I picked the Triple Axel as the good stuff that makes you go wow because, well, I saw a skater on the session after mine who is just a Novice skater (girl) do 6 clean Triple Axels and all of us watching were clapping and screaming "Wow!" My coach was so thrilled that he grabbed his video camera and taped a few of them for her. And then I thought about when we skaters don't really try to do our best on an element because we are tired or something and the element doesn't even come close to working. I'd call those Half Baked.

I didn't skate Monday because I'm not scheduled to skate on Mondays. so I'm starting with today, Tuesday.

Half Baked:
My camel. I only got one revolution out of it but then, I picked my last session of the day near the end of the day to try it. I was baked by then.
The early part of my first session salchows and toe loops. Laughable and really wrong. Just not awake yet.
Backspin didn't even try one.
Second run through of my test freeskate program: was interupted and just wasn't with it. Also near end of second session.

Triple Axel:
Big waltz jump in time with the music during my first run through.
LFO spiral was up higher than my hip.
Got my RFO ce RFI spiral going in program.
Toe loop/toe loop combo (after first early part of first session onward)
Salchow/toe/toe
Salchow out of LB spiral (starting to work again)
Loop jump (really close to landing them clean. coach says I will have them clean by next week. We will see if I beat that or if he's wrong.)
Flip ( same as loop)
FSitspin/broken/upright starting to come together. I know I don't need it for Adult Bronze in Canada but I plan on doing a competition or two in the US this fall.

I still can't believe that I saw that Novice skater do 6 Clean Triple Axels on one session. I'm suspecting that's more clean Triple Axels than Emmanuel Sandhu can do in one session. Am I right? Wow! Hope Joannie Rochette gets her Triple Axel and Quad Salchow going because she's going to need it with those Japanese and Korean skaters doing them. Crossing my figures!

__________________
"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Wow, I was back on REAL ice today!!!!

Half-Baked: Ever want to look like a total NEWBIE SKATER??? Then skate on synthetic for a while and then hit the real stuff!!! I thought I was going to fall and crack my head (faint memories of my past concussion).....it took me about an HOUR before I could even think about doing a 3-turn!!! I was glad the ice was not resurfaced before we went on---the roughness helped. My skates were dull from the fake stuff and that helped also (they are on a 5/8" hollow so I would have been killed for sure).

Spins were tentative-tried some 2-footed for a while and they were eventually centering. 3-turns were very weird. My balance is off.

Did some hoppy jumps first, before braving some waltz jumps. Then after a while, it got better. I did attempt some salchows, but they were crappy, since I still wasn't feeling all that secure.

Triple Axel: Not really but better...did some nice waltz jumps, really dug my toepick in on the landings!!! Yay! My coach has been trying to get me to do that for a long time!

I will tell you-three good pushes and I was at the other end of the rink!!! I got speed!!!! It was amazing! My daughter kept telling me to slow down...

Did some spirals and although they weren't up to par they weren't too bad. At least I didn't bite the toepick!!!

Thinking of going back next Tuesday, if I can.

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

triple axel - backspin sucks a whole bunch less than last week. I still have a long way to go, but I'm starting to have some faith that I'll get it eventually.
I had one lovely long centered forward spin, didn't need coach to tell me it was good, it felt great.

half-baked - everything else! My salchow, which had finally been showing signs of progress, took the day off. 9-step also wasn't nearly as nice when coach was watching as in yesterday's practice.


Coach explained the toe-loop to me. I did a couple with no height and about a half-rotation pivoted on the toepick, but I didn't care - something new, wheee!

Triple Axel: OMG was it EVER nice to get back on the ice after my 10 day sojourn in the sweltering heat! The rink was warm (no kidding - it was 34C outside!) and the ice was wet and soft. With my newly sharpened blades I was having an ABSOLUTE BALL with edges The DEEPEST edges felt really secure and I was in 7th Heaven! It reminded me so much of proper figure skating ice - something I have not seen in 36+ years.

Maybe because I was in such a good mood most everything was working well despite the week off and being dog tired! All 8 edges were good, FXOs were working like gang-busters, 3-Turns were so-so (i.e. “normal”), but I just couldn’t get my upright spin to centre (though I made some lovely 180 turns - LOL!)

In lesson we did back edges and introduced 3-Turns on-a-line.

Half Baked: (Or was that burned to a crisp?) We have 2 local competitions planned before next April's Nationals and the tech package just came out for the first one. The Freeskate time is 1 minute shorter than Nationals and there is no Well Balanced Program requirement so I am going to need TWO Freeskate programs (plus an Interpretive) - oh joy Coach and I spent the rest of lesson time figuring out the best way to do 2 variations of the same program without leaving points on the table at the local competition.

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

Triple Axel: (I guess this is the closest I'll come to a triple axel!) Am working almost exclusively on bronze moves now because the test is end of August - substitute coach (coach is on vacation) said I have the power down and my obstacle is learning the patterns exactly. Which is good, that I can fix. Last week I practiced the backwards perimeter stroking facing the wrong way...

5 step mohawk seq. is still the best move. RFO power 3s improving...

Did the fastest sit spin I've ever done the other day. Was low too. Then followed it with an absolutely horrible one, oh well

Half Baked: but backwards xovers/perimeter stroking is still the worst...I go off axis - remember to do one thing and forget another w/all the moves.
Really have to get that RFO power 3 right. I haven't done a flip in months and that's bad, but what's worse is I cannot for the life of me do a backspin, so that means it'll be a while before I pass or even test bronze freestyle

__________________
Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

Triple Axel: uh, everything! Seriously, I have no idea what happened, but everything felt really strong, and I might actually compete this year. Had different coach today (they coach as a husband/wife team, had the husband) Don't know what he said any differently, but all jumps were much higher, more secure, and more flow on landing. Heck, he even started me on loop jumps. It will be a while before that gets remotely good.

Half Baked: my attempts at loop jumps, it is such a weird feeling jumping up and landing on the same foot. He started my spins too, definite improvement in scratch spin but it took some major help.

__________________
~Always Dream!~

Check my progress at www.freewebs.com/sk8tegirl06

Triple (Half) Axel Group class was great today. The "high freestyle" (which is 3/4) coach wasn't there so I was in with "low freestyle" instead. We did waltz jumps, waltz jump-side toe tap-waltz jump, toe loops, toe-loop-toe-loops, and various combos of that. All my jumps felt really good. The coach told me I wasn't toe waltzing- and she showed me how to one foot glide then 3-turn rather than just start from a stand still 3-turn. It was excellent and skating into a toe loop isn't scary at all! (So now I have two jumps I can skate into! Waltz, and toe loop! And half flip, but that's a stupid jump). I got lots of compliments and it was great!

Half Baked Took a beautiful belly flop while trying to transition from a spiral to a catch foot. I don't know how I happened because there wasn't that moment of ice crunching where you know you hit your toepick. I was just gliding, and then I was on the ice. I smacked really hard into my ribs, and cut up both of my arms.

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Triple Axel:
Getting all of my spins back after finally getting my skates sharpened after uh, 8 months or so. What took me so long? Not only do I lose my spins for a bit after a sharpening, we have very few people who actually know how to sharpen figure blades around here and logistically it is a nightmare. The pro shop had a fit over one of the coaches taking skates home to sharpen (they were losing money-and we won't go to them anyway) so we have to give them to her in the rink parking lot.
Other than that, had a clean program runthrough and clean CM program runthrought today.

Half Baked:
While I got my newly sharpened skates yesterday I could only skate a hour on them because the facilities manager at our rink did not schedule someone to cut the ice, so freestyle was 45 minutes late getting started. Our skating director was livid!

Skittl- hope you're feeling better!

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Hi Liz... I'm confused... I thought you skated in the U.S... but I don't know what a 9-step is... I know the 5 step mohawk sequence and the 8-step mohawk sequence.. but had not heard about a 9-step sequence. I don't think it's a typo, because I thought I saw you refer to this earlier. Could you explain please? Thanks!

OUCH! I hope you're feeling better and your ribs aren't badly bruised. The cuts will heal, but probably remind you for a while that you took a real dive. Don't you just hate it when you do something like that and have NO idea how it happened? Good luck!

It's the dance-step sequence for the ISI freestyle 3 test. I'm not testing USFSA just yet.

-Liz

Thanks! I should have known that since my coach actually prefers ISI to USFS. I guess I just temporarily lost my mind (again).

Half-baked: We were playing with changes of very deep edges - do a fast, hard, circle of forward runs or crossovers, then hold the outside edge and try to change it. Husband couldn't hold the inside edge at all and kept doing 3-turns. Why is it that they are so easy to do when you don't want to, and so hard when you do???

Triple axel: Most things are going very well; we are rechoreographing the step sequence of our free dance to make it a bit harder, and of course it looks klutzy still. We have a new spin, though, which is nice.

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

Triple Axel: Well, my axels were amazing today. Great height and covering lots of ice! Yay for me!

Half Baked: So, yeah...my dances - I'm not sure if you'd consider them half baked because they werern't bad; it's just that certain parts of certain dances need extra work. Like the Paso, for instance...those two slides. Um, yeah...not quite getting my right leg locked on the second slide, which is frustrating! I can do it going slow or at a stand-still, but when you add my power and flow, it vanishes. Then there's the Starlight - I need to look lilty, flowy, waltzy...look people - I don't "do" waltzy! Although I guess if I plan to test this dance in two weeks, I better start, hahaha!

Baked Just Right: So, we're not sure what dance to put out - the Starlight, the Paso or both. My Starlight's big and powerful - I'm filling out the Olympic rink wall-to-wall...and it's not because my edges aren't deep...I'm just that powerful! It's harder to pass than the Paso, which is easier to partner, and since I need to squeeze in two week of dances lessons in the next week and two days, that might be the way to go. We'll see...

triple axel:
i'm pretty sure i landed double loop clean today. if not it was really close, so i'll take it.

Learned flying sit spin! it's fun, but a little scary.

half baked:
lesson was really boring, we workedon MITF practically the whole time.
My MITF just aren't improving. i'm practicing them, they just aren't getting any better. i give up

oh well, hopefully they'll be better at practice this afternoon.

__________________

triple axel:
-worked on different variations of spins today including upright/back, and camel/back.
-Loops were on today. I only had to do two of them and then we got to move on.

flips:
-was told to move off the line and do flips from the pattern. not cute.
-Sit spins are still ugly. Can you call them a sit spin if the only time you are actually both sitting and spinning is when you have fallen and are spinning on your behind on the ice?
-DC Traffic. Why oh why did it take me 25 minutes to drive 4 miles. (I don't live 5 miles to the rink...it was just 4 miles across the stupid bridge) I can run faster than that.

__________________
Happily defying the laws of physics when I skate...and not in a good way

If I could meet ole Axel Paulsen, I would kick him in the teeth

President and Founding member of the I hate Toe-Loops Club

Still a member, but trying to get out of the Pre-bronze peanut gallery.

Visit my skating journal

TRIPLE AXEL: On Sunday I passed my elementary stroking test (1st moves in the field test). I was so relieved.

HALF BAKED: On Monday I finally had my knee operation. My knee is the size of a small watermelon. I'm off the ice for 6 - 8 weeks. I don't know how i'm going to handle it especially as most of my friends are skaters and I don't want to hear anything about skating for the next 6 weeks. I hope I don't forget how to do lots of things. I just got my back spin the week before my knee operation.

Half Baked: The heat broke so the ice was back to hard-as-cement - no more wonderfully deep edges, no more forever-glides Coach didn't show up, so I had the 1:30 to practice.

Triple Axel: My summer coach from last year was there. The refrigeration plant at her rink packed it in so she and her students have moved to my rink. Haven't seen her since mid-winter so it was a nice reunion.

Half Baked: I spent the majority of my time trying to get my upright spins centred - mostly wasn't happening.

Triple Axel: I did manage to get some back change of edges happening - that's a first! And I also figured out what I do different in forward cross-overs (which are to die for) than backward cross-overs (which are almost non-existent). Now I just need to get up the nerve to do the same thing backwards as I do forward.

Half Baked: After 2 sleepless nights in a row, it will be an early-to-bed night. Maybe now that the stifling heat has broken I can get a good night's sleep.....

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

Today was all half baked. I felt a little off kilter today skating and realized *why* . Had to leave early. At least this will not be a issue when I compete in two weeks

Still had a okay loop jump, backscratch, forward scratch, salchow and toeloop, but toeloop/ toeloop combo and sitspin did not show up in program runthrough today . For the most part the clean programs are showing up more in practices as of late.

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Triple Axel:
I attempted axels and double salcows on Monday. The whole time I was thinking to myself...am I really doing this? Why am I doing this? Do I want to do this? Well, I did it! I didn't land any, but trying is the first step I haven't even attempted those jumps in about 5-6 years or more...

I finally did a decent back scratch spin. My forward scratch was very, very, very centered too

I'm feeling more confident on the ice, which is good...

Half Baked:
Intermediate MITF. I just can't seem to do some of the patterns up to my standard...the perimeter stroking with back power 3s, back double 3s, brackets in the field, and the slide chasse patterns are frustrating me (which means that the only patterns I'm feeling good about are the power crossovers...which means I have a lot of work to do!)...

Axels and double sows...so, while I haven't done these jumps in 5-6 years, when I did them, they were no better or worse than when I was doing them regularly....still 2 footed, cheated, or slightly under-rotated. I was hoping that a miracle would happen

I need a coach. Now that I'm feeling better on the ice, I know that I need a coach. Unfortunately, I'm not a member of the Syracuse Figure Skating Club, and haven't skated on their ice, so I don't know any of the coaches in the area. I just hope I can find someone who will be able to take me through the rest of my moves tests (if I decide to stay in Syracuse for a while...I might end up moving at some point because of my job).

Triple Axel:
Went to the clinic and found out that the pain I had near my ears inside the throat area was just my glands being filled from the recent ear infection I had last week. I didn't have adnoid problems. No surgery. Yeah!

Did a few LFO spirals/step down onto RFI edge/toe loop sequences clean.
Even did my LBI spiral/bend skating knee/salchow/toe loop.
Decent sitspins (I was low enough to count) 6 revs (3 normal, 3 broken) then up and out.
Forward corkscrew (had a few with 8 revs) and had to exit and then immediately do a two foot spin in the other direct because I'm not use to the speed of the spin. Coach says it helps to go the other direction when your dizzy from fast spinning.

After my last session today, I saw that same Novice girl do another two Triple Axels on her session. That's 8 successful clean triple axels in 2 days! Wow!

Have-Back:

Had only use of half of the ice with the normal amout of us freeskaters plus the hockey boys who somehow got to take up our ice. We couldn't do run throughs of programs or much jumping. I may have only jumped about 10 times in the whole hour. My coach thought the ice stituation sucked too.

Was skidding on my three turns. Dull blades. I hadn't had them sharpened since the beginning of Summer Skating School; the first week of July.

Camel My camel never went past the first revolution. Need lessons on it again.

Didn't get a lesson today because of those hockey boys and the lack of ice space. We had about 25 of us figure skaters on half of the ice while 15 or so hockey boys were doing power skating on the other half. We barely had room to do our spins. Some of the figure skaters left early because of it.

__________________
"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

CONGRATULATIONS!!! It's such a great feeling to pass any test.. but for me, especially the first ones.. since at that point I had no idea what I was getting myself into! Hurray for you kiwibabe! Good luck with your recovery. At least you can bask in the glow of a passing test while you recover. Oh, and keep thinking about how you skated (i.e. practice "in your mind"... which may make it easier when you get back on the ice).

Many congratulations - and huge hugs to you for having to be off the ice for so long. Still, worth having 6 weeks off now, and then being able to skate for the rest of your life!

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

managed to repost instead of reload

Half Baked Jessi does a swan dive onto the ice update.

Yesterday the entire right side of my body was sore, as I expected it to be because I hit the ice hard. So I went on with my day. Today- my leg, arm and shoulder are slightly less sore, but my lower abdomen (like in line with my bellybutton and hip bone is were the pain is centered) is a constant dull aching pain that is getting worse as the day goes on. I can't stand up, walk, or laugh without sharp stabbing pains- anything that contracts the muscle.

Since it's right about where the appendix is, I went ahead and called the doctor.

I have a MITF test in 18 days- so it better not be anything that puts me off the ice!!

ETA: Saw the doctor- definetly not the appendix. She says its very likely I cracked my lowest rib- but as nothing can be done about it, it's not really worth having it x-rayed. She thinks that most of the pain however is from extensive bruising of the soft tissue. I'm supposed to ice, take lots of pain killers she prescribed, and rest.

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)