Just got back from a (finally) great practice!

Spinning Centered:
ME, at last!!! Right from the first spin, they were the best ever. I felt the spin spot right away, and held onto it without too much effort. They were so good, that I even did several from (world's smallest, slowest) windup, and they were good too. On several of my spins today, I actually finished the spin because I ran out of rotational steam, instead of falling off balance and bailing. Hope I can repeat this on Fri when I finally start my lessons again. I also managed to practice FO and FI threes, and the adult Pre-Bronze three turn pattern, and Prelim power threes, all of which I've been shy of and haven't had the confidence to begin work on again. Well, I did work on them today, and they are not so bad as I had feared. I'm fooling around with alt FO threes with free leg extended, and it may work better for me. Will show coach on Fri. Finally, while talking with a parent, I did a few RBO threes. Not very good ones, but at least I managed to make myself do a few.

Spinning Out of Control:
I did finally lose my center and had to do something else. It came back later, but not as good as at first. Maybe I was just tired. Did not practice the LFI side of the pre-Bronze three pattern. Still way too lacking in confidence.

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Spinning Out of Control:
I was all by myself and not even my coach came.
I had absolutely no music at all playing during the session even though I asked to have the rink attendants to play the music. Nope no radio for me, never mind that I couldn't play my program CDs.
Forgot to even do a sit spin.

Spinning Centered:
Well, the spins. Camel, Camel + upright, Corkscrew.
Jumps, were strong even when I didn't give it my all. I've been pulling in my arms on all my jumps except for the Toe Loop and Watz jump because well, I can't or I get an extra half rev in the air. I still have to work on finding out how much I can bring in my arms for the Toe Loop and Waltz jump before over rotating. Or I should work on checking out harder because eventually, when I start doing double jumps, I'll need to learn to check out hard.

Spirals were ever so quiet on the ice even though there wasn't a sound.

My stroking was really quiet too. So cool to stroke fast around the ice and not hear a thing.

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Spinning Centered Went to the Pro's ice this morning. Only me and 2 other skaters. I had plenty of room to work on making my moves patterns big. Worked on arm position and extension. Waltz jump, salchow, and toe loop were good. Loop was okay.

Spinning out of Control Spins were out of control today. Scratch spin was not centered at all. Sit spin was crap. Backspin were not good. Spent about 10 minutes trying to get the entry right on the flip. Foot just does not want to cross in front.

Spinning with a little traveling Had my first ice dance class in 20+ years tonight. Not that I got that far in dance (Dutch Waltz and Canasta Tango) when I was a kid. We just worked on the basics. It was fun and time went by fast. There are 6 adults and my DD who is 15.

spinning out of control - working over bronze moves, coach admitted to improvement in the step to inside edge but complained loud and long about my failure to shift my weight back to the outside edge prior to the crossover - same issue on back cross stroking and power three pattern. I think I've got it now and a couple hours of practice should lock it down

spinning centered - after much telling me what I'm doing wrong, he did pay me a compliment. He said I don't have strength issues, and I don't have balls issues.

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It's all about the dress!

Out of Control: My first time back on ice today since early April was both rewarding and disappointing. I didn't oil my blades after getting off the ice in April, and even though they were stored in soakers in an air-conditioned house, they had serious rust on the bottom - so much rust that they didn't glide AT ALL.

I stepped onto the ice, and nearly fell. In the first seconds of confusion, I thought that I'd left my guards on again, but quickly realized that I'd be sliding more instead of less. It was like the brakes were on, or I somehow had stepped onto a toe pick going forward. I scrubbed the blades on the ice to remove the big chunks of rust from the bottom, but I've got some serious sharpening to do to remove it completely.

Spins were awful. I'm a little concerned about how spinning this summer on PIC skates may have changed my approach to them on ice - for the worse.

Centered: Footwork was still in muscle memory. I was doing some multiple brackets with no practice. Most threes were fine, although a tiny bit rusty (heh - like my blades!). I felt that footwork skills hadn't diminished much at all.

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Bill Schneider

Spinning Centered:

First time I had a lesson with my secondary coach in quite a while. Also, first time I've had a JUMP lesson in a while too!

That said, my jumps were thankfully there... and I actually managed one VERY GOOD (in her opinion) flip.

Spinning Out of Control:

Of course, I couldn't repeat afterwards (a bunch of wimpy ones and then gradually gotten worse and worse afterwards... )

Spinning Centered:
Have a new exercise to do to fix my flutz!!! And it's part of my training for something else too!!! WOO HOO!!! ( We'll see though. )

And speaking of spinning centered, I managed to do a couple of very good centered scratch spins on freshly cleaned ice! And my secondary coach witnessed both of those spins too!!!

Spinning Out of Control:

Darn it! I should have whipped out my phone again!!!

ETA....

Spinning Centered:

Renatale and I are gonna skate together tomorrow afternoon!!! WHOO HOO!!!

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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!!!

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Spinning Centered Had lesson with coach yesterday. I was making my Bronze Moves patterns too big. We fixed that by concentrating on power and extention. That took up most of the lesson time except for a short amount of time on toe loops. Coach approved my music choice. Next week, we are going to start on my program for the free skate test.

Spinning out of Control I picked up my new skates from getting one of the blades remounted. I switched skates after my lesson for the second of my 2 contracted sessions. They felt pretty good. The only issue I have is my left heel is coming up quite a bit in the boot. This didn't happen at all when I tried them out a few weeks ago. These are the skates my sister gave me that were a half size too big for her and she had only worn a few times. They are basically new skates. One of the blades was off so I had to get them remounted. I hope I can put an insert in to keep my heel down. The boots are much nicer than what I have now, but it is the same blade as my current pair.

No free style ice until Monday due to a hockey tournament. Hopefully, it will be quiet on the public session at the rink near my house. $2 Friday skate.

[Spinning Centered]
Power pulls (junior moves) are coming along....

[Out of Control]
They are not coming along fast enough because I test next Saturday which means that I have about 10 days to get these testable...

[Spinning Centered]
Sunday I was doing clean programs with minimally cheated axels...

[Out of Control]
Starting yesterday and continuing into today, I couldn't even take off for an axel...kept popping out of it...has something to do with the take off, but I don't know what it is...I was able to correct whatever it was today, but I'm really nervous because I was making progress on fully rotating and not severely cheating my axle, but damn it all

It's been a rough week at work (unfortunately, I cannot share the story in a public forum, but needless to say, I had a staff member resign (not entirely her decision) and have needed to hire a new staff member, deal with the fall out of the departure and I will need to promote someone into a special position she held....and now I need to work on training that person (she moves in on Saturday and starts on Monday).... Give all of that, skating poorly is not helping a gosh darn thing...and it makes me even more frustrated. I am hoping that tomorrow I am able to leave those frustrations at the door and concentrate on doing some clean programs and some strong moves run thrus....

[Centered]
Luckily, I was able to do a corrected runthru of my rocker pattern

[Out of Control]
I need to figure out what I am doing that is funky on my choctaws because pre-sprained ankle, they were beautiful, now there is something going on

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Spinning Out of Control
I still cannot spin on my new blades. Am trying everything I can think of. Lots of 2 foot spins, pivots into spins, all sorts today. And not one decent spin either forward or backward. It is getting ridiculous.
I no longer feel my blades are too sharp - I deliberately blunted them. And I am certainly used to the extra length. Maybe you were right Query, the spinning spot is just further back. But no matter where I go, I cannot spin.

Jumps today, well only tried waltz, toe-loop & salchow. Not good.

I am flummoxed. I love the feeling of the longer blade, especially for edge work & spirals, yet cannot spin or jump properly. Some of it must be due to having had flu (most likely it was the dreaded H1N1 swine flu - they've stopped testing for it here but I've been sick for 3 weeks), and still being unwell. But I'd hoped to have made some adaptation to the new blades by now.

My coach is in the US for another couple of weeks. Cannot wait for her to get back and sort me out.

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

No skating today-have music lesson but looking forward to lessons on Friday (private & group)...both have promised JUMPS! Last week made me think of Hackensack camp with the edges and I can't think of edges and NOT think about EDWARD! LOL!

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

I spent about an hour removing most of the rust from my blades that accumulated over the summer. They aren't perfect, but very skateable and fast - so slick that it took a little time this evening to adjust to them.

I see that we have a couple new student coaches, one doing nicely on her doubles. I did become a little irritated when all the student coaches were running through their programs and limiting what "paying customers" were able to do. The other adult skater here summed it up nicely at the end by saying that the session wasn't "adult friendly".

Still, these students pay a HEFTY tuition to come here, so I can't feel too sorry for myself.

My spins are very slow to return. I had one nicely centered and fast spin, but others didn't fare so well. I also attempted some toe loops from a right inside tuning-threes entrance, and had some success.

I skated only one 45 min. session, but came away very sweaty and tired. The shower at home afterward felt most excellent.

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Bill Schneider

*sigh* I need some thing/one to give me a swift kick in the pants and to stop being pessimistic about testing next week....it feels as if the juv free is not coming together and the power pulls from junior moves are a mess....I would be half tempted to pull the tests if I hadn't already written a $102 check....

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Spinning out of control: I just found out from a skating dad that the rink manager is gone. She was dismissed the other day (I don't know what happened-just that she "changed" a lot of things since she's been here). She has been there about a year. I'm not sure what is going on and what will happen now. I don't think it will close-yet; it is a training facility for a local college hockey team as well as home rink to a large well-formed youth hockey team.

My worst fear is that it will close immediately leaving me no choice but to travel upstate (1.5 hours each way) to practice and no ice for lessons until October. My other fear is that all the freestyles (not that there are many of them) will go and it will only have the few publics and the remainder will be hockey.

Guess I'll find out some things tonight!

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

My fingers are crossed for you and the other figure skaters! It's no fun driving that far for ice if you have no local option.

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Bill Schneider

Thanks, Bill! I am hoping that nothing will change other than the management (just checked the schedule and so far no changes). Hoping to not find the doors locked when we show up to skate!

I have driven (during summers) the 1.5 hours to skate and it was a bear but I did it. But gas was not so $$$$ and I was working back then and not planning on testing.

We will see what happens. Stay tuned!

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

Ah yes, my home rink has finally opened for lunch skate! Whoohoo! Sorry I had to cheer, onto practice notes:

Spinning Centered:

-Firstly being able to skate after being off ice for three months
-Back power pulls were really nice and smooth
-twizzles were well controlled
-Brackets are getting sooo much smoother than last season
-All single jumps were landed at least 3xs
-Had some really amazingly close double sals
-Scratch spins were fanominal...at one point I got so dizzy on one that I stepped out of it and fell..hehe
-Back spin is definately getting there..it's alot more controlled
-Choreographed half of an artistic programme to the song 'The Dream'
-Recieved the ole 'your good' compliment from a mom and her begining skater...(she was doing very well though)


Travelling a Bit
-Sit spins...honestly they weren't bad..but not fanominal *shrugs*
-Laybacks were traveled quite a bit, but I'm getting the position and revolutions
-Got hit on by one of the college students...awful skater and possibly five yrs younger than me


Spinning out of Control:
-Camels were pretty bad
-I chickened out on my axel...I'm not sure why I feel so confident with 2Sal, but petrified of axel.
-Endurance-yeah from being off ice 3 months-got alittle winded

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[i]Beauty May Be in the Eye of the Beholder
But passion is in the heart of a skater.[/I]

Centered: Had a *great* lesson today on choctaws (like the ones in Killian & Rhumba). He had me starting on a back outside edge, choctaw to forward inside, then choctaw again to back outside. We worked almost the whole time on them and I understand them much better now & they got smoother as we went along. For example, did you know that there's actually a bit of a power pull just before the step down? I didn't! And once you get the feel of doing it, it makes the step easier. Cool.

Then he had me try it on pattern for the Rhumba & I actually got through the choctaw section with no struggle! I've never been able to do that before solo.

Sorry I posted a THREAD instead of a REPLY! Not sure how that happened.

Spinning Centered: Only did one centered spin today for my coach but it was exciting. Worked on the patterns for pre-bronze. Not too bad, coach did say that my moves would pass but she wants them much better. I agree.

Spinning out of control: The rest of my spins, including backspins were "off" not sure why unless it's my slight congestion. I also need to concentrate on the underpush on my crossovers, extension, more knee bend, etc.

For group lesson, we worked on jumps. For the toe-loop we focused on the skate actually skating past the toed-in skate and the transfer of weight...a concept I've been having difficulty with. Group coach said I also need a stronger check as I'm over-rotating (he joked: wanna work on doubles? hahaha). Salchows-working on the check (recurring theme with me). That was all we had time for.

My skates hurt! I need to get these punched ASAP!! The guy that was going to do it no longer works at the rink so I guess I'll call Skate Club of Wilmington and make arrangements with them.

On another note: after group lessons the other ladies and I were sitting around chatting and one of the general managers came over and talked to us about the plans for the rink (damage control we think). He did mention that they want to improve/increase the programs for the rink, including the ice shows (more shows/matinees instead of less), lesson times, public skating, etc. One of the other ladies knows this man and believes what he says is true. This is very good news!!!! We are extremely excited! They just need to hire the right rink manager (one that runs the rink properly).

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

That's Great news!

Centered:
In my ice dance lesson yesterday, I suggested that we pretend it was my test, and go out for a warm up and then right into the dances. I hadn't already warmed up at that point. Coach agreed, and I did get through everything "passing". Finally began my MIF and spin lessons again today! Spins were not as good as on Mon, but I did finally find the spin spot after about 3 tries (none of which failed completely), and coach agreed that my spins have improved in spite of no practice, except for on my kitchen floor. L back power pulls are magical.

Out of Control:
I really felt tense and wobbly on the pretend warm up and test. I also kicked my coach about 6 times, which I rarely do. My feet felt like they a had a will of their own. This is not going to be so easy as I had thought! Ran through the same routine of warm up followed by dances as if I were testing today on an empty public session, with a friend watching, and once again, did not feel it was a strong skate. The unease I was feeling was visible to my friend in the Dutch Waltz, though she said it still looked good in terms of edges and flow. R back power pulls are pathetic.

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[Centered]
Did a run thru of my program after a 5 minute warm up and it was clean-ish!! Only had to reskate my flip/loop (fell) and my sit spin (something was funky, so better safe than sorry). Was able to land the axel, although I have not clue if it was anywhere near clean...

[Out of Control]
F@#$%^& power pulls I spent a good 45 minutes working on them and spent the bulk of my lesson tonight working on them. I am attempting to reschedule some things at work on Wednesday so that I can get in another lesson when temporary coach is on campus. They are definitely getting better, I'm just getting nervous that they are not going to be ready for Saturday since I haven't done a clean run thru of that pattern yet

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

I don't usually post on these threads, but had to tonight:

Centered: Back on the ice!!!! for the first time in 9 1/2 weeks after breaking my wrist on a nasty fall on the 8 step mohawk. It's my first major injury and the longest I've ever been off. Figured I'd start easy and just go to a public skate and do what I could do. Managed not to fall, so my uber-wristguards were not put to a test. Did one decent enough scratch spin, an okay-ish backspin, and one sitspin that I actually managed to stand up from. It was nice and empty so I was able to try a few jumps - through the flip. The flip is my absolute favorite jump and I landed the very first one I tried. I figured that was good enough for the first time out and left it there.

Out of Control: I'm not used to spinning anymore, the scratch spin in partcular made me dizzy! I didn't see that coming. My loop still sucks. I think I am leery of the BO edge at the moment, and it isn't one of my better jumps anyway.

Not going to complain too much about what I couldn't do this time around. It was about what I expected for the first time out after that much time off. My timing was "off" on some things, but I expected that and was just happy to do what I did manage to do. ETA, probably a good idea to start out with a few publics and get my feet back under me before trying freestyles. Especially with Regionals coming up, the kids are extra-tense and cranky about people getting in their way and I'm not sure I'd do so well at dodging programs right now.

Spinning Centred
Well I had a complete backflip with my new blades. Last night I took them off, put the old ones back on. Sick of just not being able to do anything. Crazy as it sounds, my horoscope in the newspaper said something that changed my mind. So before I went skating this morning, I switched back to the new ones.

I was rewarded with some spins this morning! Still not great, but at least they were there. A stork (no scratch yet), a backspin and a 3 rev camel. No sits though.

I have decided to stick with the new blades. Skating so badly now anyway, and so weak & unbalanced because of residual flu symptoms, I may as well do this now.

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

Hi

Well, this is generally for my lesson and practice this week.

Lesson (on Tuesday)

Spinning centred

Forward crossovers are getting better, coach is trying to get me to hold my skating leg longer on the understroke.

Scratch spins (without holding the free leg wide open) are better.
Change foot spins are not too bad.

Finally, understood what my coach meant by glide before doing the jump.

All the jumps (up to toe loop) are not too bad.

Right foot spiral is not too bad.

Spinning out of control

Could not do scratch spins from open free leg position. Seemed to have an extra step, in that I would lower my foot, before crossing them. That was according to my coach.

Tried backspins (crossed leg position), a bit strange, as first time to learn it. Could get at least one revolution, but my balance was not always correct. Definitely needed hundreds and thousands more practice on this one.

Coach told me that there will be an ISI competition in Hong Kong in November some time this year. I told her that I will not be going for the competition, as I have to go back to the UK (London) for my Call to the Bar (graduation ceremony) in end of November.

Practice on Thursday

Spinning centred

Scratch spins were pretty decent, with up to 10 revolutions. Tried another position, with leg holding in front, then crossed it, at most up to 6 revolutions. Another girl practising spins near my area, towards the end of the session, was copying the way I spin.

Change foot spins not too bad either.

Tried some sit spins. Tried to get my butt even lower, and fell on one sit spin.

Jumps were not too bad.

Did some variation spins, the ones with my right leg tucked behind my left thigh. My number of rotations seemed to have increased.

Spinning out of control

Think I may have over-rotated on my salchow. Coach away on holiday now, until 28 September. Argggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need coach to check on this one.

Due to ice hockey session, at 5:30 p.m. there was no resurfacing of the ice at 4:00 p.m. So the ice sucked. The staff should have informed people on this change.

As no resurfacing of the ice at 4:00 p.m., pretty hard to practise on spins after 4 p.m. However, no. of good spins still exceeded the no. of bad spins.

Still working on backspins. Get constant 1 revolution, but not more than that.

Spinning Centered: got asked if I could fill in on Sunday to teach "birthday party lessons" during public. It's a 20-minute lesson going over the basics for newbies. I did mention to the skating director that I'm not PSA rated or anything (altho I have taught LTS for 2 years prior) but he is one of my coaches so he said it was ok. So, I'm ok with that-I miss teaching LTS.

I'm still going over the toe-loop vs. toe-waltz debate in my head....trying to mentally do the jump correctly (physically will be the hard part, I've toe-waltzed it all these years LOL). I need to see it on video...and actually see how far the skating foot comes to the pivoting (i.e. picking) foot before the jump takes place. Typical adult behavior-over analyzing!

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