In honor of bunny day.

Cracked: major crack - Jackson called my fitter (5 weeks after the order) and said they can not make the needed modification to the boot I ordered. They can however make it to the boot 1 step lower. I said that's fine, and now I have to wait and wait for the boots again. Nationals is going to be a complete wash. I'm still in my slipper skates and no new ones in sight. I'll be amazed if I get throught the initial round, let alone the final! I'm making returnable reservations!

Chocolate: Took a club group lesson with the kids. Figured I may as well try a couple of doubles as I would be in these skates for a while (haven't done them in a few months). Almost landed the second one - I think I could with good boots.

Cracked: Still recovering from pneumonia-first day back on the ice (Sunday) was for one hour of show rehearsal spent freezing and waiting our turn for a quick three times run-through of the worst part of our 'hobo' routine (don't ask). Went back hours later for adults-only skate, which brings me to...

Chocolate: Yes, after a frozen hour in the morning, the afternoon was very pleasant! Ran through the basics, which was about all I know anyway (mostly), and had a wonderful time! Felt like fluid on the ice, even did some very nice spirals and one attemped back spiral. Even got hubby to try some one-foot spins (evil grin) without him falling. Even funnier, went into my spin and almost fell over because I went over on my edge too far, but was in too good a mood to do anything but laugh about it! I plan on working on my loop on Thursday, if I have enough energy (and padding). Didn't get very breathless (sucked on the inhaler before venturing out) and tried to pace myself. Also realized my skates need to be sharpened now (before the show).

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

As they say in my country ( " goodonya mate ") happy to here you had a good time on the ice that afternoon it alway's makes you want to go back and do even better the next time. What rink are you skating at , Im doing the Wilmington show in late April after Nationals..

Flo
Sorrry to hear about your skates, But if you managed before in your current skates Im sure you can do it again. ( unless there as soft as a pair of skates from the 1930's ). I would be willing to bet you where working on the double Sal again. from a personal experience ( and a painfull one at that). I learned that in boots that are close to the end of there life the double Sal is one of the more difficult jumps because the boots have lost some of the support and that makes it even more critiical to get over the inside edge and ride that edge into the air for the jump. If its an effortless feeling to you, ( You got it already ") and the boots will be a minor handy cap. Your a strong skater Flo , Im sure you will make it all happen on the day. LET ME KNOW WHAT DAY YOUR SKATING, Ill make a note, and make sure Im there to cheer you on.

Thanks Ross,
It is the double sal! I'm skating on Wednesday for initial rounds. The problem I'm having is getting in practice. I can only skate for so long before my feet hurt. I think I am developing strong feet from hanging onto the boots!
Thanks,

In that case, Flo, don't you DARE go home before Friday night and the skatingforums.com party at Jack Stacks. I shan't be there until Thursday, and really want to meet you!

My Overland Park friends say Jack Stacks is a wonderful place to eat, by the way.

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

Ill be there Flo. If you need a practice buddy to drive you along one day Id be happy to get on the ice with you somewhere and do those jumps. It alway's helps when I have a practice buddy to watch over me and give advice now and then , You never know what might help . I take all comments and use what works and throw out what doesn't. But its a lot more fun to practice with a friend. It drives me to try things. The ice at Ice Works is quite open during the day if you can get there. Last week I had it to myself for 2 sessions. Ill be there evey Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the next 4 weeks leading up to Nationals or maybe if you do want a practice buddy to drive you along maybe I can come down to see you one day if you like. Mr Redboots, come say hello at Nationals Id like to meet you too.
Ross.

Hey flo
I found that if its just my feet that hurt in this jump I can get over it. But if its my ankles that pain me on this jump Im doing it all wrong. The best and highest jumps iv ever done have been effortless and painless on the ankles because Im over the blade on the take off. I hope this helps

Cracked: The ice, literally. The rink had hockey tournaments all weekend and the ice was a mess. My coach and I mutually agreed to cut my lesson short today because I was stumbling in ruts and my spins were stopping dead in the ruts as well. We talked to the person responsible for the ice and he gave us a rather flippant answer, saying that the conditions would be rough for the rest of the season (rink is open for another 2 1/2 weeks). I think this is a case of where the rink management just doesn't want to take the time to improve conditions.

Also right foot is cramping in my boots, bad. I'm seriously thinking that when my paycheck increases that I will get a lighter, more flexible boot since most of what I am doing now is moves.

Chocolate: Going into school late today. That's about it. Hope tomorrow at the rink is better.

__________________
All that glitters has a high refractive index.

Thanks all. It would be good to get out of town for even a short bit of time. The problem with the skates is they are so soft that I have to tie them tight to get some stability, and then my feet fall asleep. They're just not reliable on landings. I keep thinking I skated in them before, so I can skate in them now! Thanks Ross, I'll take you up on that!
Grr.

Hey flo
Just PM me if you decide to come up on those day's I mentioned, Ill change my practice sessions around to meet you so we can do some jumps, that would be fun I have a current ice schedual for Ice works practice if you like Ill send it to you e-mail.

I skate at The Centre in Harrington. It's set to close for the summer after our ice show April 16 & 17th. What rink are you at-U of D, The Pond or Fred Rust? Let me know-we'd love to come up and see your show!

[We are all set to skate about once a week over the summer at The Pond. Tried U of D but the ice guards won't let people spin on public ice (husband and boy can't skate well enough for drop in figure time)]

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

Im doing the show at Wilmington as a guest skater but I skate at Ice Works in PA about 20 minutes from the PHL Airport. We have 4 sheets of ice all year round. Look for a shcedule on the ice time posting I made if you need practice. There is often not many on the ice during the day, Obviousley after school gets out it will be a little busy, but in most cases we welcome walk ons, even if your not at a high level, some of the sessions say High levels but often they will let you on during the day because of the lack of skaters. If you come, let me know Ill say Hello and welcome you to the rink. Ill be there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week and for the next 4 weeks to Nationals. Adult skaters are alway's welcome . If you need more info you can contact Elizabeth Hollett on the web page I provided on the Ice Time posting.
Say Hello to Diana Lapierre at the pond for me , we skated together in Ice shows for a couple of years.

Good luck with the boots, flo (whichever ones you end up using at AN). Have confidence in those strong feet! I hope Jackson is not resistant to modifications - I'm going to see a skate guy tomorrow about whether I need new boots (I think I already know the answer) and I will probably end up in Jacksons but will likely need several modifications. If that won't work, I'll have no choice but to go for customs, and I can barely afford new stock boots right now, much less designer ones.

Chocolate: Skated 2 sessions today and ran through the Bronze moves a couple of times. After the third time, the power 3's started to look OK. I landed most of the loops that I attempted, and landed a few flips, albeit with a weird skid on the landing. Probably not good, but at least they were landed on 1 foot. In my lesson, my coach noted that my sit spin is getting lower.

Cracked: Almost (literally) my knee. I had a fall doing forward crossovers on a circle at the beginning of my lesson. Why is it that all my falls seem to come on crossovers (which means that I fall forward, on my knee)? I put ice on it when I got home and it looks like it's just going to be a couple of bumps/bruises for a while, but it's so frustrating b/c this week is my spring break and I was looking forward to getting a lot of skating done.


Congrats to sk8pics on her great skate at the Princeton Open this past weekend!

__________________
Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

They aren't very consistent about that; I've been skating their Friday night public sessions for a few months and I've seen some spinners. Finding ice clear enough could be a problem, though...

As for my own practice:

Cracked: Left knee hurts and I don't know why; it started about two weeks ago and is intermittant. Scheduling this week is going to make practice difficult, and I've got lots of things to be working on.

Chocolate: Alternating back edge patterns are improving, so testing APBM is looking plausible someday. Got to try skating through the Dutch Waltz with my coach yesterday; first sustained skating in a hold and no one got hurt. Not too bad for someone keeping the real skater in the family company.

Rob

I will start with the good stuff:

Chocolate: Got closer to landing my axel and double sows yesterday. My camel spin actually is centered and rotating faster and my position is way better!

Now for the bad stuff:

Cracked: I was doing my program and I fell on my double toe...it hurt very much.... then for some odd reason I fell on my flip at the end... don't know why because the flip is my easiest jump. Was doing a double toe for my coach and I fell right in front of the hockey players because they come on after out session and I fell and they were laughing at me so when I got back into the changeroom my friends and I gathered up ice and chucked it at them and so they told their coach so my one friend and I hid in the changeroom until they were on the ice!

Don't drop to their level. Be bigger & better than them! I know that's easy to say & hard or impossible to do at times. Try, anyway.

My Chocolate....spinning. After 3 months of off & on trying, as of yesterday I was doing what I would officially call a spin. It's a 2-footer, but I can get it to go & go & go and I stayed on center. Finally! Now I can start improving it. Let's hope I have it again today (I have a lesson tonight).

This means I have made both self defined goals - and just under the wire! I wanted to be able to do a decent Waltz Jump and spin before I turned 50 next Saturday.

Cracked: Backwards cross overs still just don't make it. I can cheat them all day, but they aren't right. Grrrrr.

Well I still haven't had my official lesson of the week but since I am on break I had some extra time to practice.

Chocolate: Had (for me) very nice centered forward scratch spins. My back spin is also starting to come along. My sal finally remade an appearance. The cursed outside mohawk in my footwork is getting better. I have problems doing it at speed.

Cracked: Busted my behind (actually my hip) working on a flip. That is a hard jump. Still have no concept how to do a loop. I can't even wrap my brain around it much less force my body to do it.

Hopefully saturday will be better

Turned 59 today and I think my body doesn't know it yet because today I had a great lesson and for some unexplained reason, I did some pretty respectable power 3s and my outside alternating 3s were decent as well. Of course there is no guarantee that the little suckers won't go on vacation next week!

Also, shifting the left skate blade has made a world of difference....I can now get a decent outside edge on that skate, both forwards and backwards, though not as strong as the right skate.

Though I have not done one in a few weeks...still got the Salchow. It may not be the prettiest thing, but it is a Salchow. I have one year exactly for my goal of getting a toeloop...I can see a fun year working on that!!

__________________
Keeping School Figures Alive!!

Chocolate: I had a good lesson today for the most part. Did nice back crossovers, a few waltz jumps, you can actually start to see some space between where i take off and land.

Cracked: The volume setting on my alarm clock is no longer working for some reason, so it didn't go off. I wake up because I actually see the sun, and it's 7 am. I have to leave at 7:15 if I am to make it to the rink in time to get my skates on and warm up for my 8 am lesson. Oh well.

majorly cracked: No ice time for 2 weeks!! There's some major hockey tournament going on, and so they're cancelling all the public sessions, which are the only things I can afford at the moment. Which means no lessons for 2 weeks, which means I'm going to have to find some other rink that will be open.

Thanks, Debbie! I even watched the video and didn't cringe too much. Plenty of things to be worked on, though!

Sorry to hear about your knee! Have you tried the skating safe kneepads? I've actually had more falls doing crossovers than anything else! Usually when I'm going backwards, though; only once did I fall doing forward crossovers and the way I landed was fine. I hope you will feel better soon!

Pat

I know just what you mean - I would do the back crossover and end up sitting back on my blades wondering how on earth it was possible to move in any direction from that position. Well it's only taken me about 18 months to figure it out. I've finally begun to understand what's required and be able to make a reasonable attempt. I actually landed the first one I tried this morning and even very nearly got a bit of run out

so:- chocolate has to be the Loop - even though there is still along way to go on it. Also the back spin where again the first one I tried I actually got a couple of revs.

cracked: back crossrolls - why is it so hard to put one's foot down on an outside edge???

sit spin: just can't bring my free leg in close to skating leg. I keep trying but it's like the force you get when two magnets are repelling each other - I just can't break through.

extra chocolate: Daughter won a silver medal in a club comp. I thought she'd blown it when she had a nasty fall near the beginning on her axel take-off and did an imitation of a flying chicken, landing on her knee. No idea why she fell - her axel is usually lovely. Luckily the rest of her programme was still good (I'd have still been lying on the ice now but she's tough!) and some of the others had cheated jumps so I guess they didnt get much credit for them. It was a nice surprise though (except now I'll have to buy her the Yu-gi-Oh DVD I promised for a good performance! Can't understand what she sees in that myself!)

cracked: no lessons for me for ages now due to holidays and cancelled patches

__________________
'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

[QUOTE=batikat]I know just what you mean - I would do the back crossover and end up sitting back on my blades wondering how on earth it was possible to move in any direction from that position. Well it's only taken me about 18 months to figure it out. I've finally begun to understand what's required and be able to make a reasonable attempt. I actually landed the first one I tried this morning and even very nearly got a bit of run out

Congratulations on your loop attempt. I'm glad I'm not the only one whose body and brain don't communicate with that loop. 18 months huh? I'm okay with that. It's taken me some serious time to figure out how to spin. So how do you get your body to jump? I also get stuck at the cross overs and then am at an utter loss.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

__________________

Many happy returns of yesterday FigureSkates!

Batikat, congratulations to your daughter. AND on getting the loop jump on-ice. I can now do one off, but have no idea of even thinking about trying one on!

My coach is on holiday so no lesson today, but had a good practice. Well, like the curate's egg - good in parts!

Chocolate: Ran through our free dance and our three harder compulsory dances with Husband - no music, just steps. I expect we could have had the music, but didn't ask. Free dance was fine, except I felt that Husband wasn't pushing hard enough in the first step after the spin - he reckons this was because he wasn't sure of the timing, so I think I'll have to say "now!" or something. Swing dance was fine except for my Mohawk, which was awful, my arm all bent, leaning on husband, BUT, in my solo practice afterwards I ran through it and realised that the reason why is that when I do it solo, I can get my right shoulder right round so I'm in the right place, but Husband really does block me. Which is what I thought was happening, so glad to have proved it to myself! Fiesta fine - we did the thing of one pattern very steady, to get it right, and then a fast pattern - only I think we both slowed down going into the Mohawk! Sigh.....

The Juniors are working on their Westminster Waltz, which is very convenient as one of our dances is the Golden Skaters' waltz, which uses the same music. We had a quick run-through to music, and were most gratified to realise that we are getting really good edges on the end pattern now, much better than we used!

Finished (for now) choreographing my Interp.

Cracked: Willow waltz.... oh dear.... STILL awful. Does anybody else find that it feels like they need to step 270° to forward while the man does his Mohawk, or is that just the way my Husband does it?

And when we were warming up, we decided to do 3-turns round each other - our LFO3s are fine now, really fast, steady, solid - but the RFO3s are awful, and I'm sure it's partly because himself doesn't feel nearly as steady on his LBO edge as he does on his RBO one.

My Interp ought to be great, nice easy steps, but oh dear, it's so slow! Plus I'm waving a Theraband a lot of the time, pretending to stretch (actually stretching, judging by the way my arms feel now!), and it's a lot harder to do a really nice change of edge into a 3-turn, or even a plain vanilla change of edge, when you are stretching with a Theraband than when you aren't! Plus I don't like the spiral sequence, either - far too slow (again, that's with the Theraband). Plus, there's one part where I touch my toes, and every time I did, my earphones fell off.... But the ending is fantastic, I'm really pleased with it! And the start is great, too - it's just the bit in the middle.

Couldn't skate yesterday as had a sore stomach, and it's not quite right today, and ended up being so tired I couldn't do my programme for love nor money.... oh well, I can and probably will sleep this afternoon!

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