Fasting:
The weather was aweful today and so was the traffic. We had freezing rain and sleet most of the day in Windsor/Essex County. I also thought that I had lost my wireless buscard adapter at the rink I was doing music editing last night and went over there before heading to my rink. The combination of the bad weather and the wireless buscard adapter being temperarely lost made me so late that I totally missed the CanSkate session on which I PA and 45 minutes of my own freeskate session. The bad weather was so bad that the cars were only travelling at a rate of less than 5 KM an hour. I was a nervous reck by the time I got to the rink, worse than any test or competition nerves. When I got to the rink, I had a hard time getting my fingers to do up my skates.

Feast:

Even though I was a complete wreck of nerves, I was able to remember my interpretive FS and do some of the moves. My freeskate was a problem only because the coaches were doing dance after dance with the kids and just when you thought you had an opening, including in interp LBO catchfoot spiral, your element and to be stopped before it got started. One thing I did notice today is that it doesn't take much for me to get speed going. Good for competition or show program during the show but bad when practicing for the pre-prelim and under crowd who don't move fast enough and/or don't know any better about getting out of the way of the faster skaters.

__________________
"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

Fasting

Hate rough, hard ice ! Especially for spinning. Hate sessions with 3 coaches giving lessons at the same time, plus everyone else trying to practise - on a 1/4 size rink. Hate skating badly !

Spins just sucked last night. No room for spirals or even much footwork.


Feasting

Most jumps okay, and able to put a loop onto most of them. Finally realised coach is telling me to pre-rotate my loop somewhat, that I don't have to be still facing backwards when I take off, and that immediately gave me the entry tracing she wanted.

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Feasting - moves feeling good, but stamina could be better. Scratch spins nice and centered. Oh, I learned how to do a scratch and sit spin from the inside 3 turn set up instead of from back crossovers. That made me happy 'cause if I can do that I know I'm getting better at getting into my spins centered. Back 3's showing some small progress. Back spin showing some small progress too, although it still tends to be twizzles most of the time.

Fasting - jumps are too small, and I'm having trouble with timing. Toe loop has completely left me, although I can still do a toe waltz. Frustrating. It was better a couple of months ago. Spirals - ugh. I'm another big, fat, old lady and they just look weird. Camel spin looks the same. Uuuugly. And only one rev anyway, maybe two if I'm lucky.

CEWL! The fysiotherapist has me practicing some of my jumps on the trampoline, in the hopes of building ankle strength and stability up to doing them on ice without any pain and stuff.

Fasting: Rink closed last night due to the 12-15 inches of snow.
It's OK, I wasn't going to make it anyway as I can't climb a flight of stairs without coughing up a lung. Thank you, my darling children for sharing your cold...

So sorry you are sick. But good for you teaching your kids how to share when they are so young!

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

Feasting: The whole session and lesson I was on the ice. Every time I skate, I feel better. Tonight my coach commented that even in my less-preferred direction, I am gaining speed with every stroke on my back crossovers. I felt it, too, because I had to slow down and make my circle smaller to go around some spinning kids. Other direction was big and fast. {happy sigh} My coach is holding my hand still, lightly, because the sessions are crazy and I do NOT need to fall over a kid at this point in my recovery! Anyway, we did edges, too, forwards and backwards. And waltz jumps again and then he said, "Let's do some toe loops" and got this response from me: but I was able to do some, again, teeny, tiny toe loops, but they weren't bad and weren't too terribly toe waltzy. Hooray! I can see where I'm going to have to start practicing in between lessons, but for now, I'm content.

Happy skating everyone!

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August 22, back on the ice!

Feast:
Showed artistic program to Primary Coach today.
Footwork for CM program is getting better.

Fasting:
I'm going to have to pay another visit to the podiatrist again. Two years ago I had a corn form on my right pinky toe and after dealing with pain all season, got to the podiatrist and got it frozen off. Will have to do this again, as I couldn't make it through my freestyle program today.

Salchows continue to be the problem child- I'm having a hard time maintaining the check after the three turn.

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

Heehee J, yes, I'm back skating casually. But darn it, I'm skating and it makes me happy, even if only once a week! Having a rink on campus rocks...I just wish it were year-round instead of seasonal.

__________________
All that glitters has a high refractive index.

Feasting:

Program runthru with new footwork, etc, finally brought my program to the point where I can comfortably end the program right on queue!! YAAAAAY!!!

Fasting:

• Didn't land loop-loop or flip clean. In fact, I ended up taking a -3 deduction on my @$$!!! (I tried to do a flip when the Zam was coming out and ended up on my butt. No harm done other than my pride. Primary coach was CHEERING!!! )
• Had a lesson this week only on the coffee club session -- Unfortunately the ice was already too chopped up by the time I got on to warm up. Never in my life would I ever imagine that I am now not happy about the coffee club sessions b/c it's too crowded!!!

__________________
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!!!

[Feasting]

Did a good run through of my program today. I need to get the second flip stronger, and I need to get the scratch/back scratch consistent.

One of the other skaters who doesn't jump very high, complimented that my axel was a lot higher than hers.

Worked on my moves again...one of the coaches commented how she gets scared when I do my power circles because on the glide out I get so close to the boards that she thinks I'm going to hit them.

[Fasting]

Scratch/back scratch wasn't happening today. I am dropping my shoulder during the transition and can't seem to keep it up.

Axel was close, but still not there...I need to work on pulling my legs in...

No lesson this week which makes me sad....

Feasting: Well we upped the difficulty of my program for an upcoming competition, and I think it's going to be good! My forward scratch to back scratch is actually decent and I never would have thought it. I learned that I can do a twizzle today as well. And we will have straight line footwork in it (I always want to do some wild looking footwork).

Fasting: Didn't land the flip after two attempts. That jump is always hit or miss with me but I haven't practiced it that often since moving here. I'm afraid of my mazurka. I don't have a camel in the program and I feel like I should, but I can't do a camel. At all.

Somewhere between feasting and fasting: New program has a lutz in it and I've only landed that once and I was maybe an inch off the ice, but at least I landed it on the correct foot.

Lots of work to do...

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

Yay! I'm glad it's going well for you!!

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Thursday session:
Fasting;Didn't go to my home club today as it was test day and my prelim freeskate is not ready to test and my creative dance has not been danced by my partner for more than two months. So that means I have nothing I can test at this moment.

Feasting; Went to ticket ice/city ice and was able to run through both my freeskate and interpretive FS twice each with the music. Coach had me work on getting my eyes to stay away from looking on the ice. In my freeskate, I messed up one time by forgetting to do my split before my flip/toe combo and just laughed to much because of the mistake and let the rest of the program go down the sewer. In my interpretive, we found that I didn't have enough time to get in the footwork because of the pattern of the program. So tomorrow we're going to change the pattern of the interpretive a bit so that I can get to one of the ends of the rink in time to start the footwork. I think what should be done is that instead of looping back after the split jumps to go into the BLO catch foot spiral, I should be skating to the corner and do some RBx and then come out of the right corner to do a LBO catch foot spiral and then leave out the inside spread eagle until after the footwork section. This way I can gain more spead instead of stalling. The program just doesn't flow at this point once I'm done the half way mark. One week left to get it ready for competition. Yikes.

Jumps;
Waltz jump: nice and strong with height.
Salchow is now popping up off of the ice with confidence.
Toe loop: I need to be careful about not picking in on the flat of my blade, other wise everything else good.
Flip: height is back but must watch the placement of picking foot and remember to snap my right arm in to help rotation.
Lutz: still have to address it but I'm plugging away at it anyway including in my freeskate.

Spins;
Corkscrew: doing it without using a standard wind up, doing forward corkscrew after a LFO spiral/LFO lunge and get the start up by three turning in the lunge position. No break in between each stage of elements. Quite taxing on left leg.
Catch Foot Attitude Spin: Coach had me change my free arm to be up infront of my head with me slightly bending back as I hold onto my freeleg with the other hand. Still need to pull my freeleg up more and push my hips forward more but I managed 4 rotations in the spin in my interpretive. If I can creack out 6 rotations by next week, I'll change my corkscrew in my freeskate to this spin.
Sitspin: was pathetic today. I wasn't getting low enough. I seemed to be too stiff to get down low enough today. And I had to get my broken spin to be fixed as I wasn't getting my freefoot to the back enough. Once I did get the broken part right, I just about grab my freeleg to come up. I may do this in my interpretive but in my freeskate if I grab my freefoot I will stay down until I let go of it to come up and out.

Spiral Sequence:
Need to get my stamina back. Never get to do these at my home rink with all the CanSkaters on the ice during my so called StarSkate ice. Must find a way to get my stamina up some other way. And I found that my hips seem to feel weak and not able to hold up my freelegs lately. Must go to the gym to fix this. I find that these problems arise during my RFO ce RFI spiral when I go to change edge and I don't get to keep up my RFI spiral as long as the RFO. LBI Spiral needs to get more speed from my RBx. Need to add an extra RBx before the LBI so that I have more distance and power for my split/flip/toe which are right off of my spiral.

Crosscuts: it seems today that I was rocking on my forward crosscuts. I wonder if it's got to do with me being out of shape and tired.

Breathing: after the session was over I felt light headed. I was also beat red in the face. I haven't been taking the preventative (Singular) because the doctor at the clinic said that it was making my breathing worse and he hasn't given me a different one yet. I may go to this other clinic in the next few days to get a perscription for a different preventative as I can't have light headedness when competing Friday, Feb. 15, 2008. Plus, I want to see if it's going to make a diffference on the oxygen level to my legs and arms. I've noticed that I'm having trouble to get my skate laces done since not being on a preventative.

OH, one other thing, when I said that did both programs twice with the music, they were all done back to back. That's 2 mins 6 secs for each time the freeskate was done. Plus 2 mins 32 secs for each of the interpretives. That's a total of 9 mins and 16 secs none stop.

__________________
"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

There are other rinks in your city and close by that are year-round, as I understand it - maybe you will want to seek out one of those by the time your campus rink closes for the summer!

Feasting: Had fun on the ice today.

Fasting: Needless to say the 3-turn exercise I couldn't do on Tuesday and then did perfectly twice in front of my coach on Wednesday had abandoned me again - not the turns, they were fine, but the crossover. At least, it crossed, but with an awful screech of toe-rakes and no flow. 5-step Mohawk exercise also scratchy and un-flowy. Step sequence steps ditto and likewise.... sigh.... at least the Husband is still having trouble with them, too.

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

Dying Gasps: Don't even want to talk about my week skating Two more session before the next competition and what was supposed to be the debut of my Freeskate program - don't look like it's going to happen - probably withdraw it Tuesday and start working toward Nationals.

Feasting: I'm still alive and haven't broken anything

Damned typos!

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

Fasting: I skated so badly today. I didn't even break a sweat or center a spin. Didn't try to jump, it would have been a disaster. I don't like 7am skating sessions, lol.

__________________

Saw my doctor today (actually the PA, she will assist the surgeon), so...
Feasting: I need to skate a lot until my surgery.

Fasting: once I have my surgery, NO skating AT ALL for 6 weeks. Which means:

--No ice show for me
--No more teaching after the 29th of Feb.
--my rink will be (almost) closed by the time I'm allowed back on the ice I think it will have one or so sessions left

On the bright side: there will be NO restrictions at all after the surgery!!!! Except for those I impose on myself. So, I might have some lower back pain, but no more than an old chick might expect.

Also, I have a 6-week "vacation" from work, but without pay. Win-Lose I guess. Unfortunately, all the activities I really enjoy involve outside stuff, except for sewing and reading. I did sign up for Netflix so I have a 20-year list of movies to catch up on, but I'm sure that will get old. Real soon.

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

Fasting:
-Meltdown over the damn back crossovers again...there were tears, it wasn't pretty

Feasting:
-Forward Cross Rolls are definitely improving, just got to lose the toe picking habit on one side...
-The skirt wearing seems to be working to help me really focus on extending and pointing
-The wide step in the Golden Skaters Waltz is no longer feeling like the most alien thing in the world, which I will take as an improvement!
-By the time I got off the ice, 2.5 hours after the meltdown and after some fun run-throughs of the Canasta Tango and the Golden Skaters Waltz (feeling like a duckling following Mrs Redboots!), I was already laughing about it and left the rink feeling good

.... I understand completely! {{{HUG}}}

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

Thank you

I am so glad that my coach is quite possibly the most patient man in the world!

FEASTING:
Not strictly skating related

We had PE today -doing aerobics, which I've discovered it the one and only aspect of PE I'm remotely good at. I'd been talking to my PE teacher about my skating the other day, just a passing conversation, you know...

So this lesson we were going some toning and stretching exercises, a lot of it focusing on core strength. About half way through, when we were doing a couple of the exercises, the rest of the class are clearly tired, and most of them can't hold the positions anymore. I'm still going strong, to which Miss replies with 'we can tell you're a skater, Helen!'. For an overweight, un-athletic teen with low self esteem, being told that really made my day

And then later, at the end of the lesson, when we were doing stretches, Miss tells us to start our stretches, she tells the class 'now, if you're flexible, LIKE HELEN, you can do that stretch - I can't do it myself, I'm not flexible enough - Helen, would you demonstrate?'. I get into the straddle position, and bend over, holding my feet. Rest of class 'WOW! How can you do that?' 'Uhhh...skating'.

This is the girl that couldn't touch her toes two months ago...who now nearly has her splits.

Best PE lesson I've had in years

feasting: Had a good practice today. I had a dream about the BI3 last night and believe it or not my technique in the dream was really good and I think it helped me today because I was thinking about the turn differently! FO3 also better and so that figure may actually be shaping up for PCAS in 4 weeks! The FOI Serpentine also much better than in has been so I am feeling hopeful!

I was surprised to learn that I have a competitor for this event - I understand that there are 9 competitors for the High Level Figure event, which is great, but supposedly there is just one other person in the Low Level (my division) - wonder who it is?

Also worked on all Moves and turns and some dances - patterns are getting a little bigger and a little faster - I'm still having trouble getting anything up to speed but that will come. I think it is a combination of finally realizing that I can turn my head/body/shoulder more than I could for a couple of years (yoga and pilates and all the body work has definitely helped!). This has helped on all of my skating - yea!

One of the judges at my main icky hockey rink gave me a correction last week that helped with all of the turns - instead of thinking about my feet, she thought I should think more about where the back of my back was while doing the turns - depending on the turn your back is either facing the circle of facing away from the circle. This got me away from concentrating on my feet and hips and more on my shoulders and I'm finding that everything is going more easily. Thank you judge-friend!!

Fasting: No lesson today. My coach called and said she was sick - plus the ice at my main icky hockey rink has been really bad. My friend texted me from there yesterday - she said that they had dug a ditch along the edges and were flooding it when she got there in the morning. She eventually skated in the middle part but everything was really wet and the ice was lousy. There is also apparently something wrong with the zam, so I decided to go to the mall rink which is closer to my house but small and unpredictable as far as numbers of people, mall smells (food-court), etc.

But I had a good session anyway and skated for almost 2 hours! Fantastic!

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Feasting: I did a nearly-clean program runthrough today - with axel! - and I didn't leave out any choreography. The only thing I messed up was I did an extra turn between the flip-loop combination, and I barely did one rotation in the layback part of the camel-layback before stepping out. I still have four weeks to train for Easterns, so I'm really pleased at where my skating is now.

Fasting: Erm ... only skated for 45 minutes today because I couldn't get my lazy butt to the rink before 2:30.

She then proceeded to dance with Husband when she'd recovered - they looked good, until just at the very end. And her slide chassé wide step isn't nearly as bad as she thinks it is!

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