Just starting the new week's thread. For you Simpsons fans, you'll know what the theme is based upon.

Okay, maybe a couple of practice notes:

WOO HOO!!!:

• Forward power 3's: Coming along nicely!!!
• Camel spin cames for a short visit. Hope it stays!!!

DOH!!!

• Loop and Flips: Two footed
• Salchow: Doesn't wanna glide on the landing!!!
• Backspin: What backspin???

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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!!!

Saturday:

WOO HOO: Speed and correct steps on Canasta.

DOH: Right leg is messing up end swing roll timing throwing off dance timing for testing. Coach thinks I shouldn't test.

WOO HOO:I was so mad that my coach thought I wasn't ready to test that I just dropped the dances after trying to run through them when all the other coaches kept getting in my way and didn't move, unlike the kids who were skating. The kids respect me. I then ran through my freeskate without jumps but the second time I wasn't thinking about not jumping because I was so mad that my body just went for all the jumps and I landed them. I did all the jumps cold. No warm up for them because I didn't expect to jump them. I was so mad that I forgot to hold back.

DOH: I'm not suppose to be jumping on my Achilles tendon and knee. If my doc/physio guy finds out that I was jumping, I'm dead meat. He thought I was jumping on Thursday when I saw him Friday and I was in major pain and couldn't take the treatment of the tens. I was all white in the face and scrunched up with pain in the face. The assistant got the doc to give me a lecture. And he quized me to see see if I was jumping. I told him that I was just doing the ice dancing and at that point I was. But Saturday, that through that line out of the window.


I'm going to pay for extra ice Wednesday between 2 and 4 pm and see if I can fix my problem plus I want to find out who is judging. If it's Peter, there's no way, that I'm going to test. He's way tooo picky.

B

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Woo Hoo - spins were frighteningly good today especially flying camel hope they stay...new program's coming along well too!

Doh! - can't practice axels because the ice is WAY too full ( about 30 people maybe more) and most cant skate very well so i dont want to kill them lol im lucky im doing my actual lesson on senior sessions because i wouldn't get anything done...oh well im learning to be pushy lol

No lesson this week, as my coach and his family are on holiday in Glorious (we hope) Devon. And probably just as well, as our skates had just been sharpened, so we spent most of the session just wearing in our blades. By the end of the session we felt up to dancing together, although neither of us could stop! And I ran through bits of my Interpretive to make sure I remembered what I was doing. But basically it was a stroking session to get used to sharp blades. They will be glorious for the next couple of weeks, but I always hate that first session when they are too sharp.

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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!

Gamma test:

DOH:
8 am on Saturday morning is not a time my body wants to function and it didn't. My legs felt and acted like telephone poles. Had about half an hour warm up during the freestyle session. The coach who was testing me had a student cancel, so I took the lesson time to get some final touch-up on the gamma elements.

WOO-HOO:
I passed.

Congratulations Gary! At first I wasn't sure if you were going to give us good news or not!

Doh: Months of no lessons and little skating has taken it's toll.....my coach watched me Saturday and said I need some lessons badly...that's an understatement!

Woo Hoo: Desperately thinking of something to woo hoo about here....I guess just the fact that I can still get out there and skate. Who knows, next time all the elements may return. I did have newly sharpened blades to adjust to Saturday....I can blame that!

WOO HOO!!!:

Had my first lesson for nearly two months! We started on stroking and crossovers, then went onto jumps. The coach asked me to hold a landing position in a BO glide, and he said it was good. Waltz jump - said I had good spring (felt like it too! ) but need to use my arms more. Salchow - I did a lovely one! He didn't have any improvement tips to tell me either! Toe loop - good, but sometimes I toe-waltz so I have to get out of that habit (I was taught to do that by an old coach). I did some nice, proper ones though. Loop - closest I got was putting down my free toe after landing. I have to just trust myself! And practice it more. I got the "one foot or fall" thing from him too. He wants me to use more speed into it too, which actually helped. Didn't have time for flip.

Turns were all good, including outside mohawks, inside open & closed mohawks, three turns and double 3s. I spent time experimenting with the three turns too, doing them with more speed and doing field moves sequences. I could also do double 3s starting with the back 3 first, which I was having trouble with before. BI-FO is pretty easy now, and I could also do BO-FI, which although not wonderful at least worked, which was great.

Spins - got very nearly there with a scratch spin! (My free foot was almost crossed over and I could feel myself speeding up, but I stopped because it was scary! lol). I did a couple of almost centred spins too. Most still travelled a bit, but some were good (for me).

D'OH!!!:

BO pivots were pants.

Still losing motivation in the middle of the session. I was quite tired too, though I didn't feel as bad as I did last week.

Travelling spins.

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

Way to go Gary! We're gonna take Delta by storm!!!!

Speaking of Delta, I had a Woo-Hoo!!!! lesson Saturday morning. Because this was the last lesson of Gamma and the other woman and I both passed, our instructor showed us Delta skills: FI3s, forward outside and inside edges, lunge (or shoot-the-duck) and bunny hop. Guess what? I just need to work on the FI3s and the rest of my skills are already passing! Which is pretty much what I figured. When hubby and I were in pre-Alpha we asked our instructors to show us "something fun" and they showed us lunges so I've been doing them for over a year. And then two Gamma classes ago I was in there with two Deltas so I got to practice forward edges for a while and have continued to practice them as a warm up because I think they're fun! And I got the bunny hop right away.

So, that means I'm going to drill FO3s and FI3s like crazy between sessions and hope that I have a Delta instructor who will teach me some of the stuff for Freestyle 1.

Here's an interesting side note: Several times while practicing the FI3 I found myself in a spin instead of the 3-turn. I asked my instructor what to do about that and she nearly fell over saying "That's a backspin! If you are doing a backspin, we should just move you up to Freestyle 3 now!" Honestly, it only happened two or three times and I only went around for one revolution, but it was fun! Wouldn't that be a hoot -- I might learn a backspin before a FO3, ha ha!

I also practiced two-foot and one-foot spins. Managed 5-6 revolutions on two-foot and two on one-foot. Did not intentionally practice backspin intentionally, LOL!

Our ice is down for maintenance this week, so no more reports from me!

Saturday at noon I was back at the rink for a group class with the same coach. She gave each of us 5 minutes of personal attention. I used mine on FI3's. She said my right FI3 would pass, but I need work on the left. I've been doing front edges for a year, so they'll pass. My bunny hop is fine. The only thing I'm going to have trouble with is the lunge (forget shoot-the-duck). I figure that I'll do one lunge for the test and they can take me directly to the hospital afterwards for the torn hamstring.

I have a deadline to pass Delta by June 3 if I want to join my girlfriend's synchro team.

WOO-HOO! Gary's gonna be a Sapphire!

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Champagne in 2005, 2008, 2009 - who's next out of the pre-bronze club...?

Wang chung!

Gary, stretch stretch and stretch and you won't have a torn hamstring from the lung. Pilates is good for stretching too. Try it.

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Much to someone's chagrin!!!

Congrats to Gary on passing his test? So, what did you end up having for breakfast? BTW, for the lunge, I've found that the strength of the muscles around the knee lend sucess to this move, as well as the strength of the quads.

Nothing really to go "D'oh!" over today, unless it was my on-again/off-again camel. It was either totally there or not. Okay, well, the back camel...hahahahahahahaha!!!!

Woo Hoo!:
Camels, the ones that were good! They were faster than they'd been in a long time and I even played around with the camel/sit combination. I used to be able to do that. (Then I was sick or injured most of the winter ). Sit spin is getting lower, according to coach. Everything was well centered.

Layback spin still coming along nicely.

MITF good too. Coach says I'm going to pass them this time...ooookay.

Back to practicing some of my dreaded jumps next week. Gotta happen sooner or later. Everytime I try the flip I remember hitting my head...ow, ow, ow...

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All that glitters has a high refractive index.

WOOHOO~ Dances are going great, and I learned hoe-down today. So annoying, and yet oddly fun. Three turns are finally all consistant, and patterns actually worked. 5 step mohawk pattern actually was checked and worked. Forward scratch spin and sit spins were wonderful!

DOH~ All of my jumps were just horrible today. Warming up my waltz jump all I could think of was axel, which of course I'm not allowed to do right now. MY coach wasn't there to catch me, but she had told another one of her students to watch me and yell at me if I tried. Timing was just off for all jumps. Backspin was non-existant, again.

One more WOOHOO~ I get a week and a half off for the first time in a while! YAY! Then back to competition mode for Cactus in July

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

Gary, congratulations on passing gamma under such stressful circumstances!

Quarkiki2 get congrats on gamma too!

DOH
Only got 5 hrs sleep last night, so even though I paid for 1.5 hrs freestyle session today, I only skated for an hour. Was too chicken to work on FI threes very much. My coach wasn't able to keep our lesson appointment today, so we are scheduled for Wed during an empty public session. From the looks of her belly last Thursday though, and the fact that the baby is now officially only two weeks away, I have my fingers crossed that she will show up at the rink and not the maternity ward. Sadly, this is probably my last lesson with her for a long time, as she will take the summer off to be with the baby, and I am moving before Sept.

WOO HOO
One foot spin is doing very nicely, but I'm getting more momentum than I can handle from even the tiniest wind up. FO alt three pattern is sooo close to being clean. I had a breakthrough on the five step Mohawk pattern today. Instead of rotation my shoulders as I step into the FI edge for the turn, I waited until moving my free leg forward to set up the turn and rotated my shoulders with the free leg. This made the turn happen very naturally, even my very bad L one. Don't know what coach will say about it on Wed.

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DOH:

No ice this week as the rink closes this Wednesday after tests today and tomorrow. No lessons until June 3rd at another rink, so it is time to get on the in line skates. Have to watch the weight, cause I am getting a little thin again...170 for a six footer. Believe me, I am not doing this on purpose, I eat like a horse but I am also very active. How many 57 year olds have this problem!!

Hayfever Hell. I have lilac fever in that I am highly allergic to them....and it was 84 degrees yersterday and my next door neighbor's lilac along with everyone else's in the town are in full bloom. My nose is running like Niagara Falls and I feel like hell. Nothing works on this so it just tuffing it out for the next few days.

Gary, congratulations on the pass. Have fun of the synchro. I will probably join the synchro team up at Lake Placid when I move up there. With the work schedule I have, it would be useless to join something around here since I wouldn't be able to go to half the practices.

WOH HOO: None this week.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

Uh......sausage egg mcmuffin and a super size diet coke....but don't tell anybody.

Hehe...that's okay.

A "power" breakfast for me is usually the egg mcmuffin without the meat (I'm vegetarian) and a super-size Diet Coke. The egg has to be the folded egg too...I have picky standards when it comes to the few items I will eat from McD's.

I drink Diet Coke like water. I know I shouldn't, but I'm addicted to the stuff.

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All that glitters has a high refractive index.

Me too. Water, coffee, and Diet Coke (regular during the day, decaf at night) are my fluids of choice.


DOH: Arrived at the rink for my Monday night skate at 5:30. The schedule had changed, so the earliest I would be able to get on the ice would be 8:00 pm. I was about to go home when my coach, who was trying to kill time too, suggested I join her and two other couples for supper at a local pub. Had a great time.

WOO-HOO: I told my coach that I had passed Gamma and was working on Delta. She and I got on the ice before anyone else was there and she asked to see the Delta elements. Front edges were terrific, bunny hop brought compliments for the height, I didn't do the lunge for fear of pain, and my FI3's were popping off like I had been doing them all of my life. Go figure. Last Saturday I could barely do the right and definitely not the left.

She told me to go test this weekend. We'll see if I can get it arranged.

Congratulations to both Gary and Quarkiki

I can't bear diet Coke, but I will admit to having had a McDonald's breakfast twice just lately, once with black coffee (that's not virtuous, it's how I like my coffee!) and once with orange juice.

I haven't yet skated today, and were I going to, I think I would have gone by now. I do kid myself that I skate on Tuesday afternoons, and I almost never 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!

My skates were still too sharp this morning! Couldn't slow down or turn, so my programmes were terrible. Still, that is a fault that time, and skating, will cure, and by the end of the session things were visibly improving. All the same, it would be nice not to be so turn-challenged, since when your skates won't co-operate...... double whammy!

No lesson, because coach is on holiday this week - not that he's having much good weather, I don't suppose. Still, it will give him time to heal and so on, and precious family time that none of us get enough of.

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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!

It doesn't have to be that way. I respectfully suggest you have your sharpener run a stone along the blades after sharpening, to remove the burrs. I used to think the mark of a good sharpening was being unable to stop, until I found sharpeners who really knew what they were doing. All 3 of my most recent sharpeners knew how to do this, and my present sharpener is a real master. So when I get my skates sharpened, I can feel the grip but I lose none of my skills and there is virtually no adjustment period. I also keep track of the time between sharpenings and I make sure it's in the 30 to 36 or so hour range (I can feel that I'm losing my grip close to 30 hours or so), so my blades never get super dull, and that probably plays a role too. I suppose if I let them get very dull there would be an adjustment period even with my present sharpener.

Pat

Last night was the last lesson for this session and most of the local rinks will be closed for at least a week.

Since we had covered all of the required course material, we played around with pivots and spins. What fun!!!! I'd never tried them before, so it was a whole new, dizzying experience.

Just found out that one rink is having extra freestyle sessions next week, so I'm scheduled to take my Delta test on Tuesday evening. Now I've got to scrounge for some ice time to practice between now and then.

So, it's the sharpener and not me! I discovered time before last when I had my blades sharpened that I could still stop and it took me only a few minutes to adjust to the blades. I had just switched to a real expert because of my daughter's gold seals. Now I know it's worth the extra expense and travel time for me too.

WOO HOO
Not only are my FI Mohawks both behaving, but today for the first time, I was able to do FO Mohawks! Something just told me that I should try them today, so I did a few at the boards, then attempted the Juv 8-step Mohawk pattern and promptly fell on the first turn. I got right up, took my ibuprofen and went back to it. I did the pattern in my lesson and was really surprised and pleased to have my coach tell me that I was getting nice outside edges on both turns. I'm no where near doing the whole pattern to specs, but I love this one, and I'm going to make it mine. I was further encouraged when I told my coach that my new goal is to pass Juv moves. I was afraid she might say it was unrealistic for me, but she said it is definitely a goal I could achieve. I know it will take me years (probably years just to get the prelim spirals ), but that's where I want to go.

DOH
Rink is closed Fri-Mon for Memorial day, so no lesson Monday, which means another one on Wed. Stressful for both of us, because I have to be at the rink at 10 for Mommy & Me, then don't have my lesson until noon.

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