Trick: The competition's this weekend
Treat:The competition's this weekend

I know and I've been sick all weekend and going back to practice tomarrow. I have only a few days to get back into shape.

LOL! I think that says it all for me too!

Skated at Figure Club this evening since a friend was visiting from the USA. Lots of kids working on group numbers, and we worked a bit on our waltzing cat, but I want to change the step sequence and I'm not sure quite how to do it. I think I know what we are doing, though! Then we are changing another bit of it.... and so it goes.

Trick: Husband prostrated himself at my feet, which was all very well except that we were supposed to be doing a pivot-spiral at the time! I don't know what went wrong..... tried a pairs spin in waltz hold, why do I find this so frightening?

Treat: We have been watching the Natalia Dubova teaching tapes this evening, wonderful; I do believe my husband is beginning to believe that other parts of his anatomy than his feet are involved when he skates.....

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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!

LOL!!!! Me too! Me too!!!

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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!!!

You'll be fine, the lot of you!

Today's lesson:

Treat: I've been watching the Dubova training video, and this morning decided to try to put some of the things into practice. All I can say is, "Wow!" My forward runs were big and fast and went round a large circle; my back crossovers are beginning to happen (still mostly holding my coach's hands, but at least they are happening) in both directions; my back runs, even, which I've never been able to do before were, if not good, at least there. A bit uneven, still - I can't get the outside push properly - but still happens. And my backwards stamina exercise started to flow really well.

Trick: But my 3-turns were either clunky or not there - I keep bottling them. If I'd been with a partner, they would have been fast and elegant, but solo? Forget it! I was getting so frustrated with myself. My Mohawk exercise, although much improved, was also clunky. And would someone please explain exactly how it is possible to cover the length of the rink in 4 pushes (Olympic length), and the width (granted, only National length, but even still) in just one run/progressive/crossover???? Even the small boy on the Dubova video seems to be able to do it easily, but I can't! I can do 6 strokes easily now, but with Robert, I even struggle to get them. But 4, no way! My coach said it's hard, but I do think I ought to be able to do it.

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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!

Trick: I've started on a new fs program, haven't done one in a few years! I was watching one of the kids skate and she had a beautiful short program (perfect length for silver). I asked her if I could use it, and she said yes. We have the same coaches, and they were also fine with it. We're replacing the doubles with singles and adding one more spin. It's quite a challenging program, but fun to work on the new elements. So far working on a cross foot fw pivot and a figures loop.
Treat: Good thing I have till April.

Trick: Where are my spins and jumps??? Especially the sit spins and the loop!!! I at least landed those loops Monday afternoon.

Treat: My secondary coach threw a twist to my beginning of the program. Of course, since this is Jay's program, I should run it by him first. Looks pretty enough.

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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!!!

Trick & Treat
I now have to do the prelim power threes in every lesson, and so have been practicing them every time I skate, which is, of couse, what is required to improve This was the first move we did on Monday, and after doing them on the line, my coach said, "how about doing them on the long axis now?", which strikes fear deep into my heart. Nevertheless, I proceeded, without the entry three, of course, as that is my very major roadblock. I managed to get through both sides without windmilling myself prostrate onto the ice with an out of control three. Coach complimented me and then said that what I really need to do now is get some power and speed! The joke is on her, because she could not hear the skid I was applying to every crossover to keep my speed down!!! I use the crossovers to slow down, not speed up, because of my control issues with the threes. Guess when I get the threes comfy, I will really be doing "power" threes

Treat
BO crossovers to BO edge pattern has improved, but I need to regularize the size of my lobes.

I'm getting more power on the alt spiral pattern.

Trick
Still not entirely comfortable with LBO edge on the BO crossover to BO edge pattern, which is what is making the pattern irregular.

Cannot add the actual spirals into the spiral pattern until my hip problems have improved, and still need more power, especially on the FO side.

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No Treat...

Trick on both my coach and me... Bay Bridge traffic was congested!!! Primary coach barely made it to the rink in time for me to get OFF the ice to go to work. Okay, we did go thru ONE quickie runthrough before I got off the ice... but we barely had a lesson. GRRRR!!!!

Wish me luck tomorrow at Skate SF! I'll need it! I got FIVE PEOPLE now in my event. There goes my default medal!

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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!!!

Good luck tomorrow! How much sweeter that medal will be if you do get one.

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Treat: just being back on the ice after almost two weeks was a treat in itself. PJuv moves are improving slowly. My coach and I figured out a way to do the back inside threes; not the most aetheticly pleasing but I can do them - YAY!

Trick: Having done the BI3s, we moved on to perfecting the check on BO3 and just as I was getting the hang of that, I slipped off the back of the blade and fell smack on my lower back and thumped my head on the ice. The thud was loud enough that all activity in the rink stopped and one of the coaches went running for an ice pack. I guess my head is harder than I thought, though, because it didn't really hurt, never swelled and seems to be fine now. My lower back is sore, though. (Note to self: jeans are not the best choice of apparel with a bruised lower back; the seams are in the wrong place.)

Treat: Got back on the ice for the freestyle session and did okay. Really good change sit spin. I think the axel may have gained another degree of rotation too. Anyway, it's progress. As long as I keep seeing some kind of improvement, I'm content.

Owww! Poor BlueIIIMoon! Hope your head is better now.

Jazzpants, you'll be great and I think you'll make the podium. But even if you don't, skate great and you'll be a winner anyway.

Anyway, for last night's dance club and this morning's practice:

Trick: At Dance Club I suddenly realised my blades were too blunt to skate on any more. So I got off the ice and put a temporary edge on them with an oilstone I keep in my skate bag for the purpose, and then I saw the coach who sharpens them from me and went over to speak to him. Disaster! He is no longer allowed to use the rink's sharpening apparatus, having apparently been doing so unofficially for all these years, and had to refuse. So I go home rather upset, and ring my own coach, who wasn't in that evening. Phew! His skaters take turns taking their skates to a sharpener he knows and recommends, and are about to do so very shortly, and in the meantime he'll put a temporary edge on my blades with his sharpening stone (I must get a pro-Filer, I think). So my skates will go when the rest of his students' blades go, hopefully next weekend.

From a skating point of view, my main problem at the moment, apart from total lack of flow into turns of any sort, is back cross-cuts. I simply can't get the hang of them at all - I can do 2 or 3 in a routine, and usually do, but a whole lap-ful, like you have to do in our Field and Dance moves? No way.... It's the "draw", I simply can't fathom out how it's done.

Treat: Last night's dance club, until my blades gave out, was fun - I was really focussing on pre-bending and pushing, to the point that I sometimes forgot what I was doing as I was too focussed on how I was doing it! The odd rushed run in dances like the Riverside Rhumba..... Had a go at the Tango with Husband, but forgot the steps..... Had a go at the Blues solo, but also forgot the steps; haven't dared try that one with Husband yet. Did good, fast Prelim Waltz but rather out of time; great Swing Dance, which gets faster and faster now; even managed a rather shaky Willow Waltz! He went off by himself for the 14-step and Foxtrot, which annoyed me, but still.... Oh, and we did the Fiesta and I didn't bottle the Mohawk, but found I was horribly shuffly on all that end section. Ah well....

Then this morning we had a really, really good practice. We nearly didn't go at all, I was so stiff, but we finally had a good 30 minutes together. We worked on our stroking - managed 6 pushes down the rink easily, but no way could we do 4 - on our forward runs round the circle - okay, except for the anti-clockwise reverse kilian ones, which I wasn't extending properly on - and on our back crossovers, which actually worked, after a bit! In both directions! And a pivot spiral that was better and flowier than ever before, although I hate to think where my free leg was - probably about 2 inches off the ice!

Then when he'd gone I worked on my alternating crossovers/Russian stroking/snakies, whatever you call it, and did that better and faster than ever, too, to the point that I am really skating them out of my comfort zone! Fun..... And my backwards stroking, although not nearly as good as my forwards, felt easy and flowy, easier than ever before, and I can almost do back cross-rolls now, although still not very well. Back progressives still horrendously clunky, much worse than I thought they were (in my dreams!). But they are at least there, which is new and delightful. So a very good skate day, all in all.

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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!

Yesterday's lesson.

Trick
I have the most horrendous cold at the moment. Not just a bit of a sniffle, but the shivers, the feverishness, the sore throat, the headache and the ears, nose and sinuses absolutely clogged up, so skating really wasn't a great idea yesterday. I managed to survive my lesson and hoped that the skate would help me to sweat out this awful cold, but no luck so far.

Treat
My coach came in specially to teach myself and my two kids on the lunchtime patch yesterday which was very nice of her, especially since the patch was quite quiet despite it being the school holidays.

I got out of doing my bronze field moves because I felt so awful, so we continued choreographing my new free programme instead. It's coming along fine - just a few tricky steps I need to run through a few times before my next lesson.

I also did some decent camel-sit combinations and several lutz-loop combinations.

Nicki

Oh, poor you! I do wish you better. My daughter has had this cold, and felt very rotten with it - I have escaped, touch wood, with total loss of voice (at the Scottish - never, ever again do I go to a competition without a noisemaker, just in case!), followed by a cough and persistent sore throat.

Usually if I skate when I feel like that we do figures!

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

Treat: I had the ice all to myself for the first hour because almost everyone is competing this weekend. It was heaven. Made improvements on all three sr. silver skills exercises. Stayed on the ice for two hours, which was longer than I'd anticipated, and got a serious work-out!

Trick: No music for the first hour until a small girl showed up and we were able to fit her through the window to the sound booth to hook it up (the door was locked and rink personnel nowhere to be found). I'm testing my skills in three weeks and don't feel as ready as I'd like, but hopefully if I just keep running them I will be more confident about them by test day.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Trick: Coach wants us to dumb down our Free Dance for testing, but he's taking out all my best bits! At least, all my favourite bits; we are supposed to do "simple steps, well", rather than try to show what difficult things we can do. He promised me that he dumbs down his free skaters' programmes for their tests, too, but all the same....

We have changed the choreography of our Interpretive Pairs routine, and are now doing a spin from a different entry than in our Free Dance, which is really hard. I think we'll get it, but it sure isn't easy right now! We are both so uncertain of our spinning ability that if one of us doesn't bottle it, the other does! But it's feeling as though it will come with work, rather than feeling impossible! We did one run-through to the music but as it was the first we'd done since July, it was kind of scrappy, to say the least! But not too bad, considering.

Treat: I tried a new Mohawk exercise from the Dubova teaching tape, and actually managed to do it, which surprised me! Neither well nor fast, but I didn't find it impossible! Also finding my backwards stroking is finally becoming faster and flowier, and I'm far more able to sit down over my skate than once I was. Eventually, I suppose, the hard work pays off!

Now, of course, comes the Big Decision: Do we practice on Tuesday morning or Tuesday evening this week?

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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!

Two questions:

Mrs. Redboots, I'd like to know what the mohawk exercise is. I'm in mohawk crisis with both the Swing (open) and Tango mohawk (closed) and the Canadian waltzing mohawk skills. More or different exercises might help.

and dbny, what is preliminary power threes? I'm doing the Canadian waltzing 3s which are two intro steps, RFO 3, step, RFI 3, step, RFO, step, RFI, and around the end with a RFI and a crossover, and do LFO, step, LFI and so on for a total of 10 three turns around the rink, finish with two arabesques, all done on time to an awful piece of official Skate Canada music and I'm not doing those well either.

Treat:

I got complimented on my spirals (from the end of the waltzing mohawk pattern) by a teenage skater. Whoopie, I'm happy.

Well, the one that I loathe and detest and abominate and can't do (and my coach makes me do every single lesson) is RFI/LBI closed Mohawk, cross to RBO, step to LFI/RBI closed Mohawk, cross to LBO and repeat..... I can do the Mohawks, no problem, but hate pushing into them, and changing my torso so fast. You can also do these with outside Mohawks, which I have to do. The exercise I was doing today, though, was LFO, cross to RFI progressive, LFI/RBI Mohawk, LBO, step to RFO, cross to LFI progressive, RFI/LBI Mohawk and repeat, which involves just as much turning and weight shift, but I found it easier. Then we have various Mohawk exercises in our Field Moves.

For the Swing Dance Mohawk, what I do is go to the hockey goal, then do LFO edge, then the RFI/LBI mohawk, and step down to RBO, round the hockey goal - first using one beat each edge of the Mohawk, as in the Fiesta, then holding it for 2 beats, as in the Swing Dance, and finally trying to hold it for 3 beats, and usually not succeeding, as in the Willow Waltz. The Tango mohawk is easier with a partner, but if you go on practising outside open Mohawks on both sides, with a crossover or whatever in between, it will come.

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

Thank you! I've printed this out for Monday night's practice. I'm not yet on the Willow, but it's good (ha ha) to know that it's got yet a different mohawk timing, I'm more terrified of the three turn in that dance so am reluctant to start on it.

I'm just realizing that there's different kinds of mohawks, I do the same sort of generic mohawk when I get flustered although I know what it is supposed to be. (coach grits teeth). I skate at one rink sometimes that has a mirrored end and it's been enlightening and frightful to see my reflection of what I think my mohawk is, and what it actually looks like.

Down the long axis:

Begin with 4 intro steps, then LFO three, step to RBI keeping L on ice, L hand over deeply bent R knee, change weight to LBO reversing arms so R hand is now over deeply bent L knee, and do CW crossover, step to LFO (leading with R arm) for next three. Crossovers around end, and do same with RFO threes.

It's basically back power crossovers (aka Russian stroking) with FO threes thrown in for fun.

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Actually, that 3-turn isn't bad! I'm always surprised by just how "not bad" it is, since I, too, rather dreaded it. But dancing it with a partner, assuming your partner knows how to help you (and mine has just learnt, we talked about why I couldn't do the 3-turn, and what he needed to do to help me, and he now does, and I do it easily, almost without his help) makes it easier (your coach will help you turn it at first, then you manage on your own). Although I doubt I could do it at speed solo.

Actually, there's 4 different kinds - outside open (Foxtrot, Rocker, Tango), outside closed (10-step, 14-step, Ten-Fox, and I think 22-step but wouldn't swear to it), inside open (I don't know a single dance where this is required, but most of the exercises use it, and why we have to do it, other than for the good our our souls, I don't know!), and inside closed (Fiesta, Swing Dance, Willow). I remember once doing a Mohawk exercise and someone asked me whether I was doing an open or a closed Mohawk (the name refers to the position of one's hips, although in fact for an open Mohawk one puts one's exit foot with its instep to the heel of one's entry foot, and for a closed one, it's the heel of the exit foot to the instep of the entry foot), and all I could answer was "Yes."

I've found doing Mohawks close to the boards helps - not because I need to hold on, or anything, although I do sometimes just practice the movement required holding on, without actually moving, but because doing them by the boards I find my upper body automatically does the right thing, in a way I can't make it do away from them!

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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!

Over here in US, we consider the Foxtrot/Rocker/Tango mohawks to be closed outside mohawks... and the 14-step/10-Fox (and Viennese) mohawks to be open outside mohawks, and the Fiesta/Swing Dance/Willow (and a few higher dances) mohawks to be open inside mohawks. At least this is how they are identified on the dance pattern sheets in the USFS rulebook and the judge's sheets for tests.

I believe the definition is the same in both countries, but there is always a lot of confusion over it. I know we have had threads on this before. Anyway, the significant factor is where the free leg is after the turn. If it is behind you (leading, since you are now going backwards), then the Mohawk was open, if the free leg is in front, then the turn was closed. It comes from the position of the hips during the turn, but free leg after is the give away. Another way some people ID Mohawks is to look for placement of the during the turn. If the heel of the free foot goes to the instep or heel of the skating foot, then the turn is open, if the heel of the free foot goes behind the heel of the skating foot, then the turn is closed. These distinctions are true for both F and B Mohawks.

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Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh - I might have known I'd get it wrong! Sorry about that!

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