Gobble gobble: started doubles again with the new skates. Learned more of the silver novice program. Started choreographing friend's program.

Leftovers: trying to do the program elements at speed and to the music. The program is quite a challenge and fun to learn, although I don't know if I'll ever compete with it!

Gobble Gobble for today:

Spins, simply rocked!

Had a fairly practice considering that it was the first time back on the ice after last week's bellyflop!
Interpretive coming along well- we'll see what Coach adds tommorow!

Leftovers:
Know how you're in a program runthrough and have to bail or scale back on a element because of a kid that's on the same ice as you, but skating on a different galaxy? That's what happened to me on my program runthrough today- had to scale back on the Ina Bauer/ back spiral in my program!

Gobble gobble:

Passed my Swing Dance test and (as expected) got the comment that I need to bend my knees more, but I got good marks so I'm happy.

Leftovers:

I like leftovers. It's all good!!

Slusher...............Congrats!!!!!!

Gobble Gobble:
Finally landed some loops. Flying camels making a comeback appearance also.

Leftovers:
Flip and lutz still AWOL. Will I ever get them back? This is so frustrating.

Congratulations, Slusher!

Gobble Gobble:
Finally, I am skating the preliminary power threes instead of just scratching and stepping through them! I had a real breakthrough on them in my lesson today. Fear has kept me deliberately slowing my crossovers with scraping, and stepping through very slowly. Last week my coach told me that I need to push onto the FO edge, and I did practice that this week. Then in today's lesson I was finally able to turn until the top of the arc. The L has been more of a challenge for me than the R, but today by the end of the lesson it felt as stable as the R.

I have also managed to get my FI threes a decent distance away from the wall, although I still chicken out when I try to do them in the prelim alternating three pattern. At least the lobes I am now doing them on are almost what they need to be for the pattern, instead of spitting distance from the wall.

I had the best run through of the FO alt three pattern today also. I still had to put my free foot down before stepping forward, but the turns were well placed and more controlled than before. Last week I could not even do the LFO threes!

My coach also checked out the prelim F and B crossover patterns, having me speed them up and make the circles bigger. On the B, I had my head down a bit, which I was able to correct. The speed felt great!

Leftovers:
Three times my crossover patterns were interrupted by another student having a lesson. Her coach is always very good about this kind of thing, so it really surprised me. That particular student seems to be almost as scared as I am sometimes, so that also made it difficult as I did not feel confident (that she would hold still or continue on her path) flying past her.

Hip is still not well enough to work on spirals, and I forgot my mid-day ibuprofen again.

__________________

Congratulations, Slusher.

Gobble, gobble: Went to Slough last night so Jen could have a lesson with one of the teachers there; we always enjoy going. Wonderful ice, compared with ours, and the rink is warm! Worked on Level 3 Dance Moves.

Leftovers: So did husband, not that I have any quarrel with that as his test papers are in, but we ended up not doing any work together. And spent most of the public session chatting to my friend, who is only just getting back on the ice after an operation. Did dance in the dance interval, though.

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

Gobble Gobble: I finally did a GOOD Backspin, Sit Spin, and ALMOST Camel Spin.

Leftovers: I could not land my Lutz, Axel, Flip, or even Loop!! I always landed then before! Why today?? WHY???

__________________
I worship Mr. Canadian Idol....(Kalan Porter)
I also passed my Dutch Waltz and Canasta Dance Tests!!!

Gobble gobble:
Added more to my interpretive program! It's going so good so far it's scary!

Leftovers:
Really none to think of except that since I was Coach's last lesson, I had to "pace" myself to not get too tired!

The ice was better than on Sunday, which wouldn't be difficult. Still wasn't great, though. We had both our couples lesson and my solo lesson, as the coach had been away on Sunday.

In our lesson, we first of all worked on chassés in Waltz hold, and then we did our Waltzing Cat routine. We spend quite a long time working on the hydroblade sequence, which isn't as good as it ought to be, as our shoulders don't quite match. Otherwise, it's beginning to happen now, but we must walk through it at home to make sure we get it in time with the music.

In my solo lesson we worked on chassés. And on chassés. And on more chassés! Actually, we did start with a few minutes on back cross-rolls, as that's what I happened to be practising when my coach came up for my lesson. I find it very difficult not to turn my foot in at the last moment (coach said that would help if I were doing double jumps, but as I'm not....), and if I get enough turn-out to cross properly, I don't get the proper push with the front foot. Sigh! It will come, I suppose.

But all those chassés - forwards and backwards, and doing them along the hockey line to make "proper semi-circles". Work that needs to be done, of course, and one can't work too much on one's basic skating.... Still, I don't complain - I think I was doing them better at the end, and anything would be better than how bad they were in my Swing Dance on Monday!

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

I watched Annabel skate and chatted with the teams at Streatham.

Tomorrow my vacation is over and I Fly home. On Friday I have one lesson with each coach.

Gobble gobble: Ordered new MK Pro blades, will hopefully mount them on my old black boots (hopefully properly aligned...) on Friday and I will hopefully be back on the ice come this Sat. Also, look forward to getting a break from my job so I can rest up for Sat. too.

Leftovers: As slusher says, that's the best part of Thanksgiving, actually!

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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!!!

I wanted to skate last night at a session relatively close to home, but had tummy trouble and didn't feel up to it, so I ended up having to drive an hour in miserable weather and traffic today or not practice at all until my next lesson on monday.

Gobble Gobble:
FI threes are still improving and I tried the alt three pattern today once again. Still wimped out, but at least I wasn't too freaked out to try it. My intention was to work hard on the power threes today, but due to an unexpected lunge (see Leftovers), I didn't do so much as I had planned.

Leftovers:
Caught my RBI edge on a bump in the ice as I was pushing into a crossover on the L side of the power threes. Instead of stroking onto the LFO edge, I did a sudden and very extended lunge onto it. I was amazed not to find myself on the ice, but I really am not flexible enough for lunges, and my bad hip took the tweak.

Two foot spin is still not good enough to progress to one foot, though I do pick up the R and give it a try every time I skate. I'm still getting dizzy from spins. It was a big mistake not to go right back to working on them when the one foot deserted me after not skating for 3 weeks last summer.

The drive home was in full pre-Thanksgiving traffic and rain and fog. No fun at all, and then I had to go to daughter's apt in the same mess. Happily, by the time I returned home, the traffic and weather had both cleared, but it's now 10:30 PM here and I still have 3 pumpkin pies to bake.

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Just wanted to wish all my American skating friends a very

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Jen is now on her way home; we've loved having her and are sad to see her go . I just wish we could have offered her better ice....

Don't know if I shall skate today; may go to Dance Club later, see how tired I am.

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

And a Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Annabel (and any of our non-American friends.)

Just glad to get a break from work, if nothing else, to get back to my gym workouts!!! I wish I had my old skates though. Meanwhile, a new MK Pro blade is on order and on its way. I'll put them on my old black boots for now. I am expecting now that I won't get my boots before my trip to NYC -- but I will definitely put the new blade on the new purple boot by New Years (I hope!) The one minus is that they didn't have "my" purple leather in stock, so they have to order it thru the Tannery shop. But just b/c they don't have the leather on stock doesn't mean they don't start on the boots, since this is part of the "finishing" touches on the new boots!

But hopefully by this weekend I will be back skating again!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!!!

__________________
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!!!

Gobble Gobble: I officially know all of the gold skills exercises! They are coming along really well so far. I'm still sort of in shock that I'm actually working on them. I was working on my prelims this time last year!

Leftovers: I can see that the counters and I are going to have some differences.

__________________
~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

I'm home... nasty weather here sort of... 20 mph winds gusting to 30 mph. But at least it's not like western Colorado with the rock slide that closed Interstate 70.

And tomorrow I have a lesson at 8:15 and a lesson at 9:15.

Congrats Michigansk8er on getting your loops back, and even more congrats on seeing the flying camel!! Don't be discouraged about the flip and lutz--I'm sure they'll come around soon!

As for me this week...
Gobbles: I can sort of do my new circular footwork pattern now.

Leftovers: I can't do the footwork at speed, and so I'm about 6 seconds behind my music. Axels have disappeared, although I am thinking I can blame that on the fact that my blades are dull and I might be slipping off the forward edge (hey, I will take any excuse I can get...anything to keep telling myself that the jump is not really gone...)

Ok this is sort of a recap of my most recent on ice happenings

Gobble Gobble: I finally got the LOOP! Yess! It only took half a year! and then, I got the FLIP! The new coach at our rink is really great in the way he explains jumps. The way you *think* about a jump makes such a huge difference in what your body does. Now that I got it, I think the loop is so simple. What the heck was my problem with it for so long??? Jeez, Im so happy to finally get it though, and the flip Ahem, so this means the Lutz is up next and then......axel. And I still hate waltz jumps

Also, my forward sit is getting better little by little each time. So is my scratch but still, my spins are sucky.... I admit it.

Ina bauer is getting much better, and so is my outside spread eagle.

Leftovers: Back spins... Sometimes I can get 3-4 revs, but 9 out of ten times I fall out of it on the first rev. Also my scratch spins travel like crazy! Ugh.

Gobble gobble - public session with no public! Fresh ice! Was able to practice back edges (in & out) (they're not there yet but could practice) and power stroking the whole length of the ice!

Leftovers yes, they're always good. Back edges, just haven't been able to master that push off from a standstill, I cheat my start, I use back swizzles. No pre-bronze in my future if I continue down that path! Keep on trying!

Today I had 2 lessons, one from each coach. Not sure what counts in either category, since the lesson with my primary coach was playing ...

So.. anyways, lesson with other coach... we worked on improving my forward cross-rolls by ensuring I got a better under-push as I did them...

Then we back-tracked to forward progressives/runs, and worked on strengthening the under-push there, so I was actually seriously (well, eventually seriously) pushing with the "under" foot rather than just bringing the foot underneath/into the circle then lifting it.

With my primary coach... he decided to teach a couple of us the Midnight Blues for fun... so we were walking through the dance today and I am supposed to try and remember more than the first 5 or 6 steps for next week.

Gobble Gobble:
As Tessie had the public session ice to herself, I only had to share the freestyle ice with one other skater who was constantly off and on the ice!
Met a married couple who are ice dancers from Los Angeles visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday- they skated the public session on the other surface (we had lots of public Tessie!) and came over to see the freestyle ice.
Was able to work on Bronze MIF, but no power threes!
Worked on and ran through both freeskate and interpretive programs!

Leftovers:
Where did my sitspin go- it took a Thanksgiving vacation, I guess!

Gobble gobble
It was my first time back on the ice following my nasty and painful fall over two weeks ago. I'm still sore - I have a hairline fracture on my elbow and a strained calf muscle - but I didn't do too bad and tentatively managed all my jumps.

Leftovers
I really have lost my confidence following my fall and feeling every twinge didn't help. The worst thing is that I have been told by the health experts that I can skate, but on no accounts can I fall on my elbow at the moment. So I had that niggle at the back of my mind during my skate.

All in all though it was good to get back and hopefully I'll feel a little better on the ice next week.

Nicki

Gobble gobble: Lesson was really good and I finally magaed to get the spin right, which resulted in passing my grade! Hello grade 8!

Leftovers: Grade is even harder, sounds impossible, what the the backward 3 turns... ARGH! Apparently grade 9 is much easier though.

Hey, that's awesome!! A former Olympic skater once told me something very reassuring (because I am also a better jumper than spinner): "A jumper can always learn to spin, but if you're not a jumper, you'll probably never be a jumper." Turns out she was right! It takes awhile, but just keep plugging away at those spins like a broken record, especially the backspin. Eventually you'll get it.

And now that you have an Ina Bauer AND a loop, here's something you'll love! If you can do a right inside Ina Bauer, you can use it as a loop entrance! Do a right inside (or if you can, an outside-to-inside) Ina Bauer into a right inside 3-turn. You can just leave your left foot trailing on a back inside edge as you do the 3-turn, and when you come out of the 3-turn, all you have to do is just sit down and check your arms and you're in the perfect loop takeoff position! This Ina Bauer loop entrance not only looks great in a program, but it also offers a nice surprise for judges, who are used to always seeing the same old thing.

Gobble Gobble:

I had a sitspin today that apparently had some resemblance to sit in it, and that went around for 4 revs. Hmmm, I'm savoring the memory again.

Leftovers:

The other 15 sitspins that were splats or no sit at all


Stuffing:

My friend was practicing the European and since that's nothing but FO 3's, I started to play with 3 turns. I can do the preliminary skills pattern (Canada) so did that for a while and then started on the alternating FO 3's and FI 3's on a line that my US friends do and then did 3's around the hockey circle FI, FO, FI until I got dizzy and fell over. I didn't check them much and some of them ended up as salchows when they didn't check. I spent about an hour on 3 turns. My knees hurt now.