Landing: We had a good lesson this morning; did a fantastic Rhythm Blues, better than we've ever done before, and worked on our Free Dance, which is still very rough. At least it's choreographed now, so we don't have to worry about that. But there are bits which we find really difficult to do well. Plus our coach told me that he will be back on 5 September, so we are only going to miss 2 lessons, instead of 3.

Splatting: Some bits are still terribly rough in our free dance! And I am on two feet..... Both Robert and I had sore knees this morning - I think it is because we are focussing so much more on knee-bend.

I was very amused after my comments from last week that I felt I had barely skated after 40 minutes; yesterday I decided not to skate as I had slept very badly on Friday night, but Robert went, and was only the ice for about 1.5 hours - when he came home, he said he had felt the session had gone on for ever..... Men!

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

Landing This morning I was first on the ice, nobody else on the ice, nobody else around the ice, nicely cut ice but dry since it was cut the night before. Warming up, doing my forward crossovers (CCW) concentrating on keeping my crossing foot low to the ice, when suddently the click of death (cue drumroll) and down I go, splat! Mrs Redboots, were you spying on me when you made up this week's thread title? Anyway, I wasn't hurt at all and I landed sort of on my hip and hand/arm, and slid probably 10 feet and I wasn't even wet from the slide. When my coach arrived and I told him, he said, "See? I told you it's better if you're going faster when you fall!" Anyway, everything was very good today in spite of the splat. Lots of progress all around, and I didn't let the fall freak me out. I fell in the first 5 minutes on the ice, and went on to do everything else just fine with no other falls or mishaps!

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

Yes, the evil click of death!!! Been there, done that! Bought the t-shirt and HAVE injured myself bad enough on those to be off the ice for 3 weeks with a bad bruise on my knee!!!! So glad you didn't get hurt from it, Pat!

I'm back at my weekend rink... and I plan on visiting the Snoopy Rink again on the weekend that my weekend rink does ice maintanance. It's a gorgeous ice rink and it's really fun there!!!

Landing:

• Starting to get my spins back again! WOW!!! Maybe the blade alignment was a problem after all!!! Didn't quite get the scratch but at least I feel more comfortable spinning this time around. (i.e. for once I'm NOT on the toe pick!!!) Once I made myself concentrate more on the FO edge going in and raising the free hip/leg, things started falling into place.
• Sit spins are getting better too!!!
• Waltz jumps are okay, though not great!
• Well, no toepicks while during the forward crossovers today. That's good!!! (Now to get that nice straight free leg to POINT!!!)
• Power 3's on my weaker side still getting there. Today I was concentrating on stepping into the next FO3 correctly (instead of stepping and then turning my foot -- a MAJOR no-no!) I'm starting to make some progress towards not doing that MAJOR no-no... I think the coaches are gonna be happier when I get it done right.
• Power RFO3's are a bit wild, but still well enough that my primary coach is gonna leave it alone -- for now...

Splatting:

• My forward crossovers!!! Today I was concentrating on the cross-under part going the clockwise direction. I'm not a happy camper!!!
• I wanted fast RFI mohawks. Didn't get that today.
• Ditto the LFO3 in the intro on the power 3's.

__________________
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!!!

Thanks, Jazzpants! But yeah, that's why I wear kneepads! But then I didn't even land on my knees, go figure. It happened so fast I have no idea how I fell the way I did, I was just glad it went that way!

Pat

The irony is that I WAS wearing kneepads to skate, just not the gel type (which stays in place.) I was wearing those with the foam and, that particular time, it shifted on the fall, so essentially I had no knee pads! Cut short my lesson with my moves coach at the time, that's for sure!

Needless to say, I've changed to the SkatingSafe knee pads after that!!!

__________________
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!!!

Yep, that's what I wear and I love them.

BTW, more Splatting: I am SO sore today! Not from the fall, but from all the stuff my coach tortured me with on and off the ice. We must have spent 20 minutes on the ice doing nothing but spirals forward and backward, and then some off the ice, and my hamstrings are killing me! As is my right hip flexor. Oh well, I may have to take today off. Or if I do skate, no spirals!

Me, too! I'm trying to learn how to fall backward (on my rear) instead of forward when I do that. But as my coach joked, a perfect fall comes after many imperfect ones.

I hope you are feeling better, Pat.

I'm taking it easy this week. I sent my skates back to SP-Teri to have lambswool tongues put in, so I'm forced to use my old skates that never fit very well - too long and too narrow. I was going to attempt practice today, but I need to go buy a lamp for my living room to replace one that went kaput last week. Don't you hate it when life interferes with your skating?

Back on the ice after Monday's rest day to find that the ice quality was really awful. Normally, if they resurface, they wait until Robert has left at 8.20, but this morning he was calling for a resurface, even if it meant missing 15 minutes of his practice! So they did, and life was much better! We walked through our free dance and I made a nonsense of the choreography of the start of the 3rd section - I was wrong, Robert was not right either, and between us we got very confused!

Anyway, once he had gone I took a breather, and then when I went back on the ice, everything went right! I could do my Mohawk sequence - not well, but I could do it - I could do my waltz 3s, although I suspect the coach would have said my free leg wasn't where it should have been, and so on..... The only things I splatted on (Robert splatted, quite literally, on the fresh ice so had to skate with a wet bottom, tee hee ) were my back one-foot-slaloms, which were terrible - I could not control my shoulders. Grrr..... LBO edge wasn't too clever, either, now I come to think of it. Lesson tomorrow - last for a fortnight, as the coach goes on a well-deserved holiday on Saturday.

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

Yes, Debbie, I am feeling better, thanks! Actually I skated gently yesterday and felt okay. Still a bit sore today, though. As for falling, I don't think there was any way to have fallen backward with my particular experience, but I was glad to not have fallen straight forward, or straight down for that matter!
BTW, are you going to the workshop in Aston?

Landing: Anyway, I am feeling very encouraged by my progress on the 5 step mohawk right now! Finally I can do each side, albeit very small. My secondary coach is going to be so happy and surprised when he sees me this week!

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

The workshop in Aston sounds great, but it's such a long drive - and it starts so early in the morning - that it's not going to be feasible for me. And my classes start that Monday, so I want to make sure I rest up that weekend. Have a great time, if you go.

Congrats on the 5-step! I've sort of been half-practicing it, just kind of playing around - that is definitely a challenging move. I'm going to be starting the Bronze moves in earnest in a couple of weeks - my coach recommended I not do too much in my old skates given their fit problems.

Landing: Took a couple of days off to work on the house and actually skate. We're working on the new program - very artsy and should be a lot of fun. My cammel - jump cammel is going well, and will hopefully go into the new program.
Splatting: I'm working on breaking in my new boots. Because the blades are positioned differently, it's difficult to go back and forth between the old and new skates. The new still hurt my feet, but have great edges, the old are comfy, but have no support or edges.

My response to that would be to never, ever, ever go back and forth between old and new skates. Once I've started to skate in new boots I never go back to the old pair. Doing so just prolongs the agony. The only exception to this would maybe be coaches who have to go out on the ice and teach and obviously can't do this in boots that they can only stand to wear for half an hour at a time.

John

Johnfisher
Actually I've broken in several pair this way. The Harlick and Skater's Paradise reccomendation is to skate in the new boots for short periods of time, increasing the time as tollerable. Because of the stiffness it was not possible to be in them more than 10 min at most when I started, and what I could actually do in them was limited. If I skated only in the new boots, I would get in very little time, and not be able to really practice. Therefore I warm up in the new ones, and when they are unbearable, switch to the old ones and work on the doubles and flying spins that are not possible with the new skates. It really does not prolong the time, as the time I would be in the old skates would otherwise be spent not skating at all.
This pair is just odd because of the blade placement.

My coach's other student was not feeling well today, so I got 45 min rather than 30 of lesson. It just means she gets to torture me longer.

Landing: She liked my flips today, except for the complete control of the mohawk which I'm still working on. Also, my scratch was coming together--it's not there yet, but was coming today.

Splatting: I can't seem to get my free leg across my skating leg on the scratch--it gets to a point, then, no matter how hard I try to move it the last bit, it won't go. Any suggestions? Also had problems controlling the free leg during the 3turn into toe loop. Why does one thing go and another come? Why don't they all come and stay?

Similarly, I know lots of synchro skaters who switch back and forth between a freeskate boot and blade and a synchro boot and blade. It's just what you get used to. The last time I broke in new boots I didn't switch back and forth, but that was because my old boots no longer had blades on them.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Landing I finally found the secret to doing the sit spin. I did about 10 revs on a fwd sit and changed to about 6 on the back sit tonight. I could never find the right balance for the sit spin when I was taking lessons. Now that I've stopped taking lessons and only skate occasionally during summer public sessions, I finally discover for myself where my weight needs to be distributed when sit down for the sit spin. Camel also felt good tonight. That is also another spin that I could not get when I had lessons, but now that I just skate for fun, I have time to discover what I need to do to get that hook for the spin to work.

Splatting Jumps didn't want to work tonight. Couldn't get off for the 2toe. 2lp didn't want to get off the ground either. I was getting into the old habit of rotating my upper body and not letting the lower body do all the work on the loop.

Landing:

I feel like I'm finally back in the loop (pun pun!) for skating at last. I landed a few double salchows in my most recent practise as opposed to the sporadic one or two i had been doing previously, i landed some double loops and think that my other double (attempts) are making progress! I have been working hard on my three turns and that is paying off oh so slowly but I can finally feel less afraid when doing the turns then few months back.

Splat:

Nothing much! I just want to be careful not to get injured because thats what set me back last year.

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~
Tidesong

Splatting: Hauled myself out of bed at 6.00 this morning to find that our loo was blocked, so that was the end of our practice for this morning! I went down to the rink for 8.30, though, and had my lesson, which was dire - all edges and balance work. Yuk! I asked my coach why I had to do all this work on straight legs when the idea is to get me to bend my knees more, but he said it was for balance.

Landing: All the same, some things worked well; my Mohawk sequence, which I find very difficult because of the weight transfer, is definitely improving. And he praised my RFI twizzle, saying that I had my weight in the right place and my feet were together, which is why I wasn't under-rotating it the way I under-rotate my LFI one.

Last lesson for 2 weeks, since he now goes on holiday. Sigh. And we will have to fit in an extra practice tomorrow. Even deeper sigh.....

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

Lesson last night -- nothing was really landing nor splatting.

Worked on FI 3's and the turns are actually good -- snap and all. Unfortunately, I'm still dropping my free foot the second after I complete the turn. For no reason, of course, as I'm not putting any wieght on it at all.

Did my back edges, but stopped when I slipped off the RBO three times in two minutes because my skates need to be sharpened so badly. I was right over the blade, steady and controlled, then the dar thing started sliding out from underneath me. Grr!! And they were going so well.

Worked on the one-foot spin. Got two of them to rotate four times -- three was the minimum my coach wanted me to get before starting on an entrance. So I started from a T-push. I don't quite have the hang of this yet, but I understand what's supposed to happen.

Perhaps since I'm too chicken to jump, I'll be a good spinner???

Practiced spirals for a while after my lesson and my coach told me one got to about 130 degrees or so -- was glad about that!

landing--yaya finally finished my new program its to malaguena (i know i know over used music) but its a really neat cut of it since we had it proffesionally done so im happy, all my jumps going good and i can actuallly do a backspin hahahah its taken like 3 years but finally its here so now im just trying get itinto more of a scratch spin but im still happy another plus is a lot of people at my rink went on vacation so there were only 4 of us on the ice today it was wonderful.

splatting-- ugh i hate my sit/sit i have a really centered sit spin but when i go to change feet i go up on my toe picks i've only done one okay one but its so frutrating because i know i have to sit farther back on my blade but i cant make myself do it hwell it will come eventually

Although I don't tend to switch between Free boots (though I've actually found that even the strongest Harlicks are comfortable enough even when new .... or maybe it's just my trotters which don't have any feeling anymore!) I do tend to pass the boots 'down' to be my Dance boots. Saying that, since going into Harlicks, I never break down a pair of boots any more, they may get too soft to do Free in but there's still plenty of 'Dance' life left in them

__________________

The best whisper is a click

Splatting: Got to the rink to find a huge queue outside, as the normal early-morning person had gone on holiday, and somehow nobody knew..... A keyholder arrived at the same moment I did, so that was all right, but when we got downstairs we found that the ice hadn't been cut, and there had been a hockey match the previous night. Sigh. Someone who could cut it arrived then, but it would have taken too long, and we would not have had more than ten minutes on the ice before Robert had to go to catch his train. So he went off to catch an earlier train, and we'll be back on the ice at 6.00 pm, to practice for an hour before Dance Club. Sigh..... the idea was "both, and", not "either, or".

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

Landing: I had a VERY GOOD lesson today. Coach had me work on the cross-back chasses from the Tango today. First without and then with the music. They are definitely getting better to the music, except that I tend to flatten out the last part of the lobe when skating them to the music. That I can fix... I know what's causing it. Then we started working on American Waltz, and I found the Splatting part of the day. I tend to break a bit going into the 3-turns and coming out of the turns also, even when doing the dance in waltz hold with coach. We were focusing on the end-pattern of the dance, and by the end of the lesson time, I could definitely feel what I was doing wrong. It's just going to take lots of practice to fix. I'm also wide-stepping the step immediately after the 3-turn. Not good.

(And I think that as I fix the 3-turns in the American, my forward power 3's will improve.)

Splatting:

• My back crossovers!!! Today we were working on the "cross under" part of the back crossovers -- and I am having a horrible time with getting a good push under. But I do have "homework" this weekend.
• She had me do a couple of forward stroking laps with a fellow skater. AUGH!!! I need to push myself harder on the speed.

Landing:
Ummm... that the lesson was over with???

__________________
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!!!

Tashacat - that's great! A former pair of my harlicks are on a set of inline blades. I know my boots are ready to go when I feel the blade through the bottom like I'm in socks standing on a pencil. I was having pain in my ankle and asked the boot fitter if he could punch them out. He said the reason for the discomfort was that they were pretty weak and providing no support.
I like the new ones, they are comfortable, but hard!

Hope to skate tonight!
Mika - I could use your help on the opening of my interp program if you're around, I'll PM.
Mika and Debbie and others in Baltimore - there's an edge class exhibition at Mt. Pleasant next Tues eve. Also the trapeze school is down at the harbor - any takers?
Mrs Redboots - we had the same problem with a late sleeper. Finally we got his phone number and gave him wake up calls!