Well, our last lesson before the competitions start... and our last couples lesson before the Mountain Cup!

Gratifying: I think it's gratifying that my boot covers now almost always need to be washed after skating! I don't think the dirty marks are invariably coffee stains from my bag, either.... certainly wasn't this morning!

Managed to get through our Free Dance, although it could probably have been better. And in our other lesson, worked on the Willow Waltz & the Swing Dance. Had problems with our Swing Dance start, but discovered to my utter delight it was him, not me, for once! Ye-s-s-s!

Mortifying: Being told that the only thing really wrong with our free dance was that we didn't sell it! And making a nonsense of one of the RFO3s in our Willow waltz - coach2 said it was because we didn't push.

Coach1 thinks we ought to change the entry to our lift, because it's not quite as reliable as it should be, and because we don't look good going backwards together..... Of course, Husband thinks this means leave the lift out, but I don't think it does. I'll work something out on Tuesday!

Meanwhile, off to the first recreational match of the season. These are so very luck of the draw that winning or losing means nothing..... and the social dancing element is quite fun, although too many people on the ice. Still, it's a good "pipe-opener". Will post about it sometime - may not be on line now until Tuesday, although I'll try to get on briefly tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, has anybody heard anything from Tallinn?

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

Mortifying: No Skating! We were planning on going today, only to find out that the rink is closed for the whole holiday weekend!!!! Now I'll have to wait (again) until Thursday to go and I haven't skated in weeks!!!

Gratifying: well, if I can't skate, I'll catch up on my sewing. I'm working on 2 competition dresses for skate friends, although looking at the dresses makes me think "I could be skating"

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

Mortifying:
No ice on Monday.

Gratifying:
No ice on Monday, but only because last night I developed fluid in my left ear to the point that I thought it was going to rupture the eardrum, which has happened to me twice in the last 30 years. I haven't been sick in so long that I forgot to take nose drops when the sinus congestion began. I could feel my ear filling last night, and when it got to the point that I knew was going to be very painful, I finally rememered the nose drops. They did manage to open the eustachian tube enough for a little immediate relief, but I had a terrible night since I could only sleep on my right side and my back. Hopefully, I will be on the road to recovery by Wed, when I have to teach the tots in the morning.

__________________

Gratifying:
Passed three more dance tests! (pre-bronze)
I've been tinkering with an opposite-direction spin, and got five revs on a CW camel, right into a CCW camel-back camel. Would that be a Level 2 change foot spin?

Mortifying:
Something has gone seriously awry with my double sal, which I had, and then lost, and had, and then lost. Now it's definitely lost...you can ask my sore backside about that one. Grump.

Gratifying:
Had nice empty ice to skate on but that was before...

Mortifying:
I had a collision with a young lady that was playing tag with someone and was going backwards (but not looking behind her...) I try to move around her and she ended up going EXACTLY where I was going to avoid her!!! She fell first... but I tripped over her and fell on top of her!!! NOT GOOD!!! I came off with a bruised left knee. Her, a bruised forehead on the right. OWWWW!!!

Gratifying again:
Lucky for both of us, after a brief rest and some ice (and I meant icing the injury...eh, never mind...you know what I mean...) both of us were back in action. (This is one case where it was better to "skate it off...") Probably the only thing I couldn't really do initially were backspins and toe loops. (Requiring deep knee bend on both for the LFI3.)

Speaking of FI3's, my RFI3's has improved a bit... then again, just being able to do them is improvement to me!!!

Mortifying again:
I whacked the same knee again after dinner as I was getting out of a car. Car door decided to close by itself... right into the already injured left knee! (OWWWWW!!!) Now I know how Nancy Kerrigan feels now! "WHY ME!?!?!?!"

I'm thinking of staying off the ice and the gym on Monday. I just don't want to push it. I want to save myself for my lesson on Wednesday. In fact, maybe I'll just stay in bed all day tomorrow. Don't wanna risk getting my knees hit by a stray door or wall or water cooler or...

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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!!!

DB, get well soon! Penny, congratulations!

Gratifying: We skated well last night.

Mortifying: We were drawn against a couple we could never have beaten in a million years. It was so annoying - there were several couples out there we could have beaten easily, but were we, or any of our skaters drawn against them? You guess! Grrrrrr...... That's recreational matches, for you, though.

Gratifying: Didn't find the crowds nearly as frightening as last year; actually enjoyed myself out there (I used to find I minded so many people on the ice, but discovered I was having fun at the social dance after AN, so thought I probably would here, too, and did.) except I still find the Canasta Tango trying when there are a lot of other couples. It's the only dance I do mind, though.

Mortifying: Caught a toe-rake and went splat - no damage, just sore and embarrassing.

Gratifying: Meanwhile, the figure club won the league match on the Isle of Wight, although I believe the junior hockey skaters lost theirs..... Oh well, one out of three is pretty good going, and we certainly weren't last in the RIDL.

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

Gratifying: Went for a skate at a different rink to normal this morning. This rink has a number of very good skaters, several high level juniors and the national ladies champion. They were all out on the ice this morning and it was inspiring to watch. It made me very pumped up and I was flying through my doubles, did some good double-doubles and came close on some double-double-double loop combos. Fortunately I seem to have come into some good form just in time for the Mountain Cup. Touch wood it stays that way.


I should add that my 3 2loops in combination were nothing to what some of the other skaters were doing - I counted one doing 6 double toes in combination and another did 2flip-half loop-2flip repeatedly with 5 double flips in all.

I'm flying to Grenoble on Wednesday morning, it seems to have come around very soon! Feeling quite well prepared for once though, and after my skate this morning I am ready for anything

Mortifying: Nothing to add

John

Gratifying: Ice on saturday!!! I actually skated fairly well.

Mortifying: My uncle was watching at the beginning and I couldnt get myself focused!!! Hate it when that happens!!

Gratifying: my salchow's seem to be improving! Hope it keeps up till tuesday's lesson.

~kittie

Mrs. Redboots--good luck!!!

I'll start with the mortifying first:
Today was the only ice time I'll get this week!
More mortifying:
The ice was cut last night, not this morning and the ice was hard and full of hockey ruts! The session was scheduled to start at 9:30 and the register didn't open until 9:45!
Backspin took the holiday off!


Gratifying:
I'm getting my confidence back with the power threes and all my jumps managed to show up for practice this morning.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Gratifying: Tried out my new skates today, which was also the first time I've been back on the ice in a month...the skates were great! I was mildly terrified because I haven't had new skates in eight years, but things went well. When I first stepped on the ice, I almost went toe-pick over tea-kettle because I wasn't prepared for rocker to be in a slightly different spot. But the whole session (about 40 min) was totally pain free, just a bit awkward. I stroked forward and backwards, did some big FO cross-rolls, backwards one-foot pulls, all the three turns, some double threes, and a few rockers and counters. The boots fit my feet amazingly well. I'll probably try to go again Wed. morning, before my first freeskate lesson on Wednesday, which will probably be a total comedy of errors!

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Ouch, jazzpants! I hope your knee feels better soon. Gee, everyone around here seems to be getting a knee injury - maybe something's in the water? I hope everyone has a speedy recovery!

I've been off the ice for a month, so haven't had much opportunity to fall...but when I do, the ONLY body part I ever land on is my knee. Usually my left knee, which is the one I twisted pretty bad about 5 years ago. But sometimes my right, so it doesn't feel left out.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Hmmm? I wonder if there was a Nancy Kerrigan special on TV or something recently...

I'm okay today. Knee is still sore but I'm walking okay... or at least it's not as bad as yesterday...

__________________
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!!!

My knee is much better today and hasn't needed ibuprofen gel, although I probably should have put some arnica cream on it still. I am aware it's bruised, but that's all - and I totally forgot about it when we were on the ice!

Gratifying: Not a lot, really - nothing was truly terrible, and all the things we practiced went relatively well, but nothing I can say "Ah, that was good!" Oh, no, I tell a lie - did some really good (I thought!) back cross-rolls; can't wait to show them to my coach tomorrow. I hope he'll agree that I can suddenly do them!

Mortifying: I seem to be doing a Tim David and am still choreographing my Interpretive/Artistic, which never seems to work out the same way twice! Just hope I'll have a great run-through on Saturday, is all!

Husband and I tried lap after lap skating backwards in hold, plain vanilla back outside edges and back chassés. Oh dear...... enough said! Not a very edifying sight!

I've decided my twizzles are awful. Partly because I simply don't know when to bend my knee, when to rise up.... even the double back twizzle I allegedly have in my Interp is more of a 2-revolution spin in the wrong direction! Maybe that's something we can address at the MC camp, as I really do want to be able to do beautiful twizzles on all 4 edges! 8 edges, I mean... oh, you know what I mean!

(I'm trying to pack, and I loathe packing!!!!)

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

Jazzpants, I am glad you are okay.

I had a collision a few years back but it was with a 17 year old who was 5' 10" and about 30 pounds lighter than me.

Luckily nothing happened other than I was very very sore for about 3 weeks.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

Hehehe, sorry to giggle, but I've just been through several consecutive nights of only being able to sleep on my left side since my last nasty fall (the one I videoed, lol). I think it's finally getting better though...I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep on it yet tonight, but probably tomorrow!

(a few months ago, as jazzpants can attest, I fell the same way out of crossovers three times in less than a week and ended up with my left hip as sore as the right one has been recently, so really, this is just "evening things out" I think ;-) )

I wish better nights of sleep in the near future for both of us.

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

Gratifying:
I worked on my layback which isn't all that great but it is gratifying because my coach actually wanted to see it!
I did some good axels

Moritfying:
my sit spin was horrible today and my skates really need to be sharpened
~cutie

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Skating is suppose to be fun , no PRESSURE at all

~*Courage*~*Confidence*~*Consistance*~

Gratifying: I went to an ice rink a bit north of me that I've only been to maybe 3 or 4 times before, and not in quite some time. I rushed right out onto the ice with no hesitation and had a really powerful and quick warmup that surprised me. There were only a couple other people on the ice, and it was only a couple minutes before a girl working on her program asked if I skated at Castle Ice (my old home rink). I didn't recognize her but it was cool to be recognized (even if I'm not sure if that recognition was "hey look, there's that awesome skater guy" or "hey, there's that idiot who keeps intruding on our freestyle sessions"). I proceeded to have a really good skate. I was really happy with my form: I felt very smooth and in control...maybe it was just good ice . I don't know who threw the extra revolutions at my spins, but I'm sure not complaining. I was able to pull off upright and scratch spins with 6-7 revolutions pretty regularly (though it deteriorated as the session went on, and surely tomorrow things will be worse again). I've found that scratch spins feel more controlled than regular upright spins, and it's on the scratch that I managed to eek out the 7th rotation a number of times. Jumps also flowed really easily, though they didn't really improve much (mostly I just tried to work on getting my stupid free leg to cross the other one, and tried fruitlessly to do a loop without cheating it). My waltz was definitely at a peak a month or two ago - I need to stop ignoring it and practice it more. Mostly I made progress in footwork, though I didn't really learn much new: I did a lot more random turns and twizzles and spread eagles and "stuff" between jumps and spins. It wasn't anything like a real program, but the idea was to go out and just skate full bore until I needed a rest, instead of just working on jumps, or just spins, etc. After 2 and a half hours, I left very sore and exhausted, but in a good way.

Mortifying: Why is it that when there's only 5 people on the ice, 4 of them will aggravate you? 3 kids who could barely skate around the rink discovered how to get into the place where the rink sound system is off to one side of the rink, and set the radio to a rap station with lots of commercials, which are both just awful - I don't think I realized exactly how evil either was until today when I had to hear them blasted into the rink for about an hour and a half before the rink person noticed and changed it back.

The other guy was an older gentleman, looking to be in his 50's. I'm not sure if he used to skate more or what but he kept trying (and failing) to jump a lutz when he couldn't even manage a salchow with a 1-foot landing, or trying change-foot spins and suddenly realizing he couldn't do a backspin after the change-foot part. The effort was commendable, but I'm not sure what he was thinking with trying all kinds of advanced stuff that he was nowhere close to being ready to do. Every time he'd fail something, he'd shake his fists angrily for a moment before trying again/something else.

Anyways, I was skating around the rink and saw him coming into my path, so I stepped into a spread eagle to give him a wider berth without slowing down. And really, he had plenty of room. But as soon as I crossed about 4 feet in front of him and said "sorry" as I passed, he cursed out "god d*** it!" angrily. Then he came following after me and screaming out fun things like "you're not supposed to watch the ice, you're supposed to watch where you're going" (nevermind that if I hadn't been watching where I was going, he would have got a nice fun high-speed impact...) and "you better make sure that never happens again, or I'll make sure you REALLY regret it" (umm yeah, psycho...). I almost responded but decided not to, and just ignored him.

Later when they turned the awful music off, I could suddenly hear in the rink, and realized that the man was cursing up a storm every time he was trying something and shaking his fists about it, which meant colorful expressions flying across the rink every minute or two. I guess he was just having a really bad day discovering that he wasn't really Brian Joubert trapped in another body, and I guess when I skated to close to him it distracted him from that triple axel attempt that would have been just perfect otherwise.

I've got to get better about tuning this kind of crap out...whenever somebody says something negative and hateful to me on the rink, it distracts me and my skating suffers. That won't mix well with competitions and other people trying to throw you off, I'd wager.

Sorry for the book, I guess I just had a lot on my mind today...

__________________
Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

I call it Murphy's law of the otherwise perfect freestyle session...

I skate early in the morning on an almost empty freestyle session (maybe 3-4 of us). We regularly find that we're all in the same corner at the same time getting in each other's way.

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

Yes, one of the Laws of Skating is that the fewer people there are on the ice, the more likely you are to have a collision!

Mortifying: I really did not feel like skating this morning - I wish, now, that we hadn't decided to save money by crossing after 5.00 pm, I want to be en route! So I spent most of the time at the rink wishing I wasn't there, and didn't really practice anything with Husband except try one or two new lift entries. Which has aggravated the bruised tendon at the back of my knee (old injury, caused by being lifted!), but it doesn't interfere with my skating.

Gratifying: Did have my lesson, and told my coach I really just felt like playing - just before the lesson I was mucking about and managed 3-bracket-3-bracket on my right foot, but of course it fell apart when I tried to show the coach. Typical! Also coach didn't like my back cross-rolls ("although they are better").... But he was showing me how to do counters, which was fun. And we played a bit with twizzles, and I ran through both versions of my Interp, which will be fine if only I can do it with sufficient energy on the day!

Coach reminded me to focus on my posture at all times in the dances, and he reckons we'll do okay.....

Well, all - talk to you again on the 15th! If I do make it to an Internet cafe, I'll check in between now & then, but I don't have any specific plans to.

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

Had a lesson with my daughter's secondary coach today (because she is away and my coach is away and as it's holiday I needed the incentive to get me to the rink). It's the first time I've ever had a lesson with him and I quite enjoyed it, though we concentrated mainly on various moves rather than running my programme.

gratifying:

landed my Loop quite well in the lesson and impressed daughter's coach
Almost got 2 revs on my backspin with proper run out after - a real breakthrough for me as usually I simply tip over to the right and have to put other foot down or fall over.

Mortifying:

loop disappeared again later on and is still very slow.

__________________
'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

Yep, it's funny how things work on relatively empty sessions! My worst collision and injury came when there were 4 of us on the ice: me and my coach, another coach and her student. And yesterday, there were 3 of us on the ice plus my coach, and of course we were all trying to be in the center of the rink at the same time. It was fine but I had to laugh about it.

As for me, my practice and lesson yesterday were Gratifying. I did two clean run throughs ending on time with the music. My backup coach who was with me looked surprised at some of the jumps and the spin, so that was quite gratifying, too! In fact, he's been working with me on spinning for the past month --we went back to the beginning and started from scratch and it has really helped. The first spin I did yesterday with the choreography into it was probably about the best I've done, and it was certainly the best he'd seen. He also said he liked the choreography into all the jumps because there were no long entries. So that was cool!

Only 6 more training days until I leave for Oberstdorf! Good luck to anyone with competitions or tests coming up!

Pat

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August 22, back on the ice!

Maybe he really was Brian Joubert in another man's body (insert weird sci-fi music here) and the shock of it (along with that awful music) was really upsetting him....

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

I try not to curse on the ice -- esp. if there are lots of kids there, but sometimes it just comes out....like today when I fell on three's in the field. Ouch. Sorry Casey!

Mortifying -- as above, bad fall. At least I didn't hit my head this time. Am developing lovely bruise on elbow which I will proudly display to my co-workers tomorrow. (Slightly OT -- this girl I work with is super hitting the gym with her boyfriend and we are having a 'who is in more pain' contest and with this bruise I will surely take the title this week even though she can barely lift her arms. )

Gratifying -- I actually did ALL 8 three turns. Not perfect, not even pretty, but I did them! I didn't even cringe when my lesson started. I marched (skated?) right to the start of the pattern and did them without complaining. It does help that I ordered those giant magic markers from work and am drawing the long axes. Will the 3s be there next week? Who knows. After three turns coach let me do more freestyle than ususal -- apparently my flip is horribly cheated (quel surprize) but she gave me a few techniques to work on, then we went back to the loop to work on height and air position of the left leg. Feels weird but she said it was better.

Good luck to all competitors!!!!!!

Casey: Good thing you didn't say anything to that guy and just avoided him! The guy definitely sounds like a nutcase to me.

Speaking of nutcases...

Mortifying:

Oh, dear! Secondary coach wants me to skate MUCH, MUCH faster than I'm comfortable with for this program. (And keep in mind, this is a 3 week old program and we were still adding on to it too!!!)

She gave me this lecture when I wasn't pushing as hard as she wanted me to...

(Murder scene music inserted here!!!)

But WAIT!!! There's MORE!!!

Oh, man! Now I wonder if I'll ever live to see myself pass my Bronze Moves test... or even Peach Classic!

Gratifying:

Well, at least NOW I got permission now to wear those SkatingSafe pads (YAAAAY!!!!) ... BUT only under the case of that I take those risks to push myself to do those footwork the way she wants me to. Since my old SkatingSafe pads disappeared with my first pair of purple skates... ( ) I went and spent over $220 to get another set of those SkatingSafe pads! The one extra for myself is that I got myself the glove pads also... so I don't screw up my hands/wrists.

And I look at it this way… if I survive thru this program, it may actually turn out pretty nice!

Until then, please pray for me!!! *whimper*

__________________
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!!!