Thanks Annabel. We're going through it with my son now as it's evident he's dyspraxic too, but daughter seems to be doing very well of late with her skating and hopefully that will be an inspiration to him! I sure think the skating's helped no end with her co-ordination and let's hope it helps him too!

Nicki

I think many sports help - my nephew (younger brother of the dressage star!) is also severely dyspraxic, but he has taken up show-jumping, and although he's still very much a beginner, I think it is helping him.

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

Sounds like the same plan my coach outlined for me...work on pre-bronze with some bronze stuff thrown in (so there are no surprises).

The problem we have is limited (or no) ice in the summer which really cuts down on testing sessions-our rink no sooner opens up and the other rinks that offer testing take time off for the holidays.

Now if I could just get more than 1/2 a revolution on that durn backspin...

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

How is your change foot? Once I got my change foot I tried a forward scratch into a backscratch and it worked miracles. Its like, I didn't have any time to think about it so I just did it. Still, I can only do a decent backspin from this entry

You will get that backspin, Skate@Delaware! If *I* could do it (and trust me, I'm pretty edge challenged!!! ) you definitely could too given enough time and patience!!!

Ummm... Mrs Redboots??? Still at beginner level??? Ummm... aren't you the one that told me that this past year you've essentially gone from being in the "definite last place" spot to actually WINNING one of the events??? Hmmmm?

And remember what you said about skating? "It's the most fun you'll ever have with your clothes on???" The money is well spent if you ARE having fun!!!

Congrats to your kids, NickiT! YAAAAAAY!!!!

Rough Falls:

I think my secondary coach is either extremely EVIL or NUTS but....

Last week she gave me this exercise to stroke around the rink and then do a RFI mohawk and do the perimeter back crossovers pattern and then back crossovers around the end of the rink.

THIS week she gave me more! She had me from a CCW back crossover step out (choctaw) to a RFO spiral, then LFI mohawk and step onto a LBO spiral, then LBO3 to a LFI spiral. From the LFI spiral, do a LFI mohawk and come out of the spiral to a RBI spiral. Trust me! It took a while just to walk thru the pattern to get what she wanted me to do right... and I'm not even gonna tell 'ya how this sequence came out in the end...except to say my secondary coach is definitely EVIL this morning! EVIL, I tell 'ya!!!

In the process of that, she is "extremely concerned" that after one year of pilates, I still don't have any flexibility on the hip flexors and my turnout doesn't have the strength or the flexibility to do a good simple spiral. She's now recommending I up my pilates significantly to eventually 4 times a week on a combination of pilates and yoga!!!
HELP!!! I don't have a life outside of work and skating as is!!! Where am I gonna find the time!?!?!

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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!!!

You guys just crack me up! Change-foot spin! Yeah, in my dreams! Sunshinepointe, I would give up chocolate for one whole week for a change-foot spin!!! We did try that approach, but went back to the simple old 2-foot trick until my hips and shoulders stopped dropping.

My coach has been challenged by me to "think outside of the box" in order to come up with ways to either get me to do stuff or to find things that work for me.....I applaud her!!! and I'm surprised she hasn't quit!

I'm dyin' here, waiting for my massage-ouch! I'm hoping it will help with these shoulder spasms (and feel really good!)...tomorrow!!!

Today was a mixed grill of things:

Smooth landing: program run through was very nice except for hunching up of my shoulders on jumps. That was the only thing she had to pick on.

Rough Fall: Loop jump was re-visited with a very small amount of success. Now, I'm to briefly lift my left leg before jumping (to make sure I'm not putting it down and having weight on it), and while jumping try to keep it up and not put it on the ice until after the right foot has landed...had a hard time with that concept tonight. Seems like I will do steps 1-3 then forget the rest...oh well.

Then she taught me the flip, which she thought would help me with the loop. Seemed ok until it came to actually jumping it (and I freeeked out and my mind said no way). I hate when that happens! And, saving the worst for last, we hit the sit spin. If I get down far enough, it gets wobbly and I bail out. My free leg keeps wanting to creep in next to my spinning foot.


stupid me!!!! Everytime I try to be a more assertive skater/jumper out on the ice, I can't and I hate it. I'm a weenie and it really bothers me. I don't know how to break out of this mindset.

I'm all for learning new things and jumps and stuff, but then I get hung up mentally.

I'm wondering if I need a session in the harness (or the straight-jacket)!?!?!?

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

smooth had a great time choreographing more ofthe pairs program. Got to see Mika's program. good luck to all!

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

I love Pilates and what it has done for my core strength, but one thing I noticed after doing it for a while is that in general it made the muscles in the front of the body (hip flexors & abdomen muscles) tighter (so while extending the leg to the back, I found I had a little less flexibility). I think it's because a lot of the movements in Pilates involve flexion of the torso rather than extension of it. Some exercises involve extension of the torso, but many of them are flexion. So once I realized this, I made sure to stretch my hip flexors and thigh muscles regularly after skating or any other workout. (My quads get very tight anyways.)

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Rough Fall(s): That quite literally sums up my lesson yesterday. We started with toe walleys (I do NOT like these... but my coach says "They're my favorite jump!" I told her to do one, so she did, then a walley, then she attempted a double toe-walley... but slipped a bit... so it wasn't as smooth a landing as she would have liked, but she laughed. LOVE my coach's attitude... still don't like the toe walley.) She compared toe walleys to lutzes (same counter rotation)... and flips.. "Don't think about it, just do it, like the flip!" And so of course, my brain hears "flips and toe walleys are the same".. and couldn't land my first two flips (and that's my GOOD jump). Ran my program once (it was so-so), so we decided to run it again.. and on the second jump in the program (salchow) my body extended above the ice, but my take-off foot stayed in contact with the ice (I think I caught a rut) and slammed down onto my left hip. It hurt.. but worse, everyone stopped what they were doing to see if I was ok.. because the noise was SO loud when I hit the ice. It even drowned out my music!!! I got up, skated a couple of laps, said I wanted to try the program again (to prove I was ok) and made it a little further through the program and fell on a back-sit.. on my left hip AGAIN!!! Stroked around... did a couple more back sits (to prove to myself I could) then worked on moves.

Smooth landings: I did manage a couple of reasonable flips and lutzes after the first bad ones, a reasonable flip/loop/loop and a good lutz sequence.. even though I was jammed into a corner by our morning dancers. My coach was happy i could find a way to continue the sequence, even though I had to refigure the pattern it would take. And big news for me: I did a few good (for me) camels!!! I even had one that had 5 revolutions with speed... and went right into my footwork! My coach was VERY happy.

Jazzpants,
I agree with Mika, you have to really consciously stretch your quads, hamstrings and hip flexors because the pilates exercises themselves don't do that. The last thing we do in my pilates lesson, the last 10 minutes, is stretch, stretch, stretch. Hang in there, you can do it!

As for me, Smooth: After I did my first spin for my spin coach yesterday, he was speechless! Then he said, "Wow!" Never got such a compliment from him before. Then we started working on the inside 3-turn into the backspin because I can't actually do inside 3's yet! And now he's pondering the best way to teach me a backspin. We'll see what he comes up with!

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

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August 22, back on the ice!

Wow, Pat! That's great!!!

As far as inside 3's go, i have problems with them also...keeping the knees somewhat bent helps...I'm supposed to be working on them and building up speed

The backspin is also another chapter so you are not alone. I think we have tried every approach known to man to work on them. So far, we've gone back to the "2-foot spin and lift foot" method.

Terry

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Well done, Pat. Husband is learning the sit-spin these days, and having a hard time of it. I think a parallel (camel) would be easier (not that I can get my leg parallel, you understand, but sort of vaguely waving-in-the-breeze), but he says not. And we both have a great backspin when we're arm-in-arm, and neither of us can do it solo!!!! Weird, or what?

(And Jazzpants - yes, we did have one first-place ordinal this year, but only one. Still, I'll take it! And we still finished last overall that competition.... grrrrr!)

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

Hubby is right - camel spin is definitely harder to learn than a sit spin. I managed a passable 3 rev sit spin almost the first time I tried although I'm still struggling to get lower and to bring free leg across more but parallels are a nightmare. It is so hard to get the entry right and to hold that leg up in the right position and it feels so much more precarious as it feels like it would be so easy to fall on your face from a parallel.

rough fall: literally today as I went down on a field move exercise. My problem is that when I'm told to do an exercise on one side I can usually get it but when I then have to do it on the othe rside my brain gets confused. I was only doing a sort of inside twizzle turn but had to have arms end up in a specific way - I put the wrong arm forward and then went over backwards when I tried to change it. Landed on a bit of bent wrist but no serious damage thank goodness.

smooth landing: jumps felt good today and new coach seemed quite impressed. He made me run through all the jumps (singles up to but not including,Lutz) followed by an upright spin , then all the jumps followed by a cherry (toe-loop) then all the jumps followed by a loop. I was so pleased that I managed almost all of these except for the Flip/cherry and Flip/loop since I've only just got the Flip and not consistent yet.

__________________
'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

Rough fall: So it's been lately I should be used to it by now... I'm not confident enough on my "sit" spin to sit all the way down (although I've done it once-go figure!). Worked on the flip-more like a walk-through. This is the same process I used on the salchow before I got it (only took a few weeks). I'm pitching forward. Toe-walley was ok, although I'm having trouble swooshing that darn leg through. (again, lack of confidence).

Smooth Landing: program run-through was good, even though I had to dodge kids (homeschool group with barely-can-skate hockey dads . It's ok, I behaved-no hip-checks! Loop is getting there and did manage to one-foot the takeoff at least! Toe-loop was much better and a bit faster. Did a few back-pivots hooked onto the toe-loop and it's almost there. AAAHH!! About one week to competition! Backspin was ok with 1/2-3/4 revolution. Also tried a different way of lacing my skates which seemed to give me more lateral stability without sacrificing too much bend...

Notes on my massage: I had my deep-tissue massage today at 2:30 and now I'm showered and ready for bed. I feel as though I've fallen out of a moving vehicle and I've got the bruises to show for it! I knew I would bruise (I bruise easy) and I knew it would not be a "relaxing spa experience" but I did not expect what I got. Still, I'm glad I went and I should have gone last year. Anyway, I go again in 2 weeks to see how it is. He did note (without me saying much about it) that my hips are uneven (no surprise there), and my chest is tight (knew that too). He even worked on my super-tight adductors (my right one especially). My upper back and neck was a mess from my auto accident and all I can say is-I'm sure I will be able to sleep better tonight! He told me to make sure that I take a break from my computer every 15 minutes and stretch (can do) and to pay attention to when my shoulders tense (hunch) and to counteract that. I'm hoping it carries through in my skating because my coaches both say my shoulders have been hunching up and I've been hunching over...

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

SMOOTH LANDG: i LANDED MY DOUBLE SALCHOW TODAY!!!!!!

rough fall:
need to work on my program more

~cutie

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Skating is suppose to be fun , no PRESSURE at all

~*Courage*~*Confidence*~*Consistance*~

Rough Fall: I have been struggling with RFO and LFO edges....especially the R, I adjust and readjust my lean, body alignment, etc., but just can't seem to catch it often. Had to take my 4 year old to the dentist. Not a good outcome....he's going to need to go under general anesthesia because he just won't calm enough to cooperate....he tore the nitrous mask off Wednesday and slid out of the chair because I had to move from his side to the doorway so his xrays could be taken. In addition to this, my right ear has been giving me problems on and off, but mostly on for the last several months. It feels plugged and I can't "clear" it. I'm also getting noises in that ear like crunching....really irritating. Lately it has started to really hurt. After several rounds of antibiotics and sinus medicines, it's not any better....in fact, the pain now extends through my jaw, neck and sometimes my teeth. Went to Dr today and he's referring me (finally) to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and giving me something to relax the jaw which is likely TMJ. I missed skating on Wednesday because of the dentist visit. (I normally skate at lunch time and add an hour to the beginning of my work day to make up for it) Because of my Dr. appt today, I should have stayed at work through lunch instead of skating, but I decided to just take 1/2 a day and skate at my normal time (noon to 1:30 or 1:45) anyways!

Smooth Landing: Today's practice was very productive. I was able to actually get the courage to try many crossovers and although I'm still not very smooth with them, I did them without falling (CCW only...that darn right side doesn't want to give me the edge to get a CW one accomplished yet!) I'm getting smoother with my backward skating and I am actually doing pretty good with my two foot turns while going forward....backward needs some work, but I think that will improve as my confidence with backward skating in general improves. There were a max of 6 people on the ice at the public session today, and for 15 glorious minutes, I had the ice to myself. I shouldn't have taken the time off from work, because it's our busy time preparing for our annual year end audit....but I think mentally I needed it!

Ouch, sk8mommy, I used to get TMJ (haven't in a while, keeping fingers crossed). That hurts! The first time I got it, I thought I had an ear infection b/c of the pain in my ear. The specialty dentist that I went to for it recommended a mouthguard of sorts to wear at night, but my health insurance co wouldn't pay for it, so I just focused on keeping my jaw relaxed and not clenching my teeth (and trying to avoid stressful situations, although that wasn't always possible).

Rough fall: Literally, tonight at the end of the second FS session I skated. I was practicing a piece from my program and tripped over my feet doing a swing mohawk and fell on my hip. Great way to end my last practice before a competition. Backspin was giving me some trouble - since it's unlikely I'll get 3 revs on Sunday, I was wondering if I should take it out of my program, but OTOH, I think the only way I'm going to be able to do it in a program is to do it in a program, even if it takes a while to be correct. I was also having some difficulty getting in sync with the music - I was either ahead or behind by a few seconds, and I didn't have this problem Monday or yesterday.

Smooth landing: Was able to get 3 run-throughs in tonight between the 2 sessions. The first one was bad, but the next two were OK. I decided that one of the best things about a comp is that you get to do your program without having to dodge other people on the ice - lol. Loop was pretty consistent (hopefully, it will look like a jump).

I also was able to get blades mounted on my new skates today, so after NYI, I can start breaking them in. It was good to see mdvask8r, and I also ran into another adult skater from my rink at the shop - she was leaving as I was coming in - too funny, since neither of us knew the other was going to be there, and this shop and rink are over an hour away - we could have carpooled, lol.

Batikat--

Thank you SO much for saying that! I was beginning to think I was the only one who was this way!

Glad you're ok, after falling on your wrist.

Hey Thin-ice , I'm happy to know I'm not alone in my confusion too!

My old coach was used to me doing one side/foot and then appearing completely blank, when he asked me to do the same on the other side but I feel more embarassed now I have a new coach who is not used to it. I often start off OK and then have to keep asking 'which way do I turn now', 'which arm goes in front', or I start adding extra bits that bring me back to the original side

At least it's good mental exercise as well as physical!

__________________
'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

Wow, Cutie - Congratulations! May it be the first of many.

As for me:
Smooth Landing: Danced the Blues today! Atrociously badly, of course, way off pattern, hardly covered any ice at all (I could have fitted it in quite beautifully across the rink, and our rink is narrow!), but it was definitely a Blues, and to the music! There were three different Blueses going on in the rink at that moment - some of the elites were doing a Midnight Blues, I was doing a Blues, and some people were doing a Rhythm Blues (I did one of those, too). AND I did a Fiesta Tango solo, and really not at all badly, although the end pattern is still pretty dire.

Oh, and I did some really, really good back cross-rolls, these are so coming now!

With Husband, we did a shedload of exercises, including runs round the circle - much better, except that going clockwise in Reverse Kilian hold (his least favourite) I couldn't find my balance to extend properly.

It was really funny - the elites were also working on their runs round the circle, but they were told to start off with back crossovers, and their coach told them she didn't want to hear any noise from their skates. So anyway, the following conversation ensued:

Male dancer: "Are we to do these separately, or together?"
Coach: "Oh, separately at first, I think. Then together."
MD: "So hadn't we better do them one at a time?"

Whereupon he goes and leans against the barrier to let his partner go first! I caught the coach's eye and burst out laughing. But he did get out there and do them in the end.

Rough fall: Expletive-deleted cross cuts! It's not that I can't do them - sometimes I'll do a length of really, really good ones - and then next time I try it's scrape and stumble and grind to a halt half way up. And I don't know what I'm doing differently!!!! This is what is so desperately frustrating. If I only knew what was going wrong - or right - I could correct it, or do it all the time, but I have absolutely no idea, it's a total lottery! Grrrrrrrr........

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

Have you thought about getting Rob or someone to video-tape you several times when you're doing them? To try and get a range of quality... then sit down with the camera (using it's little screen or the TV at home), ignore the rest of the "oh my &^%" and watch the technique of the various run-throughs of the cross-cuts to see what might be different?

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

Well, when the Husband gets round to buying a video camera, which he keeps talking about... we urgently need to be videoed, but the coach doesn't own one, so we need to bring in our own. Maybe I can borrow my mum's, but I think my sister has it!

I wish the coach could tell me what was different, but he doesn't seem to know, either!

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

Smooth Sailing

I have no idea what on Earth happened to me today but almost everything I tried was working for me.

My pre-bronze moves were great today. My crossovers and my stroking still need improvement, as does my waltz 8 but they were the best they've ever been.

Then I worked on spins and jumps. My waltz jumps are getting better - they're not where I want them to be, but they're feeling more stable. My salchows were a little better.

Loops and flips were incredible. They just felt so, so, so nice. I did waltz-loop and toe loop-loop and loop-loop and they were all great too. I attempted a flip loop for the first time but I'm so used to checking out hard on it to stop my rotation that it was hard for me to get into position for the loop part. I was very close on it though.

I had a breakthrough with spins today too - I wanted to try a back sit..the first attempt was terrible, but I decided to do a sit-change-sit and I actually DID one. It wasn't the best, but it was pretty good for a first attempt. Then, feeling REALLY crazy I tried a camel spin and I did a pretty decent one! So then I got even MORE crazy and tried a camel-sit for the first time and it was super easy - so THEN I did a camel-sit-change-sit. The back sit part was pretty lame but it happened. Feeling even yet more crazy I tried a pancake spin hearing so much about it on this site and I did a couple of really good ones, and then I decided to do a camel-jump-camel (camel-change-camels elude me still) and I got like, 1 revolution on the back camel. It wasn't pretty, but again it happened! I also tried a catch foot camel but my position was terrible. It was unreal what I was able to accomplish on the ice today

Rough Fall

And then I lost it. I wasn't able to do any camels at all towards the end of the session. I think I was just getting tired, and therefore sloppy.

The other thing that stinks is that I'm totally incapable of doing a lutz. Okay, that's not true but I'm usually over rotated on my jumps, but the lutz I'm so underrotated. I decided to stop working on it until I can get my coach to look at it since clearly I'm doing something wrong.

My scratch spin was pretty travelly today too, but I think it's because I need a sharpening. I'm even skidding on my 3 turns which I never do. Also my backspin was garbage. I was getting only 3-4 sloppy revolutions - better than none I suppose, but not up to snuff for me.


I had SUCH a good time - today was the first time in like 3 weeks that I worked on ANY freestyle elements and it seemed like everything I tried worked. Of course it all fell apart at the end, which stunk, but the fact that I was able to do all of that cool stuff I had never done before was SUPER encouraging. I might actually be able to do that stuff WELL one day. Maybe working on my pre-bronze elements has made me more confident?

I have a group lesson then a private tomorrow - hopefully this good skating karma will last!

Rough Fall
Quite literally! I fell hard on one of my back three turns, landing on my coccyx and the same wrist I broke in September. It was one of those falls where the jolt travels right up your spine and makes your top and bottom teeth bang together. I'm now the proud owner of a sore neck as a result, so will no doubt suffer tomorrow once the post-fall aches take place!

Apart from that I didn't have that nice confident feeling on the ice today. I don't know why, but some days I get on and feel I can try anything and other days, like today, even the simplest of things like a single loop are scary! I didn't have chance to run through my field moves prior to my lesson but coach only wanted to see the last two exercises - the choctaws and brackets. Needless to say, having been whizzing up and down the rink quite effortlessly with the choctaws yesterday, today when my coach was watching they'd vanished completely!

Smooth Landing
I did have a very good spin day today. My camel which went back to the desert some time last week, reappeared and stayed just about the whole time I was on the ice. Of course when my coah asked to see a camel I told her I couldn't do one, only to pull off a corker! Then another, then another!

I ran through my programme for the first time since before Christmas and it felt so wobbly. I landed all my jumps even though the lutz-loop was so slow it was almost at a standstill, and I did a decent camel-sit, so it wasn't as bad as could have been, but why oh why does my programme feel near impossible when I do it for the first time after a break?

Nicki

Smooth landing: Had a breakthrough in the last few minutes of my last freestyle session before New Year's Invitational. I landed a waltz jump and thought, whoah, that was way higher than I normally do it and I got way more spring off the toepick at the end of the takeoff edge. Then I did another and another. Some my loops and salchows also felt higher. I can't wait to show my coach--I've been doing the waltz jump with more height from a standstill on a hockey line, but yesterday was the first time I did it from the faster entry in my program choreography.

Rough fall: Not managing to eke out the required number of revs in the backspin toward the end of the program. I land a jump combo (LBO) then step to RFI to start a backspin, but I'm not getting 3 revs on it consistently. Grrr. (Also I'm now wondering just WHAT I was thinking when I decided to change that last jump from a toe loop to a flip-loop-loop combo into a backspin at the very end of my program--it was my choice to change the jump and my choice to put the backspin there instead of earlier in the program! Too bad NYI won't be judged under CoP!!!!)

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