Retry:

• Well, as you read, I didn't pass my Bronze Moves tests. I did this test under protest anyway, so I wasn't too upset. Disappointed all the same though.
• Given how much work I need to do in order to pass this test, Skate SF for this year is now in jeopardy for me!!! I really need to dedicate to testing and passing these tests, if I have any hope of going to Adult Nationals. And for all I know, this may or may not happen... I still have a shaky backspin and loop and don't have the skills right now to get to the point where I would be competitive even at pre-Bronze FS right now.

Pass

• What I was surprised about is that I'm not pissed off at my coaches for making me test now. If anything, I'm glad my coaches made me test now rather than later, b/c I really pushed myself to test and improved. It's just not enough to pass this time around. But at least now I know what I need to improve on and how close I was to passing. And, all in all, this isn't a total loss for me.
• The support from everyone on this group and my fellow skaters at the rink! I'm very touched!!!

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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!!!

Isn't anyone practicing or taking lessons?

As for me, Pass My practice today was great fun! No pressure, no stress, and I just played around with things I hadn't worked on that much for a while. Maybe made some improvements in the alternating back crossovers to back outside edge move. It was just fun. One of my coach's other students came over to ask me how the competition went, and told me she'd asked him this morning how I'd done, and he'd said, "Wonderful!" I'm still happy about the whole thing.

Pat

I've been off for a week, but I get back on the ice tomorrow!

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

I'll be retrying practice tommorow thanks to flooding advisories and this thing off the coast called "Alex". Not to mention that monthly visit from Mother Nature!

By the way Loop Loop and NoVa will be making their pairs debut in Hershey on Sunday. I may start a good luck thread for them!

Unless I beat you to it!

I don't post much on this thread anymore, no lessons in a long while but....

Pass: Michigansk8er came down to my neck of the woods and we had a lovely time skating public session! She has only been back jumping for a week or so, and is doing very well. I saw a nice flying camel, so that's very impressive! We had a good time trying to look lovely on the ice with a few moves.......lol!

Retry: We both had "flipitis"......darn that jump!

Pass:
Ah, yes. Thanks for the support!

Not only am I doing pairs, but I also (stupidly) signed up for singles FS. At least the pair program is second, so I'll be warmed up. Our goal is merely to do a clean program. I'm wondering who among Loops and me will be the nervous party!

Retry:
A lace hook popped out of my right boot, DURING our pair program run-through. We are so lucky it was toward the end of the program or it could have been disastrous. I was wondering why my footwork sequence was off (Well, it's usually off, but still). Maybe the hook popped out because my pair outfit is too tight and there was no other way to release the pressure?

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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.

Good luck to all of you who are competing or testing.

PASS Got in my second skate since the ortho gave me the okay after my knee surgery.

At least I wasn't as wobbly when I got on the ice this week. Pushed hard to get more knee bend. Last week I was skating with almost straight legs. Got in some weak crossovers and even did a few sloppy mohawks.

I'm still trying to keep the side pressures off of the knee until the muscles redevelop to keep it stable.

Practice ice/time is so limited this Summer. I'm going to skate tonight at another rink's public session, but it will be the last evening session this rink offers on weeknights.

Hopefully, as Fall approaches, there'll be more ice time available. Working sure gets in the way of my skating.

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Another day without skating, BUT I will make it to the rink tommorow! There's flooding everywhere here! Rain, rain GO AWAY!!!!

Don't we all know this!! I keep telling people I only work to support my skating habit (and the roof over my head....and my daughter's guard....)

Passing: I apparently did the best consecutive 1/2 flips my coach has ever seen me do. The mohawks were straight, the jumps had height, and the left arm stayed down (it tends to fly up out of control) The landing was a bit iffy...she laughs at me because I do landings in steps, as I remember them--she can see me thinking.

Retry: Working on forward crossovers--I was leaning just a little forward on my skate, and hit a rut or pick hole. I went down on my knee. It's kind of sore right now, and has a lovely bruise. Other than that, the scratch spin. I can do most of it, just not all at the same time. My free leg gets stuck halfway, and I can't bring it forward.

Pass: Back on the ice after a week! Felt a little off at first, but got my feet under me pretty quick. All the exercises are still pretty good. Made some good improvements on the expanding exercise!

Retry: The falling leaf/toe-hop counter in the multi-threes and brackets. Feels so awkward, and I'm a little scared of it because I have a lot of speed from the cross-overs.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Not this week - I had the chance to accompany my husband on an unexpected business trip to Warsaw, instead. We will catch up next week, though.

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

No skating because of Alex!!

Since I am a weatherman, it gets really, really busy whenever we have a tropical system since it usually affects one or more of our utility customers...this time it's the Carolinas.

As a consequence I had to come in during my usual figure skating time.

Will try again, but soon to be Bonnie looks like it could be another east coast problem.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

Pass Those of you who have followed the trails and tribulations of my skating over on RSSIR may know that I consider myself somewhat double toe loop challenged. I do sals, loops and flips with no trouble and even occasional lutzes, but the supposedly *easy* double toe just hits a mental block with me.

After going through various phases of busting a gut on it and getting nowhere, to avoiding it entirely I have come to the conclusion that my problem with it is that pesky FI3 entry. So I have decided over the past few weeks to work on the FO drop three entry. This has taken a bit of getting used to, and I have been doing single after single and 1 1/2 jumps trying to get it right. Anyway in my skate yesterday I finally landed some doubles like this, a bit wimpy maybe, but it's a start. Admittedly most of them I popped, but each time I immediately stepped out into anoter drop three and tried again. I was pleased to see that when I landed them I was reasonably balanced over my landing leg. Whenever I do doubles from the FI3 entrance I always land a bit sideways, and more often than not it causes me to topple over.

So added to the sal, loop and flip yesterday was a *four-double* day. I Like four-double days Unfortunately I didn't get time to work on the lutz to make it five.

John

Wow, johnfisher, congrats on the 2 toe!

NCSkater02, I have felt your pain - literally. I've had plenty of similar splats on crossovers, one about 5 days before my moves test. Those darn toepicks!

Pass: Landed a loop at Skate Wilmington - see my other thread. I practiced yesterday at a different rink than usual and landed my loop the first couple times I tried. Then, just when I think the jump is consistent, I mess up on my next few attempts.

Yesterday, I mostly practiced my show program in preparation for an adult skaters' exhibition there on Sunday afternoon. The rink is smaller than the ones I usually skate at, so I needed to map out my program there. Everything looks good, so far.


Retry: The CD player wasn't working too well at this rink and it wouldn't play my CD. One of the coaches told me they'd been having a problem with it. I talked to the guy who manages the rink and he assured me they would be using a different player on Sunday.

John......sounds like you are on your way to conquering the 2/toe
My daughter struggled with that jump too, and had great success with a RFI mohawk, change foot, pick, jump entry. If your new entry starts to frustrate you, give it a try.

It's a good thing the rink doesn't have mirrors, eh? Lovely is right!!!

Getting out on the ice and having fun with a friend is a definite pass!!!

Passing: My salchow/toeloop is looking great. Finished choregraphing my program. Spins are getting better too.

Retry: Full lutz - not even close! Change foot or back spin is incredibly weak. I have some of the ugliest spirals in the world . Need to get my stamina up to get through my program.
Cid

OMG, John!!! YAAAAAAY!!!! Congrats on the double toe!!! *clapping hands*

Retry:
Secondary coach made me stroke around the rink. "My free leg" she says, reminds her of her dog when it's "doing its business." (Yeah, yeah! The ol dog on a hydrant thing...) And initially, I wasn't going fast enough for her. (Well, HELLOOOOO!?!?! I was trying to keep up on alt. forward crossovers against a 12 year old NOVICE MOVES LEVEL GAL!!!)

And to make matters worse, I had a hard time stopping at the beginning and ended up going around people... so the coach made me do stops from high speeds... The thing that really irritated her was that I was doing toepicks!!! So I was really making an effort today to do little to no toepicks, since that was one of the items the judges complained about on test day.

Pass:
I don't believe this but... at the end, I was able to do a t-stop from a pretty good clip (for me anyway)! Secondary coach says "I got you trained better on those stops than Pavlov's dog!"

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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!!!

I don't usually post here but I'm too excited. In todays lesson I did *TWO* double lutzes! Clean! I was dancing. And my partner and I had two clean run-throughs on our program back to back.

However (here comes the re-try),
I could NOT do a layback for anything, not money, not coffee, not chocolate. It's not a favorite spin of mine anyway but I just couldn't do it. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Congrats to everyone on the PASS portion of their week. Here's to Passing our "re-try's" next week.

Have a good weekend,
DC

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Careygram

January: Sure I'll compete, quick, send the application
April: I signed up to do WHAT??

Wow! You should be excited. That's fabulous!! Will we get to see them at Peach Classic?

(But what are you doing at Silver if you can land a double lutz?? Get thee to Championship Gold and get your picture in Skating Magazine!)

Skaternum,

many thanks. No Peach for us but Hershey and Aston in October.

One reason why I'm not in Gold--MOVES. Those (*&%^&^%$&^ brackets are hateful to thee. Trust me I'm trying.

GOod luck at the Peach,
DC

__________________
Careygram

January: Sure I'll compete, quick, send the application
April: I signed up to do WHAT??

Pass:
EMPTY ICE!!! Because the teams are up at Placid and the kids are doing Hershey...

And... my swing closed outside mohawk (Tango) is still with me


I did a lesson with a different coach today since my normal coach is also up in Placid for the dance competition... this coach has a very strong background in figures, which is why I'm going to work with her also this fall, plus with my normal coach. The "torture" of the day was my push-off onto back outside edges... trying to do more of a true from the heel push than the big swizzle push that gets my weight and balance akilter. Have been working on this with coach #1, but coach #2 explained things slightly differently that worked for me. And then she explained some stuff with the cross-back chasses from the Tango a bit differently that really helped me get better lobes (when going slow... to the music solo, different story right now)

After we switch to the fall schedule, I'm going to work figures with her... don't know if I'll actually take any of the figures tests, but working the basics of control and what-not will definitely help everything else. IMO.

Thanks Jazzpants. Today was more pass because I did a whole bunch today Still wimpy of course, but they were there. Now I have to get them to an unwimpy stage. I like my jumps big Anyway it's another four double day. Now I've got to get that lutz sorted, which brings me onto...

That's really cool I don't suppose you want to trade for one of my wimpy double-toes

John

Thanks, I may give this a try. Mohawks are always good for straightening me out when my three turns start getting curvy on jump entries. This entry might be useful just to keep my technique in check. My 2flip from a mohawk isn't nearly so good as my 2flip from a three, but my three has a habit of getting curvy. When this happens I work on the mohawk entry for a while and when I go back to the three it is straightened out. Maybe I can use this for the toe too.

John