I agree that if your Jacksons are heat-moldable, you should heat mold them (just make sure you follow the instructions very carefully because I believe they require a convection oven, not a regular oven). If you find that your new boots are too stiff, try wrapping the ankles of your old boots with tape after you lace them up. It's an old trick but I guess people wouldn't do it unless it worked, LOL!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I think ice time will be the last I'll be worrying about before camp.
Thanks for the advise! What is moleskin?

I'd like one of those sharpening thingies but I've no idea what type I'd need, they have these different rockers and hollow sizes... And also, I don't know how it would be with customs. I've somehow always had a LOT of hassle with customs importing stuff from outside the European union and then had to pay lots of taxes over it too. I wonder if you can get them inside the European union somewhere?

Although it's really okay, one of the rinks you can get your skates sharpened at ok is our rink, the other is the rink in the city where my mother lives.

CRABGRASS CRABCRASS CRABGRASS!!!

Okay I'm going to have a mini temper tantrum right now. THEY CANCELLED MY BEST EVENT!! Adult pre-bronze compulsary. This is the one event where I actually earned a gold medal. Everything in it are my best elements - half lutz, beautiful lunge, fast two foot spin...okay well my waltz jump aint so good.

I really thought I had a chance, because if there were others about at my level, I do those well enough I can be competitive and if I competed against those folks who do bronze programs in freestyle...well they are usually working on real lutzes so their half lutzes are not usually so great and people who do advanced spins often forget how to do two foot spins. Pout pout pout.

Oh well. Remember, I'm the one who doesn't care how I place.

j

Moleskin is a adhesive-backed fabric that is used to cover "rub spots" inside shoes and skates. I believe it's flannel fabric, and sometimes it has a thin layer of soft foam as well, to further cushion the spot. You cut to fit. I used it on my old skates because the top edges were getting hard and causing abrasions on my calves.

Sorry "they" (who they?) cancelled it - could you skate up to the Bronze compulsory level? Are "they" refunding the fee? Anyway, you're mad about the event being cancelled, not about how you placed!

Daffodils:
I did three-turn Figures yesterday! Yay me, boy am I slow coming back to center; and I can't remember where to put my free foot - LOL

Crabgrass:
I drove an hour to teach a student who, for the second week in a row, didn't show up. The mother asked me just Thursday to save the time for her, and No Show. I'm charging her the lesson fee anyway, I don't care if she never comes back again or changes coaches - I'm p****d!

I wandered around doing Prelim MITF, but my heart wasn't in it -- there were a lot of kids on the freestyle with nosy parents watching, so I didn't really want to screw anything up. Wonder if there's a freestyle tomorrow at my "no one knows my name" rink?

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It was cancelled due to lack of participants. Which is odd because the pre-bronze spins and jump events are still on. They will refund me. I can't do bronze because I can't even do a pretend salchow (like my pretend toe loop I'm dong for jumps) or a sitspin...but by goal is by January to compete in the bronze compulsary (that one does not require a sitspin)

j

daffodil:
I think I landed a double loop... i'm just really utterly confused now about how rotated it is enough to be called a double loop but its not definetly 100% clean (just like those double toe loop suspects....) haha...

double salchow and axel don't seem to be having too much issues...

crabgrass:
double toe... no good suspects today... all were pretty severly underrotated... just couldn't get into the feel for it.

this is very scary... i don't want to go into that whole oh maybe I have a double toe and double loop maybe I don't and then competition comes around again and then I have to drop them... I WILL GET THEM THIS YEAR...

spins... were okish, I worked on my change edge sit spins and they are still raw and new but just needs practise.

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Tidesong

Crabgrass: Oh man I took a really hard fall today. My first really bad one on a jump ever(I had one before and that was Wed. and it was more of a not landing on the toepick so i just kind of sat down fall). I was doing a flip, like I'd done about 6 times already and I landed funny and my legs went up in the air and I hit my head, my lower back, my elbow and somehow my knee. Can you say OUCH? I don't know if it was because I was skating in rink 2 instead of 3 where I usually skate, but it hurt really bad. My whole skate session today was pretty awful. I never fall, and I fell bad 3 times today. (maybe I shouldn't skate when I'm sick? lol)

Daffodils: I did manage to get some good height on my flip, despite being pretty scared to do them now. I used to just pick in and jump without any effort, so they were pretty low. But now I've learned that when I go to jump, to actually put some oomph into my jumping up, and it's helped a lot.(except that one time where I fell and died.)

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Crabgrass:Only one hour of skating this week. I had my piano recital so I had to reschedule my lesson. I made it a point to go to the rink the next day, though. But I decided why not go to where my first ever competition will be held. So I did go. I guess the only crabgrass is that I had little time to get things done

Daffodils: I finally was able to get my spiral. Though I am only in Basic Alpha, I will compete this August, and my coach thinks I'd be capable of performing a spiral. I finally got over the fear of falling on my toepick, after getting some advice from a few people, and I was pretty confident with my balance since I similarly got tips. I am very close to holding it in a full split position, and maybe, if I work harder, I can get it there come the competition. I was also able to land my first ever waltz jump. Hey, who knows, maybe this rink means luck for me? I also found that the skating shop there is a dealer of riedell, and it's cheaper to buy skates from them than in my home rink. Actually, almost everything there is cheaper, so this means real luck

Do you think maybe you should skip the competition thing this year and focus on your skills? Get the doubles this year, then come back with a mean bite next year.

Daffodils:

After I don't know how many months, I finally passed the spin for my silver passport! Yay!

Not only that, but I've figured out how to get round the Foxtrot mohawk without skidding to a frantic halt and pushing off with the other foot afterwards

Crabgrass? Don't think we have that over here, but I guess it's bad:

Next up is gold passport, and for that I have to do the spin from a proper entrance instead of a wind up and toe push

I'm working on those two jumps as well, and the thought of trying to get them into my program this season is stressing me out. When I think about how long it took me to get my axel and double salchow into my program, I realize that I will probably need to be landing the double toe and/or double loop clean (according to my coach's keen eyes) and at least 50% of the time before trying it in my program, and then I need to be landing it clean in my program 50% of the time before I should consider trying it in competition. So basically, I'm looking at next season, not this season, LOL!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Crabgrass: I foolishly taught in my skates for an hour Friday night, then HAD to teach in my skates yesterday for half hour, w/ a student who's testing in 2 weeks & needed to practice partnering. Now hip hurts more again. Not like before, but I did aggravate it. Luckily I have Sun-Mon-Tues totally off, so we'll see. I'm also thinking I will not teach on ice again the rest of this week.

So ticked at said student who's testing---last week had a great lesson, we made a lot of really good fixes. Then, he didn't practice once all week, so of course all the fixes were gone. I don't understand that at ALL...and this is an adult, who has plenty of time to practice. That short before a test, I'm eating sleeping & breathing the dance to be tested.

Today was birthday party sunday (apparently) so I only skated for 25 minutes before the little ones too over (very few skating, must running and then trying to slide as far as they could)

But the whole time I was skating the ice was all to myself!

I ran the PB MITF test 4 times. I need to work on waltz 8! And my crossovers, not having the hockey circles is really difficult. And CW perimeter stroking is really difficult, because with directional flow I rarely get to do that. My RFI 3 turn is the only thing holding my 3 turn pattern back. So I'm feeling good, but with this many things to work on, I won't be testing anytime soon.

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

Just a little reminder that adults don't tell their coaches all the details of their lives and life sometimes does get in the way of skating and it really isn't always possible to eat sleep and breath skating. I had a coach whose life was skating and she had a real hard time understanding why that wasn't so with me.

j

Completed run-throughs of Bronze moves as warmup. Moves are still in place! Compared to yesterday, today, I was extremely lucky to share whole sheet of ice with an ice dancer, working on her Gold dances and moves. I was in awe of her dances and effortless but poweful moves most of time. Inspired by her, I also worked on my F and B cross rolls and inside rolls. I did get some oomphs and rip sounds out of the forward ones. Worked on backward crossover power circle. I am getting the slow to fast rhythm and feel more comfortable to accelerate BXORs and glid out strong and fast with a nice-extension on BO. But, I still have a mental block on the forward power circle and can't get the acceleration at all. Overall, it was really a good work-out and practice (I did intentionally point my toes on all moves!) today. Counted as Daffodils.

I get what you mean doubletoe and sessy... well sessy I'm already skipping a competition in august for sure and I am trying to skip the competition in december too (right now its dead no... even if i miraculously get my double toe and double loop before that, I'll spend that time on my next double), so I can assess the situation then... (because usually application deadline for nationals is around end december) but I like going for nationals(should be around march)... its fun and I like seeing my detailled scores and I still haven't landed my double salchow in competition yet lol....

@doubletoe: yeah I only want to get the jumps this year, like land 50% in practise, I don't believe (although I do dream of it) I can really have them in my program either this season.

p.s. I don't know how (must have caught it from someone) but I managed to fall miserably sick after that practise, I was just only sniffling when I posted about it, but the next morning I had fever too and spent the whole sunday in bed.... (slightly better now...)

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Tidesong

Jskater--

Yes, but he convinced me to rush into this test, & I based my final decision to let him do it based on that lesson. A coach is putting themselves on the line too, sending a student out to test.

Yay, well done!

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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!