Come on people! It is Tuesday and here I am starting the practice thread again.

So, in honour of the way I felt this morning, here goes:

Stiff: Tired and stiff from a weekend on my feet and on the run - not at all "sharp" for skating!

Everything stunk....

Limber: .... except Upright spins. Some good ones were actually getting to 2-1/2 and 3 revolutions

Stiff: Coach seemed distracted today to and lesson was a bit scattered. The music system was also on the fritz and we couldn't play CDs.

Lets just say today was a bit of a write-off.

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Stiff: Wow, Dianne, you hit it on the head with how I'm feeling...very stiff! My lower back is killing me so I bailed on the morning session. Maybe it's the rain. I'm trying to call my chiro but I'm afraid I won't be getting in today and will have to wait until my appointment on Thursday

Limber: It's my day off, so instead of laying in bed with heat (yeah I should) I'm cleaning house. at least I'm moving. I teach later this evening. I think I'm on plastic again. My house is trashed and there wasn't even a party to blame it on! I ordered new blades and a skate sharpener.

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

Limber:

Pretty good skating session actually considering. I got my loop and my flip at the beginning and showed it to an old skating friend who hasn't seen me for a while. (Just to show how long it's been since he's seen me, the last time I saw him I had BLACK skating boots... and he did ask "Since when did I get purple boots?") He also says that I almost have my lutz too. Just not landing it clean. But he did see my clean loop and flip!!!

Stiff:
Of course, THEN he wanted me to go into my loop and flip faster and well, I haven't quite gotten used to landing the jump clean at that speed yet.

Limber again:
WOW!!! 3 good 3-revs camel spins in a row. Position is almost there too from what I saw in the reflection!!! HOLY COW!!! I hope primary coach was watching...

Sorta Stiff:
Well, of course, given my good luck with the camel that I'll go, push my luck and try for the camel-sit!!! Well, there's a reason I said "push my luck." (But it was a reasonable attempt. I did get into a squat sit.)

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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!!!

Rusty, thank you for choosing this theme rather than "rotated or popped" LOL! I am so depressed over the deterioration of my jumps right now that it is much more pleasant to focus on something else!

Stiff
My neck has actually been really stiff for the past two days. Doesn't affect skating too much, though, so can't really complain. . .
Flying camel still wonky and reverse sit still erratic.
Jumps over 1 revolution are erratic and/or MIA these days (except on the floor, which I don't believe counts).

Limber
Consistently able to get a full split on the ballet barre on both legs now, which makes my inner third grader happy (it was one of those things that made a girl "cool" back then, LOL!).
Did MIF this morning and they were not too awful, considering how often I (don't) practice them.

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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

Limber: Lovely sharp blades and smooth ice! Husband (who has not had his blades sharpened) managed a decent spin and (he says) a decent loop, but only one of each.

We had fun playing with the European Waltz, and then going over various dances we want to keep current.

Stiff: Me, skating backwards! Especially on the end pattern of the Fiesta Tango, scrape, scrape, scrape what a horrid noise....

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

Congrats! Heehee - I remember trying to do splits with my friends on the school playground. None of us could do them. Being able to do one-handed cartwheels made you pretty cool too (I couldn't do those either!).

Limber: The ice rink opens for the season on Monday! It will be fun getting back up to speed. Hope I haven't forgotten too much.

Stiff: Scheduled for oral surgery (wisdom teeth) on Friday. I'd better feel OK by the Monday ice session, or ...grrrr!

Limber: New boots and blades should be arriving in a week or two.

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Bill Schneider

Oh yeah, cartwheels were the OTHER cool thing, LOL! (Isn't it funny that no matter where you grow up, those are the cool things for girls to be able to do?) But in spite of the unrequited childhood dream, my adult judgment is telling me to leave the cartwheel alone, ROFL!

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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 have a fellow adult skater slightly older than me who can do a handstand with a wall assist. Of course, given her body type (very short and skinny), she can pass for a gymnast, even though she's never been one (to my knowledge anyway.) But...yeah, VERY KEWL!!!

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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!!!

Limber: We started choreographing my bronze program on Monday, much fun! OK, my coach choreographed it and I tried to remember it (and didn't do a great job). Some challenging footwork in that. I will practice it in my living room as well. Sorry, downstairs neighbor...(I'll try to wait until he goes out...).

Stiff: My practice the day before lasted 20 minutes, I felt crappy - haven't been jumping well lately but I'm out of practice because I focused on moves for a couple of months.

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Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

Stiff: ice was pretty bad today - problems with Zam apparently. Not expecting a good skate but...

limber: Ran through my brand new ( and unfinished) programme (am I daft to attempt to do a new programme just 4 weeks before the British Adult Championships - yes I think I am!) and was amazed to land a pretty decent flip and then a loop-loop in it. Coach was even more amazed since we hadn't even put the loop-loop in the programme - I just felt like it! Probably wont' manage it again for a while.

Love this programme though - it feels good and I love my music so it makes me happy to skate it. Not a hope of a medal at Championships though, so have to just go and enjoy it.

So, no actual skating has occurred this week yet, however.....

LIMBER:
I start lessons on FRIDAY!!!!!

After stopping skating in college, and not taking lessons for about 9 years, I am heading back to the ice!! I am super excited

There are a couple of goals...1) get back into shape, 2) eventually pass my senior moves (I tested through juv), 3) land some doubles....

My mother is concerned about me trying doubles because she thinks I'm too old...I'm ONLY 27! and in many ways for me it's mind over matter

Congratulations and welcome back! You are definitely not too old, but take it easy, don't be in a hurry for those doubles.

Limber:
Pushed myself into doing some high-er energy patterns yesterday, like F & B power XO's, F & B cross strokes, BXO's to BO edges, etc. I often do not do complete patterns, and have let my stamina deteriorate, so this was fun and I actually got sweaty enough to take off my jacket. One foot spins were happening for a while.

Stiff:
I seem to have taken a step back on the Prelim power three pattern. The fix for the L side has confused my R side , and there is nothing worse on that pattern than being indecisive as you step forward in the Choctaw. I have decided that it's time to take B threes seriously and planned to spend about half an hour doing them two footed. After catching an edge several times, that way, I got freaked out to the point that I had to stop. Then I realized that I had been on the ice an hour and a half and had skated harder than usual in that time, so I called it quits. I've been such a slacker! Didn't get to practice at all today because I had to get up early to teach, and was too tired .

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Limber:
got a buncha compliments on my i-spin today
clean axels
clean double sal
okay double loops
New skates came in! and the blades are mounted just right

Stiff
Stiff = my new boots haha

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I'm definitely not in too much of a hurry I need to make sure my basics are up to snuff!

Yay for you!! I had 9 years in between stopping skating and starting again, too And I fully intend to be able to land at least a few doubles (in maybe a few years!), and I'm 28
Have fun!

Stiff: Very tired this morning so only skated 45 minutes of the available hour. Did a Willow Waltz to the music and scraped on every one of the chassés. Sigh!

Limber: Did a lap or so of just chassés and didn't scrape. One of Life's Little Mysteries! Husband was playing with what might prove to be the start of a spiral sequence - I was the one telling him which spirals worked and which didn't, and suggesting variations he might try.

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

Limber: Got my dd's coach to come in at 5:45 and give me a lesson. We started my artistic to "Master of the House" - DD has commented on this - coach likes getting people on their toes. I do this backward toe walking that actually wasn't as bad as I thought - coach was even surprised I did it so well. It should be a cute program.

then I practiced mohawks and surprised myself how brave I was doing them...did the 5 step, felt like they were still rushed and sloppy sloppy sloppy but was doing them with some speed and flow and not hesitating before my bad side. I kept thinking about bending my knees before changing feet and it seemed to help.


Hour of ice monitor duty, then back on the ice for lesson with dance/moves coach and I decided to see if I could still do mohawks.

Coach was SHOCKED. She could not believe the improvement. She was shocked and amazed. "What made the difference? This is amazing." She was afraid even to say anything for fear they would go away. She said my upper body was very still - no leaning back and forth. She wanted to see more knee bend, and get my feet closer together and bring the foot close to the instep and I actually did everything she said. Then she tried to get me to touch my feet like I do for a dance to avoid wide stepping and that threw me off.

Power 3s. She said my problem is not my 3 turns. My 3 turns are beautiful. My timing is off and then we realized I was curving around too much before the crossover which was getting me off pattern and so I was getting closer and closer to the wall. We pretty much fixed that.

Tried a few Swing mohawks and I still rush those too much and we didn't have a lot of time to fix that.

It was a very good skating day. I was due one of those.

Stiff. I volunteered to chair the Spring Ice Show. Yea there's a reason nobody else would do it and I'm sure I'll find out...

j

Limber: My layback is back! I finally got the speed up, and managed to hold the position for a good 7 or 8 revolutions. There was much rejoicing.

I moved the start of the Blues back two feet, and over another foot, and miraculously it now fills out the rink and is perfectly on pattern without much effort. I don't start lessons again until the sixth of october (lots of time to get it up to snuff) so I'm hoping that my new coach feels confident enough in my dancing ability to let me take the Rhumba right after it.

I've been stretching everyday and my spirals are definitely improving because of it. Yay.

Stiff:

Camel Spin: Completely non existant. My body really isn't comprehending the idea of 'snap' very well right now. I'm getting into position but rotating s.u.p.e.r s.l.o.w.l.y and only getting two or three rotations in there because of it. Bah.

Jumps: I swear I'm only getting an inch off the ice. Definitely going to work on those take offs this week.

Stiff:

This morning is just not starting right. I got caught in some really gnarkly traffic going up towards San Francisco so I didn't get to my lesson on time. I'm just

THEN it gets better... since primary coach is working me on my programs, secondary coach is gonna work on SILVER MOVES for the "foreseeable future." Of course, she then has me working on power pulls (b/c she didn't want to work on 8 step b/c my FO mohawk SUCKS and needs work and I didn't want to go into doing spirals w/cold muscles.) She's very particular about when to bend and straighten the knee. I did get a bit more power towards the end, but then I lose the timing of when to bend, straighten and rebend the knee and then

Flip is gone for the day.

Limber:
Practiced a bit after the lesson and my loop was there, though I still had to slow down the edge long enough to set up for the jump.

__________________
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!!!

Well, Rena Inoue is landing (and falling on!) throw triple axels at 30 and I don't think she started doing them until she was 28, so I think you'll be just fine! Welcome back to the ice!

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

Stiff: It must be the onset of cold weather and my "hibernation instinct" but I am just physically NOT with it this week! Nothing was working.

In lesson we played with back edges, jumps, and sit spin - YUK!

Limber: Then head coach skates through lesson and comments "You have improved SO MUCH!" YIKES! What channel was SHE watching!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Good luck with that. I'm currently organising our club's annual skating gala. I wasn't even at the meeting and I got stuck with it. My own fault I suppose for suggesting some ideas for selecting the skaters for it. Must learn to keep my mouth shut and not write down my ideas for people. I'm planning to come off the committee after it though - I've had enough. Too many people on it for the wrong reasons and too many that think they know it all when they don't! Anyway I think I've done my bit - in my time I've been membership secretary and newsletter editor for our club, as well as lots of other volunteering things. Some of it's been fun and I like to think I've made a difference to the kids but I need a rest!

limber: had a couple of Ok runthroughs of Free dance for championships - it's still a toss-up as to whether I get the timing right though.

Stiff: in pain from ankles rubbing and from bunions - all those years of not wearing high heels to look after my feet and now I've ruined them skating!

Limber: Spins, Spirals, Axels, Double loops, and Double toes.

Stiff: Was very tired out there because of school starting up, stiff from soccer and tramp the night before.

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2014 and 2018 Olympics here I come!

Skating, skating all day long, skating, skating all night long! May seem tiring to some people but not me, it's my life!!

Goals: Triple Loop, Novice Competitive, Sr.Silver Dances, Gold Artistic, and top 3 at Sectionals

Stiff - add me to the list of people feeling cruddy and skating worse. Bleah.

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It's all about the dress!