Okay, so today i took my Intermediate Moves test and did badly. Some of it i knew was borderline, but a LOT of it was just an awful day in general.

I just felt my feet / legs and edges were not coordinating. I guess being 49 years old doesn't help with that confidence with muscle stuff.

I am thinking of getting the metronome tape that was on the DVD for intermediate power crossovers, but don't know where to find it. I've looked at the PSA and USFS website...any tips?

What's really awful, is.....i think i'm going really fast, but it's still not fast enough.....any tips for building muscles/getting more push on stuff?

ugh.....Thanks for any input (and encouragement

Send me your email and I will send you an mp3 of it - hopefully it will work!

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Gaining power and edge pressure partially results from the rise and fall of your knees. (This is regarding fwd crossovers) If your knees are staying at the same throughout the move, you are not effectively using your quads and hip muscles to push. You need to bend the skating knee right before the push to be able to get low enough to apply sufficient edge pressure to push off. You will be able to get more leverage from your hip extensors to push, and it will improve the rythmn of the crossover. Make sure you do this before each push. Also, make sure your shoulders are turned in to the circle and not facing too square, as you will create a better lean on your edge.

In bwd crossovers, power generation also results from the correct weight shifting and stepping far into the circle, esp. in the slower ones. Same as in fwd crossover, practice changing the level of your knee bend.

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Another suggestion is to start your crossovers slower, so that you can show the increase in speed without having to go so fast at the end that you get out of control. This helped me tremendously! The other great piece of advice from my coach was to really press down and forward with the outside shoulder as you start to speed up (that would be the left shoulder on CW forward or CCW backward).

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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

Thanks for the tips. It doesn't look that hard on the DVD, but even when i think i'm really pushing, it's just not enough. Thanks again.

When I do this move right, I always feel like my power comes from pulling, not pushing, especially with the backward power circles. In other words, I feel like it's the inside leg--the one that crosses *under*--that really propels me. In order to get that pull from the crossing-under leg, you need to keep your butt low and your feet wide apart. Then, for the backward crossovers, really reach into the circle with that foot and pull. For the forward crossovers, you don't really reach into the circle, but you pull with that foot as you cross the other foot over, so that the inside foot goes from being on the circle to being outside of the circle, fully extended and crossed behind the crossing-over leg at the end of each crossover.

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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