Spinning Centered: Got to skate with renatele on Thursday! In true meetup style we went for Thai and some yummy French chocolate desserts. I wouldn't want to take her to the closest diner to the rink. It's gone way downhill for years & nothing has fixed it since.

Almost took her to this Japanese curry place until we see tall wooden stools and we want to face each other as we dine.

Nice to see that Renatele hasn't lost much of her skating as she's led me to believe. Still FAST back crossovers!

Spinning Out of Control: Had no gas left in me on Thursday! Couldn't jump or spin. I gave everything I got skating-wise on Tuesday with my secondary coach. Just ended up putzing around with BO and BI edges. Some spins 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!!!

Welcome back!!!

The important thing is that you are insured, either privately or as a coach with a LTS program.

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Spinning Centered: Making a coaching change. It's official.

Part of me is sad because I am really happy with my current coach, he's a great coach and he's become a good friend, but he cut back coaching time and with my work/law school schedules, I just can't get lessons from him on any sort of regular basis. I told him last month that I'd have to start looking for someone else to work with regularly. There is another coach in the area who I've always really liked (he's a freestyle coach but coached and worked with my synchro team in various capacities when I was a teenager). I talked to him today and he just happens to have time on a session I'm able to do, we'll start in a week and a half. He currently coaches an adult who competes masters jr/sr, and has had a few other adult skaters in the past, so he gets the whole adult skating thing. The other good news is that he doesn't do dance, so when the current coach can squeeze me in or our schedules line up to where I can get a lesson, I can just focus on dance with him.

This also means I'm skating at a different rink before work (farther from my house but it's somewhat on my way to work), but I think the change of scenery will also be good for me.

Other than that news, I had a decent session today. Getting the LFI-LBO bracket entry into a lutz down, that's actually easier than the LFO rocker entry. First half of my jr moves test was SO GOOD!! If I only didn't have to do those darn diagonal patterns. I really want to test at Buckeye, so hopefully they will get better in time to at least put out a respectable attempt.

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2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

Out of control:
--Practice at "school rink" last week was sort of discouraging. I suck, wah. Didn't get to go this week because of some stuff I had to take care of, but next week I will.
--Still discouraged today (first fall session class). Instructor A. (a different A. than last class) had us (two of us in the class right now; other lady, V., is about same level as me) on a circle doing two forward crossovers, then an O 3-turn, then two backward crossovers, then step back to going forwards. Awkward at best! i also can't do the "step to going forwards" thing worth crap. GRRR.
--Also, fell down twice, both times backwards--first time I landed on my well-padded bum, no problem. Second time I hit my butt and kept going backwards, so hit in that area just above my butt where there's no padding, out. Head jerked a bit too but at least I didn't go so far back what I hit it (i was half on my back when I regained balanced). Unfortunately, both were those kind of fall that take you by surprise so you don't have time to try to fall gently. Will be interested to see what the bruise looks like. A. showed me all her arm bruises and said she has like a permanent bruise on one hip from falling through the years, so I am not discouraged.
--A. also showed me how to start a two-foot spin from a pivot but I suck at that.
--On a different rink today and it was COLD! Might have to do that neoprene-boot-cover hack and get some neoprene boot liners to cut a slit in. Need to find the thread about that again. Warmed up by the end, but still.

Centered:
--I had one two-foot spin that didn't have a ton of revs but it was pretty fast and I didn't panic at the speed and rock forward onto my toe picks. Go me! Also got a few revs in on a one-foot spin...I found that it's not that I prefer spinning one way or the other, it's that I prefer spinning on my left foot, lol (damn my right foot!). She had us doing backspins, for some reason, if I'm correct (backspin is where if I'm spinning counter-clockwise, I'm on my L foot, right? Oh, I dunno. The more I think about it, the more I am confused about spins, so I guess I don't really know the difference between a backspin and a forward spin. I can think of three ways to do a spin on each foot [let's use L as an example]: I can go CCW with toe pick leading on outside edge as if starting an FO 3-turn [what I was doing today], CW with heel leading on outside edge as if started a BO 3-turn, and CW with toe pick leading on inside edge as if starting an FI 3-turn [also what I was doing today]. I haven't a clue what all that means). But I tried forward (see above??) spins too, and again the left foot was better (IOW, backspin went CCW and forward spin went CW, lol. On right foot spins went nowhere!). If she's going to have me trying one-foot spins, though, I need to have her show me a proper way to go into it rather than me just bumbling into a spin!!
--We also worked on 3-turns (not bad today though I still have trouble getting my balance right and holding that edge after the 3-turn), back crossovers (improving an itsy bit).
--Then after A. left, a bit of work on bunny hops and they are maybe improving a bit. Which isn't saying much. Also some on edges (front okay, BO out, BI still suck largely) and a couple of turns around a circle with F crossovers both ways (nice, I felt smooth and almost like I was flying).
--No "zamboni nazi" to chase us off the rink today when class was over like there was in our evening class (hockey was right after), but apparently the session just after ours is a tot or Snowplow session or something because the rink was swarming with small children...which was just as effective at keeping me from overstaying my session, lol. Reminded me of being in a popcorn popper, only the popcorn had skates on.
--A. also gave me some tips on hockey stops because I've only been wanting to learn them forever.

If you are on your L foot spinning CCW, then that is a plain vanilla one foot spin, sometimes called a forward spin, but really done on the BI edge. A backspin is done on the BO edge, which means that your weight is towards the front of the blade, pretty much over the little toe. Cheated backspins are when the weight shifts to the back part of the blade so the edge is a FI. (If you can do a real backspin, then change edge to the FI, it's not a cheat.) A FO spin means the weight is on the back of the blade and you are spinning on the FO edge. That one is the most difficult.

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Oh dear. I thought all spins were on the spot just behind the toe pick. I am more confused than I thought. I wondered, though, why I have seemed to be able to spin easily on an area of the blade that seems like it's closer to the arch of my foot than my toes. I just thought I was really screwed up!

Going to have to put this question to my instructor and have her demonstrate, because I just don't "get" it from your description (I'm more a visual learner and am having a hard time picturing it in my head...doesn't help that I think I had the totally wrong idea about spinning on edges, though I swear I finally "felt" it today).

All spins are done on a single edge, using the rocker's "sweet spot."
The Sweet Spot is right behind the toe pick. It should be under the ball of your foot.

One of my current blade woes is that the rocker is set too far forward because the blades are too long. It's really hard to spin with your weight on the weakest part of your foot (balance-wise) - the toes!

Here's an exercise to help you find the sweet spot for spinning:

Stand facing the wall with your feet straight, toes pointing to the wall.
| |
Rest your hands on the wall lightly for support/balance.
"Swish" your feet back and forth at the same direction/time, like this:
\ \ . || . / / . \ \ . || . / / . \ \ . || . / / . \ \ . || . / /

Your blades will scrape up snow if you're too far back on the blade.

Come up to your toepicks and repeat the "swishing" -- your toepicks will dig holes in the ice.

Now, "roll back" a bit on the blade at a time to the spot where the toepicks don't touch and the blade encounters little/no resistance. That's the rocker, aka: sweet spot.

Spins are done on one edge, in that sweet spot front-to-back.
(I'm not talking about two-foot spins that might use flats/both edges)

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Forward edge spins are not done on the sweet spot. They are done farther back, just back of the middle of the blade. You can see that in the tracings made by the FO and FI spins. When skating forward, the weight is always behind the middle of the blade, and this goes for the spins also. This is the same for BO and BI three turns - not done on the front of the blade, but behind the mid point.

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I will be working as an employee of the rink so I will be covered by the rink's insurance (I asked just to make sure, its the difference between being a regular employee who is teaching some skating moves vs a coach).

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Great! Congratulations! I hope you get some free skating out of it.

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[Centered]
Got to coach this morning...had Snowplow 1 (I always end up with Snowplow 1s I don't mind it, because I love the kids, but my back always hurts!!) and Basic 5...

Then I skated 2 sessions...did a lot of work on the junior power pulls and then decided to do freestyle and one of the kids I skate with (12 years old) decided to come out and play "coach"...and damn, did she work me...I had planned to clean and do some stuff today, but instead have been sitting on my couch dead...and now my tummy isn't feeling too hot....

[Out of Control]
I still have work to do on the power pulls, but I was able to get through 1 full pattern today...

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

I sure did! Got there at 12:15 and the party lesson was supposed to start at 12:30.....it finally did at 1:15!!!! So, I got some free skating between point A and point B. And stayed after an extra 30 minutes (helps with boot break-in but I still need that punch-out). Great group of kids, basically a Snowplow group (between 1-3, they were all mixed up).

I love teaching...I need to find out what I need in order to start down the road of coaching.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

[Out of Control]
Looked at the test session schedule and I'm not on there...e-mailed the test chair because I haven't received any notification that I didn't get into the session.

I'm not happy right now because I have finally got myself into a good place mentally to take these tests....

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Hope it works out for you! The same thing happened to me last month, I was supposed to test in August but the mail didn't get there by the deadline. So I tested today and passed preliminary moves!!!!!!

Today was my second attempt and it just felt different from last time, I thought I might have a shot for passing, but you still never know.

Forward/back crossovers: 2.4 (knee action a bit stiff-flow fine; transitions fine; backward-weak in extending 2nd stroke extensions)
Outside/inside spirals: 2.6 (nice sense of axis-secure edges; left edge slight wobble; spirals-nice stretch)
Power 3 turns: 2.5 (secure elements-flow a bit "sticky")
Alternating 3 turns: 2.4 (arcs retrogress-flow to axis short; turns a bit early)
Back crossovers/extensions: 2.6 (quiet/continuous flow)
Total: 12.5 PASS

Now onto a program for Autumn Skate and prejuvenile moves.

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~Always Dream!~

Check my progress at www.freewebs.com/sk8tegirl06

I did a few spins and turns in my fifteen minutes on the ice yesterday. Not too bad - I'm muscling everything and the rocker's in a different, but better, spot for me. Turns out my boot soles are two different lengths - guess that's one disadvantage of customs. That might explain the blade sizing issues.

I'll try to get in a few more short skating sessions and see if all is better.

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Hi sk8tegirl06

Congrats on passing your preliminary moves today.

And good luck onto the next level.

londonicechamp

Yuckidy yuck yuck.

I was skating yesterday on a rink that's smaller than NHL size (about 15' shorter). My jr moves were so good because I didn't have to push, otherwise I'd be hitting the walls. Maybe I should test at a smaller rink so it gives my lack of power on some of the moves (compared to teenage skaters I'd be testing in a group with) a legit excuse! Too bad the rink I was at also has an Olympic size surface and they always hold test sessions on that one, and the other rink this size only has (maybe) one or two test sessions a year.

Really hoping to test at Buckeye. First half is good/passable, I can get through the power pulls, it's just those darn choctaws that are atrocious. Hopefully new coach will be able to fix them, but I don't see him until Oct 2.

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2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

See, I can do the choctaws...it's the power pulls that I've been killing myself on to get them ready...and now, I'm not even testing I e-mailed the test chair about it, but haven't heard back yet. I'm not happy about it because I have put in so much time in the last few weeks preparing for this test...

Oh well....it will give me more time to get those power pulls ready!!

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

congratulations!

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congrats!!!!!