Wow! Another week and no practice thread yet! Well, here goes...

Floating: Nice axels, nice combination spins, nice flying camels, and a nice run-through of the Viennese.

Freestyle coach finally came back from her month long return to Russia!

Freestyle coach is going to start putting the elements into my program for my Novice freeskate and my dance coach is going to be doing all the choreography. I'm so pumped to get started! My music is from Thoroughly Modern Millie; the cuts are from its "Overture" and "The Nuttycracker Suite." (I'd been waiting since like, before I even tested my Intermediate freestyle to use this music, LOL! )

Double loops are getting there...slowly, of course! The take-off is much straighter, less whippy, and my elbows were actually tight in-air.

Sinking: Double sals and double sal-double loops were just awful! I have no idea why! They'd been so consistent and my double-double was slowly getting there and then today hit. Yuck-o. Definitely not the jumps of a Novice-level skater.

My left arm is killing me from the repetitive motion of about 150 double sals that my coach had me do. Granted, they were better toward the end, but of course, at the price of a sore arm.

Floating: I went to the social dance session yesterday morning - first time in about a month - and had a lesson with my dance coach. It was actually a pretty good lesson - BUT he makes me work so hard that I hurt all over afterwards.

We did some basic stuff - forward and backward progressive/chasse patterns, forward and backward cross-strokes, dropped 3-turn patterns, etc. and then worked on the Paso Doble and Argentine Tango a little bit. My twizzle in the Argentine was actually a little better than it was the last time we had a lesson (about 6 weeks ago) so that was nice. I still can't do it without putting my foot down just a little bit on the solo and I scrape through it on the partnering... but oh well. Too bad it's not on the right foot...

More knee bend - arms in differing positions - all of these things improved throughout the lesson, but oh, man am I sore!

Note to self: have got to work harder and get in better shape.

Sinking: Had a "click of death" moment doing backwards crossover CW - right down kind of slowly onto my left hip and hand/arm - very unusual for me to do it in this direction (I used to do it with some regularity in the CCW direction until I learned where my hips needed to be - I have no idea why this happened - also pretty unusual given that I wear dance blades!).

The skate moms who run the rink got me off the ice right away and insisted I put ice on my hip (and hand) even though I thought I didn't need it. They are pretty together at this (mall) rink becasue they deal with injuries daily with the public skaters - they even have a freezer with already made-up icebags right there in the office where you check in - so I had an instant icebag and a nice skating mom to help me so that was nice and the ice really helped!!

The one thing I noticed about falling is that as I get older it is harder to get up! It's like getting up off the floor after I've been sitting or working with an animal on someone's floor - only this time the surface is so slippery!

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

From yesterday:

Floating:
First lesson since I passed my test I’ve started working on my elements:

- perimeter skating

- 3-jump

- cherry

- spin

- spirals

- step sequence


We're going to aim to do another test by Christmas, so I need to have a look for music for my free

And I can go back to skating in trousers! :]


Sinking:
Do NOT get cherry...and I'm used to calling it a toe-loop!! Too much time spent on American sites!!

Floating: Synchro practice last night was good. If we can all keep our heads together we'll do fine on Saturday (competition). And then we will all happily retire the dreadful dresses, which nobody ever liked.

Sinking: Spins have totally departed. They were so bad this morning that coach suggested revisiting the CCW direction. Now that's BAD. . .

__________________
"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

floating Ran through all programmes for comps this week. None of them were great but none of them were awful either. I know I need to work much harder on my posture and extensions and then maybe would start to get better placings.

sinking: was crashed in to while on the music doing my free programme. You'd think that with just 6 or so skaters on the ice including one coach it would be unikely to have any collisions but it seems the fewer skaters the more likely in my experience. Perhaps because everyone thinks they have loads of space so don't bother to be so aware whereas on a crowded rink you have to be aware at all times.

The skater who crashed into me had moved to avoid the girl in lesson with her coach but did so by backing into me just as I'd landed from my loop-loop and was turning to go into sit spin. I think I did a bit of a flying sit!!!! Crashed my forearm in to the ice which is nicely bruised and the rest of me which felt alright at the time seems to be stiffening up. Hope I;'m Ok to skate tomorrow - I have a 6am lesson (I dont' usually skate that early in the morning). Ran through the programme again after and it wasnt' too bad and the skater who crashed in to me gave me some useful pointers of things to improve for the competition so some good came out of it!

ooops - posted twice

Floating
Got the to rink today and my coach was working everyone on loops! I'd been wanting to work on them, but I always spent lessons jumping jumping jumping. We worked on all of them, FO, FI, BO, BI, both feet. I had never really been able to do BO ones, but I actually got praise from my coach on RBO ones.

Jumps were fine. Didn't spend very much jumping, just did one of two of each of my doubles.

I think I did a good change-edge forward camel.

My death drop isn't terrible. I have a hard time with those bc I'm a right handed cartwheeler while death drops are like cartwheels where you put your left hand down first. I got the motions right, now I just need to work on the scissoring action.

Sinking
Ouch! Today is a day of pain.

OK, no laughing, but I took a really, really nasty fall working on RFO loops. I got caught off balance, flew up into the air, then crashed down. Hard. Got everyone's attention. My coach said that I'm going to be the first person she knows to break their arm doing figures. Ha. Ha. Ha. No, actually it was pretty funny, but it hurt.

Another painful 2flip fall. I just caught my heel on the landing and smacked down. I'm going to have to invest in an elbow pad. I've taken far too many of those falls.

Last OUCH moment is not skating related, but it'll probably keep me from skating the rest of the week. Since I have surgery on Friday, I guess I probably won't be skating for a few months. Although this might postpone my surgery...

Anyways. I open the gate to my driveway. Suddenly my dog comes sprinting out the gate. Well, our front gate was just closing, but she managed to zip right out. I chased her down the street and down the block. Barefoot. It's about 90 degrees out. My feet are horribly burned. The balls of my feet are covered in blisters. It hurts. So. Badly. And naturally, no one's home. I soaked them in cool water. When my mom gets home she'll call a friend who's a nurse and I'll have them looked at. Honestly, I think my surgery is going to have to be postponed. They can't possibly slice my leg open if I have second degree burns on my feet.

__________________
Youtube Videos

Bummer. What kind of surgery are you having, if you don't mind me asking?

Fasciotomy for Chronic Compartment Syndrome. They're slicing open the fascia in the outer part of my right leg.

__________________
Youtube Videos

OMG, sweetie, they need to just take you to a padded room in the hospital, give you Internet access and TiVo and leave you there for a few months while you let *everything* heal! LOL! Ow, ow ow. . .

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

Oh- I'm so sorry, I KNOW how bad that hurts. I once walked about a mile through campus barefoot when it was 100 degrees out. It didn't hurt to walk, but by the time I got to the dorm there wasn't a single part of my foot that didn't have a burn blister on it. It was a long time before I could walk pain free after that. It never occured to me the pavement would burn my feet like that.

Cold water was a good thing to do! I hope the surgery goes well if you have it.

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Sinking:

My lesson on Saturday! It's 1 week before my Silver moves test and it seemed like I just couldn't do anything right in my lesson!

I think my coach had me reskate the CW (my bad direction) 8-step mohawk at least 10 times which just made me feel less and less confident about my chances at passing this test.

Thankfully, I have 2 more practices and an interp competition before I have to take my test!

After my lesson, we take a look at my blades and find that they are, more or less, completely flat... again. I got these skates used 2 years ago, so I don't know how old the blades really are and I had planned on getting new blades this year, but I really didn't need this to come to fruition 1 week before a moves test.

So, since my skate guy will be in town for our club competition this weekend, I'll be purchasing new blades and then shipping my skates off to him (after my test, of course) for a week for mounting.

Floating:

My flying catch camels were on this week, which saved it from feeling like a completely horrible, wasted session.

On the plus side, this revelation about my blades does explain, at least in part, why I've had so many spinning problems lately and why I sliced and diced my leg on a LBI 3-turn 2 weeks ago.

__________________
I've got mad salchow disease!

I'm surprised my feet were burned as badly as they were. I guess maybe the pavement was extra hot bc its been 100+ degrees this week. Today was only about 90, but maybe the pavement was still releasing heat from earlier? My friends mom (an ER nurse) just confirmed that I have 2nd degree burns. But I burned them for a good cause--saving my puppers. Luckily its just the top half of the bottom my feet that are blistered, not my heels. Maybe they'll be better by Wednesday so I can skate...

__________________
Youtube Videos

As a small child my sister and I would have contests to cross my grandparents black tar driveway in 100 degree heat in West Texas. To this day I can still do it...

__________________
Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r

Don't worry about your test! Now you've gotten all the bad stuff out of the way during that lesson, and you're going to skate the test strong and confidently!

What kind of blades do you have? What kind are you getting?

__________________
"Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?"

I have Ultima Protege now and I'm going to get MK Vision (maybe parabloc - depends on the price).

I'm hoping the massive change in rocker will help me spin better!

__________________
I've got mad salchow disease!

Sinking:
I didn't land one single clean double sal today. I was really close on some, but I have a really bad habit of tapping down my left toepick after I land on my right (correct) foot. I think I have a weight shift problem... and a lack of confidence issue.

Floating:
We worked on misc. elements during my fs group class. We did split falling leaves, split jumps, laybacks, sit/sit/sit, camel/sit/sit, and crossfoot. It was interesting. I have not worked on these elements in a very long time, and it was good to see that I could still mostly do them - minus the layback... I have no desire or need at this point to learn a layback.

Floating:
My axle was decent today. I landed most of them, but didn't try to tag on my seq.

Floating:
My program was "passing!" I still have endurance issues (maybe because I tried to skate it after an hour on ice and an off ice class...), but I finished decently and did everything required. The footwork was messy, but I still have time to fix that.

4 days til my prejuv free test!

Sinking - There was no ice at all last week so I went from skating 2 1/2 hours a day four days in a row - then a week of nothing and today skate camp again

Floating - I think I'm getting stronger because I wasn't so tired and sore. 15 minute warm up, 20 minute off ice jump class...1/2 hour power class then 1 1/2 hour skating and I only took a ten minute break and got off the ice for good 5 minutes early.

Had a lesson - worked on the 5 step mohawk...amazingly my mohawks themselves are okay - really have to work on making sure I step the 5th step on an outside edge and not a flat because there's not time to switch. Coach is going to ask a judge who is a club member to come out next week and take a look at my moves. Not a lot of adults testing moves around here so nobody is really sure what they expect from adults. Judges probably aren't real sure either.

Back outside edges, on my left I still need to get my free leg more behind and not open it up so much.

Worked on my artistic that I'm going to compte in little more than a month - I haven't done it since January. And worked a little on spins...I'm getting my leg in front - but I still rush the entry.

Wednesday is going to be a lot of fun - I'm going to leave at 6 am, drive 3 hours to Omaha for a dance lesson, then drive back intime for skate camp. Am I crazy????

j

Hope you feel better soon. The click of death is caused by rising up while crossing over. It's easy to do that without even knowing until it's too late.
Another thing about getting older that you may soon notice, is that it takes longer for the pain to go away!

BatikatII & ibreakhearts66 Hope you both recover quickly!

__________________

If you're crazy, I'm insane. Saturday I flew from California to Denver to trial judge two pairs tests (I'm working to get my next appointment and there aren't that many high-level pairs tests around here). I drove an hour to the airport, flew 2 hours 40 minutes to get to Colorado, stood in line for an hour to get my rental car, drove 35 minutes to the rink, was in the rink for about 20 minutes, drove back to the airport (only 30 minutes), and RACED to catch my flight to spend 2 hours 20 minutes back in the air, then drove home an hour and 30 minutes away (more traffic in the evening). Soo.... 9 hours 45 minutes of travel time (not to mention waiting around the airport and on the shuttle bus to and from the rental car agency) to watch two tests that lasted a total of 8 minutes.

On the plus side, I ended up with a REALLY good airfare and rental car deal.. less than $200!!! And being able to check those two tests off my requirements list is SUCH a relief. Now I just need two more pairs tests before I can put in for my appointment... (and a little bit of leeway on the time requirement to be a judge at my current level.)

LOL! Oh, the things we do for skating!

Floating: Ran through everything we will need for Friday; nothing too ghastly.

Sinking: Free dance a bit tragic - but then, it is! Oh well.... it's as good as we can make it right now.

Husband managed to grab my thumb again in the Riverside Rhumba - one of the reasons for strapping it up while skating is to remind him that it is currently injured! Grrr. So it now aches rather badly again; I just hope to goodness he doesn't do that on Friday, is all.

One more lesson before Bracknell!

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

Floating: Landing position (upper body mainly) of axels and double sals were much better after applying some tips from yesterday's lesson. Coach wants me to literally land with my right arm above my head so that I'm no longer reaching for the ice. My left arm did a much better job at staying in front, which will help tremendously when it comes to my double sal-double loops.

I only did one double salchow before my dance lesson began, but it was really nice! I think just relaxing and letting things go, like we talked about yesterday, did it.

Spins were OK, but then again, I don't necessarily think I'm meant to spin at 6 a.m., LOL!

Sinking: We started really working on the Westminster Waltz...and to the music finally! It wasn't necessarily bad--just incredibly fast! And, that rocker! Yeah, way uncomfortable. Still, I'm sure after a few more lessons I'll be fine. Today was only my second day working on it and my coach was really pushing me [to see if we can get ready to test it in July along with my Viennese].

Today is going to be absolutely exhausting. I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to be on the ice at 6 a.m. and I've got to be back down the rink for 9:45-1:30 p.m. to coach. I'm seeing a nap in the near future.

Sunk! Six more days until Summer School and I am DEEP in withdrawal!

Wonder if I will be able to stand up on skates?

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

Floating: Forcing myself to go round and round CW on the hockey circle is starting to pay off; I'm starting to sloooowly see some improvement. My two-foot turns, previously nonexistent in that direction, are smoothing out, and according to my LTS coach my RFO and RBO edges are looking nice and deep and centered. I can actually feel them now--don't entirely trust 'em, but I can feel 'em.

Sinking: Two more weeks till summer break, which means no more group lessons till after Labor Day. Fortunately there are a couple of options for public sessions I can get to, so there should be no more long stretches of taijiya going off-ice and forgetting everything she'd learned up to that point!