned into taking one of the twins' friends ice skating at my home rink. Fortunately, the kid was a natural, taking to the sport right away even though she was a first-timer! Plus, they met other kids they knew which meant I could skate! (I had no lessons scheduled.)

Best Present:
New skates are actually starting to break in nicely! It was very crowded, so I made sure to wear my boot covers - actually saved the skates from two gashes! The left boot is less stiff than the right one, but that's because I do more R/L crossovers than Left over Right, plus the sit spins help a lot.

Santa's Presents:
Spins - managed a decent couple of back- and sit-spins. Did two camels that were so-so, but recognizable.
MITF/Footwork - Excellent attempts at the threes-on-the-line. Need more time and space to practice these, though.
Love the three-turn exercises my coach "assigned" and I actually figured out how to do them properly by NOT keeping the leg behind.
Jumps - Jumped for the first time in my new skates. Waltz, toe taps, one-foot waltz jumps all okay. Flip is ugly and underrotated, but my split jump is actually better with these skates. Didn't really try a loop - just the double three practice drills.

Lump of Coal:
Spins - Back spins were better by the end of the session, but my right boot's too stiff to manage a sit-change-sit.
Jumps - Can't get the lift for a loop, barely managed a controlled half-loop.

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Skated at Nyack, NY ~ Pallisades Mall Ice Rink tonight. After their hockey foolishness, they did not bother to do the ice.
So I had to wrap my left boot 6 times and my right one 15 with duct tape. The ice was of course crap and hard. I took my time as usual.
I was happy with my session tonight. I managed to do all my jumping passes. Of course with the occasional head fart.
I didnt bother spinning since I was afraid to splat on the ice and scrape myself.

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Tim David's Website

Lumps:
Had a moves lesson today. There is so much I need to work on for Bronze MIF. Patterns are off, 3 turns suck...

Presents:
Went skating yesterday at the mall rink. Finally did a perfect scratch spin for the first time ever.
wow! even on mall ice.

Lumps
Teacher failed to show again and as there was noone else in I was not allowed to skate. Very frustrating

Did have a lesson on Wednesday though.

The new level 7 field moves are hard - the rocker choctaws (currently intersilver) were done at snail's pace and in more of a square than a circle. I really need to work on them.

Spent a lot of time looking at the tracings for back inside brackets - I have too much of a hook on the first part. Not really sure how to eliminate this.

I miss free skating - have been having only dance lesson for a while as free skating teacher is away.

Presents
I had a forward outside rocker breakthough. I've never been able to do one of these mainly because I was taught them incorrectly by an old coach who told me to swing my free leg through like a three jump and then swing it behind me on the turn. Result was a swingy american three with a change of edge after the turn. With proper instruction I finally understand how to do these now.

Choreographed more of my tango - I really like how its going and I got a comment of 'Good girl' for the inside 3 cross in front back change of edge three turn bracket.

14 step was much better - teacher said it was good, looked a little shocked and said it was 'never like that!' Lets hope it stays!

Remember on the power threes to push into the edge, then wait, wait WAIT until you are on the downside of the lobe before you turn!!!

My Presents:
Jumps are all consistent!

Coal:
Forward scratch and sit spins! Plus, I mistook my rink for a rink in Siberia, it was miserably cold this morning.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

From last night's lesson-

Santa's Presents: Backward crossovers are finally starting to feel smoother and show some actual improvement. Even the CWs were working which is only just shy of a miracle given how poor they were last week. Coach was happy and so was I

Lump of Coal: CW forward crossovers seem to have turned into a bit of a scratchy mess- ick.

Clare

I find the forward inside ones to be relatively tame as well, especially the LFI for CCW skaters or RFI for CW skaters.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Santa's Presents
- Time to skate, and lots of it! Due to our office closure this week, I've already skated 7 hours since Tuesday, including 3 hours today. Finally, time to work on stuff I normally don't get around to, as well as time to work on something until I really get it right!

- I figured out a fix for the change of foot on my camel-sit/backspin, so now the whole combo spin is kicking butt! Finally! (My camel spin came back with flair last week and it's been strong and consistent ever since!)

- For the first time, I tried an axel from a RFI 3-turn setup and I nailed it! It was the best axel I've landed all week, so I'm now thinking I may change the entry in my program, since I've been having so much trouble with it.

- In my lesson today, we spent 25 minutes on the harness working on my double toe. I made a breakthrough and managed to stop pivoting on the toe on takeoff, so that I was doing proper double toes instead of toe axels. Now to do them off the harness without losing that technique. . .


Lump of Coal
- What happened to my flying camel? I couldn't do one to save my life today! Splat, flop, flip! How utterly embarrassing! I'm going to decide it was a temporary fluke and that it will magically reappear next time I skate.

- I've only landed one clean double sal all week (yesterday). The only ones I didn't fall or touch a hand down on today were 1/4 turn cheated. . . which should technically still count, but nobody's going to go out and look at my ice marks to see that was only 1/4 turn cheated, so I can't risk doing it unless it's completely clean. Arrghh.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Pressies: A lovely hour at a very uncrowded rink with similarly minded adults. Ran through all prelim dances. All consecutive edges holding steady; CW crossovers needing some more practice time but still more or less on acceptable.

Coal: 3-turns were just way off today. Spins still suck. Maybe I"m not a CW spinner? Hell, I don't know; I can't spin in either direction!!

Santa's Presents:

• Unexpected lesson from Coach2, as she was free.
• Back cross-rolls passable, according to her.
• She reckons I should do the cross-strokes from back stroking, since they work best like that.
• Ice fairly empty.

Lumps of coal:

• Back cross-strokes definitely not passable, except just possibly if I enter them from stroking, "And if you have the kind of judge who fusses about the entry, you won't pass anyway!" how true, how true!
• Last skate of 2006!

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

Santa's Presents:
After struggling all week with forward scratch and sit spin, guess what showed up on lesson today?!
Had a okay runthrough of test program on lesson as well. Well it was better than last week's when I either fell or bailed on every element.

Lump of Coal:
Today's session was the most crowded it's been all week. The neighboring club is having a test session next Friday and now everyone is getting their skate on and practicing. Plus the sessions today (11-1:50) were later than the ones all week (7am-9:50).

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Lump of Coal: Christmas Day I woke up with a terrible cold that really knocked me out for three days - even today I felt a little shaky on the ice. Needless to say, I didn't skate much over the holiday.

Santa's Presents: But I did manage to hang in for 2 hours today and work on a bit of everything with only one stumble.

Lump of Coal: Only twenty two lessons and twenty two practices before my first competition! YIKES!

Lump of Coal: One of these days I am going to discover the missing element that I need to FINALLY do forward 3-Turns and forward Mohawks . . . . but today wasn’t that day

Santa's Presents: On the other hand the back inside 3-Turns were working today and that is something I have never practiced because my back Mohawks are fine. Sometimes I am a puzzlement, even to myself

Santa's Presents: At least I have a program I can skate, even if I have to hide the 2-footed turns from the judges by burying them in the choreography LOL!

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

Presents:
Courtesy of IceDancer 2, had a moves critique for bronze MIF. It went pretty well. (though, I would not have passed "myself" on todays skating performance).

I got this part down, my problem is holding the back edge after the 3 turn long enough and not stepping out off of my axis too early. Coach sees it, judge confirmed it, Sk8pdx has to fix it. Plus I don't have enough power to compensate for nervousness yet. gotta work on that too.

Inching towards progress on backspin and flip jump today in "Jump & Spin" class. My old coach is giving me lots of insights on how to correct my "forward" back spin and gave me exercises to work on for flip.

Coal:
After skating, went home feeling so dehydrated, fatigued and nauseous.
I think I'm coming down with the flu. I have actually been feeling icky for a few days, able to function ok, but just not quite feeling 100%. So I folden in half with my kitty and crashed for a long days nap.