I was wondering what (if anything) people are using to take their program music on the ice for practice?

In the part of the country where I live now I don't see anybody using any kind of portable player, which surprised me. A zillion years ago (1960s) most skaters bough a portable cassette player (when they first came out) and used to practice with one of those little white earphones in one ear. It was a P.I.T.A. rewinding and trying to find the right spot to start again to practice one particular part of your routine but it was nice to have your music available all the time and be able to replay one part of it. With today's technology, I would have thought an MP3 player with a display and "bookmarks" would be just the cat's meow.

Is there some particular reason why people aren't using some kind of portable player anymore?

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Dianne
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Hi,

Where I skate a lot of people come in with their iPods. I use that sometimes too. I guess you just have to be careful if you fall as it can hurt a lot to fall on your iPod especially if it's not nano!

Evelina

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The hardest thing about ice skating is the ice.

I bought my ipod for that very reason. I use it constantly--but only on sessions that are quiet. It's great to be able to play your music over & over & not be driving everyone crazy!

The problem with skating with earphones is that you may not hear someone else calling out to you to let you know you are about to be plowed into or in the way. I think there is a tendency of people to get a little lost in their music when they're using a portable player with earphones. In fact I recently saw a girl, late teens I would say, meandering around the ice listening to her iPod and never once looking in the direction she was skating (backwards). I kept waiting for her to be knocked over, but it was not that crowded so there were no collisions. Some close calls, though...

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August 22, back on the ice!

i constantly use mine as well i love it sometimes i use it to listen to my program and sometimes i use it to drown out the horrid public skate music. But i can usually still hear when program music comes on over the other system and i always watch where i am going when i have head phones on the times i have almost collided no one was saying watch out becuase they werent looking either.

A lot of rinks banned personal music players along with cell phones and cameras. Safety issue related to distraction.

Since program music is usually "cut" versions, it requires the skater to move the music from a cassette/CD onto the music player. Many people don't know how to do this, so they just practice with the loudspeaker.

I agree that the cassette players were a PITA. The headphones flew off in spins and the players banged around during jumps.

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The safety issue is why everybody used only a single earpiece "in the old days" - though where I skate now they have the music so #@$%# loud that I am thinking of wearing headphones just to protect my hearing! You certainly can't hear someone skating toward you and I have yet to hear anyone shout a warning - folks are more inclined to stand there like dorks and watch the collision!

It will be awhile before I am skating to my own music but I have already cut it, mixed it, and have it ready to go so I just bought myself an iPod nano
- looks like it will do what I want. At $100+ I think I'll tuck it somewhere where I wont fall on it

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Dianne
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You could consider getting a much cheaper and maybe even smaller mp3 player just for skating. It doesn't need much storage, because you won't be using it for listening to your collection of music as you travel, etc. Then you won't be risking your ipod.

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Surely many, if not most, people cut their music on computers nowadays, so it's easy to transfer it to an MP3 player?

I have a cheapo one we use all the time; we have sports earphones and only wear one at a time so that we can stay aware of what else is happening on the ice, and it means we don't hog the music. If it's a dance where we can't have one headphone each, I count out loud for Husband. And we do, of course, skate to the music on the loudspeaker whenever possible!

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

I looked at many others but I like the time display and FF/Rewind on the iPod - should be easy to get to a particular point in the music.

I'll just tuck it in my cleavage - safest point I can think of - complete with bumpers

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Dianne
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That's an option I don't have .

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I wish I could bring my iPod with me to practice, so I can hear the music I want to hear instead of the weird blaring music my rink plays, but you aren't allowed to bring portable mp3 players onto the ice. I have seen instuctors skating around behind their skaters with a big stereo on occasion.

I'm wondering where you were in the '60 that people used these kinds of devices for skating -- at our rink, all they had were records -- you would put on your record (I still have mine -- it was cut on a old 78 rpm) -- cassette and players weren't even invented until 1963 or 1965 and I don't think the Walkman came out until the '80's!!

Just curious where you were that people did that???

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

Maybe inside your bra? I don't *think* you'd fall there?

I'm about the same vintage as RustyBlades, and I think she must just have confused her eras. There were definitely no tiny little cassette players in 1960's. They played vinyl at the (roller) rinks where I skated back then.

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I use my phone. It has a memory card and plays MP3s and also can tune in radio stations. I have an adapter that lets me plug in a regular set of earbuds so I use that running the wire inside my shirt and keeping the phone in my pocket. As an added bonus, incoming phone calls interrupt my listening pleasure, and (amazingly) the microphone in my pocket picks up my voice perfectly well while skating. I didn't realize it until skating around one day idly one day too lazy to get off the ice while talking to my business partner, then realized, "hey, the microphone isn't anywhere near my mouth and he hasn't said it's difficult to hear me or anything!"

An iPod might be a bit nicer because it would hold more (can only put a 2GB card in my phone max), but I'm quite content not having another device to worry about. Now, if only the camera phone took pictures of tolerable quality...

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

I do most of my practicing without actual music simply by having the music in my head... but when I do use music I bring an MP3 player with those little 'button-in-the-ear' headphones which enables me to just put one of them in to have my other ear free to the surrounding sounds.

At our rink in Vegas the use of phones (atleast for conversation) was not allowed. You could keep it on you but when it rang had to get off the ice to talk... found that was a very sensible, smart rule.
I don't know how it is here as noone seems to carry cell phone on them any way... we like to come to the rink to skate not chat.

I started working in a TV & radio store in 1961, a Philips depot. Philips introduced the cassette tape in 1963. By 1965, a number of companies were producing portable cassette players. One of the smallest and least expensive was made by Sony. In the first year of production, the Philips cassette players were rather large (maybe 8x3x5") but Sony made theirs much smaller and lighter (and cheaper). I still have one around here somewhere - it is playback only, no fast forward, and eats AA batteries like they were going out of style.

Maybe they were so popular where I grew up because the Philips TV store was owned by the president of the figure skating club

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Dianne
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It's dangerous to have music playing on a crowded session.

At my home club, listening to headphones is BANNED during freeskate sessions.

Well, there you go! That is what I wanted to know -- like, why was your experience so very different, and that last sentence pretty much sums it up!

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

i use my ipod with directions and timign taped over the music. Sometime coach skates behind me with stereo. I prefer the latter b/c I have less to worry about b/c my poor little ipod which i lvoe to death and don't want to break.

Umm.... been there, done that--was leaning too far forward on a spiral once. Hit my hip something awful, too.

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Then why don't y just get one of those cheap MP3 players just for skating practice and safe the iPod for less 'dangerous' uses?

Strangely enough, after starting this topic yesterday, I saw 3 people on the ice last night with portable players.

Funny thing is that they WEREN'T the ones presenting a traffic hazard - THEY were watching where they were going.

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Dianne
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