While the Tour de France is going on, The title is up for grabs now that Lance is not riding. It should be interesting. There are quite a few strong contenders.

Yellow Jersey:
Took a rest from Loop frustrations and did not skate today. I feel a little at peace with it. Then I can re-tackle it at tomorrows practice.

Back of the Peloton:
Had a little setback with pairs this past weekend. Coach did not show for our first lesson for whatever reason. This has opened my eyes to some much needed evaluation in continuing pairs.



OK now what? It looks as though Flo started our lessons and practice theme before I could hit the post button ...?????

Well, we could use one theme for this week, and then the other for next week?

__________________
Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Under the timing circumstances of SK8pdx lesson/practice themes, I vote to use Sk9pdx's this week and flo's the next week.

__________________
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!!!

OK, works for me!

Yellow Jersey: Had more success yesterday with BI 3's. My coach tweaked my technique a bit in lesson last week, so I'm now able to get on the FO edge after the turn, and the turns themselves feel quicker. I also feel like I'm getting closer with the flip. A friend at practice Thursday suggested that I was rushing the FO 3-turn and that I wait a bit longer to make the timing even, and that seems to be helping me feel ready for the take-off - I just can't get around all the way and land on 1 foot. I also did some clean loops - I tend to change my edge on the take-off. I just hope they appear for my lesson tomorrow.

Back of the Peloton (what is this anyway?): My backspin is on-again, off-again. Even when I got to the point where I could do it correctly in practice, I still messed up the exit in the program. And I messed up the sit spin too - my goal is at least 5 revs in a low (for me anyway) position. I was able to get in 2 run-throughs, but I would have liked them to be better. Competition is in 2 weeks!

__________________
Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Works for me! My cats will nap.
=^--^=

__________________
Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Yellow Jersey:
I think I did the best forward perim stroking pattern to date so far today on lesson with Secondary Coach. I actually got on inside edges!!!
Had a good back perim pattern and 5 step mohawk pattern as well.
Spins were good today too.
Overall, it felt good to be on the ice today and the ice itself was awesome!

Back of the Peloton:
Jumps have abandoned me, period. Fell on or bailed on salchow, could not complete toe loop/toe loop combo ( then it's really a bad day).
I think since Secondary Coach worked with me on moves today, I'm going to ask Primary Coach to work on freestyle tomorrow!

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Yellow Jersey
Dance - Did a LOT of work on back change of edge as I have to do a forward outside 3 to back inside change edge to back outside then back outside twizzle. And I managed to do 3 or 4 that prompted a comment from my ultra perfectionist dance coach who usually looks like he can't find the words to start to correct my awful mistakes. Same thing happened with my loops - I managed at least 5 with decent big circle tracings - none of them were turns on the toe and none became double threes. Yay

Also didn't work on compulsories as coach said they were looking good and he didn't want to over work them to get stale (is he on something lately - good comments from him are few and far between)

free - Change foot sit is gradually finding its way back
I've been working on spins much more lately as I've always neglected them in favour of jumps. I'm actually making sure I ALWAYS do at least 4 revs on each position in the camel-sit. No being lazy!
Did a great run through of my programme - even with a good double salchow but at the last minute........

Back of the Peloton

.....I fell on my last jump - a flip. Can't remember the last time I fell on a flip.
How bizarre.
Had a slightly weird lutz moment - I was pulling it too far round the corner. Managed to fix it after a while though.
I still don't like camel spins. Will they ever feel right?

Dance - tried to do backward inside rockers. That was funny. Also managed to confuse my dance teacher by doing the newly changed end to the free dance in completely the wrong part of the rink. He had no idea what I was doing and neither did I.

Not ice skating but its still skating......went rollerblading and managed to fall over 3 times flat on my front whilst trying to go backwards. It was hilarious though. Didn't hurt at the time but it does now. Also managed to completely skate into my dance coach (who is also the rollerblading teacher) we both veered out of the way of each other but managed to crash into each other. He managed somehow to hold me up.

we tried one foot slalom on rollerblades - you have to use your knees and waist a lot more than on the ice. Good practice though.

The rollerblading teachers certainly get a good laugh from watching us

In the tour, the Peloton is the Group of cyclists that determines the average accumliated time of during the race. Teams or groups of riders at the front of the Peloton dictate the pace for other riders as well as having an advantage to initiate a breakaway from the rest of the group to finish each stage of the tour in first place. The cyclist who finishes the course of the race in the least accumulated time overall wins the yellow jersey. Basically riding in the back of the Peloton isn't the best position to be in. The Tour de France is really more complex than that, but that is the general idea. Hope that helps to explain.

Back of the Peloton:

• My right calf is still a bit tight today. Pilates guy really screwed me up on the calf...luckily, it's feeling better today, but it's still tight.
• The ice is still CRAP!!! Seems the pipes behind is causing some sort of a dip half the length down the rink... They're still trying to fill up that section and it's better, but there is still a noticable dip. (Hope it gets fixed by Wednesday morning, but I doubt it. (Rink manager is out of town.)

Yellow Jersey:

• Whatever I was able to do on the moves is still solid, though it was painful for the right calf to do the RFO3.

Earned a bit of a rest from the ice, but I got the gym tomorrow! I guess after Wednesday night, I'll take a break from exercise for a couple of days so I can rest up.

__________________
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!!!

Back of the Peloton: Smacked my head on Wednesday. Haven't done that EVER in all the years I've skated. Then, fell on my left side with my arm outstretched today. OW. Am walking crash dummy.

Yellow Jersey: Power pull-rockers coming along swimmingly. Did the best axel I've done in weeks 20min after smacking my head, and in lesson. Birthday Saturday!!!!

Yellow Jersey: Discovered today we'll probably be in Vienna just at the right moment to watch our friends skate in the Karl Schafer Memorial Trophy! Brilliant!

Not much good skating-wise, though, although glimmers of hope persist in showing themselves around my dance moves. But I still can't do them well for a whole lap, alas.... not really even for a length.

Back of the Peloton, if not Lanterne Rouge (Red Light - the person in last place): Ice was a bit iffy today - a couple of wet (but not sticky, thankfully) patches, and an area with chicken-pox.... lots of bumps. But it skated itself fairly even in the end, as these things always do. Waltz hold still not what it should be, and skating backwards in Killian hold - phooey..... Felt like my left arm was being yanked out of its socket, and I couldn't find a RBO edge for love nor money! Back chasses round the circle were a little better, though, but still not good. Solo they're coming-along-nicely, now, but not as a couple.

I just wish someone could take one look and say "Ah, that's what's wrong!" and tell us how to fix it, but right now that ain't happening. And until it does, not much chance of passing level 4 compulsories, to say nothing of winning the British Adults (which won't happen anyway, but it's nice to think that it might.....).

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

Yellow Jersey: Well, I relaxed enough to make it through the Swing Dance yesterday (twice, just to prove I could). Practice today; bonus lesson tomorrow; hopefully a decent week.

Back of the Peloton: I know why I can't consistently do that mohawk, but getting to the point where I can doing right without thinking about it is taking a frustratingly long time. Ah well, at least the Fiesta Tango is benefiting vicariously by all of this work.

Rob

(Don't follow the tour, but do ride a bit for fun; tough to find the time this year for all of the skating...)

Yellow Jersey- I just moved an now live 2 minutes away from a rink! The schedule is still going to be difficult to find skating time with, but at least now I don't have to factor in a 40 minute drive.

Back of the Peloton- I don't have a TV and am missing the second half of the Tour. Oh wait, that's not skating related- but it's my favorite sports event of the year.

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Yellow jersey:
Forward upright spins are starting to feel a bit spinnier, rather than consecutive 3turns, though the toepick is still my nemesis.

I think I'm getting closer to remembering the Canasta Tango (thanks again Mike!). How can a measly 14 steps be so hard to memorise?!

Saw a skating podiatrist yesterday, who has given me something to put in my skate and relieve the nerve that keeps trapping. They've also told me that my skates aren't a pair - the right skate is larger and twisted, which is why the blade feels as if it's wrongly mounted. Still waiting to hear from GAM about whether they'll replace them.

Back of the peloton:
Waltz jump-backspin - I scrape along on my toepick on landing rather than going into the spin. My weight's too far forward, and I think I need a stronger check.

The toepick suddenly disappears when I want it to be there for sidesteps. Tempramental little thing!

The ice was rock hard in the centre, a swimming pool around the outside, and covered in kamikaze students. Not great for practicing much.

__________________
"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases:
(1) It's completely impossible.
(2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing.
(3) I said it was a good idea all along."
- Arthur C Clarke

Yellow jersey: FIRST BACKWARD OUTSIDE EDGES!!! WAHOO! Finally, after 6 months things are starting to come together

By the time my coach got to me for the first lesson, I was getting some reasonable speed on the backward skating - she was surprised how much stronger my backward was than last week. (She also complimented me on the improvement in the depth of my forward edges though there are still some posture and control issues.)

Between lessons, I started playing with backward outside edges on the goalie’s circle, both feet - By the time my coach got back to me in the second hour, I was getting the hang of BO edges!!! She was surprised again!

Back of the peloton: NONE! Well, except that my knee is bothering me - going to get referred to a sports medicine place and get my knees checked out. I have plans! - no time for bad knees!

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

Yellow Jersey:
It almost never happens, but spins were GREAT on my lesson with Primary Coach today. She asked me "if the planets were aligned." She was so pleased with spins that she has started me on sit-change-sit!!
She also worked with me on getting out of the jump funk and the loop and salchow are starting to reveal themselves again!!

Back of the Peloton:
It was just too crowded to do anything- I could not get a full moves pattern in- too many coaches teaching on the ice.
Still no sound system in our afternoon rink- tried to run program during lesson, but neither Coach or I could hear music.

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

yellow jersey:
at least I got on the ice and skated and landed jumps...

Back of the Peloton:
Everything was mediocre at practise! I landed jumps either skidded or wobbly the whole evening, my spins were just a bit slower than normal

__________________
~
Tidesong

Yellow Jersey: I managed some half-reasonable dance moves, I think. But they are still frustratingly not quite there. I stopped to breathe at one stage and someone said to me, sympathetically, "Tired?" "No, frustrated!" was the only possible answer.

Skater I haven't seen for at least two years was in today, and nearly had a heart-attack at the way I look now! It's nice to surprise people....

Back of the Peloton: I seemed to spend hours and hours this morning just doing back outside edges and trying (and failing) to get rid of the very slight toe-pick involvement I can hear on the LBO edge. RBO edge is reasonable, now, but the LBO is still dire. Mind you, Husband can't do it, either.

We think that tomorrow - no, Friday, tomorrow's Thursday - we will skate backwards hand in hand to try to get rid of my issues with balance when we're in hold. I do wish I knew how to deal with it. Neither of us can do a LBO edge worth a damn, and when in Kilian hold, I can't do a RBO one, either. Sigh. In waltz hold, we really focussed on our edges, but were both a little flat.

Least helpful coach comment ever: Skater attempts whatever it was she was trying to do and falls over.
"No, no, no!" says the coach.

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

Yellow jersey: It was a spin night. For a change, every one I tried was centered and just felt EASY. I even managed a couple of semi-decent back spins on the gamey left ankle.

Back of the peloton - WAAAAAAAAAAAY back: Could not jump to save my life. Ankle hurt, timing was off, even waltz jumps were just hard, as if I'd never learned them before. Not fun.

Yellow Jersey:
Met Jessi (skittl1321) and found her to be absolutely delightful! And pretty good for only a couple months of lessons!

Was having a pretty good skating night -- my coach actually LIKES most of my spin -- windup looks good and the spin itself is good (nice and centered -- but since I only go around 3-4 times it's not really that hard to center, LOL!), but the choctaw still stinks. She wants me to be more aggressive with the push... uh-huh... When am I ever aggressive on the ice??

Showed her the circle footwork sequence from out synchro program -- all good and only one spot is a touch scrapey. This is a HUGE improvement from last year, BTW.

Then we worked on jumps -- toe loop walk-though is right, now I just need to jump. Joked about a salchow and then, because I joked about it, we started working on it. Walk through also good, but no air Spent some time getting my 1/2 flip and 1/2 lutz with more spring -- I think this might make it easier for me to actually get into the air for the toe and salchow. We'll see...

Back of the Peloton:
Jumps still aren't jumps. Back outside pivot is laughable. The dang choctaw in the spin. Same ol', same ol'.

Funny stuff: Skated on a busy public session -- not my normal lesson time, so I was a little thrown by the extra people on the ice. I think I'd been out there for all of two minutes when I was approached by a couple of kids who thought I was giving lessons and wanted help. I sent the to the hockey box to re-tie their skates after showing them how tightly mine were tied. And suggested they NOT wear the hoods of their hooded sweatshirts so they could see if someone faster was coming by. Dodged a 7-8 year old in hockey skates who wanted to lie on the ice for most of my lesson, LOL! And a young girl of about the same age who was practicing catch-foot spirals, shoot-the-ducks and lunges right down the middle of the ice without much regard for anything happening around her. Didn't want to squish her, so I bailed on a couple of spins.

On the other hand, the Saturday AM freestyle was empty last week -- just me and the ice for 1 1/2 hours -- only one pre-pre skater out there for about 45 minutes in the middle, but mostly just me. Wish I had a program to work on -- would have been primo practice time for that! But I did work on my MIF that require the entire rink -- the forward/backward perimeter powe stoking and power crossovers -- how nice! And the ice was fresh, too, so I could examine all of my tracings. What a dream! And all for the price of a regular freestyle admission... It will probably never happen again, LOL!

Yellow: My loop showed up for my lesson last night and my coach now approves. Yippee! Now, I just have to get this blasted backspin consistent and I can test Bronze FS. I had a bit of success with it last night - my coach got me to rearrange my arms, which seemed to help when I practiced it. If only I could do it in my program run-throughs!

Back: Rink was very crowded, so not much room to practice my CM program. It was a little better in the second session I skated, but then about halfway through, a thunderstorm caused the power to go out for a second or two, then the auxiliary power kicked in but only half the lights were on. About 5 minutes later, the other lights came back on, but it was an eerie experience - I was skating around the end area when the lights went completely off and my first thought was that I was going to hit the wall - eeek!

__________________
Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Back of the Peloton:

My secondary coach is evil!!! She pitted me against our newly minted Gold Moves lady to do forward crossovers around the hockey circle!!! It was just awful!!! (So WeirFan06... just b/c I beaten 'ya doesn't mean I don't have MORE WORK to do to go faster still!!!)

Still lots of work to do on my back crossovers too!!! OY VEI!!! My test is in two weeks and I got more to work on?!?!?!

My forward crossovers on the CW side isn't as strong either. My right lower back/hip is very stiff today, so trying very hard to bend and hold a steady edge this morning.

Yellow Jersey:

Well, I survived???

__________________
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!!!

Back of the Peloton: I was awful stiff from yesterday’s 2 hour session - haven’t skated daily 2 hour sessions since March! - and I was tired as well so everything was a bit off, right back to forward edges and stroking! Still, I worked on a bit of everything in the first hour just to try to loosen up and get the flow back - nope, ain’t gonna happen when I am tired, stiff and sore.

Yellow Jersey: In the second hour, I decided to play around with the opening choreography for my program (which I am writing myself without yet having the skills to skate it ) It involves alternating backward one-foot inside edges which I have never done By golly gee! With a little bit of experimenting (and lots of hip sway!) I started hitting the alternating BI edges - WAHOO, my first backward inside edges!!!! That makes 8 out of 8 of my September goals achieved and it’s only July! My coach came along for my second lesson and asked “What are we working on?” so I showed her my opening and she was thrilled with the back inside edges - “Keep working on those - those are really good deep edges!”

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

Back of the Peloton:
I think it's been two weeks since I've skated, and likely to be yet another before I skate again. We're leaving for our annual camping trip this Friday, but not starting to camp until Sunday (long story). Last year we were able to skate on Sunday after a 40 min drive, but this year the same rink hasn't yet posted their summer schedule, and the local skating club's web site now belongs to some other organization. Meanwhile, I have to teach on the week following our return. The way my skills disappear with lack of practice, my students may be skating better than I.

Yellow Jersey:
Not skating related, but, well, I am going camping for two weeks on a gorgeous lake in the Adirondacks where I will kayak, canoe, swim, hike, pick wild blueberries, watch the ducklings grow, listen to the loons, explore beaver ponds, and party around the campfire with friends, food and beer!

__________________

So you DO have a test date now!!!