This week's thread title is in honour of my poor sore muscles.... this fitness thing is getting to me!

Muscles: Had a good practice this morning, first with Husband, when we ran through our Waltzing Cat routine. I think, given a practice every single day this week and a following wind, we won't make too dreadful fools of ourselves at the competition. I hope not. We are almost bound to come last (there are 4 entries, and we haven't a hope of coming higher than 3rd, and I very much doubt we'll even do that), but who cares? I certainly don't - I've never yet come higher than last at any competition at our rink, whether open or closed, and I don't suppose that will change.

Then after a break, I worked on quite a lot of the stuff I'm supposed to work on solo, so I feel rather virtuous! Back crossovers in both directions - I actually managed a full circle of "proper" anti-clockwise back crossovers! Clockwise forward crossovers/progressives/whatever, focussing on getting more kneebend and a better push. My baby Mohawk exercise (yuck!), cross-roll 3s, back cross-rolls, back cross-cuts, and, to finish off with, 2 laps of my stamina-training exercise, which is back crossover into landing position, then repeat the other way, with forward crossovers round the ends and a Mohawk back on to the back inside edge for the first crossover.

Jelly: My poor calf muscles after the stamina training. "Well, I'm glad to see you're pushing yourself," said my coach when I went and collapsed on to his shoulder! And now the rest of me aches after goodly doing my off-ice training when I got home.... sheesh.....

And really my back edges are still not great! Although I got some good ones with Husband at the start of our Cat routine. The first 10 seconds of that is great - it's the rest of it that's awful!

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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!

Muscles:
My RFI Mohawks have been very sloppy and I've been avoiding the LFI's altogether. My coach finally cracked down last week, so I worked on them quite a bit, seemingly without any progress. When I skated yesterday though, they were much improved, the R being almost totally in control, and I'm not so scared of the L anymore.

I've been trying to treat my three turn obsession by just having fun with them, not working the patterns and exercises to exhaustion. Yesterday I decided to begin two footing the BO threes because I had been doing them about a year ago, stopped for a week or two, and got scared to do them anymore. Surprise, surprise, after several two footings for the RBO, I was able to pick up my L foot and do the turn! Even better, I was able to put the L back down and go right into a LFO three, which has also been a big problem for me. Of course, I know that I was not checking, but this is still a big step for me.

Jelly:
I could not for the life of me get my center on even a two foot spin. I could not find the right spot on the blades and could not seem to even stay upright. My spine felt like a wet noodle.

I saw an 8 year old make it all the way across the ice on one push, as instructed by her coach. The ice was particularly smooth, and there were only a few of us skating, so I tried it. Could not make it across! How humiliating is that? Guess I will have to work on improving my stroking, which I have been pretty satisfied with until yesterday.

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Muscles:
Flying spins are going well, and my attempts at a catchfoot camel are coming along.

Jelly:
My axel has disappeared. AAARGH. And it was going so well about two weeks ago...
It seems that the axel and the flying camel are mutually exclusive tricks--I can't have both. I think I would rather have the axel back and to heck with the flying camel. Why is it that if any other element disappears for a day or two, I don't panic, but if the axel goes AWOL for three days running, I have no confidence that it will ever return? Grump.

Despite the thread title, I think I'm getting fitter - even after one hour of lessons today I'm not exhausted, just pleasantly tired - and I did 2.5 laps of stamina training *after* both lessons!

Muscles: Two really good lessons. In our couples lesson, we ran through our "cat" routine, and it's probably as good as it's going to get between now and Sunday, when we compete. We have so no hope of finishing anywhere other than last place that we can just relax and enjoy it, I think. Obviously, we'll be skating every day, or nearly so, between now and then, and we have one more lesson for a last "dress rehearsal" on Sunday morning. But it should be fun, whatever. I just wish we could be a little bit faster in the cross-roll section, but that so isn't going to happen - our start is now so much faster than it was in June that we have had to move our starting position from the intersection of the centre circle with the blue line, just opposite the judges, to the top of the centre circle!

Then I asked our coach to look at us skating together to see why we go so much more slowly with each other than we do with other people. This was interesting, as we did a Golden Skaters' waltz (the music happened to be playing), and he said that I was not pushing, and Husband was holding back. I personally thought it was the other way round - Husband was not pushing and I was holding back..... anyway, we'd obviously got ourselves into a vicious circle of not pushing, whoever it was. So we did another Golden Skaters' waltz really focussing on pushing - and covered twice as much ice at twice the speed! Sigh.... Only I felt I was a bit flat on the RFO swing roll, and said as much, and felt that it was the same feeling as in the long double RFO edge in the Canadian Cha-Cha. We looked at that, and it seems that we are both pushing off in the wrong direction (I had told Husband that, but he doesn't hear it from me!). So I hope that will gradually get fixed.

Husband had to run then to catch his train, and I took a break, surprised to find I wasn't tired and, if I'm honest, didn't really need a break.

In my private lesson, worked mostly on backwards skating - BO edges, then back crossovers, and then a figure 8 of forward ones which were good enough not to merit any corrections (!).

Jelly: Then we worked on Mohawks, and the end pattern of the Fiesta Tango, which led into working on back runs (progressives), and a repeat of the end pattern. Not great..... Oh well.... And I still can't do back cross-cuts, although working with the coach pushing me so I could concentrate on technique helped. Back cross-rolls beginning to happen now - when I did them with the coach, I definitely felt I was generating my own momentum!

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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!

MUSCLE: I am going back out on the ice after a 8 day bout of whatever this was that laid me out for the better part of the week. It will feel good to get out on the ice though I have lost about 7 pounds, bringing me to 165 on a 6 foot frame.

JELLY: My muscles! I had been working diligently on both pre-figures and Figures 1 before this thing. I think I am in for a shock on how far I have regressed. Yet another reminder on how slow the adult body is in bouncing back.

At least the last week has been fun in that I could come here and read how all you guys are proceding. If I can't be out on the ice, at least I can "join" someone else out on the ice in spirit.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

I have had really good practices and lessons all week. Today, worked on forward and back cross-rolls, as well as Tango and for a treat, a bit of Midnight Blues. And my new intro-3 drills.


MUSCLE: Intro-3s have decided to make a return appearance. I have been working on them on my own (which has never been as much of an issue) and with coaches. So now in my lessons with primary coach, we have a new drill... first I do a couple intros w/ turns by myself, then we do some together... he cobbled together a drill of couple of edges, I do the progressive/3-turn, cross-behind, step forward and repeat heading the other direction across the rink. So we go back and forth for 4 or 5 repeats total. Today I had to do that drill by myself. And things are getting better.

Then Tango, both solo and with coach. Solo I was able to do a whole pattern except for the RFI3 at the end of the dance. In the pair (not to music), did the whole pattern Including the intro-3 and the RFI3... although the latter was nothing to write home about.

JELLY: My back cross-rolls were very scratchy today. I'm maintaining flow, although I want to get the lobes stronger and bigger and with more flow and presentation than I have right now. But I'm not screeching to an almost halt like I was when we first started working on them.

One of the cross-roll RFO3's in Tango was very collapsed. I did the turn and forgot to keep upper body nice and strong. But I did keep going...

I hear ya on that one! Mine is just starting to come back now. . . Is it possible that you are swinging around too much on your axel takeoff because that's what works for the flying camel? And vice-versa when it's the axel that works?

Oh, what the heck, here goes. . . ! (Why does this feel like confession? LOL!)

Legs:
Sitspin is getting ridiculously low. . . when I manage to get the entrance edge right and get into it! I just fixed what was wrong with the double sal and now I'm landing it again. My mazurka is fixed so that it doesn't look weird anymore. My double loop is fully rotated on the floor (hey, it's a start!). I'm also getting closer to fixing the problems on the axel takeoff.

Jelly: Still haven't even attempted the axel or double sal in my program, and I'm planning on performing it with both of those elements in a little over a week! Also, my camel and sitspin entrances are still off when I try to do them from the back crossover windup (and I have two of those in my program).

Muscles When my coach came over to me tonight for me lesson, he said he wanted to see how my program was coming along, and I foolishly said, "Oh, I can do all of it!" So he said, "Okay, let's see." And he put the music on and I went out and did the whole thing, meaning about 1:20 of it, which is all we had choreographed. It was pretty shocking really because there were still a lot of kids zipping around and normally I have a hard time skating a new program by myself under crowded conditions. So, I think we were both surprised and he was delighted. So we pretty much finished the choreography, although the last 20 seconds are pretty much a mess. Still I was happy about it because we've only worked on it for a week.

Jelly The ice was pathetic, and was supposed to be cut and it wasn't. I tripped several times but didn't go down. And, now that I made such good and quick progress on the previous parts of the program, my coach seems to expect the same for the remainder, but yikes. Oh, and then we had a mini-argument over whether I should cut one second or so off the end. The last note goes on forever, and I wanted to cut it off, but he doesn't want me to! Oh well, we'll see what happens when I actually skate it through to the end.

Happy skating,
Pat

How are you finishing? If it's a spin, it's incredibly effective if you *can* hold it for the whole length of the note, as long as you stop *exactly* when the music does..... if it's a held pose, you need to get into it right on time, and it will look awful if you finish too early!

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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!

Mrs. Redboots-- Actually, I am finishing with a spin! However I am the world's worst spinner so I doubt I can actually spin right until the end. PLUS my coach has this crazy idea that I should spin on 2 feet and then shift tomy left foot and do a pivot to end it. Sheesh. But I'll try today and see what happens.

Pat

We have a 2-foot spin in opposite directions in our routine, which is quite effective. Tonight was dance club, however.

Muscles: I was finally able to fit into a dress that JenLyon60 gave me (the red-and-black one, Jen), and look good in it - it was a bit tight when she actually gave it to me. It has spaghetti straps, which I would have frozen in, so I wore it over the one black top I have that fits (all the rest flap loose), and looked really good. It will look a lot better another 25 lbs down the line, but.....

Jelly: The music was awful, for some reason, the CD was dirty or something. And Husband kept going over to fiddle with it. And then he somehow didn't seem to be skating well - very strong, but his style wasn't. But we pushed hard and got round faster than usual - but why is it such an effort with him, when it seems so effortless with other partners?

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

Do you mean that you both spin in the opposite direction of the other? Or that you each spin one way and then the other? Anyway, I came up with a variation on my coach's idea and showed it to him tonight as he was passing by, and he liked it! So then I showed my secondary coach when he came over and he liked it, too! Basically, instead of pushing out onto my left back outside edge as I would normally exit (I'm a clockwise skater) I let my right foot go wide and lean onto the ball of my left foot and the momentum carries me around like a back pivot, except not on the toepick. I'm on a right back inside edge and slightly on a left back outside edge with more of my weight to the left. It actually looks good, he said, and it feels comfortable, so I'm off the hook on that at least! Good thing because there are many more challenging new things in this program!

Pat

I think that's partly it...but then I get very self-conscious of the fact that I'm swinging wide, and then I start over-compensating by kicking straight through but not bringing my hips through...and then I start leaning too far forward (or too far back) to compensate for that... and then I lose confidence in the whole darn thing and start thinking I can't do it at all. (yep, I've thought this thing through way too many times). I think it's an issue with timing and confidence. Either way, my coach has prescribed a week of no axels, just waltz-loops and waltz-backspins with a jump out, and we will see what happens next week. Sigh.

Congrats on fixing your double sal, by the way.

Worked on the holiday pair program this morning. It was, um, not so good. But we fixed a lot of the transitions and learned to not only skate as one, but to THINK as one; i.e, thinking not only about synchronicity but about how your element or technique or exit, etc. affects the other person.

Another great quote from our pair coach:
"There are a million ways of exiting a lift, UGLY is not one of them!"

Gulp! Point taken.

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"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
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Both - I pretend to slap his right cheek, so he twirls to the right and me to the left, then I pretend to slap his left cheek so vice versa. It's supposed to be a spin, but since neither of us has a reliable 3-revolution spin on our own (our pair spin is slightly more reliable, but not much - why, oh why do we have to learn to spin at our advanced ages????), it is one revolution one way and 2 the other!

Today's practice went well, but I'm panicking as there's one point where Husband, who has been skating backwards ahead of me, does a twizzle for me to catch up, so we can grab hands and do a side-by-side spiral, and I'm afraid that it'll look as though I was supposed to do a twizzle and fluffed it.... well, we have one lesson left before the competition, so.....

After Husband had gone, I spent a further 90 minutes or so on the ice working on this and that. My back cross-cuts are still virtually non-existent, grrrr....

They actually re-cut the ice, although there was nothing wrong with it, so apart from one nasty hole (the Zamboni apparently ran out of gas and stopped!), it was glorious. I hope the hole fills up over the next two days - I knew it was there, so I was fine, but one poor lady came a nasty cropper.

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

12/9:

Muscle: Good workout today. I started off with a basic stroking pattern, then did forward crossovers in a figure eight. Crossovers seem to be pretty smooth and I feel like I am pushing with BOTH over and under now. Still, could tilt the pelvis further to improve line.

My spins are getting soooooo much better. I am actually semi centering a scratch spin on a semi regular basis. Wow. My camel now feels like an actual spins, as opposed to this wobbling mess that I manage to hold for a couple of revolutions.

Jelly: Doing a back three turn and then attempting to hold the inside edge afterward. Feels impossible.

My sit spin, though it's back, still sucks.

Combo jumps. I am trying to train myself to land the first jump with the arms checked out and the leg in the forward position and THEN take off for second jump. I usually just try to get it over with really fast by throwing myself up again quickly. Coach is trying to get me to do it correctly. Still needs work.


12/10:

Muscle: I was able to do the combos MUCH better today, particularly with flip/loop combo. I did two or three that really had that defined check in between jumps.

I was SORT OF able to hold the inside edge after the back three. Better anyway.

The rest was about the same, so a good couple of days on the ice!

Thanks, but it might be a little early to congratulate me on getting my double sal back, LOL! I was landing them Wednesday, but the very next day I couldn't land them. Oh well.

But I totally understand the battle with the axel! It's like weight gain: You never get to stop fighting it, no matter how many times you win the battle!
In my effort to get my axel consistent again, I spent 5 minutes this morning doing backspins, then 30-35 minutes doing nothing but mohawk-RBO edge-waltz jump. . . over and over and over! That's how long it took before I felt that my body was lined up correctly on the axel takeoff edge! After half an hour of takeoff run-throughs, I finally tried an axel and I landed it.

I find that as long as I get my body lined up correctly on the takeoff edge, I will always land the axel. It's just that that takeoff position is so persnickity; it has to be juuuuust riiiiight. . . It sounds like we have been having the exact same issues, so I'll tell you what finally ended up working for me this morning:

First, I made sure I leaned my torso slightly forward as I squared myself just before stepping onto the takeoff edge. Then I thought about making the transition from the RBO edge to the LFO takeoff edge as gentle as possible, so that I wouldn't turn too much or fall forward as I stepped onto it. Then I focused on pushing out of the circle at a 90-degree angle and I thought, "Knee!" Amazingly, just thinking about my knee got my body lined up over the takeoff knee so that I wasn't on my heel (a common problem) or leaned forward with my free leg extended too far behind me (the opposite problem). Then I just made sure I rolled up off my toe as I took off so that I would spring straight up. Once I was able to think, "Lean forward. Gentle. Push out. Knee. Toe" as I prepared to tak eoff, I started landing them.

Good luck with yours! The good news is that once you figure out the takeoff edge, it suddenly feels so easy and non-scary!

Yesterday, my spins were off- I couldn't spin for nothing! Jumps were good though- even the loop cooperated!
Last night, I figured out why my spins were so off!

Today the spins came, but my body had no energy- I couldn't even get through my interpretive program. All for the same reason as the spins being off yesterday!

Here's hoping next week will be better!

jelly
Video

Muscles
My toe loop didn't look as bad as I thought it was, it's bad, but not baaaaad.

The rest, bleeech, it is worse than I thought it was, especially my waltz jump, I feel like I'm LEAPING and it's a teeny hop on video. Teeny hop with flow, at least I have good flow.

Muscles: i got my blades adjusted, so i can actually skate in a straight line now. but those new skates, i can't exactly figure out how to tie them, at first, they'd be so tight they'd cut off my circulation, so i loosen them, and they become so loose, my feet flop around in them. i can't find a middle ground.

jelly: my hockey stops have disappeared with these new skates. I was doing them for about 13 years up until about a week ago. after the adjustement, they made a slight reappearance, though nowhere as sharp or definitly not from any significant speed. Do you guys think it might be a difference in the blade hollow and i just need to get used to it? or am i just going crazy?

and an extra side note that made me happy, i went to this rink that i hardly go to because they're waaay too expensive for my budget, but the pro shop is there, and so i wanted to make sure the blades would be on right the first time, so while i was there, i fell. i couldn't get up for some reason because my pants were slippery and just i seemed stuck to the ice. The skate guard comes up to me and says "it's ok, calm down, are you all right?" i told him i was fine, i've had worse falls. So later, i'm just skating, he comes up and asks if i want to race. I told him not this week, but maybe next week i would bring my speed skates or my hockey skates, and he's on. The whole time, we just kept flirting back and forth. Which, given my recent slump in the boyfriend/dating department is a nice feeling, even though it has nothing to do with skating.

but why he started talking to me in hte first place, i don't know. i looked like a mess. It was raining all day today, so of course, my hair got all frizzy and nasty, and i had a bit of a cold. But i was wearing new pants, maybe that's what did it.

Jelly: The ice was zamboni-ed and it was still crap. They might as well have not done it for all the difference it made!

Muscles: Managed to do a backward 3 turn! Also a salchow, and I learnt the foxtrot, and slip chasses. Lesson was cool.

Muscles: I finally got my skates sharpened! What a difference, my blades felt so much faster. Loop and flip were there. I just like to do a couple every time I'm on the ice *just* to make sure I still have them. Worked on waltz/ loop, waltz/loop/loop (eeked out but completed) and axels. I'm working on snapping in faster, and while I still land forwards I can atleast back spin the rest of it. I just like the sound of it, "I'm working on axels!!"

Jelly: Splat on first flip attempt on my hurt wrist! I hurt it last week but I wasn't exactly sure how (probably another fall on the ice) but later in the week I made it worse by weight lifting So today I wrapped it for skating but sure enough I fall on it again.

Camels were...pretty sad looking This was only my second time trying them and on good attempts I could get 2-3 revs. I hope it can only get better from here.

We had a little Xmas party at the rink today. A few people skated (a coach and a formed rink student) and then Santa came out and skated around some more. BTW, Santa is one of my coaches and today he finally showed us his backflip! Omg it looked scary but he did it fine. For some reason none of the freestyle people got to skate today so ehhh, will have to wait for the spring show. Then there was a magician in the lobby and he did some pretty cool tricks.

Muscles--
On Thursday I was finally getting better speed in my sit spin, though I was still travelling a lot. I also worked on my camel and made improvements in that.

I had a *great* jumping day today. I finally landed the loop jump from back crossovers--before I had only been able to land it from FI3 and sometimes from FI mohawk. But I finally got the hook and tightened up the circle enough right before taking off to spring off the ice and not land two-footed. I have been working on this for SOOOO long, so I was just grinning on the ice after I started landing these. What really helped me was making my circle smaller--and this was by accident--the ice was crowded today, and I'm clockwise, so I didn't have a lot of space to use, and it made my circle just right for the takeoff.

Then I tried waltz-loop, which I had not been able to land cleanly or confidently, and they were much improved, too, with a true hook (instead of skid) before the loop. I was so pleased with myself that I went over to my coach as she was getting off the ice after lessons with other students, and I showed her my new skill.

Now if only I could get these fully rotated, and with a bigger waltz jump before the loop. I even tried waltz-loop-loop to try to work on the concept of loop-loop, but that didn't quite work as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing flo's club's Christmas show next weekend. I normally would have my test in my group lesson (FS5), but I know I'm not going to pass this level this time, since I don't yet have the flip or a good loop loop, so missing lesson won't be a big deal.

Jelly--
BO3 on my unfavorite side--I'm not using my shoulders properly after the turn.

Backspin has decided to take one of its frequent vacations... some days I am very centered on it, but lately definintely NOT.

On Thursday, my coach gave me hard footwork to work on--involving an FO closed mohawk.

for today:
Jelly: nothing really, except my backspin disappeared with my new skates.

muscles: this 75 year old former figures skater helped me with my mohawk. I actually did them cleanly a few times too. and my scratch spin is actually working now. before, in my old skates, i had a problem getting into and staying centered on a foward spin. Now, i was able to do it with the entrance, but i couldn't do a regular one footed spin from a standstill. But if i had to choose, i would rather be able to do it with the entrance.

do you think it might work if i wear my new left skate with my old right skate so i can do both foward and back spins? i think that's a mighty fine solution.