Wet or Dry: Practice Thread for April 6th -12th

FlyAndCrash · #1 04-06-2009, 05:19 PM

It's raining here in Boston... I much rather it be nice and dry and warm...

Dry: I ran-through my program twice today, but didn't do a double run-through. Neither were clean, but they were fairly good overall.

Wet: I am feeling very unprepared. After my second run-through, I was completely winded and was having difficulty breathing. I've been having breathing problems at the end of my program for a while now (about 3 months), and I don't know if it it is because I'm out of shape or if it is because I've developed a breathing problem. I hope it's just a mild out of shape issue so that it won't affect me at nationals.

Dry: My camel and camel combo spins have improved immensely in the past few days. Now I just need to keep it fast and centered.

Wet: There's only 4 weeks of ice left here!

Dry: I'm going back home in 5 weeks! Yay! I'm planning on testing juv. free and maybe int. moves this summer - which means getting a new program and working on flying spins!

dbny · #2 04-06-2009, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyAndCrash

I was completely winded and was having difficulty breathing. I've been having breathing problems at the end of my program for a while now (about 3 months), and I don't know if it it is because I'm out of shape or if it is because I've developed a breathing problem.

The difference between being out of shape and a breathing problem is that when you're out of shape, you run out of wind, but can regain your breath fairly quickly. If you have a breathing problem, then you will be standing there unable to do anything for a while before you finally get your breath again. It's the recovery time that tells. Also, when I had bronchitis, I felt like I could not take in enough air, which is because the air is not fully expelled first. The same is true for asthma. If you do think you are having a breathing problem, please see a respiratory specialist ASAP. This kind of thing can get worse without treatment, and there is a simple breathing exercise that can help.

doubletoe · #3 04-06-2009, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyAndCrash

It's raining here in Boston... I much rather it be nice and dry and warm...

Dry: I ran-through my program twice today, but didn't do a double run-through. Neither were clean, but they were fairly good overall.

Wet: I am feeling very unprepared. After my second run-through, I was completely winded and was having difficulty breathing. I've been having breathing problems at the end of my program for a while now (about 3 months), and I don't know if it it is because I'm out of shape or if it is because I've developed a breathing problem. I hope it's just a mild out of shape issue so that it won't affect me at nationals.

Dry: My camel and camel combo spins have improved immensely in the past few days. Now I just need to keep it fast and centered.

Wet: There's only 4 weeks of ice left here!

Dry: I'm going back home in 5 weeks! Yay! I'm planning on testing juv. free and maybe int. moves this summer - which means getting a new program and working on flying spins!

Did anything change 3 months ago, for example, has the temperature inside the rink been colder for the past 3 months? Also, how long have you been doing full run-throughs of your program? If you were getting through your program just fine 3 months ago and then you started feeling winded even though nothing changed in your training regimen, I would suspect a touch of asthma or some other respiratory thing. I'm fine when the weather/rink temperature is warmer, but this winter I started feeling like I just couldn't get enough air while I was skating my program. That feeling would start about 1/3 of the way through my 2:38 program. I got an inhaler and the problem went away the first time I used it!

RinkRat321 · #4 04-07-2009, 10:05 AM

dry: double loops have gotten so much better. my coach fixed my arms and now my air position is much better. double lutzes were also really nice

wet: sit spins are slower for some reason :/ they've never given me any trouble so I'm kind of confused as to why they're a bit slower.

video from practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmsEDgxFrFE

Rusty Blades · #5 04-07-2009, 12:24 PM

Still skating but seldom posting.

Having taken this season off from competition, I am now trying to decide on next year's goals; to back off and go "recreational" or to make an all-out run for Gold in 2010. BIG decision with lots of consequences.

Still weighing the pros and cons .....

Mrs Redboots · #6 04-07-2009, 01:29 PM

Wet and dry, both: Had our blades sharpened today. This meant that we were (well, I was) for the first bit of the lesson.

But it also means I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's skate.

LilJen · #7 04-07-2009, 06:28 PM

Dry: good, fairly clean runthrough of bronze moves at the beginning of yesterday's first session.

Wet: Heavily populated with int/novice & above skaters plus a higher-level pairs team just zooming across the ice. . . so it got increasingly tough to fit in moves without threatening everyone's well being.

Dry: Used the time to work on little niggling things--twizzles, getting a feel for back 3s, portions of the Cha-cha pattern (over and over and over)--plus sal (getting better) and toe loop.

alliegator66 · #8 04-07-2009, 06:37 PM

wet: My rear end from falling on it so many times! I'm feeling pretty decent with most of my jumps, but any combination with a loop on the end has always, and I fear, will always elude me.

dry: I am actually enjoying my skating. I kind of feared in coming back to it that I just wouldn't take to it or something like that, but I'm really having fun. I feel that if I stick with it and practice as much as I am able to, I will be ready to do my first (comeback) competition in September.

jazzpants · #9 04-07-2009, 07:10 PM

Wet:
My day! Job hunting SUX!!!

On top of that, my back is having problems now. After a while, I just said that needed to get out of the house. So guess where I went?

Dry:
Skated for 2 hours! I landed all my jumps clean at least a few times up to and including my lutz towards the beginning of the session..

Wet:
My jumps from the loop up towards the end.

My BUTT!!!

Dry:
...from trying to do a few hydroblade!!!

I think I'm making some progress, but I gotta show it to the secondary coach first, since she's the person that had me doing this in the first place. (I was able to glide backward in position for a few seconds. Then I promptly fell on my butt trying to get back up again.

)

Having a great time watching the FS session. Nice to see some doubles and an occasional triple here and there!

singerskates · #10 04-07-2009, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty Blades

Still skating but seldom posting.

Having taken this season off from competition, I am now trying to decide on next year's goals; to back off and go "recreational" or to make an all-out run for Gold in 2010. BIG decision with lots of consequences.

Still weighing the pros and cons .....

Well, I hope you choose to stay competitive because I'd miss you at Adult Canadians if you went recreational. I've already missed you this year and I didn't do Adult Canadians this year either.

Are you doing summer skating or will you opt not to skate this summer as I am doing?

flikkitty11 · #11 04-07-2009, 10:08 PM

um i like rain but anyway:

Dry: on monday i landed 10 double flips clean and managed a 2.5 hour session without doing bad.

Wet: on tuesday i lost the double flip, landing it the first 4 times then falling about 15 times. i knew what i was doing wrong but i couldnt get my body to do it. very frustrating...

Dry: landed 1 out of 1 double flips this morning (though it took me about 10 minutes of almost going for it to do. sigh.)

Dry: started re-choreographing my free skate

Wet: it took half an hour to get to the first jump cos my coach kept changing the start

Dry: i figured out what was wrong in my short program steps and, though its technically harder, its easier for me. go figure.

Dry: 5.5 hours of training this week and more to come.

singerskates · #12 04-07-2009, 10:58 PM

Monday:

Wet:
Most everying was either ho-hum or horrible but then it was the first day back on the ice after a week off after competing in Toronto, ON Canada (Max Gould, I was smoked in Ladies Adult Bronze and in Ladies Introductory, my competition was just so much better than I had ever seen before.).

Dry:
One upright corkscrew (scratch) was decent.

Today (Tuesday):

Wet:
Camels didn't want to go past 1 and half revs. Found out from my coach that I was actually doing them the hard way not keeping my free leg back behind me and actually had my freeleg up and partly out to the side forcing me to fall deeper onto my inside edge on my skating leg.
Backspins hook and then die.
Before lesson: Loops and Flips didn't rotate properly when away from the boards.
Sitspins were hooking too much and I was having trouble getting down in my sit. Had to loosen my laces more.

Dry:
Scratch spin (Corkscrew of us Canucks) was a little faster and better centered today. Had one or two where I was spinning on top of my tracings.
In lesson: Sit spin went deeper and was able to get 3 revs in broken position before coming up and out with finally being centered again.
In lesson: All jumps are getting 8 to 10 inches of air according to my coach now. Wish I would have done that in competition this year! Loop, Flip and Lutz are 100% around but I'm having issues with keeping my free leg crossed after take-off. I'm finally pulling in my arms for all of my jumps; just not strongly enough yet and sometimes my timing is wrong.
Lutz: going into it from forward, RFI Mo, then cross left leg over to LBO edge (7 feet long on strong edge) and so on.
Lutz edge set up: practiced it over and over to stop the scratching of my toe pick.

Told my coach that I want to be working on my Junior Bronze dances (Fiesta Tango & Swing ) so that I can test them this spring. I'll save the Willow for next fall. Just need to neaten up my Fiesta to test. Need to learn the Swing dance steps past the first RFI Mo. Will be bringing in the diagram on Thursday.

Coach told me that he wants me to do alternating back crosscuts with three turns and Mohawks with speed and time myself every session. Yikes. Speed I can do but with three turns and Mohawks? Right.

singerskates · #13 04-07-2009, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flikkitty11

Dry: i figured out what was wrong in my short program steps and, though its technically harder, its easier for me. go figure.

How old are you? You've got to be an adult skater because somehow many of us have a hard time with what is suppose to be easy; me I have trouble with normal three turns - LFI3s... but I can do Back Loops on both feet easily. I also can spin forwards in both directions CCW (my normal direction) and CW but I can't do a decent backspin.

flikkitty11 · #14 04-08-2009, 12:02 AM

im 17 but im a bit of a weirdo like that. for me, double flip is better (and far less scary) than double toe. im also a CW skater, and from what i have seen of fellow CW skaters in my area, we tend to be a little odd like that (possibly as a result of having CCW skating coaches?).

Isk8NYC · #15 04-08-2009, 01:18 AM

Wet:
MITF were pretty good; worked through Prelim and Pre-Juv patterns okay
Practiced figures, which entertained a few spectators.
Spins were mixed, but backspins were better last night.
Slammed through some bell jumps and axel drills

Dry:
Jumps were very strange - salchows were better than flips; toe loops trumped loops.
Video'ed my layback, which was pretty mediocre at best.

Mrs Redboots · #16 04-08-2009, 07:26 AM

Wet: Strange pain in my side - think I must have pulled a muscle, though goodness knows when or where.

Dry: As expected, skating blissy today with blades feeling utterly wonderful!

liz_on_ice · #17 04-08-2009, 09:05 AM

Dry - sitspin and brackets both showed up for my coach to see. We worked on the camel entrance, turns out what I needed was more speed on the entrance edge so I could feel confident assuming the pose while setting the spin going. She pronounced my loop much improved, gave me some good notes and it is even better. Not good, but improving.

All wet - my bottom where I went splut off a back-3. Still I took it with a bounce and it did no damage, so that is to the good. I fell last lesson on a loop attempt. I think this is a good thing, I haven't been falling nearly enough which means I haven't been pushing myself. If I could just convince myself to commit to a single-foot landing or fall trying on the flip, I'd have it down by now.

Skittl1321 · #18 04-08-2009, 01:56 PM

Wet I'm having a tough week. I found out Monday that my position is being eliminated and I'm being laid off at the end of the month. At least they are keeping us until then, so our insurance will be valid in May. I'm honestly okay with it, but they are having us do "outplacement counseling" which I think is adding way more stress to my life then is necessary. As a result, for the first time ever I skipped out on teaching LTS yesterday, because I had a horrible headache, and skipped my group lesson. I NEVER do that.

Until I find something I'm not doing private lessons any longer, so today I'll just try to practice my program and hope I at least don't regress. If is looking for a freelance math writer or editor PM me! (I've also done some copy-editing.)

DryAfter getting the news Monday I did go to the rink to practice and my back swing rolls are getting a bit better. But I couldn't get much else done.

jazzpants · #19 04-08-2009, 04:54 PM

(((((Skittl1321))))) Trust me, I feel your pain!!! I feel it really bad now!!! (2 months out of a job now...)

Dry:
Right down to the countdown. I survived thru two runthrus of the artistic program and one of the technical today. The two were for my lesson with secondary coach and the one technical is b/c I'm on the final stretch... and my personal trainer is at my session... and she expects me to train this way at this time in my training...

Wet:
Didn't land my loop and barely landed my flip during the technical runthru. Also, didn't land the loop on the 2nd runthru of my artistic.

Dry:
I did land the lutz just fine.

Weird... usually it's the other way around.

Wet:
No time to show secondary coach my attempt at the hydroblade.

Skate@Delaware · #20 04-09-2009, 04:59 AM

this is for last night:
Dry: had lesson at my home rink...it was interesting being back there again instead of away. I was already warmed up since I rushed to the rink from dance class (just a 5 minute drive) which is a good thing. So, we touched on some things and since I skated Saturday my skating hasn't fallen apart (yet).

Wet: started (again) on sit spins. Took a splat. This will be interesting, since I haven't done any since before my injury. I could feel my muscles pulling (lower back) but that was about it. My fall was mostly knee/thigh so no big deal.

Dry: after lesson, I worked on stuff; did 2 good backspins (proper free leg position) and that was nice. Had a chat with the skating program director and said I would be taking his classes come May. I'm stoked to be moving ahead in my skating.

Then it was time to head home and do some final review for my anatomy test (digestive system and metabolism). I've been studying but don't really feel like it's sticking. We'll see after I take the test.

Isk8NYC · #21 04-09-2009, 08:21 AM

(((skittl))) Hope you find a new position right away. You should be covered by unemployment, so file for it right away and avoid the delay. The outplacement counseling is an opportunity to tweak your resume and get free copies made, so take advantage. Some people have used it to change careers too.

Wet:
I skate like **** at 6am. I should just workout on the exercise machines instead of even trying to skate, lol. I felt like I was wearing someone else's skates.
Layback spins were crummy and uncentered, but they impressed the kiddies for some reason, hahaha!
Still hating those threes-on-the-line. Why can't we just do figures? grrrr...

Dry:
MITF (Pre-Prel through Pre-Juv) were okay, nothing spectacular.
Jumps were okay, nothing spectacular.
Backspins were better than last time.

Skate@Delaware · #22 04-09-2009, 02:36 PM

Today's practice was mostly "wet" as I'm still sore from my falls taken last night (sit spin attempts). Nothing major just muscular.

A friend was at the rink as well, but sometimes that is a hindrance when you want to work your a$$ off on stuff and they sometimes get in the way. I usually have a set routine for doing stuff (yeah the old bird is set in her ways) and I don't like to deviate (I'm crusty that way at times).

No loop jump; she watched me the whole time and just gave criticism as far as what I was doing wrong...I KNOW what I do wrong, I don't need a cheer squad telling me.

I finally pulled out my headphones for some peace, from her and from the awful music that was playing (not even sure what it was....it was disco/pop/rock/country fusion cr*p).

Dry: spins were good; backspins were good; salchow was good. Toe-loop was ok, if a little waltzy.

Did the crossed-foot exercise on the circle, man am I weak on the left side still! Stuck with it and did about 6 times around the circle in each direction. Still cannot pick up my extended foot when it is the right crossed under the left.

Very Wet: anything related to the sit spin. Trying to get anything close is a laugh. I'll take anything halfway close to where I was two years ago. Stupid back!!!! I feel my muscles straining and pulling when I go into the position. This will be a long hardworking process.

dbny · #23 04-09-2009, 03:21 PM

Dry:
Had my first ice dance lesson in two weeks, and did my first real skating in two weeks also. We worked on the Canasta tango, and managed to weave through the uncharacteristicly crowded public session. I got what I consider very high praise from an adult skater whom I've known for years. She told me that she hadn't realized it was me (coach & I were both wearing out skate school jackets), and thought I was coach's partner, we were so in synch. I really enjoyed the lesson today.

Wet:
Coach discovered that we were supposed to be in reverse Killian position (I should have checked the book to begin with), so that took some adjustment. I'm having a problem getting my L shoulder back enough when coach is on the outside. It did improve in the lesson, but definitely needs work.

I had to give an 8 yr old boy in hockey skates a little push to keep from colliding with him at almost full force (he was skating the wrong direction, and not looking). He fell, we stopped of course, and I went back immediately to see if he was OK and to apologize. Evidently, one of the other boys (they were at a birthday party) told the host mom that my coach had pushed him down! My coach wasn't getting it straightened out very well, but I told the mom it was me, and explained what happened. Fortunately she became reasonable, and stopped ranting along the lines of "KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY KID!"

LilJen · #24 04-09-2009, 03:55 PM

Dry: Passed Bronze moves and the Cha Cha today! Kind of wobbly on both but it was good enough for passing. move #4, I had to reskate because apparently I was supposed to do back XOs around the end of the rink and I never have (oops). . . so at least I could kind of wing that.

Wet: Firmly planted in the Pre-Bronze FS for Life Peanut Gallery. No way can I do the backspin or sitspin any time soon, alas. . . Also, some ooooohhhhhh so close and sad 'retries' for a few FS tests at our club. It stinks when it's that close.

Dry: I hear silver moves are a b****, but hey, at least I know the spirals are a slam dunk. . .

Skittl1321 · #25 04-09-2009, 04:23 PM

Congratulations LilJen! YAY!

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