The lamb of my day:
My jumps came back from the dissapearing act they pulled on Thursday. Also, since the testing madness is over, there was hardly anyone there today. I also had a nice lap of forward power perimeter crossover stroking before leaving the ice today.

The GRRR lion:
Sitspin, sitspin, sitspin. What can I say??

I chose this theme for this week's thread since March is coming in like a lion (at least in DC and points north) and goes out like a lamb.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Lamb: The nice empty ice... LOTS of room to practice... well initially... I left just as the kids from school start showing up at the rink.

Lion: WHY is it that when I have all the smooth ice in the word that's when I go and lose my courage like a coward lion in the Wizard of Oz? I mean, I've been doing FI mohawks at faster speeds and today I couldn't get up the courage to even do ONE at a faster speeds without building up courage to lead up to it. GRRRRR!!!!

(Alright! The real reason is that I'm trying to redo my FI mohawks so I could bring my foot closer and not do one of those FI mo-HOPS.)

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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!!!

Lamb: I can do the toe loop pretty effortlessly now. Thank goodness for learning the half flip first and my coach pointing out that you actually rotate a bit while lifting when the toepick is on the ice, else I would still not have accomplished this jump. Only occasional problem is that I'll sometimes kick wrong and end up on the blade instead of the toepick. I managed to pull off a salchow twice today, but it definitely needs work and practice. Last but not least, for all my missteps and fumbles today after so much time off-ice, I always managed to catch myself and find a balance, so I never fell, which was nice.

Lion: Well I've been sick for the last couple weeks, so today was my first time on ice since Thursday when I had a lesson, and I didn't skate before that since the prior weekend. In addition I've been really busy with a couple short-term gigs that came up, so I've had no free time to rest up and get better. My skating has as a result been kinda crap, but it felt very good to get out on the ice today. Sick or not, I plan to skate every day this week so I am in a better state for my lesson on Thursday - last week I was disappointed in myself. My coach says I'm actually doing very well, but I don't feel the confidence I want yet.

Lamb: i have no school this week and it's the last few days before my competition on Saturday. so yay. loads of practice time available...

the Lion: my camel spin is on holiday. i'm just about ready to cry. and full of nerves too.

Lamb: Because of the snow my FS session was nearly empty last night! The first half hour there were four of us on the ice, and the second half only two. Plus I had a lesson with my FS coach which has been quite rare lately.

Lion: I'm in the midst of reworking my flying sitspin. Grrr. I now have a takeoff which is excellent technically, but the spin part is hit-or-miss.

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

i had to cancel my skating lesson today. too much snow. actually, last night, i called my coach and we both agreed it was snowing too much, and the rink might not even be open, so i can't skate until friday. stupid snow. even if hte rink was open, i wouldbn't have made it back in time for my exam since people drive muuch slower in the snow. oh well, c'est la vie.

Went back to skate on Monday night....

Lamb: My FI mohawk started coming back towards the end of the session. Seems I forgot to just concentrate on holding the FI edge before the mohawk. I also forgot to press on the ball of the foot on the FI edge before the switch so that I would get more FI curve on the edge. The adults were cheering for this one Monday night regular (a 50 something year old gal) who is trying for a sit spin. She recently started taking private lessons every other week with my primary coach and seems happy with him so far... so YAAAAY!

Lion: FI mohawk still not as much speed as before. I hope this will be temporary. Also, my young friend who refers to me as "Auntie Jazzpants" was injured doing something and had to limp off the ice. I hope she's okay.

Looks like a Lamb but sounds like a Lion to me: Primary coach used me as a model for a backspin for another fellow skater. Don't know how to take this but he commented that I "am rocking back and forth between the inside and outside edge", instead of spinning all on the inside edge (which seems to be what she's doing.) Primary coach seems happier these days with my backspin. Me? No way! I want it ALL on the BO edge!

Of course, after the demo, I snickered to the student that I HATE doing the backspin too (reassuring her that it's a very difficult spin to get.) Of course, I made sure our primary coach hears it too... so he knows to make me work on it on our next lesson.

__________________
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!!!

Lamb:
Once again, after teaching a few lessons today, the public session was so empty and the ice so good that I stayed and practiced myself. I did the best power threes ever: in control, real crossovers, decent threes. I forgive myself for lack of speed because it's been about six weeks since I've been able to do these at all. FO alt threes were also back. I even got a few one foot spins, one of them quite nice.

Lion:
I now have a theory about what's been going wrong with many of my moves. After I've been on the ice for more than an hour or two, my L foot begins to collapse inward, making anything with a FO edge very difficult. Even though I have the pronation all the time, I seem to be OK at first. One of the adult skaters present this AM gave me the names of two podiatrists. Hopefully, one of them will take my insurance. After three hours, I had to leave the ice in pain, even though I was just skating around talking.

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Lion: Having spent ages cutting some music for an Interp piece, I found I'd done the original recording far too loud, and it distorted. Have just spent a couple of hours re-cutting it, and now there are some jags in it that weren't there before. Sigh.... But I think it will play all right now.

Lamb: Even with a poor recording, I had fun choreographing it this evening. I'm using the same music as Michigansk8er (with her knowledge and consent), and will be interested to see how she interprets it.....

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

Lamb: Change foot spin is back, and form is beginning to be better than ever! After one crazy salchow, it was pretty good too.

Lion: Outside edge mohawk just does not want to cooperate. That may be the toughest move in ISI FS3! I think back 3-turns are far easier.....

Lamb:
My sitspin made a couple of brief, but effective appearances on the ice today, one of them being during my program runthrough on lesson!
Sans a lousy scratchspin, the program runthrough was good!

Lion:
I hate skating on Tuesday afternoons- it's too crowded!

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Lamb: I can walk again!! I can ditch the big bulky splint for a small, more streamlined one, and only have to use the crutches for distances. The xrays look great!

Lion: I have no ankle or calf strength. And though I've been walking unassisted for nearly *cough-cough* years, I'm going to have to re-learn it. My left leg doesn't seem like it knows what to do.

And I'm still off the ice.

Congrats on your freedom, NCSkater! I had a bad knee injury a little over a year ago and I was in one of those velcro braces for 3 weeks. When I could stop using it, I went to PT and the therapist did these assessment-type exercises and demonstrated to me how little strength I had in that leg vs. the other one. It was scary, but once I started doing the exercises, it got back to normal. Hang in there!

Lion - no skating yesterday b/c of the snow here.

Lamb - nothing yet, except that it's almost spring...I think.

__________________
Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Lion: Actually, for me, this is the wrong way round, as I don't want to roar in anger like a lion, I want to wail in despair like a little lamb who's lost his mummy, because my coach doesn't like my music for my Interpretive..... so I can't enter the Streatham Opens (phew!) as there won't be time (do I mind? No!). He said he would have a listen and see, but he reckons it isn't "acting" enough for me (I happen to disagree, but still!). So I have no idea what I'm going to do for this year, but if I don't get some music soon I'm not going to have one in time for the Mountain Cup.... wa-a-a-a-a-il......

Plus they are replacing the boards inside the barriers at the rink, and it got so noisy we all had to leave.... which I was going to do anyway, as I'm skating again later today. But all the same....

Lamb: Well, skipping and dancing like a spring lamb, my back was okay this morning. Well, relatively. Okay enough for me to have my lesson and to do all the things I'm supposed to. Coach tells me how much better I'm skating now - which I agree with! So he gets pickier.... like, I'm working my waltz 3s, and all he says is "Point your toes!". I said I supposed it was a compliment, but I was so focussing on staying off the toes of my other foot that I didn't have time to remember to point the ones I wasn't on!

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

Lamb
I had a good lesson today. My lutz-loop combination and my camel-sit combination are both feeling a lot more consistent in my programme now. I only skated once to music today but I impressed my coach as I remembered to use my arms and look up with my head!

Lion
This could be under Lion. Then again it could be under Lamb. I've decided to skate at the Streatham Opens next month....aaarrrggghh. It's not that I don't want to compete, I just get so nervous, which is why I'm making myself go through this whole ordeal again. With a bit of luck the more I compete the easier it will get on the nerves front. So, Annabel, I may well be seeing you soon!

Nicki

Yes, we'll be there. I'm not competing - see above - but will be there helping out, don't know what at yet. We had to put off our trip to the USA by two days in order to be there, so I'll have to do *something*! Any of the rest of your crowd coming?

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

Lion: Still in my old boots and doing what I can. I called and my new ones will be shipped in a week or two! Then I can try to get in some fierce practicing for nationals!

Lamb: Got to resolve some choreography problems. I was having a hard time doing the figure loop out of a spin, so I moved it to a pre-dizzy spot!

Ooh, ooh. I can post here now!

Lion

Due to the snow and a scheduling mixup, I didn't get my lesson this week. Between that and the little boy on hockey skates shooting pucks into a net (with his dad's help) during the um, morning freestyle session, it was less of a productive week than it could have been... but....

Lamb

So all I do is edges on a line, usually, my forward ones being better than my backward ones. But I discovered today I can do my FOs and FIs in a low shoot-the-duck position. Which is, on my scale of 0-to-not falling over, pretty cool.

Just back from Alexandra Palace, and I'd left my computer on to defragment my hard drive while I was out, so thought I'd catch up. Class was fun, my back could do almost everything except FO twizzles, not that I can do FO twizzles anyway (at least, I can on one foot, but not on the other, I discovered) (why?). Then the social dancing is always great, hard work, though, with no fewer than six dances to prepare for this year's competitions, plus Husband and his Other Partner are preparing two more - she and her husband were there, so.... By the interval, my back was giving notice to quit, so I didn't get back on the ice after that, and although I'm stiff, it's no worse than tired now. So am I.... bedtime, I think!

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

I agree that the Lion and the Lamb should be reversed... especially since...

For this morning...

Lion: Not happy to get to the rink to find out that my secondary coach decided to cancel her lesson with me at the last minute. However... well, she looked like crap this morning b/c she's sick...

Lamb: Got in some good practice this morning. Too bad though that I was too sleepy to pay much attention to things... My rink spy at the gym was at this morning's FS session too.

For this evening...

Lion: Some stupid small fry in hockey skates who just love to dart in front of skaters "like me before I start on something..." GRRRRR!!! Secondary coach also came back to teach tonight, against her better judgement too. She looked really crappy... She wanted to teach me tomorrow, but I already have a lesson tomorrow and I expect her to still feel like crap tomorrow morning too.

Lamb: I think I'm starting to get back my intro 3's again. And same with my mohawks too!!! Also, my backspin has been close to coming as of late. It's been rockin' between inside and outside edge, but now it's more on the outside edge. But we'll see during the lesson.

__________________
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!!!

Yay! I finally get to reply to one of these.

Here's mine for the week so far:

Lion: I got snowed out on Tuesday so no moves lesson this week. As for today, again I got the general impression that everything got a bit clumsier in my run-through. When I warmed up my jumps during the early part of the session I landed a nice big axel and that sailed in the air and on the ice on the landing. When I ran-through my program I did this teeny, whippy thing that barely resembled the one I did warming up. Grr. I hate when I do that. Oh and during my stretching and warm-up off ice prior to the session I floor-splatted on an off-ice double loop. This prompted a little girl to ask me if I was ok. To which I responded "Um...yeah."

Lamb: Despite having missed a day and the general stiff-knee syndrome that I generally suffer, my diagonal step that I do in my program actually came off okay during the program. In addition, the spins were a bit tamer today than they have been recently. I also had two people tell me that they loved my music! Yay! One of these people was none other than Julia Lautowa!! I told her I loved her programs at 97 Worlds. (Side note: It's a shame I didn't get a chance to see more of her in the years following those worlds. Darn NBC and ABC! ) Anyway, it always feels great to know that people enjoy the music that I pick. Now, I just have to skate up to it. (Oy...I've got my work cut out for me.)

So that's it for me so far. We'll see how tomorrow and Saturday turn out.

Take care and skate well,

Frank

Lion:
I am in a deep funk about my skating and have been wondering lately why I bother at all. I know that a lot of us go through this phase, but it's difficult to deal with when nationals is right around the corner.
Pairs spins are out of whack again and my body and mind *refuse* to learn the pair sit spin.

Lamb:
The public session last night was deserted--well, the second half. Loops and I were able to do full-ice pair stroking and unison exercises as the only people on the ice. Well, there were 2 college students there, but they were too busy sucking face by the boards. They were quite distracting, though!
Also, Loops and I have been able to fix a few stretches of our program.
My camel spin, once again, is my lone savior. I'm getting lots of revs and speed on this. I'm playing with a new entry for the flying camel as well--and it seems to work very well in my program. I've also changed my combo spin to make it more CoP friendly.
Lutz is also getting better. I have *very* bad habits on this jump, but now that I'm consciously aware of it, it's been easy to fix.

Frank, I love Julia as well! I have her '97 Worlds LP, '98 olympic SP & LP, '00 Europeans SP, '02 Europeans SP ("Harlem Nocturne"; the inspiration for my program this year!) & LP, and '03 FS. PM me if you want to see any of these clips. I can get them to you using the <yousendit> website.

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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.

Nova - been there. If you think about it, if you stay in this sport long enough, you're going to have some slump times. Most sports had an off season. Now most things, including skating, are year round and that's on top of our already packed "real" lives. As my coach said, "you can't be brilliant all the time".

Dude, relax!!! Didn't you and Loops have a little over a week off from doing pairs? You guys will get it together in no time!!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

We had almost two weeks off from pairs, but now we've been back at it for the past week. The problem is the pair sitspin is HARD! When our coach started us on it (a while ago ) another coach, who skated pairs internationally for the US, skated over and said "You're teaching them THAT? That's really hard!"

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