In commemoration of the end of World War II - this week's tread is called "Victory or Defeat".

So, in two brief sentenses, as I'm still waiting for everything that happened this morning to sink in:

Victory:

I passed my Level 1 Elements.

Defeat:

I failed my Level 1 Free Skate.

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My other car is a Zamboni

Congrats on passing your elements. Shame you didn't pass your free though. What was the reason for failing you? Never mind, I'm sure you'll get it next time!

Nicki

It actually was a bit of the shock for me, both passing and failing, as I was worried about my elements (and I did mess them up - even managed to fall on toe loop, which is my best jump - yet still passed), but I was pretty sure I would nail my programme - and I skated it clean, almost as good as it gets, and still failed by 0.3 points. The judges remark was "it still needs a little work: I would like to see more speed and flow and a bit higher jumps. And you tend to keep your shoulders up - you look quite tense". I guess, she has a point, but it's still a little sad....

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My other car is a Zamboni

I'm sorry you missed it by just 0.3 points. You will get it next time so just keep working on your speed and flow. The jumps will increase in height with the increased speed. If it's any consolation I get very tense when testing or competing and I struggle big time with my shoulders. Practice, practice, practice. That's all we can do really. Also remember you haven't actually been skating very long so passing the elements test is a big achievement in itself!

Nicki

Thanks, Nicki! That's what I'm going to do later today - and I've already filled in an application for a retry. These things only get me more determined to "show 'em all!"

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My other car is a Zamboni

That's the right attitude! You go girl

Nicki

Congratulations and commiserations, respectively. I'm sure you'll get your Free next time, though - are you going to compete it this year, at Bracknell, for instance? That would give you a way of comparing yourself to other skaters of your age group & ability level (and there are plenty out there!). And at least you now know what to work on for your Free.

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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!

Victory - had the chance to practice with Rob this weekend. We had two good days of skating. The show was fun, and good to get out in front of an audience again. We had a catered party at the rink, and then a nice after party. Thanks to Mika for adding her support!

Defeat - or de-feet. I have blisters from these boots. Going to try and get a pair of foot bungas before I leave.

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Hey Sceptique - don't be down hearted - sometimes with skate tests it's just that kind of a day. Judges can be picky about different things and a different judge may well have passed you. Obviously in your elements some of them were good enough to compensate for the toe-loop fall (and you'd have got credit for technique going in and rotation).

They do tend to be quite picky about flow and about posture in the free so you should probably concentrate on trying to look more relaxed (even when you don't feel it). Make sure you smile as much as possible, as it does make a difference to how you look and comes across as confidence.

Having seen you skate at Nottingham I am surprised you did not pass the free and I'm absolutely confident you will pass next time.

If it's any consolation, daughter just failed inter-silver field moves. The judges were being particularly hard (I've seen worse things pass, including my son's) and failed several people. Annoyingly while it was her nemesis move she failed on, she had been doing it really well the day before.

That's skating really.

Hope we might see you at Bracknell this year.

Congrats on the elements test anyway. Now you have to skate at level 1 like me - I think you will be in the younger age group though if you compete.

Victory - I have only skated sporadically since March (really busy with school and work), and have just gotten back on the ice recently, so there have been lots of small victories in just getting my feet back! One general victory is that I discovered I have pretty darn good muscle memory. Getting my jumps back has been quite easy. My flips in particular were great today.

Backspins have improved 1000-fold from where they were a few months ago. They improved a lot once I got my new blades in March, and I was worried they'd disappear since I was off the ice for a while. I struggled with them last week, but today they were there. Waltz-backspin is going really well; I'm landing in the backspin almost immediately instead of gliding for a bit before being able to pull in.

Defeat - Nothing specific in terms of moves, but am just feeling sort of lethargic and unmotivated. I think my mood will pick up once my lessons start back at the end of May, and I'm skating in a more energetic environment (right now I'm skating at dead public ice, instead of on free skate ice packed with people like I'm used to).

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

I'm putting my application in the mailbox tomorrow. I will be in "Masters" age group - 30-49. Are you sure you are not in the same one?

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My other car is a Zamboni

eeeek! yes it will be the same one. I think the age ranges must have changed as I thought it was 35 - 49 last year and I was sure you'd be younger! I'll have to look to my laurels as I dont even have a programme at present (old coach moved back to Poland - just settling in with new coach and only about 10 seconds into a new programme). Somehow I doubt I'll be retaining the cup this year but you never know and anyway it's not supposed to be about winning but about challenging myself (on the other hand I do like to win - never knew I had a competitive streak til I took up sailing when we lived abroad)

See you there!

Victory:
Got my freeskate dress today and it fits perfectly!!
Had a fairly clean runthrough of program on lesson, including two sitspins when I could not do one alone earlier in lesson!

Defeat:
The ice sucked today and when it's chewed up with little mounds all over the place, it can suck away any enthusiasim you have for practice!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Victory ??? I survived?

Unconditional Surrender! My new (Jackson Elite) boots came in Friday. I had them heat molded and my MK pros mounted on Saturday. Tonight was my first chance to skate in them.

Man o’ man do the new boots feel DIFFERENT! They need to be punched out in a few areas but they “handle” altogether different - as if I have to toe-out to skate straight and it feels like I have to roll my ankles out a long way to get an outside edge. I don’t know if it is the “temporary mount” but my left edges seemed really unstable. I will have to sit down tomorrow night and do a REALLY careful comparison of exactly where the blades were mounted on my old boots (Jackson Competition) and compare it to the new ones. I know that he used his mounting jig to mount the blades on my first boots but made some tweaks to the jig position on the new ones - maybe they need to be un-tweaked!

Since I hadn’t taken my old boots with me, I didn’t make it all the way through the session. I did (attempted) some scallops, backward glides, and a lot of forward inside and outside edges to test out the new boots but by then my feet were killing me and decided to call it a night. Can't afford to have such a useless session so late in the season!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Sceptique - congrats on passing you Elements test, and I'm sure you'll nail the Freeskate test next time around!

Victory

Got to lesson yesterday, and dance coach suggested it was about time we start putting together our very first (baby) FD. I thought that was *years* away for us yet! So we played around with a couple of supposedly graceful moves, including....

Utter annihilation

...this thing where the man sort of does a 2-foot pivot and supports the lady in a teapot (she's on a FI edge), then up she gets. DH does it with coach, who then says "Right, now it's your turn." My teapots are pretty respectable (at least I thought they were), and I can get up by myself, but DH's first comment was "Wow, you're heavier than [coach]"...he is *so* dead.

Coach checked our dance pair edges and commented that (victory) our lines were beautifully matched. This was because (defeat) both free legs were bent, and both toes turned down not out. Further, both bottoms stuck out. More work needed here.

Victory: Skating today felt a bit disheartening. Well, for me, anyway. We had moved our lesson 30 minutes earlier, as Husband had to catch the early train. Lesson went okay, and afterwards the coach spent a few minutes on Husband's loop, and absolutely transformed it for him, it was like magic!

Thoroughgoing defeat: Took the camcorder to the rink (it worked beautifully - I bet it was that cassette all along), and recorded his free programme (which I have promised not to put on-line.... but never said a word about not sending it to people via e-mail!), and my Interp, which looks ghastly, even worse than I thought it did. Mind you, if I had known that the rink would be empty today (most of the coaches at a seminar), I'd have done my dress rehearsal today, not tomorrow. Sigh.

Dance moves were appalling, all scrapy and ghastly and not on edges at all. Did them again paying strict attention to my posture, and they were a lot better, but all the same.

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

Victory: Started working more advanced turns -- choctaws and brackets. I like these better than threes, LOL! And on the first time trying them, can do them as well and my threes (which still suck). Still wrking on one-foot scratch. I do better if I convince myself that I'm just practicing the choctaw and happen to pop up into a spin afterwards. I think I need to approach these with more speed so I can get a better push into the spin, but that, of course, is what scares me. Grrr!!!! Landed many awesome 1/2 toes, a couple of weenie 1/2 lutzes, some pretty good but delicate 1/2 flips, and one two footed full toe. I think that once I get the hang of landing backwards, I can re-visit the dreaded waltz jump.

Defeat: Still not doing the scratch spin, clean 3's (any of them except an occasional LFO or RFO or LBI), or landing toe on one foot. Waltz 8 has good rhythm and speed, but I'm still tapping the free foot down after the three for NO APPARENT REASON except that I am. Double GRRRR!!!!

Hubby will help me mount my new blades this weekend, it's my Mother's Day wish to give them a shot on Sunday, yay! We'll see if I survive. I'm not terribly worried about the toepick as I haven't caught a toepick in about two years, but they are way curvier than my cuurent almost-recreational blades, so I'm hoping they will give my turns a boost. We'll see.....

Victory : my 2nd lesson after i passed the test. So learned many new stuffs like sit change sit , camel sit , camel change camel ,some preparation for axel.So glad i can learn new stuffs after practicing the same program for months.

Defect : Not a happy session to keep falling on my butts. And the feeling that u cant do anything at all. after i got home and my friend told me he is quitting skating. BAD..

victory: well I finally have a programme to practice. We had two goes at choreographing it, as coach did a beautiful programme that went great with thd music but then we realised it did not contain a mid-line step sequence which I think I need for competitions. So we had to re-do most of it and it doesn't flow across the ice as well as it did but we've managed to cram in all the jumps, spins and steps it needs.

Defeat (for now) Problem now is remembering it firstly and then getting it to flow. There are several problem areas including a kicky, steppy thing where I keep forgetting which leg to start on and then the fact that I have to land my loop and go straight into a toepick turn. This will look great if I land my loop but the whole thing goes to pot if I don't.

Then there's the flip - now I can do this jump - on occasion I have done it great but the problem is, I only do a great flip when I am supposed to be doing a toe-loop and think that I am doing a toe-loop. As soon as I consciously try to do a Flip it becomes really rubbish. This really does prove to me that skating is all in the mind. It's obvious my body can do a Flip and can do a flip easily and at speed, since twice whilst choreographing my programme my coach called out to do a toe-loop and simply due to which foot I was on, I did a Flip without thinking. I guess 'not thinking' is the way to go!

Oh and of course there is the salchow/toe-loop combo from a spiral - though daughter suggested a way to manage that which I will try out tomorrow, since she is a much better skater than me.

victory; was the only one on the ice for the first half hour
defeat: had taken all my nice music cd's out of my bag the day before for some reason so had no music to listen too - just the toepick scratching sound filling the arena!

VICTORY!!!

I did a CHOCTAW!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!

Please keep in mind Ive only been skating for about 3months

YAY!!!

I think I did at least one of the two different choctaws (first one starting inside edge, and then other starting on outside edge)...

I also managed a double choctaw!

YAY!!!!


Utter Defeat:

I woke up this morning, moved around a bit, and then realised my knee wasnt feeling too good.. in fact it hurt...

I played it down, because hubby was skipping uni to come skating and I wanted him to skate... got to the ice, warmed up lots, my knee was fine, so I took it easy on the ice...

But afterwards, it really hurt (probably because of the choctaws!! ), so we shall see how it pulls up.

BUT! I DID A CHOCTAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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-Erinna-
aka cassarilda

My Progress Report!
"Did I mention there is only ONE rink in Melbourne?!"
"If you're not flying, you're obviously not trying!!!" - courtsey of the guy who helped me up off the ice after my last spectacular and sore fall

Well done Erinna - was this the Blues choctaw, or the Killian choctaw, or....

Defeat: Both of us really tired today. I was all right until I'd finished skating, then it hit me; Husband said he was really tired by about 08:15.

Victory parade: I had a Dress Rehearsal Day today, and skated in:

• My white dress for the wedding. Deffo white tights & white boot-covers with, I think, plus white hair-spray. I shall disappear into the ice, which is all to the good! Must say I think J is a bit daft getting all the women to wear white (and the male free skaters, I think) - the only people who will show up will be the men all dressed in black. Still, it's her wedding....
• My red dress, which was going to be for our free dance, but it makes such super Latin dress! Will have to get a new one in a different colour for our free dance, I think (blue, perhaps, if such is to be got? Will have to investigerate). So that will do for the Canadian Cha-cha and the Swing Dance at the Mountain Cup, and for the Fiesta Tango at the British.
• The costume, including wig, for my Interp. All went well......

Then I changed back into comfortables for the lesson; apart from one run-through of the Interp, spent a long time on my dance moves, and then even longer on exercises to improve my flow across the ice. Difficulty in pushing into a restart after a long edge, Coach discovered I'm not really pushing with my feet together even if I bring them together after the stroke. I need to learn to bring my feet more into a T position to push off. Worked on that a bit.

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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!

Blues Choctaw and Double Choctaw (just checked with hubby )

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-Erinna-
aka cassarilda

My Progress Report!
"Did I mention there is only ONE rink in Melbourne?!"
"If you're not flying, you're obviously not trying!!!" - courtsey of the guy who helped me up off the ice after my last spectacular and sore fall

Victory:

My new dress came in yesterday's Fed-Ex to the office and it's bee-you-ti-ful! It also fits and the dumpy old body in it doesn't look half-bad.

I also made it to the rink last night, which after spending 45 minutes hunting for the dog, who escaped during a rainstorm when the UPS guy left my front gate open, was a major accomplishment. I was late though, and only had time to run through the figures for Mountain Cup a couple times each before the free-skaters swarmed the session.

Defeat:

Pretty much the whole rest of the session. I cannot do the choreography of the freeskate program AT ALL. No matter how hard I try. God knows what it will look like next week but at this point I don't really care. It's too frustrating.

And I tripped on the FIRST STEP of the Interp program and fell hard on shoulder and hip. Which blew the rest of that to smithereens. Shortly thereafter I gave up entirely and got off to get my skates sharpened.


Anabel, you sound as if you're going fancy for the white wedding...(I agree on the fading into the ice part - odd choice of color). I'm sticking with pants and a jacket that can be worn over stuff for warmth. And the hair is staying red (If I wanted white hair, I wouldn't spend so much time and money coloring it!).

Since my Interp outfit is the same one we wore for the adult group number in the club show last Saturday, I know it's comfortable and warmer than I expected it to be. I may change capes, though. We'll see.

Tonight is packing night for the Grand European Tour. I leave Friday evening. It seems as if we've been planning this excursion for so long; it will a relief to finally get it underway.

Victory
Coach #1 fixed my flying sit (AGAIN) on Monday, and it seems to be working. I'm getting a good snap into the spin and it's almost as fast as my regular sit.
My footwork is smoothing out too, and oddly enough I changed one turn from a 3 to a bracket because it feels more natural; how weird is THAT?

Defeat
Ugh, stupid axel. I should say, stupid axel IN the program. I decided that my goal for competition this weekend (new program going out!) is just to ROTATE it; I don't care which foot I land on (or how many feet).

Funny comment from Coach #2 this morning: There's an interesting dynamic in your skating. Sometimes you have great edges and flow and smoothness, but there are moments of "adultishness" mixed in.

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

Victory:

My back camel has been on the fritz since I got my new boots. It's been getting better and today I did a PERFECT back camel/back sit. Very happy. I'd love to have that in the program by next year, with a change foot addition to forward sit.

I'm only going to post that one thing. It was my shining moment.