Congratulations Miss Indigo, well done!

Annabel - I hope you get well soon!

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http://www.yourphotoalbums.co.uk

No Holiday!!! This is definitely a DRUDGERY public session!!!

I went back on the ice Wed. night (after skating Wed. morning for about 45 minutes with my lesson and some warmup...) WHAT A WASTE!!! There was an even LARGER crowd of college age women (sorority girls again?) skating on the ice last night. I have a funny feeling the hockey guys knew those girls are showing up too, b/c there was an unusally LARGER group of hockey guys also showing up at the rink too!!!

Spins went south for the winter!!! I just could not spin last night!!! (And I was able to spin Wed. morning. Weird...) Couldn't practice much in the way of jumps just b/c there were tons of skaters getting in the way!!! And of course, topping the evening is this one Wayne Gretsky wannabe (an "adult", if you want to call him that...) who kept going into the middle of the rink! I'm ready to kill that guy... or do at least a 2 minute penalty!!! GRRRRR!!!

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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!!!

Holiday: A holiday from skating-didn't go today. It was snowing pretty heavy and schools were cancelling. I left work early to see the doctor and just skipped on home to sew (a skating dress for daughter).

Drudgery: Show practice is picking up speed-three routines for me (all synchro, but one is less synchro-killer). Why are synchro routines really, really FAST? Ok, so I get to be a parasol-totin' cutie, a Navy babe (sailor hat and all) and a hobo. At least I won't freeze in the hobo costume!

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

Holiday:
Landed my first double salchow!!!
If I could make that little smiley-face hop up and down, I would. I also FINALLY ran through a clean program in practice, which kind of made up for the fact that I totally crashed and burned in last weekend's competition (ugh, landed only ONE jump, and did ONE spin correctly en route to rightfully finishing last)

Drudgery:
Extremely painful blisters that developed on the insides of my heels when I decided (stupidly) to change the way I laced my skates. Why, oh why did I think to do such a thing???

Only my spins today were the holiday. My jumps were off bigtime and my program run-through was total drudgery. The only reasons that I could think of was PMS and the fact that our rink management does not believe in heat- even the lobby's cold.

Another holiday: My club had it's first test session today and ended with a passing rate of approximately 90%! Congrats to all those at my rink that tested and passed today!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Holiday:

• Forward alt. crossovers!!! My one good move element today! I was showing my primary coach what my secondary coach wanted me to do yesterday. My primary coach was pleased with the speed I went thru the move. Of course, I wasn't perfect. I still had to manage crowds in one spot and I didn't concentrate on keeping a straight leg today (though I did remember "stretch out.")
• Sit spins were much better after warmup
• Backspins are coming along.
• Watching primary coach land his double sal again!!!

Drudgery:

• Rink was crowded. No organized picnic or anything. Just a lot of kids. Someone told me it's Spring Break, but it's kinda early for it, isn't it?
• Forward power 3's were better, according to primary coach, but I still have some major areas to fix! One of them is the back crossovers. He said they were "lazy." (i.e. not crossed behind.) *sigh* However, I did keep going...and they did get better on the second shot.
• First set of Backward alt. crossovers were drudgery. Second try was much better.
• First half of Back crossovers to BO edge were great. Second half... ummm...
• 5 step mohawk - Got reminded to fix FI mohawks and step 4 and 5 again, but they were better once they are fixed.
• Spins were crap at beginning.
• Didn't have time to do jumps. Had to move my car... it was in a 1 hour parking zone.

Other note: (since I'm asking for it.) Primary coach wants me to try for a May test date now! So we'll see what happens!!!

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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!!!

Wow, well done! I bet you're feeling totally jazzed about that. Could you repeat it? You will, of course, but maybe not as often as you'd like, just yet! I forget, do you have an axel, or have you got your double sal first - some people do, others get the axel first, others get both around the same time!

As for me, I feel a lot better physically today, but my back hurts worse than ever... go figure, as they say! Don't think I'll be skating this afternoon, especially not stuffed up to the eyeballs with ibuprofen, and with ibuprofen gel AND Deep Heat slathered all over my back.... will go out for a walk, though, in the snow which has been promised all week and finally arrived!

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

No skating for me this week. I took the wekend off to do accounting for a competition in New York, and will need to be off on Sunday for another competition I'm doing as well. Then my mother went into the hospital on Tuesday; they were supposed to let her out yesterday so I cancelled my lesson to take her home. Only the doctor "forgot" to sign the discharge paper (filled it out and told everyone she could go home, but never signed it!?!!!) so we waited for four hours while they tried to chance down the doctor before they decided she'd have to stay.

Which means no skating for me tonight because I'll have to bring her home today and, although she's doing very well, I'd still feel funny leaving her alone, even just for a couple hours, as soon as she gets home.

But there is good news: my new programs are done and I should have them before I skate again. Just in time for Baseball season....

Thanks, flo! I tested early, then got to see some of the other tests, including a really really good Intermediate Moves test. The skater was smiling during every move, the picture of confidence and relaxation. AND she had beeyewtiful extension, especially on the extension after the forward power circles. Her body was one long line from fingertip to toe.

And congrats to MissIndigo on the Bronze Moves!

And congrats to you mika for your accomplishment--passing your pre-bronze moves!

Holiday: Started to really focus on all the Silver moves today, and discovered that my back inside threes are still intact. Small stuff, but lots of good small stuff makes me a happy skater.

Drudgery: The RBI 3-turn was sketchy. And I still don't want to do outside mohawks at high speed after a bad fall I took last year on the 8-step mohawk pattern.

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All that glitters has a high refractive index.

Thanks, Mrs. Redboots. I have had an on-and-off axel since about October. Right now, it's on...supposedly...it's just shy so it hides in a dark corner somewhere during competitions or performances and only comes out again a day or two after the event is over.

I almost repeated the double sal today (two footed three of them, half-turn cheated two more, crashed and burned on the last three and decided to leave it alone). I am in no hurry to get this jump consistent, as I will not be competing in the Gold category until I manage to pass the $%#! moves test. Doesn't matter. I'm still happy about it!

Today was brilliant!
I skated from 6 - 2, 8 hours!

I mastered the Salchow, it no longer scares me, and I can do it with confidence, I actually quite like it.
Apparently..I have excellent edges! I'm rather thrilled about that, seeing as they've been atrocious.
Finally, I passed grade 9! One more grade to go! My instructor said I will be able to do my novice test this year easily.

My spin is very uncentered. Anyone got any tips?

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http://www.yourphotoalbums.co.uk

Holiday: i managed a few clean runthroughs of my program today! yay!! and i finally had FUN on the ice heh heh. haven't had that in ages. it makes me realise why i like to skate again.

Drudgery: My spins are half-half. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't. It's quite worrying.

Holiday: Skated yesterday for the first time this week. I was supposed to skate and have a moves lesson on Thurs night, but it snowed. Today I practiced and then had a lesson, where we started the choreography for my new program. I was also able to get lower (I think) on my sit spin when I did it in practice. I also felt myself getting a more fully-rotated loop and I was feeling so ambitious, I even tried a sal-loop and sort of landed it - I say "sort of" b/c I'm sure the loop was a bit cheated, but hey, I stayed on 1 foot. I was trying the sal-loop last summer but it never worked well b/c I was leaning forward too much on the landing of the sal and never really got on the BO edge for the loop. I think the landing of my salchow's improved a lot since then.

Drudgery: Of course, the loop all but disappeared during my lesson when we worked on the new program pattern. And my backspin (what there is of it) went AWOL. Yep, there's a backspin in the program, since this is the program I'll likely use for the Bronze FS test. It's at the beginning, so I can do it from a pivot at a standstill - just my speed.

It was also very crowded this morning on the first session, so not much success with moves then, but the second session cleared out a bit so I got a chance to run through all the Bronze MIF patterns. Dare I say my power 3's are improving?

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

Holiday: Skated yesterday morning, Dance outside 3 turns are great! Back edges are finally feeling solid.

Drudgery: Did not skate today, no ice due to a hockey tournament, BOO!!!

Holiday--
Very centered scratch spins today (thanks to all those who posted advice in the separate thread about not disturbing one's hips when pulling the free leg to the ankle and not pulling in too early). Sal felt good, loop felt good, loop-loop was shaky but I did land one that was fairly okay.

Drudgery--
Didn't get to skate Thursday because of the snow. Just as well, because I was feeling worn down and flu-ish.

Today's camel spin attempts were just that. My back threes also need lots of work! My flip also felt wussy--not as much height and honest rotation as I'd like...and the falling leaf was also wussy...

Holiday: I'm probably quite mad, but skated a bit this morning (after doing some stretches designed for sore backs in the morning!) and even had our couples lesson. As I wasn't able for all that much, we focussed on the two compulsory dances we'll need for the British Adult Championships this year, which are the Golden Skaters' Waltz and the Riverside Rhumba. Unfortunately I couldn't do forward swing rolls very well, and the change of hold in the Riverside was impossible for me, so we worked on it solo. We also managed a few laps of chassés in waltz hold, and even chassé-swings, although my coach said he could see I was favouring one side.

Drudgery: Being unable for rather a lot more than I hoped - although I was able to do a lot more than on Wednesday. I found skating backwards better than forwards - I couldn't extend behind me, so forwards was rather sore at first. Oddly, it was my right hip which really hurt while I was on the ice, but it's somewhere in my left buttock that is actually the painful part! My coach said to take anti-inflammatories, which I shall, but I don't think it's a very good idea to take painkillers before skating if one has an injury, except in the dire emergency of a test or competition!

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