Thanx Terri! I'm glad J-Z remembered Loops and myself--then again, how many other adult pair teams has he worked with?

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Had a lovely time last night at the north London rink. The usual teachers are in Nottingham for the British Championships (isn't everybody?), so we had two different teachers, and some horrible exercises - chasse, followed by 3-turn/bracket (which could be done on 2 feet, they weren't that awful) and repeat on the other foot. I realised I am far too square on in my skating, tending to skate with my upper body square to the direction I'm going - which is why my forward cross-rolls are so good, of course, but doesn't help with other things.

The social dancing was lovely, Christmas music (a Golden Skaters' Waltz to "O Come, all ye faithful", anybody? Or a Paso Doble to "Christians, awake"?!), and lots of MEN - loads of visitors from other clubs. Just about the right amount of people, and you could dance every dance you were able, or wanted to. The ice was great, too, really smooth (much smoother than usual for that rink), and for once, I had the stamina to last out the whole evening instead of finishing at the interval, as I usually do. But oh, can I ever feel my legs this morning!!!!!

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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!

Mrs. Redboots...MEN????? Fly one over!

Nasty: Very sore from something - could be a multiple choice at this point!
Nice: Working more on the Novice to Silver program. So far I'm learning the program as it was set for the novice skater - without the doubles and tripples of course, with the same choreography and footwork. It's a beautiful program and great to work on, but I did tell the coach not to be offended if I eventually changed a couple of things. Like when I was learning the basics - I could do the elements, but putting them in a program at speed and out of another element ....! It's been fun to learn and add to my choreography collection. Still not sure if I'll have anything for New Year's event.

Sorry folks, no celebrities today.

We had a family of four show up to skate the morning session, so they had to split the ice in half- one half for public skaters, the other half for freestyle skaters. That worked for, a hour or so. It turned out okay because everyone stayed out of everyone's way.

Did manage to work on some more choreography for my interpretive program. Learned how to do a "Jenkins" - RFI edge with a very deep knee and the left foot crossing behind!

Oh and it was COLD too!

Nasty: IT'S COLD! I know, I'm a spoiled So. Cal girl, but.... We have had temps in the low 30's this week and our rink has no heating (not usually needed here) and I'm not used to skating in 30 deg temps!. It's hard enough to skate at 6:00 am without being frozen. My old body just would not function this morning.

Nice: My spins were better today and I did manage to land a few axels.

Really nice: My coach, Sherri Terando is in New York at Jr. Nationals with her daughter, Lauren Simm. Lauren placed 1st in her qualifying group (Intermediate B)!! Good luck to her in the finals!

Scroll to the end to see her photo...

http://www.usfsa.org/event_related_d...pics/pics1.htm

Me too! (Good idea, Patty!)

Nice: Back 3's. I am LOVING my new Pattern 99's and finding that they really help me hold a good edge after the turn.

Nasty: Back 3's. Despite the help from the new blades, these are not quite consistent enough to pass the Silver moves test yet (although I had some really solid patterns yesterday, more so than usual). I swear, if I had a nickel for every back 3-turn I've practiced, I'd be rich enough to buy my own skating rink!!!

Happy skating everyone!

First thing, Terri C... so jealous you got to meet all those skaters, particular JZ!!! What a HUNK!!!

Nice: Back on "ice therapy" again!!! It's SOOOOO GOOD to be back on the ice and taking lessons with my primary coach after not having skated for a couple of weeks (well, minus my trying out the blade and getting the alignment done right.) Okay, it's not with the purple boots but I'm not complaining for now. And they will be here by Christmas (I hope!)

And OMG!!! My scratch spin is back! I can actually cross the leg again and not worry about going on my toepick again. (I knew there was something wrong with the blade alignment on my other pair!!! ) I sure hope my skating will hold up well in NYC...

Nasty: I lost my T-stops though. My secondary coach is gonna have a fit. My primary coach is already picking on me about it.

Other notes: Primary coach thinks the MK Gold Stars rocker (or was it toe pick...I forgot what it was...) thought MK Gold Stars are too big for me. Wants me to stick with MK Pros since I've been skating on it for a while. I have no complaints about that, since it's much cheaper and still a perfectly good blade for me.

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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!!!

Acutally, it was my second encounter with JZ- he was one of the coaches at the Adult Camp in NJ last summer. Oh and NoVa and Loops had quite the experience with him, as they came in the day before camp started and got a couple of pairs lessons with him!

Hey Jazzpants,
JZ IS definitely quite the hunk (lucky me, I got to do pairs elements with him ), but he's just so darn nice that you forget after a couple of minutes!

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Where are those knives when I need them?
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I need a detachable left foot!

Well, it was nice being back on the ice after almost two weeks off for Easterns, Thanksgiving, and a virus or something that kept me housebound last weekend,. But that was about it for the good part. I did hit one almost-axel that I might be able to cheat my way out of the rotation if I could keep my feet foot up, but everything else was pretty rough.

And to top it off, ten minutes before the end of the session, the hockey boxes were invaded by about a dozen twerpy 10-year-old boys coming in for a league clinic after us. They amused themselves by laughing loudly at the girls on the ice, poking sticks out onto the ice and kicking their skates into the brand-new bleachers and boards. I spoke to them twice, and reminded them that they weren't supposed to be out there without a coach. No good. They moved out of the box to the space between the boards and the bleachers and upped the obnoixous behavior, kicking the bleachers, banging sticks on the boards and the glass and yelling at each other. When it got so loud that I couldn't hear my coach, I lost it. I stomped off the ice and yelled at them to cut it out and get back into the locker room. Now, I used to teach junior high; my voice has volume. The whole rink heard me, including the row of parents of said hockey players sitting under the heaters at the opposite side of the rink. Rhe boys scuttled off and I went back to my (very expensive) lesson. Two mintues later (still before the end of the session) two of the hockey coaches come out and interrupt my coach to ask in a very haughty tone if there'd been a problem with the boys. I said, rather shortly, because I'm still in a lesson, that yes, there was; the kids were being rowdy and obnoxious and I kicked them out. Coach said they had the right to be there. I said not without a coach, and there was no coach with them. Plus our ice wasn't over so no, they weren't supposed to be there. The sign stating those rules was posted on the glass about three inches from the guy's nose. He said I should have talked to him first. I pointed out that he wasn't there, that no adults were there, that I spoke to them twice and then I yelled. And I'd yell again if they did it again. He stomped off. By then the session was over. So I missed ten minuetes of a lesson and ice time and my blood pressure was sky high. When I got off the ice, beside where the hockey parents were huddled, not one of them asked me what happened or what was wrong. Grrrr....

I'm hoping that the clinic was a one-time thing and we won't have to deal with the brats next week. Usually it's high-school or college hockey games after us and the guys are pretty good. I have to remind them that most of the girls on the ice are underage, but they usually don't bother us beyond a little drooling on the glass.

Yikes, blue111moon! You were definitely within your rights to get rid of the hockey players. I guess I've been lucky - one of the rinks I skate at has hockey right after FS in the afternoons, but the hockey players that get there early just walk to the locker rooms and ignore the skaters.

Nice: I'm back to lessons after a several-week hiatus. My coach thinks the time off the ice was good for me. We started working on the flip and waltz-half loop-sal. The waltz combo was good, but my flips were all cheated, although my coach considered it a good sign that I stayed on my right foot and didn't put my left down like I've been doing for the past (almost) 2 years whenever I've tried that jump. We also worked on the backspin, and I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get my free leg crossed in front w/o ending up on my toe pick (I have a problem with leaning forward). The spins only lasted for about 2 revs at the most, but hey, it's a start.

Nasty: After about 5 or 6 flip attempts, my left foot became somewhat surgically attached to the ice and would not lift up when I tried to jump. My coach decided we had "exceeded our quota" for the day and should move on to something else - lol!

Nasty:

Jumps at speed. Which also means 3 turns at speed, if I want to do anything other than a waltz jump. Ick.

Nice:

I landed a few speedy and high jumps and they felt awesome. It's such a great feeling when things work. And, I had the ice to myself since everyone else is at the challenges.

Nasty: try as I might, I cannot get my new bronze program to come together. This is a problem since I am competing it in a week at State Games. Egads! Either I'm skating like a demon and I'm ahead of the music, or I'm too far behind and have to shorten my spiral sequence. I have YET to skate this program to completion, as I run out of music before my final jump combination. Since the music is at 1:29, I have requested my coach please add the extra 10 seconds somewhere. We adjusted a few things last night like putting the sit spin first and moving a loop where a left twizzle used to be, but I'm still not comfortable.

Nice: my frugal skating fashions have paid off! Instead of going all out to purchase a new dress for my Christmas show exhibition, I had a fluffy, sparkly sweater that is a silvery pink that I am wearing wearing with a white pull on skirt. I hoped it wouldn't look cheesy, and got raves about it at the rink last night. Big relief!

Freestyle 3 and Christmas exhibition are effortless, and in good shapre for the competition next weekend.

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Champagne in 2005, 2008, 2009 - who's next out of the pre-bronze club...?

Wang chung!

Yeah, our pair lesson (in Hackensack last June) started just as soon as Loops stopped drooling!

JZ allowed me to pick him up in an axel lift. Then he let me know exactly what I as doing wrong. He really is the bomb diggety!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

ALL NASTY: I have been laid low by a terrible cold..sore throat, cough, head cold...the whole ball of wax.

This thing came on so suddenly too...in about a 2 hour period on Wednesday. Needless to say, no ice for me...I don't have the strength to even lift my skates.

I hope none of you get this thing...not pretty!

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

Nice--
Have improved my sal takeoff so that it is more to my coach's liking, technique wise.

Was able to land the loop from a mohawk entrance--previously I could only do this from an FI3. But most loop attempts (of any entrance type) were two-footed, especially from BXO. File that under Nasty.

Showed my coach the wimpy BO double threes that I discovered one day while I was fooling around. She showed me a trick with the arm/shoulder of the non-skating side that helped me improve my weaker side.

Had some good practice doing backspins on the "proper" (CW, for me) side (I backspin better in the direction I don't normally rotate in, because my right foot is just stronger/more balanced than my left.)

Had fun watching some of the kids work on their recently learned lutzes and axels. Some of them are just jumping beans!

Nasty--
My waltz-falling leafs were WIMPY WIMPY WIMPY. The first ones I ever did were the best, and it's been downhill from there!

Camel--haven't found a consistent hook yet.

Nearly wiped out on back power pulls on my weak foot. (Good news is that they're improving, but it was scary that I nearly yanked myself out from under me.) Then I actually did keel over on an ina bauer--somehow got my weight WAAAAY tooo far behind me.

Just got back from the show- I didn't take any notes, but I can tell you a couple of things. One I&Z had unison to die for- I was thinking about Loops and NoVa when I saw this!

Also, there is the JZ I met and worked with at camp and there's the JZ I see in a show, oh brother, what a hunk!

All in all it was a good show when you figure they get it all toegther in a matter of days! There were some re-takes, as Kristi fell on a triple toe, Kyoko fell on the SBS axel she did with John ( meaning more eye candy ), Michael and Tood had reskates as well as Josef.

Another thing that stood out, at least for me was that they had some Navy folks in dress blues present Michael Mc Donald and the ladies in the cast with flowers at the "conclusion" of the show. Being that my area is Navy dominant, I felt that it was a very touching gesture!

You are WAY too kind!

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Nasty:
Since I moaned about doing 3 turns at speed, today's lesson was all about 3 turns, and that 3 turns are not always the same. There's figure 3's, 3's for skills, and 3's for jumping (freeskate), oh and 3's for dance. I can do 3's for dance, nice waltzy, down up down threes. Figure 3's are all about my hips and quickness. So, to make a long story short, I got a figures (patch) session today. It was fun (Nice) but either I can do the turn and not get back to centre, or not do the turn figure-style and muscle it out back to centre, so that's why it's a Nasty because I was getting frustrated!! Evil coach who has 8th figure gave me no sympathy at all and demonstrated 8th figure so I was suitably humbled.

Nice:
Hmm. Thinking about that one. Will get back to y'all. It was that sort of lesson day.

Nasty: Nothing really.

Nice: With all the coaches being away I had a lesson with some random girl, who was quite nice, she had me doing sit spins and such, something different! There was only 5 people on the patch session afterwards which was quite cool aswell. When people arrived for the public session they were all peering through the glass, which was cool in some ways and not so cool in others. I felt pressure not to fall when jumping, as I was using the circle closest to the window. I'd been using the circle for the whole session and I wasn't going to move being I was being gawped at. I actually found that having people watching, and feeling scared I went into my jumps with more forve and landed them cleanly which felt really good. I was really happy with them. I did about 150 waltz jumps and I was actually breathless when I'd finished, not a feeling I get often. I've found out that I'm to do some sort of partner skating, and I'm guessing that I'll have to do it with my inscructor, which should be hilariously funny.

Nice- Finished painting my Oh Holy Night costume for the show on the 17th. Started Oh Holy Night program - for the show on the 17th.
Nasty - my fingers are blue.

Flo, whose version of the song are you skating to?

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Where are those knives when I need them?
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I need a detachable left foot!

Josh Groban - It's a beautiful recording.

It certainly is. He recorded a song called "Believe" for the Polar Express movie, and that's what NoVa and I are using for our holiday exhibition.

__________________
Where are those knives when I need them?
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I need a detachable left foot!

Or considering how up and down our practices are, I'm starting to tell people our program is from the "Bipolar Express!"

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.