Ok so I checked out the meaning of a tabernacle out here.. now I don't feel so stupid!! I just never heard of it as a swear word before.

tabernacle

(1.) A house or dwelling-place (Job 5:24; 18:6, etc.).

(2.) A portable shrine
(comp. Acts 19:24) containing the image of Moloch (Amos 5:26; marg. and R.V.,
"Siccuth").

(3.) The human body (2 Cor. 5:1, 4); a tent, as opposed to a
permanent dwelling.

(4.) The sacred tent (Heb. mishkan, "the dwelling-place");
the movable tent-temple which Moses erected for the service of God, according
to the "pattern" which God himself showed to him on the mount (Ex. 25:9; Heb.
8:5). It is called "the tabernacle of the congregation," rather "of meeting",
i.e., where God promised to meet with Israel (Ex. 29:42);

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Merci: New skates are awesome!!! I can't believe the difference they make!!! Whenever I was breaking them in today, I was doing millions of waltz jumps, and I couldn't believe how the toe pic actually helped launch me into the air!!! (THANK YOU CORONATION ACE BLADES!!! lol) I can't wait until they're broken in so I can FINALLY start learning my axel and doubles. I've been held back until I have gotten my skates, my others were crap and wouldn't hold up. Now I can move on!!

No thanks: OMG!!! Breaking in skates HURTS like heck!!!! I was in SOOOO much pain today. I'm DEFINITELY getting bunga pads on friday, they're just so darned expensive, but they're worth it I guess. Ugh......

~Jess

No Thanks:
The very minute I got on the ice today, I was served notice by both coaches that unless I was on my LFI edge consistently on the R over L power crossovers, I will not re-take Bronze moves. Apparently at our club's test session yesterday, the judges were ruthless!!

Merci:
Am back in Secondary Coach's Moves torture chamber and the moves are not that bad and finally got the idea of what needs to be on the forward power perim!!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

merci: After last week's horrific fall & subsequent cautiousness, I felt MUCH better today as an overall experience--much of the fear is gone & I was much more confident and comfortable again. I went through my program several times at a reasonable clip & also went through my Kilian a bunch of times. I have one more day to skate before my lesson on Friday, & I think I'll be ready by then to really dive (oops, bad choice of words there) back in.

No Thanks: Still have some residual issues from the fall--tweaky back, sore muscles, and some weirdness with the quad muscle in one leg that left me unable to lift it straight up today. Spent the evening with heat on my back and ice on my leg!

But the other good thing is today my chiropractor asked if I'd be interested in bartering our time, which I jumped on fast--so that will help a lot with my budget. I Lurves my chiropractor.......

Your chiro is your student??? If so... SWEET!!!

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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 wish! I'd train him up right & turn him into my dance partner!! (he's one of the 6 men on the planet who's taller than me.... )

No this is for my other "real life" career; I'm a graphic artist & I'm going to help him w/ some website stuff.

Merci: I passed my ISI freestyle 4 test despite never having done the program all the way through before AND a deltoid injury...and missing most of the jumps (but did them in compulsories).

I'll join U.S. Figure Skating when I get the axel, I think, but that leads me to.....

No thanks: I am quite rapidly running out of money to fund my figure skating and may have to quit right when I'm starting to get good

oops, I should have posted this in last week's thread, sorry! (I'm a newbie)

Merci Reasonable skate last night, despite being dog-tired - didn't lose much - didn't gain much either.

N'aboutir à rien Only 2 more session, 4 hours, and I am off the ice until 4 July Going into withdrawl! Suffering skate deprivation!

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

Merci: Skated my lesson last night instead of Saturdy morning because my coach had a conflict. By the time I got there, I only had about half my normal warm-up time, but started right in on my one-foot spin, move on to jumps and finally on to turns. Then coach got out there and suddenly, quark has a one foot spin -- five or six in a row, even! Now I'm to work on pulling in to the scratch position. Coach even said "It looks like a spin, too!" Wonder what my previous attempts looked like...

Moved on to jumps. Started with the 1/2 lutz, which I actually did ont the first try. Then 1/2 flip -- my "money" jump because I can get that one every time I try. Did some two-footed toe loops, but was landing mainly on the RBO with a slight touchdown with the left foot. Coach laughed and wanted to know if I needed some more torture, then we started working ont he 1/2 loop. And I did that, too! So, apparently Saturday mornings are the issue... Some work on outside spread eagles, my leading foot grabs the outside edge for a minescule bit of a second, then I get my weight wierd and I fall onto the inside edge. It's not a problem with my turnout as my hips do turn out more than 180 degrees, so more practice is required.

No thanks: Spirals. What the??? These use to be a good move for me, but I had a funky slip at work involving the plastic carpet protector under my chair and a hyper-extended left knee and now I'm all wobbly and unsure on that side and my right side is my weak side naturally. It's not that I'm not hitting the position -- my free leg gets as high as my shoulders, it's that my coach knows I'm more flexible than that and should be able to get my leg above my head -- especailly since off-ice, I can do a vertical split at the wall.

And no-freakin-thanks: Gave myself a nasty, nasty gash on my right thumb when a plate I was washing snapped in two on Saturday evening. So now I have four stitchs in my right thumb crease. And I'm left had stupid. Not sure how I got my skates tied, LOL!!

Haven't posted here in a bit but I've had a couple of good days so...

Yesterdays lesson went well. We started off on spins at my request because I hadn’t worked on spins at all in such a long time. Went through two foot, scratch, backspin, sit and camel. Spinning was very off - but again haven’t practiced it at all so that’s probably part of the reason. Then we worked on jumps - ran through everything up to the flip and closed with the waltz 8 and 3 turn pattern for good measure.

Spins weren’t the best like I said, but I did realize a lot of the mistakes I was making and coach helped me fix a couple of things - namely my shoulders tend to get all out of whack throwing me off my center, and I’m not using my leg properly, i.e. not pressing down with the free foot. I tend to leave the free foot turned out as well, and it needs to be pretty much turned in. On the sit spin, I need to not keep my legs SO close together and only wait half a turn before sitting - once the leg comes around, its time to sit. My camel entry was way off - I wasn’t really rounding the edge and having a hard time getting into the spin…started to fix it but it still needs work. Stupid camel

We moved on to jumps. coach noted that the biggest thing with my waltz jump is that I’m so stiff going into it - and I don’t disagree at all. I try to relax and just let the jump happen but at the last second I freak out. I know it would be much better if I wasn’t so fearful but something about that jump makes me crazy. Salchows weren’t bad, although I need to work on the transition to make it less scrapy, and some better flow would be nice. On the toe loop I just need to concentrate on stepping “up and through” with the free leg.

Loops were next - biggest problem was that I was prerotating the upper body too much first, so I need to think about bringing the arms in only after initiating the jump. The other big thing is to keep the shoulders back and keep the chest lifted going into it. Then onto flips - I’m starting to get the feeling of the flip back, although I’m not really getting how to draw the foot back to make sure that its crossed, so I’ll need to really concentrate on that.

The waltz 8 pattern and 3 turn patterns weren’t bad, just need to clean up the 3 turns, remember to keep placement and have good strong checks of the arms. Also on waltz 8, count the beats to stay with placement.

Yesterdays lesson was capped off with this conversation:

Coach: I want you to consider something - just planting the seed in your head…I was at the State Games competition and just to let you know you’re far better than other skaters in Pre-Bronze and even some Bronze.
Me: Errr…
C: I think it would be something you’d do very well in
M: I did it before and it didn’t go to well….I dunno I’ve thought about it now that I have more experience and a better coach but I’m so competitive with myself and if I don’t skate very well I’ll be really upset…and I tend to put all this unwarranted pressure on me and I dunno, its just not good skating karma.
C: I’m not saying you have to I’m just saying you’d do well
M: Let me pass a couple tests and get some things a little more consistent and then we’ll talk about it in the future…I’m not totally ruling it out, I just don’t know if its something I really want to do

And that was pretty much it - on one hand I’m flattered my coach thinks I’d be extremely competitive with other skaters at my level, but on the other hand I remember how the last competition went and…I guess I’m not over it yet.

So after that I stuck around and kept working on flips and backspins mostly, just loving being on the ice. (And mind you, I was ON the ice a lot…many a fall)

Today: I had to warm up so coach had me do one legged squat type things on the circle on an outside edge. My legs felt like jelly by the time we were done, but it proved a point - I’m out of shape lol. Coach suggested I use that exercise to warm up every time I’m on the ice. Okay

After that she wanted to teach me some footwork - footwork is cool, so yay! She wanted to show me how to do double 3 turns. Eeep. A little scary, I have to admit. I’m not totally comfy with back inside 3 turns yet and at first I kept doing back outside 3’s. Eventually I got the jist of it and when I worked on them after the lesson they started to get some semblance of rhythm. We also worked on the other footwork pattern, with the forward inside 3 turn/cross front/back inside 3 turn and that was better since I had worked on that before. Most important thing I need to remember is to keep my weight in the heel/stay off the toe. These will come - apparently they’re hard to get so I was pleased with what I accomplished.

We moved onto jumps and same problems with stiffness in the waltz jump today, although it was a bit better. Went on to do a salchow and aside from a little scratchies on the landing the jump itself was good - I even checked the 3, imagine that! From there we went to the toe loop, and I finally got the knee up/leg through concept. On all of these jumps I was really looking down at the ice, or rather my legs to see what they were doing. Need to get used to looking up!

Loops were strange today…they weren’t “bad” but they weren’t good and surprisingly my loop-loop was better than my loop in isolation. Pulling the shoulders back really helped too, imagine that! We touched on flips at the end of the lesson but again, same problem getting the placement of the soon-to-be-free foot.

I worked on my own for a bit and got some help from a wonderful, experienced/seasoned teacher on the flip - I think I definitely have the whole how to pick in the foot thing, and starting to get the other components too. In fact once he showed me how to pick in properly I got some good spring on the jump. Now it’s just getting that free foot placement

Oh - I forgot to mentioned that we worked on spirals today for a bit. I went and did a very nice LFO spiral and coach was SO impressed. She made me do it again and then on the other foot and said “that’s it, you’re competing JUST so you can put that in a program”. Heh. I don’t think that’ll get me to do it but it certainly didn’t hurt my ego to hear her say that. I do love spirals. Just gotta remember to get the position down every time…I tend to forget to turn out the foot until the very end sometimes when I’m concentrating on straightening the skating knee.

So all in all it was a couple of really good skating days for me, and I was pretty happy to be back on the ice. I might try to go for a public session this weekend with a friend if she wants to go just to keep working on those couple of other things.

No thanks!!!

Not a good day to go ice skating today...

I don't know what's with me today but I just don't have the energy to go thru anything. Part of the problem was that I didn't have as much time as I would like to warm up before my lesson. (I was held up at a work meeting and the second that I left the meeting, I made a mad dash to the rink for my lesson.) Legs felt heavy. My lower back felt numb and I just didn't have the ummph to go thru all the moves. The only thing I could think of that might have contribute to this is that I was tired from last night's gym workout.

Merci:

• The one good thing is that on the perimeter back crossovers I still maintained speed even though I had to dodge a couple of people. (No, the rink wasn't crowded. If anything it's better than FS the past couple of weeks. Just there are "casual skaters" that I have to watch out for.)
• We worked on spin entry, which is still kinda wacky, but not bad.
• A nice LOOOOOONG shower and a good evening's well deserved rest from all the physical activities I've gone thru all week. (No gym tonight! Gonna be LAZEEEEE!!!)

__________________
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!!!

We were just talking about that in the dressing room last night (coaches and adult skaters) - EVERYBODY is physically exhausted right now. Must be something in the air . . .

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

Well, I know for me it's 6 days of skating and/or exercising at the gym w/o a break that's doing me in. My body is now saying "I'm ON STRIKE!!!" LOL!!!

Primary coach asked me if I'm feeling "heavy" today. Too funny!!!

__________________
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!!!

And in the Pacific NW we, too, are exhausted.

Change of seasons perhaps?

Or, like jazzpants, just too darn much fun skating!!

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Merci: After a horrible twisting fall last Sunday where I popped my knee slightly out of socket on a lutz take-off, today was my first intensive practice. I landed ALL 3 of my double lutzes with nice run-out edges. I've NEVER done them this nicely before. . .I'm so happy. Now to keep them consistent!

No Thanks: Flying sit spins are hard. Enough said.

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"Without Vision the People Perish"
שלום לעולם תמיד

merci:
Double salchows still exist, after two sessions this week, I dont ache everywhere, I am now at a stage where I dont wipe out on my jumps so much as land and step out. Not sure how good or bad this is, but it sure hurts less the day after. (I wonder/hope that maybe this is due to better body alignment learnt from ballet?)
Axel is ok, coach has to keep reminding me not to kick in too much.
Camel-layback-back sit is improving, I want to challenge myself and when coach said that it wasnt too good the last time I had to prove him wrong and went out and did a few fairly decent ones, so if all goes well I will have a new combination spin in my program instead of the usual camel-sit-backsit which I am sick and tired of doing.
Sit-changesit-changesit and Flying camel are also getting along pretty well.
Decided to go back to working on single toe loops from speed again to try and reduce the panic factor in that jump.
Coach corrected my split jump and it feels much more natural now... only problem is that it still doesnt really split... I want to try and get as close to 180deg as I can.

no thanks:
flutz argh...
Flying sit is still sluggish. I've done it the way I like it before... but something is wrong now
Forward crossovers in the clockwise direction... havent had an empty rink enough to practise that for a long time and it shows... after gleefully attempting it for a while I managed to trip and fall sprawlling forwards bumping my knee in the process. Luckily the damage was not too great and there is no sign of a huge bruise right now.

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~
Tidesong

Merci <Bitte>
(Actually *begging* MERCY! *begging*)

Had my last Show run-through with my groups last night. They actually remembered the steps! I have most wonderful assistant this year, and she asked if she could go on to just "guide" the little ones. I said "Sure!" and staged an "impromptu" ending -- as the kids skate off, the older ones are going to call out "Thank you Miss ()!" That is, if they remember! LOL

Did some wicked sit spins last night at the pro practice. Was almost killed by the hockey guys ripping around, but it was worth it! I actually remembered all of the steps and finished on time. Biggest achievement: falling down on the ice without getting hurt! LOL Saturday night will be a great show!

No Thanks <Nein, Danke>

Our last pro rehearsal was last night (8:30 - 11:30 pm) I LOVE the program and music, but I can do with a bit more sleep at the end of the week. Just have to figure out how to get to my spot gracefully.

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Merci: Good session today!!! Still in the process of breaking in sp-teri's, but they really aren't that bad in my opinion, and it's still only the 3rd day of skating in them. Worked on flip-loop and lutz-loop. Those are getting really really good now. I decided that I wanted to work on spirals today, (my coach lets me pick what to do sometimes, within reason of course, LOL), and they ended up being pretty good. Biellmann was good, I just have to stretch up a bit more through my stomach. I'm soooo excited!! I got to learn a new jump today!! A russian split!!! LOL. They are SOOOO FUN!!! OMG!!! I can't do a stag jump to save my life, but boy can I do a darn good russian split for just starting 'em today!! I actually did some really good ones, and I got to see 'em since the glass on are rink also acts as a mirror, lol. I'm so excited to have learned something new, since I couldn't learn ANYTHING for like, a month and a half because my old skates couldn't hold up anything else. GOOD NEWS!! I GET TO START MY AXEL NEXT WEEK!!! I can't wait!!! The moment I've been waiting for FOREVER!!! I have it off ice, and I'd be doing it on ice if it weren't for those darned old skates. Thank god for new ones!! LOL. So I'm really looking forward to that.

No thanks: Had some pretty awkward falls today. One was while doing stag jumps, I fell forward on the landing, I fell kind of smoothly, if there is such a thing, haha, but leg sort of went over my head, caught an edge, chunked a piece of ice of the ground, and it flew into my ear, HAHA. LOL. It was quite funny, I must say. Then one was falling out of a back spin, , I never do that, lol, but I completely slammed my legs on the ground and one of the coaches was like, "OMG!!! ARE YOU OK?!?!?!" But all I did was slam my heavy boots, and slide, lol.

QUESTION: Ok, I can't do spread eagles AT ALL, but I can turn my feet in to where the toes are in the middle. Can anyone else do this?? I had EVERYONE on the ice today completely cracking up over it. They said they had never seen such a thing. Please tell me I'm not alone!!!

~Jess

You are not alone. Unfortunately, I can do it too. I met Kathy Casey at a conference once, and she actually suggested turning this thing into a "pigeon eagle". Blech!

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Last year I skated on a session with a girl who could do that. It was the funniest thing to watch. She couldn't do a spread eagle, either.

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"May the wind be at your back and the sun upon your face and may the wings of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars."

No Thanks:
Lots of kids, though the ice guard was there, he wasn't doing group ice sprays at the skaters, so the rugrats were going every which way at the beginning of the session!!!

Merci:
To those parents for getting the rugrats out towards the last 45 minutes so I can do runthrus of my Bronze Moves and I got thru it okay. Still working on the choctaw part of it but getting there. The 5 step mohawks today was the highlight of my day today! It went pretty well!!! Spent the last 5 minutes when I was tired playing around with back cross roll and forward power pulls. It also helped that a skating parent noticed and complemented me on my skating. She said said that I looked "relaxed and floating." (WOW! I sure did a good session if I fooled her... )

And to totally reward myself from all the physical activities I've done today (pilates, cardio and then skating for 1.5 hrs... straight moves practice with 2 5-minute breaks to do spins and just play around with power pulls and forward and back cross rolls), I got myself a nice grilled veggie panini with veggie soup, followed by a nice 15 minute chair massage, where Mr. Massage Therapist got out the knots off my shoulders from the entire week's stress! Mmmmm!!! (And some of you know exactly what I went thru this week, so you know I had A LOT of stress.)

__________________
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!!!

Merci:
Our skating show was a terrific success. I had a blast skating in the pro number -- we did the Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Thankfully, no one tripped over me in my sit spin. (Saved by everyone deciding the lighting was too dark for sunglasses!)

No Thanks:
I tried on and fitted the jumpsuit at least six times. When I went to put it on for the Show, the cheap zipper broken when I unzipped the empty outfit. Spent 20 minutes fixing the zipper.

From the "always have a dress rehearsal" category: at the end of the number, we all fall down on the ice. When I got back up, the velvet pants were more slippery than I thought and I plopped back down! (Even though we had a bunch of rehearsals in the late-night hours, none of us wore the actual costume.)

__________________

Merci: Worked on my russian split jump, it's going pretty good. My skates are getting broken in very well. They feel awesome. I've only been skating in them for 4 days and I'm already lacing them to the top! And they're sp-teri concrete boots!! LOL.

No thanks: Re-injured my back. Off the ice AT LEAST until next Friday or Saturday. Grrrrrrrrr..............

~Jess

AAACK!!! Feel better soon, Jess!!! How did you reinjured your back?

Merci: Moves were pretty fast and smooth...well when the ice was smooth and I didn't have too many kids.

No Thanks: Took a tumble on my knee while trying to push myself to do power 3's on my weaker side even faster. Though I can still bend my knee now, it's not that comfortable (minor pitch.) Needless to say, I cut my losses, packed up, and went home. (No elliptical trainer afterwards.) Then again, by the time this happened, I already skated a full hour and a half. I can walk. I think it's minor. I have no bruises (so far) or cuts on the knee but I think I just hit a nerve or something and I'd rather not push it for today.

At least my coaches should be proud of me today! I FELL!!! (I know.. not that big for you guys who fall all the time but for a big chicken like me it's a big deal... and I did it while pushing myself off my comfort zone, which is exactly what they want!!!) (Hey, maybe this is a Merci??? Those as ISk8NYC nicely puts it, it's more like MERCY!!! )

__________________
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!!!

No Thanks: I had such an off jump day- couldnt land any of my doubles more than a couple of times and even my axel was off.


Merci: On the bright side, my intermediate moves are getting progressively better and I think i actually have a hope of maybe passing some time in the near future. Spins were good too, and my camel-sit-backsit and layback-sit were really good. Coach was very proud of me.