Rocked:
Well, I skated the afternoon session after work today (yes, I had to work today ) and HAD THE ICE TO MYSELF!!

Needless to day, worked on my MIF and can proudly say that I finally got the concept of the long axis!!

Reeked:
I don't know if it was the heat or a slow day at work, but I just couldn't get the energy going! I did remind myself of what I had heard from Robin Wagner at camp last week in that there is always something to work on. So, I worked on my footwork sequence for my new program.
Will be taking tommorow night off to see Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire and will be back on the ice Wendesday morning!

My coach cancelled my lesson last Thursday morning as one of his competitive skaters "took him down" and he was rather sore so we made up the lesson this afternoon. I don't like skating on public as we were playing "dodge ball" with the public skaters (there really were not that many but there were several pre-teen/teen hockey players which made up the numbers...) but I needed to skate as I will not skate until this time next week (work, etc...) The lesson went OK but I was thrilled to stick around after and watch the high dance session that imediately followed public. My coach had 3 couples that skated this session, the lowest is a junior team. I couldn't even recognize what the dances were but the junior team were skating to a CHACHA rhythm. All I want to do is to be able to stroke like that... My dutch waltz is definitely feeling more comfortable but I'm still struggling with the rhythm blues. However, it's not the end pattern (I worked my a_ _ off on those back tucks) but the 1st FI swing roll that is giving my fits I feel like I'm about to hit the side of my boot (that's how deep that edge is) My coach mentioned my shoulders and upper body are the reason so will need to continue to work on this. Signed up for test on August 1st so I've lots of work to do. Hope everyone had a good 4th and a great sk8 week...

Rockin': They gave us an extra 15 minutes on the early session today! I was able to get most of my warm up and some moves (edges on the blue line) before the higher level (read--faster teenagers) skaters showed up at the published time. I worked on my scratch and managed to get my free leg across several times, and even touched my boot to my shin once. Of course, I then went off center and bailed. Got in a few jumps and lots of basic skills--3Turns, mohawks, landing position, stuff like that.

Reekin': Salchows--free leg was way too swingy--I couldn't control the back half of the entry 3T, so I made no progress on them today. I've also gone backwards on my spiral. I can't do a {left leg raised} any more, and it used to be my stronger side. We put the opposite in my program, so I haven't worked on it in a while. Oh well, that's why I practice so much.

Rockin': First day of summer skating for me. I'm jsut doing 2 times a week but it was nice to be back after a month off


Reekin': What can I say....after a month off everything is blah. I did notice that my off ice conditioning is working. My legs felt really strong the whole time.

Rockin: Had two hours of ice today! Ice was a bit busy, but nowhere near the gong show that was spring session at the club I usually skate at. Back inside loops stuck around since Friday, so that was very exciting. Warmed up multi-turns and power threes to start and they were awful since I haven't done them in a while....but by the end of the session I was more comfortable with them again. Also got some practice in with flying choctaws, which I haven't done in a while.

Reekin: Back outside loops. My forward outside are decent, forward inside kind of suck but are coming, back inside have gotten pretty good, but back outside are nowhere to be seen. I was getting really frustrated and impatient with them today. Tomorrow is another day, I guess. Maybe there will be a breakthrough.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

A full week this one... I skated yesterday, and tonight and on thursday I'm having ice dance lessons.
Thinking about tonight's lesson, that will be quite challenging, yesterday I took it slow - just some work on my edges, a few mohawks and I went again through the pattern of the Viennese Waltz (which we did last wednesday) with a friend... nothing special, but my goal was just not to do anything that could have left me in bad conditions for tonight. Basically I went to the rink only because I have already paid (and much!) for these session, I didn't want to give up any ice-time, esp. since after thursday I won't skate anymore til probably september!
I can't wait for tonight: we'll go through the Samba! (Love the rythm!)

ETA: last saturday I received a couple of tapes I had ordered - Pilates for Dummies & the NYCB workout1 - had a look at both and I am really excited about them, both seem potentially very useful. Didn't try anything so far because didn't want unexpected aching muscles apart from those skating related this week, so I really look forward trying them next week, when I will be officially off-ice till september.(sigh) I should really benefit from the core strenghtening of Pilates, and lots of the ballet exercises seem brilliant for my legs.

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Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

Reeked: Arrived at the rink to find that the Zamboni had broken down (again) and that the ice was horrid. One coach had cancelled all his skaters, but the elite dancers were on the ice, and my own coach didn't cancel any of his. So we skated. We are working on the choreography of our Free Dance, and Robert is having trouble remembering the steps (as usual!).

Rocked: Our coach managed to squeeze us a 15-minute lesson in. We worked on our spin, and now know what way we are going to do it. It's not 3 revolutions yet, but we wouldn't be surprised if it is on the day.... it's still nearly 3 months away! We also worked on some of the other "highlights" of our dance, including a lift! Well, it's an assisted 3-jump, really, but most people are doing that, I notice, so..... Don't know where we'll put it in yet.

After Robert had gone I sat down with the music and went through it in my head, working out roughly where to place things. I want to go through it with Robert some time (when?) when we have a bit of time together to work out what to place where. Unfortunately he can't make this evening, when the ice is fairly free, so it is 6.00 am start every day this week.

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

LOL, I'll be there too!!! I'm not a huge Chicago fan, but EWF...

Rocking: I got to skate yesterday at Fairfax Ice Arena, the rink where I used to skate at before moving to NC. I saw Nick Perna and another coach giving group lessons (before the public session started) to some kids; they had to do double toe loops from different entries, and this one boy was really good. I noticed that "LoopLoop" is a part-time coach there- cool!

Reeking: I ate a lot of junk this weekend on my trip to DC, and I was going to practice tonight but forgot my skating clothes again! Hope I won't be too out of shape for my lesson Thursday.

Reekin: Loops SUCK. Forward outside are still ok, but I feel like they are getting worse the more I work on them! Progress was made on the forward inside, but not as much as I'd like. Back inside are recognizable, but feel funny. Back outside are still MIA.

Rockin: Feel more confident with multi-turns, and my spirals were really good.

__________________
~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

SOOOOOO jealous!!! I love both Chicago AND EWF!!!

Rockin'

• Power 3's are better tonight. Hope it stays that way during my lessons!!!
• Outside of 5 step mohawks, the rest of my moves are okay.

Reeking:

• My 5 step mohawks!!! The blade alignment is still off. I'm gonna go to another guy and see if he could fix it. But it's totally bad on my RFI mohawk!!! YUCK!!!!
• Spins are kinda off too, though it's not as bad tonight as it was on Saturday.
• Can't do sit spins yet. The boots are still too stiff...
• Not even gonna try to do jumps!!!

__________________
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!!!

I went to skate yesterday night - had a lot of fun but today I'm really tired - I'm falling asleep at my desk!
Good: I enjoy so much this class! People are wonderful and for me everything is new and challenging... I don't get bored at all! I try to do everything but don't get depressed if I can't do it well immediately - it's my second lesson only! Yesterday in the end the rythm turned out to be the Samba - if I checked the charts correctly, we did the Silver Samba... ^_^ for the first time in my skating "carreer" I was told by a coach that I was pushing too much! Never happened before - in synchro I got shouted at by my former coach because I was not pushing enough for her taste!
Yesterday instead one of the coaches had me do the chasseés behind her, and I kept risking crashing into her as I was pushing too much... wow, this is a first for me!
I even tried the pattern with the other, male coach and was not too bad...
I am enjoying this! My edges were not great, but at least I could follow the pattern/tempo!
In the last minutes I even tried a couple of spins, and though I did very few rev.s, they were quite decently centered... I wouldn't believe it myself, if I hadn't see the tracing on the ice!!

Bad: nothing on the ice! I can say that the only annoying thing was losing 4.50eur of parking fee because of the stupidity of one of the parking assistants, who wouldn't let me leave without taking my ticket - which normally you can keep because for those going @ the sport complex instead of the latin-american festival nearby, at the offices inside they will refund you the fee.

Not really exciting: well, the ice was actually a bit too soft for my taste, and by the end of the lesson there was a LOT of fog everywere on the rink...
And also, I really need to improve on the fluidity and grace of my forward runs... I was joking with the male coach, and I told him they can cast me as a double for Angelo Dolfini in the Pinocchio on Ice show next year (he and his partner are in the cast too - I have photos from the show on FPM's website, in the news archive) as I seem to have the fluid movements of a wooden doll!

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Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

You should have said you were coming! I skated at Mt Vernon that day (with NoVa Sk8r) instead of at Fairfax. Which session did you skate?

Rocking: The Zamboni has obviously been fixed, as the ice was okay today. Not great, but okay! Was on the ice by 7.30 am, and managed to choreograph the first 2 30-second sections of our 1.5 minute free dance! Had the middle section all but choreographed yesterday, but now have the first section done, too. I think.....

In my lesson, after Robert had gone, everything went well except the Mohawk exercise, which I am meant to work on to aid flexibility. Asked my coach what to practice while I have no programme to practice (I will do Master of the House again at the British Adults, but it can aestivate for 2 months!), and he said to work on all the things I do well, but do them just that much better. He specifically mentioned forward runs (progressives). Yuck. And to work on strengthening my backwards skating, which is improving rapidly now. We both reckon that once I'm confident going backwards, my turns will improve, and I will be able to turn much faster solo.

Reeking: I do wish my beloved husband could remember steps from one minute to the next, but he can't. Sigh. He will.... He also wouldn't let me put the music on to go through the first 30 seconds "out loud", as it were, as he said "it's too rough; they'll laugh at us!". Well, so "they" might, meaning our elite dancers, but they laugh at themselves when their bits are rough, too. I had the music in my headphones to try to get it right. I KNOW I choreographed it myself, but it's still almost too difficult for me!

Then, not strictly skating, I embarrassed myself - a young free skater came to practice on our patch as his rink is out of action just now, and he is to skate an exhibition at the Grand Re-Opening on Saturday. So we were joking about this and that, and I said, to my coach "Oh, introduce J..... to him; he probably has an eye for a pretty girl." It turns out he was only J's boyfriend.... well, how was I supposed to know that???

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

The concert was AWESOME!! Both Chicago and EWF opened and closed the show together!
And I paid for it on the ice this morning. The show didn't end until 11pm and I had to shower when I got home, as the lawn section of the ampitheater was muddy and my feet were filthy and the humidity of a July night in southern Virginia is nothing short of sweat city!

Did a okay sitspin on the ice for coach for a early morning after late night out. Need to work on the footwork for the program more.
As far as good stuff goes, I'm literally forcing myself to get rid of "Power three phobia!"
Will have another lesson with coach tommorow, as I'm having a "weekend in the middle of the week" to make up for having to work the July 4th weekend!

Honestly, I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on! The main thing that rocked this morning was that our dance spin is finally spinning! I don't know if it is 3 revolutions yet, but it feels like it. Because it is a Scottish country dance, we are linking arms and spinning that way - and it works! Wha-hey, and all that!

What absolutely, positively, copper-bottomed reeks right now, though, is that it is the First Wednesday of the Month, what day I should be up at Alexandra Palace for the class and social dancing - but there was a preachers' meeting so I couldn't go. And the [expletive deleted] meeting has been cancelled, and nobody told me, so I trailed all the way there in the wind and the rain to find nobody there, and I came sadly home again. I suppose it is marginally better than had they rung me up mid-afternoon to say it was off, and me with my skates at our rink and no way of getting them, as we don't have a teatime patch on Wednesdays.....

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

I was at the 1pm public session. It was pretty nice at first, but after about 1/2 an hour the rink was almost at capacity. It's always nice to go back to rinks you've skated at before, and think that you've improved since then. My coach was Irina Chilova; she's still coaching there. How do you find time to coach in addition to skating and working?

SOOOOO envious of the EWF and Chicago concert!!! I WANNA GO!!! WAAAAH!

And speaking of "power 3's phobia...", be glad you didn't go through what I'm about to write, Terri C!!!

Reeking:
My secondary coach is SOOOOO . She had one of her (faster) students stroking 3 laps around the rink and timed her. THEN she says, "I wanna see you go around one lap on power 3's and it better be faster than this person's time," and timed me. She would NOT show me her time. I had to go in and just "do it."

Well, I didn't beat it, but I wasn't far off. I was 2.5 seconds slower! Needless to say, secondary coach tells me that I need to "push for it." I said "I thought I WAS pushing for it!" She cracks up and says "Well, PUSH HARDER!!!" I crack up and leave, fearing the woman and wondering whether she's reached a new level of insanity!

Rockin':
I survived it???

__________________
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!!!

Rockin': Being back on the ice and in a LESSON!!!!!


Reeking: Pretty much everything I did in that lesson. It's back to the beginning for me. I am stiff and not at all connected with the ice. My forward clockwise crossovers were totally pathetic.

I was greeted at the door with "There's a group of 55 coming" I guess that's the price to pay for skating on public ice. They weren't too bad, mostly stayed around the edges and left me the center circle to work on. I did an hour, and then another hour in a lesson on a freestyle session. Boy, am I paying for it!

Rockin': My mohawks, both left and right were much improved, according to my coach.

Reekin': We started moves again. Boy have I forgotten how to do them. We didn't get as far as Back IS edges or alt. 3Turns, but I'm sure we will.

Rockin':
Hmm, this is going to be hard - can you tell it hasn't been the greatest week? Well, my coach changed the camel-sit in my show program to a camel-attitude, which seems to be going well. My coach said I'm learning it quickly.

I got 3 revs on a backspin Tuesday night - unfortunately, that was the only one out of about 10 that I attempted.

Loop jump is getting more consistent - when I'm not skating my program. Same for sal-loop.

I got my blades sharpened yesterday, so I'm no longer sliding all over the place, except when I try to do a forward scratch spin from an RFI 3-turn at the end of my RFI spiral in my show program.


Reeking:
Loop and sal-loop in my program - grrr.

Camel-sit, sit, scratch...well, pretty much every spin I tried this week.

BO spiral to FI spiral transition - I just can't keep my free foot up after the BO 3-turn.

flo's rink, which got flooded yesterday during a 2-hour thunderstorm. I hope the rink's OK, flo - after all, we've got a show to do next month! I suppose it's probably good that the rink's going to be redoing the ice soon.

Reeking:

• Still my forward power 3's since there's "no power" to it -- though my primary coach was at least halfway willing to say that I've improved a lot on that move and am moving a bit faster. (i.e. not too long before I couldn't even do that move, much less move fast!!!)
• My 5 step mohawk. Time to get that blade fixed!!!
• Found out my test date has been MOVED UP!!! I'm now testing Bronze moves on AUGUST 1st!!! (The one consolation is that it's schedule for 5:15pm instead of 7am -- I definitely won't be comatosed going into the test session!)

Rocking:

• The rest of my moves are okay, but in particularly the first two moves on the Bronze Moves test!!!
• Overall, the primary coach STILL says after all that mess I've gone thru doing the moves that he thinks I'll pass Bronze Moves... I think he's LOCO!!!! (And BTW, he expects me to be at the test session!!! I hope some of that "ice blessing water" that was intended for PattyP will work for my test session??? )

__________________
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!!!

Yesterday I had my last ice session - the third and final lesson of this short dance stage I was attending. Sigh! Now any rink in Milan won't re-open till september, and this means no more skating for 8 weeks... sigh! Right now that I was finally enjoying my skating so much after months of being unhappy with the synchro team, it's already over!
The good thing is that now I'm 200% sure of joining this club for next season - which I planned to do anyway, but now that I have actually tried it, I know I love it, instead of hoping I would like it! I can't wait to be on the ice with them again!

Yesterday the lesson was great - we did some preparatory exercises and a short sequence taken from part of the Tango Romantica (steps 27 - 33 ) and it was great... I tried it a few times with the male coach, and we didn't even kill each other with our skates, LOL! I find the tangling up of skates a bit frightening and I mentally say a payer every time I prepare to put down the RFO across the man's foot.... but it was fun, and I adore my coach!
I'm taking note of the preparatory exercises, it would be good to remember them on a public session... *maybe I can get to skate once when I go to see a show in August*...
Nothing bad to report, actually - I have to refine my form/posture on almost everything but I think I'm not doing too bad for my first three lessons... next year I'm sure I'll improve a lot!!!

__________________
Alhrayth's Kiss&Cry

Up again at 6.00 am to get to the rink by 7.30 (it was the day to change the sheets which is why it took longer than usual to get out of the house). Still managed 35 minutes' skating with Robert.

Rocking: Well, I now have plenty of ideas as to what to put in the end 30 seconds! The first section is pretty much fixed now, subject to our coach's approval, as is the step sequence, and we were able to walk through "the story so far", as it were, without too many problems. But the end bit is going to be horrendous, since I keep putting in bits that are too hard for me, or that I don't really know how to do! We'll get there in the end, though. Only 3-4 bars left to choreograph, mostly links.

Reeking: Robert, trying to do the steps at the very beginning of the dance, which he finds more than challenging. Actually, not so much reeking, as roar-with-laughter-making, because we both ended up pretty hysterical. He'll get there, though.

Only managed one decent dance spin, the others were all dire. Our assisted 3-jump was a failure - we couldn't remember how you do it, and I do want it to be more of a lift than a jump. Jumping round each other was okay, but when I want to do a twizzle under his arm, I was just on two feet....

In my private practice, my back outside edge after crossovers was horrible. The inside edges went well, though. And my clockwise back crossovers were a disaster. The baby Mohawk sequence, which I am working on to improve flexibility, is beginning to improve, but nobody could call it "good" yet..... And so it goes.

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

I usually only teach two days a week; actually Saturdays and one evening. That way it doesn't take up too much of my time, plus the rink is only 3 miles from my house.