Lynne
I can't believe how much has happened to you since Nottingham gala.
Hope your wrist feels normal soon.
Have you any plans to skate up north soon or will it be your own rink?

Wednesday
I missed my skate patch because my husband needed the car for his work.
I haven't skated since Monday, but I'm going tomorrow.

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MEL
Absolute Skating

Last night I went out to the "far" rink for the monthly skate swap. It turned out that the others forgot about it, but I put my stuff out anyway and sold a few things, and some "skating angel" pins I had made. One of the kids there was interested in one of my outfits, so I swaped it for help on my doubles from her. She always has great pointers, and it will be fun. The sales are a great way to pick up some outfits and clear out your closet. It also benefits the club, as 10% of the sales are donated to them. On ice, I had a couple doubles that were good, and ran through the moves and other footwork without being run over.

Still have a bit of a cold and can not get too far from the tissue box.

I haven't posted in a while. Lessons & practice have been messed up, scheduling-wise due to my work schedule and other committments.

ANyways,

Monday's lesson:

European Waltz. The flow was nice and the timing was nice, but the turns sucked. Not a single 3-turn LOOKED like a 3-turn... can I call them W-turns?

Then we went to American Waltz... and my turns were clean for that. Nice 3-turns, not W-turns. THere were other problems with the dance, but the turns were pretty good.

So I spent quite some time trying to figure out what I was doing different weight and balance-wise to make the turns wonky in the EW but not in the EW. And came to the conclusion that it was at least partially related to the difference in the character of the dance. But part of it is just sloppiness. I have picked up a habit of extending free leg behind w/ toe hardly turned out, instead of slightly outside. So then I can't get the nice "pinch" on the free side plus it increases the whip-ability of the turns.

Today, I told my coach I didn't want to test EW at the end of the month, and that I wanted to wait until I had corrected the various bad habits and technique flaws. We did some EW together, and then he drilled with me on the 3-turns with better turnout on the extensions and on my tracking him.

Then we did Foxtrot and 14Step...Fox was quite nice, in between dodging what few kids were at the rink (because of Souths). 14Step... I got video'd for the 14Step and really saw my flaws...starting with a very messy freestyle-like intro-3. But coach said that despite the flaws, it was just about the strongest 14Step I'd ever skated with him.

Off work tomorrow, so I get to skate the early session. Then head down to Skaters paradise for sharpening....

--jsl

Lovely Jubbly & Plonker...all in one!

Definitely a mixed talent day!!
The ice was nice - no lumps - and I had it to myself.

I started, as usual, with my programme elements - to see if I could get the elements done in the 2.5 minute warm-up time.

I did my programme (with music) about 10 times, and kept on going whenever I made mistakes.
I missed the flip twice, so at the end of the steps I put in a salchow to make up the jump (not as difficult, but still counts).

I fell a cracker on the change foot sit spin. Slapped my hand right down and bent the wrist back...thought of YOU Lynne. I haven't a clue how I managed it, but I think I was a bit over-zealous with the change, and sort of whipped my body right over, on to my butt somehow.

__________________
MEL
Absolute Skating

Definitely plonker, a total and utter plonker and I wish I hadn't bothered to go! But it was skate or stodge in front of the computer all afternoon, and I suppose than on the bright side I got some exercise and got my blood circulating.

But oh, I could NOT do my twizzle-3 jump combination from my free dance, it was driving me wild. I just hope to goodness it comes back on Sunday, because it sure wasn't there today.

And then my coach started on about how maybe we shouldn't enter classes we thought we were going to come last at - I was my usual pre-competition "Why do I do this?" self - so I said, "But it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on!" which caused his wife to have to leave the room to laugh. All the same, it is fun, and I don't really care if I come last; I just always hope to do better this time. Not competing is simply not an option as far as I'm concerned!

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

quite the day for me today...

I overslept so I didn't make it to the rink in time for the early session.... but went over there to wait for my coach to finish because I promised to take his boots with me down to the skate shop for sharpening.

Luckily, I chose to take a different route to the shop, because when I crossed over one of our local interstates, there were policemen everywhere. Because of the shooting some distance away and they were looking for white vans (I do not drive a white van) ... still it was scary and I set out knowing nothing about what was going on, until then. Because I had my CD player on in the car instead of the radio.

Got the skates sharpened, and got back to the rink, and oh... it was so nice and easy to skate with fresh sharpening. JP had done a great job, and had soft-stoned them perfectly, so I didn't have problems stopping or such.

So I worked on getting my extensions more turned out, and did some EW and bits of Tango and American Waltz. Then came home and vegged out.

jenlyon60, I agree, the shootings have been scary. I live in Baltimore, but my parents live in Fairfax and I was just down last week on an errand. My fiance and I are trying not to freak out too much, but this morning after practice, I had to make a phone call in the car (911 call unrelated to the shootings) and I pulled into a gas station because it was the closest place. I stayed in my car while I called, something I wouldn't have done in the past.

Lovely/Jubbly:
RBO edges and CCW back crossovers are progressing nicely.

LFO 3-turns aren't as scratchy, and I'm nearly there on learning RFI (I should probably ask my instructor for a demo so I'm not teaching myself wrong!)

Learned bunny hop today--that was fun (and I like learning skills above the level I'm in so I have a variety of things to work on).

We also worked on forward spirals today and that was fun--that was the first thing I could do in skating when I started (before I could even stroke evenly).

Plonker:
Spins! Sunday practice spins were dreadful, so were the ones last night. I did a few decent CW ones but still not the best I can do. I'm too far too forward on my left blade on the CCW spins, haven't been able to fix that.

Front crossovers need work. I've been practicing them wrong (Mrs Redboots you mentioned someting about free leg out near Jupiter and that's exactly what I've been doing and it messes up my balance! I just need to practice them the right way now.)

Back inside edges. Grrr.

Lovely Jubbly:

• My good backspins were fabulous! I could feel myself accelerating as I pulled in, and spinning on the blade felt so easy! Ahhh...
• Met some other regular skaters today, and one of the adults introduced me to a coach. I'll be taking my first formal private lesson next Sunday!
• Edges were just nice!
• BO3's felt lots better!
• Got one semi-good camel spin that went around twice. Well, I bet it was as ugly as sin, but at least I didn't tip over, LOL...
• The advanced little kids were at it again. One little guy was trying out RBO3-mohawk-RBO3-mohawk (what's that called? Tim Goebel and Scott Hamilton do it super fast) into LFO3-2flip. Crazy little guy, LOL....and he did a respectable rendition of Alexei's Winter straightline footwork.
• Two really advanced skaters came by the rink too, and I had never seen them before. The guy landed multiple triple lutzes and had a gorgeous triple flip to boot! He seemed to be having problems with 3sal (he was only doing doubles) and he fell hard on his 3toe - it was tilted. His training partner (?) was doing travelling 3s into 2salchow, and she had a beautiful headless forward scratch. LOL he attempted it once too and it was less beautiful, but a respectable one nonetheless. I was looking over the Internet for possible culprits (LOL) and the guy looked closest to Sean Calvillo. (http://swpskating.com/seancalvillo.html) I can't be sure if it was him though - but it was sooo cool to hear the clunk of a landed triple jump on the same ice I was skating on!

Plonker:

• After watching some gorgeous forward scratches, I decided to attempt some too. Baaaad idea - my right hip is still dropping! Sigh..maybe I'll ask my new coach to help me on that next week...
• My baaaad backspins, LOL. Either it was really good or I couldn't cross my leg over at all. Figures..
• Couldn't get any runout on the loop jump. Sigh..
• Decided to abort practicing any jumps taken off from the left foot, since the outside of my skate was pinching my ankle. If I get off the ice, the problem is gone. Not sure if it's because my left ankle tilts in more, but it really dehabilitates the jumping power of my left foot. I'm not sure what to do with it, but I really don't want to punch out the ankle, LOL..The right leg is fine, strangely..Hmmmm

Anita