(((((ibreakhearts66))))) - glad you are able to be back on the ice again and I'm also glad you are getting treated for the anorexia - sorry you have had to be going through all that.

Everybody here wants you to be healthy; thank you for sharing. Take good care of yourself and let us know how you're doing.

(((((ibreakhearts66))))) Glad to see you back on the ice. Yes, as you already figure, eating healthy and having a healthy amount of weight is very important to being able to skate well. Keep up with the outpatient program!!!

Hung Out to Dry: Spirals.... let's see... my secondary coach told me her team coach says "You have the Swastika spiral." My answer to him when I skated by him afterwards was "Heil, Hitler!!!" LOL!!!

the rest of the session, my body just didn't feel like skating, no matter how hard I tried to make it go skating. Lower back, legs...

Neatly Press: I just found out "The Chack" is now coaching at my rink!!! HOLEY MOLEY!!! (He was there since at least last week... but then I thought he was just a mystery skater who knew my primary coach... Mystery is now solved!!!)

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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!!!

This is for my lesson and practice on Friday night:

Neatly Press

My coach said that my forward stroking is good, though I need to bend my knees more. We also did crossovers at both ends of the rink.

My coach taught me progressive runs. This is fun. The move is not really cross over, but then I have to have my leg slide over my boots. Also did chasse. Got extra push at first, but then got it in the end.

Loop jump: not too bad, getting the rotation, but needs to work on height.

Sit spin: getting lower, needs to make sure that I keep my number of rotations in that lower sit position.

Forward spins: practised lots of these. Not too bad. Maximum I did is anywhere between 20 and 46 revolutions.

Chinese coach's wife was asking me about how to do a pivot spin, as she cannot do it. She was amazed at how centred I can do the sit spin. She must be impressed. Her husband, the chinese coach, then went up to her, and said that I am his ex Chinese friend's friend (this chinese coach and the ex-chinese friend were in the same team before, the ex-chinese friend emigrated to Australia with his wife later on). The chinese coach's wife and I then started chatting.

Hung Out to dry

Did not attempt to practise too many of the sit spins, as my sore pelvis problem seems to come back from hours of sitting in the office. I did not want to fall on the ice, so as to make the sore back even worse.

Coach said that backspin is getting better, and I need to keep working on them, so that I can progress onto ISI freestyle level 5 in the future.

Skipped the jumps as did not want to strain my pelvis area further.

Almost last week of school holidays here in Singapore, so the kids are getting crazy at the rink. They were breaking rules, and the ice stewards had to keep on blowing whistles at these kids, upon the request of the ice rink management. The ice stewards later had to put cones around the area where the chinese coach was teaching his high level freestyle skater how to do a double jump.

This is for the past couple of weeks:

Hung out to Dry: I've gone back to working out with my old off-ice trainer. It has been working really well and my coach could see the positive effects on my skating almost immediately. Last week, I was doing squat-jumps in the off-ice class. Came down completely wrong on one of them, and my left knee just buckled (this has been my "trick knee" for years anyway). Hurt like you-know-what. I am walking okay on it, except for going walking down the stairs, where it's still painful and weak. It's improving enough that I don't think it's serious, just a lovely sprain and have just been icing it and taking it easy the last week or so, but really. I'm SO TIRED of being injured. I just started feeling like I'm moving forward again after the layoff from my broken wrist.

Neatly Pressed: Obviously not a whole lot since I couldn't skate much. Yesterday was my first attempt. Since the pre-pre moves are getting close to testable (just need to get the stupid spirals a little higher, I think), we worked on the new figure-like move that will be in Preliminary come 9/1. It was....interesting. Coach grew up when figures were required and liked them so she is thrilled to be able to teach them in some form again. I'm not getting the "enjoyment" thing, really, but I do see where they are good for teaching edge control and such. One of the rinks close by has a public tonight and at this time of year they are usually empty, so I think I'm going to wrap the knee again and see what else I can do tonight. If nothing else, I'm only out 5 bucks.

Neatly Pressed: After Thursday's roller session (extremely hot, inside temps around 90F), I decided to make the drive to Columbus Ohio to the Dispatch Ice Haus for a noon session on real, cool ice.

While I've been doing spins on the PIC skates - about 3 or 4 revs if I'm lucky - I immediately nailed a fast, centered scratch spin on the ice within the first 10 minutes of the public session. It is SO much easier to spin on ice!

BTW, what's wrong with you Columbus, Ohio skaters? In the entire $4 public session, there were never more than 6 people TOTAL. The ice is the best I've ever skated on, the huge windows along one wall are good for the soul, parking is free, and it's EMPTY! It's all going to waste!

There was another fellow my age on the ice the whole time - Jeff from Logan, Ohio - who has some native talent. His style was unconventional, and he was unafraid to be himself when skating. It's not test-passing style/material, but he had a lot of interesting expression in his arm gestures and steps. It was obvious that he just loved skating. I should do a documentary photo project on some of the interesting figure skaters I meet.

I pushed hard the whole 1-1/2 hours of skating,and came off the ice soaking wet. Today, I'm paying the price of 2 hours of vigorous roller-skating on Thursday, and the time on the ice yestereday. My upper thighs are complaining today. It doesn't take long to get out of shape.

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Bill Schneider

Worked on edges, two foot brackets,counters,rockers, back edges, back crossovers, and strikes.

Neatly pressed:
I can do clockwise back crosses with flow and good position. Hooray! One way down!
My forward edges are solid. Flow, position, speed, shape. I've seen freestyle adults with nice jumps at this rink who can't do forward edges as well as I can. Now coach is working on my strike (more later).
Then we started fooling around with two foot brackets, counters and rockers. I can do this.

Hung out to dry:
Everything here has to do with my left leg.
My counterclockwise back crosses have toe pick drag and my back stroke (the left leg) is weak. Also I have foot drop with the left leg.
A strike should be at a right angle to the skating foot.I can do that with the right foot not with the left. We spent 15 minutes working on getting my left foot to go to a right angle for a strike. I have the CURSE OF ONE CLOSED HIP!
Relearning back edges--nothing to see here, avert your eyes. Coach is making me do it the grown up way with the arm swing and starting facing down the line and everything (wail)

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC