Gold: Had a great skating weekend, lots of fun and lots of work. We can really see progress each time we get together.

Lead feet: today. I'm pooped and I'd already volunteered to teach a jewlery class tonight. Then to pick up kitty from vet.....again.

__________________
Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Gold Medal: Even on my dull blades, I pulled off several magnificent sit spins today. Footwork stunk, as always, but more so because my boots were loose. Heels kept pulling up.

Lead Feet: Can't get back up on my right knee yet from the sit spin position. Need more PT and strength. Did a few jumps that were all right, but kept slipping off the edge.

Get thee to a sharpener! Going to Hackensack tonight.

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Gold medal: OK since I'm new I need to post a lot of background for this to make sense. But the end is happy. I've had a hip/groin injury since August which had me off the ice for two months, then no jumping, then just a few singles (I was doing lower doubles before). So I've been doing a lot of moves and getting pretty bored. So today I randomly decided to try an axel for the first time since September, just to see if I could. I did about 10 and only missed one! And my hip doesn't hurt at all.

Lead feet: no lesson with my main coach this week

Gold medal:

Skipped skating yesterday because I only had one chance to visit with a friend, but I had a great workout today. I even stayed for the next session because I am on vacation.

Had my moves lesson today. Went pretty well. I'm getting to the point where I'm really ready to test Bronze Moves. However, I'm still leaning toward waiting another few months. I do have to account for nerves and the lowering that will do to my elements. I have plenty of time to qualify for 07 Adult Nats, because I'm not worried about Bronze FS. My competitive program is harder already. In particular, my 5 step mohawks were better today. Getting smoother. And the Power 3s are coming along, though they are still the weakest elements. I have to watch my axis. I have a big tendency to step just a teensy bit before I cross the axis.

The next session, I had a light freestyle workout. Jumps felt good today, no issues with any in particular. Warmed up axel attempts, but didn't do that many because I was coachless. On a good attempt, I get about once around and land on two feet. Can't get that one foot landing yet, unless I don't rotate more than 1/2 rev.

I've changed my program to include a FO spiral into a right mohawk, right BO 3 turn, into a loop, step directly into sit/back sit. I did this sequence twice today and I'm thrilled at how it's coming along. I tend to muscle into my sit spin too much and lose control. Starting the spin from a jump landing really helps me control the turn much better.

Lead feet:

~Back camels were slow today, not getting that many revs.

~My new footwork sequence is very much a work in progress, though it's better than the utter nonsense I had in there for the first competition. I get nervous when I do footwork.

~Didn't actually do a runthrough today, which leaves me with skater's guilt

Lead feet:

Had kiwiskate test night last night, I knew I was going to fail the test, I didn't want to do it because I knew I was going to fail, my coach made me do it anyway. Yep you guessed it, she made me take the test in front of everyone else, I failed the test, felt like #$$#@$%@%^#@% and then she says maybe I'll get it next time.

Then I find out that some other people in my test passed with moves similar to what I did, but her excuse was that they were old and couldn't do it much better so she passed them but I wasn't old so she expected me to do better.

Then hubby (who passed the test easily and also got most improved skater in the club for 2005 last weekend) tried to "help" me pass for next time telling me it was easy and do it like "this". He said it doesn't matter if i'm not as good as him cause he'll look after me when doing ice dance. So I'm still grumpy about it this morning, don't know who to be more grumpy with my coach or my husband. I dont really want to go to ice dance lesson tonight as I'll have to put up with both my coach and my husband at the same time.

Sorry to rant or else I will explode.

That sucks and shouldn't be an excuse for them to not pass you (or not fail them)!!!

Gold Medal: Ice dance tonight-cha cha is finally coming together-meaning I know all the steps, just not all in the right order! Taught hubby how to push off from his blade properly in order to utilize the whole blade and get more power into his swing roll (I'm always faster than him-now he knows my "secret")

Lead Feet: again, the steps to the cha cha Whatever. AND we did the dutch waltz in hand-hold can u say crack the whip??? That's what it felt like at times! I tried to slow down for him, but every time I did, he slowed down even more! So I started going faster and he did manage to keep up for the most part. Yeah, I'm evil.

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

Gold Medal: I actually did a length of back cross-rolls this morning and gained speed on them. And my backspin actually did 1 revolution twice (out of about 4 tries)!

We are beginning to get the choreography sorted out for our free dance, but at the moment it's in the s***e stage. It will improve, but right now... just don't go there! Still, it's coming-along-nicely now. As, indeed, are our respective solo programmes - his free skating and my Interp. Sudden panic that only 3 months to Mountain Cup and 4 to Bracknell!

Lead Feet: Worked a bit on the (Canadian) Cha-cha this morning, and I don't know what happened, but suddenly my feet weren't where they were supposed to be and I sat gracefully on the ice, which was cold! Didn't hurt myself or anything, just sat down.... Swing Dance more successful, but a lot of work to do on it before competition, never mind before testing it!

Skated too long and am now tired, and even then didn't do quite all my exercises (omitted the changes-of-edge) because I did too many run-throughs of my Artistic.

Gold Medal again: And when I got home, for the first time I was able to reverse the car straight into the garage, without having to come forward and straighten up! It's 2 months tomorrow since I passed my test....

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

Gold Medal: Recovered from the flu, actually wasn't a big chicken and made a good effort on all my doubles. Got the sow going and the toe was great easy as can be but....I'm still tired from being sick so holding the landings was hard. Managed about a dozen 2loops all with that stuipd 1/4 cheat on them. Pooh

Lead feet: The major anti-inflammatory they have to help my hip worked for about 2.5 hours and then stopped. I am walking like Quasimoto, you know an ugly monster. Time to rest.

Gold again: Kimmie Meisner skated well, yeah for her!

__________________
Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r

Arrived at the rink this morning to find only middle-aged men on the ice - three still on and one just getting off, shortly replaced by another (Husband). And me, of course, but I can't see myself! For the first 45 minutes or so, I was the only woman on the ice! And later on Coach1, of course, whose wife, Coach2, informed me with great glee that he was turning 50 in September!

Lead Feet: Slept very badly last night, for some reason, and am really tired today, which, needless to say, informed all my skating. I couldn't get either sufficient knee-bend, nor sufficient core strength, and didn't skate well.

Gold Medal: Free dance choreography is working now, it's more-or-less done down to the end of the step sequence, with only about 15 seconds to finish. Seems to be a lot more twists and turns in it than last year, but maybe that's my imagination! Just before Husband had to leave, we did one really good spin, although it was a bit slow. But it did what we needed it to do!

Interp likewise working now, although Coach keeps saying "he doesn't like the middle of it", but not making any suggestions, except to put back cross-rolls in at the end. So I now have to go from back cross-rolls to a back spiral to a cherry flip (toe loop), to a spin. And I've not to do my rather puny change-foot ("because it looks as though you're losing balance and putting your other foot down"), but have to do my spin-in-the-other-direction on the right foot.

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

This is for yesterday's practice session:
Lead feet: had a hard time focusing; was late to the rink, it was crowded, people kept playing their music over and over and over and over again which was annoying. They played mine, but because the box is locked and the volume can't be controlled....I couldn't hear it. So, I had to put my headphones on and skate like that. Bleh! And, I got the little girls in my way (again) they were watching me skate my program, but they were on the ice where I needed to be so I had to skate around...

Flip, backspin, yuck. Can't get my arm around for the backspin. Didn't even attempt a camel. Loop sucked but I am managing to keep the left foot off the ice.

Gold Medal: even with the crowds, I did manage to do 2 run-thrus of my program and wasn't very winded, which surprised me as I had just finished up at the gym an hour beforehand (yeah, but never again). Worked harder on the salchow (it was getting sloppy). AND, helped a better skater (doing double jumps no less) with her spiral (which was pretty crappy). She had never been properly taught to do a spiral! So, I helped her out and it was much better (yeah, but not as good as mine ). I attempted a change of edge spiral and eaked out a little one, then did a forward bielman-like spiral (need more flexibility!). Didn't do a backwards (chicken).

Then it was time to go.

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

Gold: Got better FI mohawks than last year when I worked on these. Still sucky on the LFI mohawk side, but the RFI side (when I do concentrate on doing these well) actually comes out nicely, to the of my secondary coach!!! I'm also getting better extension on those 5 step mohawks... well once I make myself concentrate on doing them right. Secondary coach is pleased...well, at least content!!!

Lead: OD'ed on jumps on Monday night! My lower back on my landing side this morning is hurting badly!!! Am making a visit to my chiro to get a much needed adjustment. (It's been a few months!) I should be okay in a couple of days (hopefully.)

Meanwhile, I'm heating my lower back and doing a lot of stretching and just plain NUTTIN'!!! Just as well anyway. My body is telling me I'm long overdue for a break...

I am NOT looking forward to Sectionals. The one thing my lower back and I agree on is that we both HATE skating on hockey hard ice... and unfortunately, in the case of the Sectionals, this is the case. Oh, dear! (Sorry for griping, those of you in the St. Moritz Skating Club. I know it's better than no ice, but...)

__________________
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!!!

Gold: Coach and I skipped lessons to watch Kimmie skate.
^. .^
=o= is home from vet!!!

__________________
Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

That is great news!!!

__________________
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!!!

MAJOR GOLD MEDAL DAY!

I took a major step towards landing my axel today. Finally finally finally coming down on one foot, in backspin position and beginning to fall over. Another coach even skated by and commented that I looked ready to land it. My coach was very excited too, because I've never been able to land it on one foot unless it was strictly a waltz jump.

I think I have enough muscle memory now where I have learned how to take off, where to put my weight, how to hold the shoulders etc and I started *thinking* about getting my left foot into backspin position. That's all I thought of. It worked. The one foot landings followed.

So that was very exciting!

Other jumps were pretty good today. Lutz/loop is getting more consistent and my flip technique is cleaning up a bit, though this is now the more inconsistent jump.

Program runthrough was decent, though several people did not clear out of my way, which was annoying as I did have the vest and right of way. But I still managed a very decent back camel to open (4 revs) and the lutz loop. Missed a few other elements though. Footwork is coming along, but is still scratchy and awkward. Better than the other sequence though.....that's what I tell myself!



No lead feet today, I'm thinking positive!

Coach was a little late for my lesson today so I had a considerable amount of time to warm up all off my moves in the field and some spins. By the time she got there I was working on the Waltz 8, yet again, and we jumped right into trying to fix that. I think at this point she knows that I know what I’m doing wrong on other aspects of the test, although I would like to go over edges with her again next week. Anywho, apparently my timing was okay, but I was trying to make everything way too big. After much discussion about why my waltz-8 is so not right, I proceeded to do a VERY good waltz 8 pattern. I even stepped back into the circle properly, imagine that! A bad habit I did start to pick up though - instead of stepping forward to finish out the pattern I was doing a back 3 turn. I suggested to Beth that I should get EXTRA points for a more difficult transition and she said uhhh….it would be nice but thats not the proper move. What a party pooper.

We then moved onto my 3 turn pattern - aside from teeny tiny technicalities that can (AND WILL) be worked through the pattern isn’t so bad anymore! A lot of it really has to do with being able to control the 3 turn. Beth was happy enough with the pattern that we actually went on to do - dun dun dun - THE OTHER SIDE. My LFI3 is really, really grotesque - the first part of it is fine but on the check my upper body collapses like an accordian throwing me off my edge. The rest of it wasn’t so bad, even my timing was okay. Could I actually be making progress?

One thing that I note, and I’m not sure how to overcome - when I first step out on the ice and I start things like stroking and crossovers and such I’m SO off. Everything feels a little shaky and I’m not secure on my edges for crossovers and on stroking I’m not getting full extension, doing the toe pushing, slouching a little etc. But after I’ve been skating for 30 minutes or so everything feels so much easier and looks so much better - my stroking is improved, my posture is improved, my crossovers, as poor as they are, are improved (slightly). It would be great if I could have a 30 minute warm up before testing…but since that’s not possible I’m really just trying to think of how to get to that same comfort level when I first step on the ice.

My other problem, and this occurs mostly in lessons, is that I’m somehow unable to think about more than one thing at a time. For example - today we worked on scratch spins at the end of the lesson. When she told me to turn my leg out and point the toe I bent the leg. When she told me to straighten the leg, my arms would go awry. It’s almost as if my brain can’t process more than one command at once. I’m not a total dumb*** (a little flaky and a lot goofy, but not stupid) so I’m thinking it might be a result of overthinking? Or overthinking one aspect? Doing the moves in skating is hard enough, but remembering every.little.detail. is soooooooooo much more difficult and my brain can't process it.

The good news is that the notes for moves are getting more nitpicky - there aren’t any GROSS problems. Everything now seems to be more about making things just look a little smoother with improved quality. The toe to heel thing? Magic. Absolute magic. Wonder if there are any other magical secrets I’m not aware of?

Gold medal: I've had a good week in practice working on my waltz potatoes. Today my coach pretty much tore it apart into french fries. It's all three-turn placement and swinging the leg straight back/forward on the rest of the 1-2-3 4-5-6s

And then I learned forward inside three turns, and I didn't die.

Was feeling very skaterish.

Tee, hee, that happens to a lot of us. See this thread: http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=18177 (oh, duh, edited to add that I see that you were one of the people who posted in that thread....)

When you eventually test, will you be able to work it out so that you'll at least have skated earlier in the day? Sometimes even if I can't be skating just before the test, having a good practice earlier in the day helps. (My club's home rink has 2 surfaces, so I've been spoiled for tests). Another thing that helps is a really good warmup, off and on the ice. One poster here (sorry I can't recall who!) said it really helps her not have as much shaky legs from nervousness.

Me, too! I pretty much try to take it all in but then I freak out and think, oh crap I have to rotate this thing, instead of focusing on arms or reaching during the jump entry, etc. I have to go off on my own before the next lesson and try to put it all together on my own.

__________________
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Gold medal:

Well after discussion with my new coach on Tuesday about how my right blade has never felt right he decided he should remount them (it was someone else who put them on originally). He gave them back to me this morning and I could really feel a difference. Some of it may be due to them having been sharpened too but I really felt much more over the right part of the blade on jump landings and back outside edges felt so much more secure than they have ever done.

I'm actually planning on getting new blades soon as I've never really liked these ones but they feel so much better now I may hang on to them for a while.

Worked on salchow to stop the swingy arms (coach did a real cruel impersonation but it was quite funny!) and managed a few good ones.

lead feet: not a lot - although coach spent a lot of time talking I can forgive him anything right now if the blades stay feeling as good as this!

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

Gold Medal: change foot spin, with a good backspin!

Lead Feet: Fall on one hip while working at improving backward twizzle. Fall on other hip after "clicking" on a back xover! At least they match!

I'm sure I missed this in an earlier thread, but "waltz potatoes"??? Where did that come from?

I'm a starch addict; I want to do waltz potatoes too!

Haha! The first time I tried the waltz 8, they were rather bumpy and I thought they looked like potatoes.

Can I get a waltz potato too? Please, pretty please???

Gold Medal:

• Got my back cracked and though I'm not totally normal yet, it's much better than last night...
• Still can skate pretty fast, though not as fast as I normally would for a program.
• Did some good spins, even the backspin. (Of course, the lower back hurts a bit lot while doing them.)

Lead Feet:

• I didn't do a program runthru. The rink had too many rugrats in the rink!
• Just as well... even though I'm better than yesterday, my lower back is still not quite perfect yet. So to play it safe I told my primary coach to keep the jumps down to a minimal b/c of my lower back!

__________________
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!!!

Lead Feet: really just cold feet! The heat was off in the rink and it was about 35 degrees!!! I think it was even warmer outside! I had to leave my jacket on for most of my skate. AND there were about 20 people there....and some dumba** hockey guy was blasting all over the place doing side skids and not watching where he was going nearly knocked me over when I was spinning.....I saw him head towards me and put my toepick down to stop spinning-he bounced off of me and HE almost fell. He was bigger than me . He looked a bit astonished (or embarrassed). Of course, all my guys saw and laughed, which hurt his feelings, I'm sure. He stayed away from us after that (he he he).

Gold Medal: The flip is coming along....I know I need to bend way more when I turn the three and I'm having security issues with that. I will get it as I do more of them. Toe loops and waltz-loops were fine. Did some decent scratch spins (even tho I was on migraine meds). Played my music and we had a good time!

Then one woman (Ukranian) was talking to me about skating lessons-her English wasn't good and I don't speak Ukranian but I think she understood about lessons.

Son starts figure skate lessons tomorrow!!! He is 10 and said he'd "try it for a while" which is cool of him. Not sure if he will wear his hockey skates, or switch to sissy's figure skates (they wear the same size).

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

I love it! I suspect mine are potatoes as well. Will have to tell my coach about this; she will giggle.

GOLD:don't why but 2sow and 2 toe landed cleanly and beautifully upwards of 5 in a row. so happy decided to work on 2sow 2toe sequence, bad idea

LEAD: in that sequence 2 sow clean falling leaf too far inside circle , body too far forward and the jump went lateral. left hand blocked face from hitting but didn't stop upper body, knuckles are black and blue had to get hand x-rayed nothing broken, but can only type with right hand.

GOLD got cool brace my have to bead it to match dress. lacing skates interesting as thumb is badly strained and does not move.

__________________
Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r