Floating: I skated for the first time in a month and LANDED AXELS. It was really exciting lol because I wanst expecting that at allll! My double loops were really high, too...and my flying camel was not bad! It was a bit shaky but I was actually rotating and I learned a bit of junior silver skills!

Sinking: My double salchow was a disasterrrr...I couldn't seem to pull in fast enough and get into a solid backspin position in the air...and junior silver skills are impossible! haha my coach says that these skills are harder than senior silver and gold, in her opinion...so this should be an intersting experience....lol

Floating - my new boots and blades ROCK! Love the 8' rocker (which was worrying me), love the support in the boots - still getting used to the massive toepicks but stuff's improving already. I feel SOOOO much more secure in them - I can't wait to see my coach on Thursday! (I worked nights last week - six out of seven - so I was unable to skate much).

(In case anyone's confused, I went from Blue Ribbons to Gold Stars with secondhand Gold Seal blades I paid fifty bucks for on craigslist. LOVE THEM. Coach was psyched when I spoke with him yesterday - we're looking forward to making progress for once!)

Sinking - my heels - OUCH - my right one is still adjusting to its new boot . I think it needs punching but I'm scared of making it too big. Probably just get them baked over the weekend and go from there.

Wow, blue ribbons to gold stars?!? That's a huge jump. Glad you like your new skates though, and that they are the right skate for you. I can't wait until the time rolls around *hopefully by next summer...* when I can get new skates again.

Sinking: How will I ever do any of the pre gold dances on time? The only one that is close is the killian. Just learned them today so maybe I should give it a smidge more time.

Jumping did something wonky and fell very hard on my tail bone, but otherwise the jumping seems okay.

Floating: Learning an interim free skate program, keep gaining way to much power and seem to have issues with walls being way to nearby for my liking. Only doing waltz through lutz but still having fun. Trying to get stars into camel, slightly creative but hopeful.

If any of you want a great dance weekend I highly recommend MOTOWN!!

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Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r

Yeah, give 'em time. I felt the same way when I first learned them, but you'll adjust in no time and they'll be a breeze. Now I've just started learning my last Gold dance, the Westminster Waltz, and I have no idea how I'm going to get that one on time! (I'm sure in a few weeks we'll both look back on this thread and laugh that we ever struggled with our respective dances.) Believe me, I feel for you, LOL!

Sinking: Core strength is not strong enough. Not able to hold up my free leg up where I can bring it at the beginning of my spirals and I need to get my free leg to finish pulling through in my forward corkscrew spins instead of being to the right.

Keep running out of time before freeskate session so I don't get enough time to warm up and stretch before skating.

The weather; it just wouldn't stop raining. We had severe thunder showers with lightning and terrential rains so I was late getting to the arena and missed the time I would have had to get more of my new freeskate choreographed.

Floating: Jumps up to flip all improving.

I'll say more about Monday later.

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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

[Sinking]
After doing some nice axels a couple of days ago with my feet crossed, I could not repeat that feat...

Double sals...again, not crossing my feet...

[Floating]
Laybacks were awesome today, centered, very far back, my leg felt like it was in the right spot...just awesome!

Moves are feeling very good...I was actually able to get through both end patterns of the rocker/choctaw (pattern #2 for novice)!! They weren't good and the whole power thing was lost, but dang it, I got through it!!

Didn't think I was going to have a good skate because I was in a foul mood due to some stuff at work (my reaction to something was not entirely appropriate today), but it was actually a very productive day on the ice!

Skating tomorrow morning, so we'll see what happens!!

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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

Floating!!
Passed my Intermediate MIF on the 1st try!!! WooHoo!!! No more power circles!!!! Well, at least until Junior moves...

Sinking
In practice today I did the ever embarrassing click of death just as I reached full power on the back crossovers. Due to slippery skirt material, I literally slid from the center of the rink to the corner. I waved at the other skaters as I slid by! Very embarrassing!

Congratulations!!!!

Make sure to celebrate before moving on to Novice...and I feel you about the power circles....there are a few things that you just can't get away from!!

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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

SInking...

Second day of second week of skate camp....starting to loose some steam...

We worked on toe loops in the off ice jump class.

Did a run through of the Swing with music and chickened out on the mohawks...it's been a while since that's happened...I thought that little trick went away.

Floating ...well about 5:15 I took a break and was thinking I did not want to get back on the ice..but I walked around outside and made myself put my skates back on and skate the last half hour. Not sure if it did me any good other than I made myself do it. I'm so tired I'm not even sure what I'm saying is worth reading!

j

Couldn't even do a proper one foot glide in the Blue Ribbons. They were great for about a month - and then they were waaayyyy too floppy. And I'm not an overly heavy person, either - my coach says I have more power in my legs and feet than I really know how to handle at this point. Guess the years of ballet, gymnastics, and then running like a fool in the Air Force have finally paid off! Power is not a problem for me - but the old skates couldn't take it. The other day, my third day on the skates and blades, I was managing back crossovers to back outside edges at speed (!!!) with no loss of balance, and for the first time in my life I did FOIs in a continuous line - something I had to do two-footed on the Blue Ribbons. They need cleaning up, of course, but MAN what a difference.

I got these for a sweetie deal brand new - so I figured, why not? The fitter recommended Bronze or Silver Stars; I got these brand new for less than the cost of Bronzes. Now despite the pain, I wouldn't dare be without them.

WAY TO GO! CONGRATULATIONS!

Floating:
Had a pretty good lesson today. I seem to be checking the FO threes properly, but letting go of them afterwards. At any rate, there is such a huge improvement in all my F threes that I feel like an entirely different skater than when I first started working on them with my present coach. We spent some time talking about and trying different shoulder positions in the pre-pre moves power threes choctaw. The R side is fine any way I want to do it. The L side only works well when I step forward with shoulders open. After the discussion and trials, I did an entire side of LFO's on this move, beginning with a LFO three that I skated into (instead of from a standstill). After the first two threes, I felt so confident that I pushed on the choctaw and allowed myself to pick up speed. Coach noticed that and told me that it was very close to passing speed, and the best she'd ever seen me do. I'm so thrilled to be able to start that pattern on the L side now without having to fudge the first LFO three. We agreed that I should do both sides with open shoulders on the choctaw so when I finally test, the judges won't suspect a weakness on one side.

Sinking:
I have not practiced the BO figure eight enough and it showed in today's lesson. I was doing it OK last week, in terms of making it all the way around, getting back to center with fairly even circles and rotating smoothly. Today, I deepened the edge every time I rotated, so as to cut the circle short. More annoyed with it than frustrated.

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CONGRATS!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!


And think of the sliding on your slippery skirt as the skating gods keeping you in line... but you STILL passed Intermediate Moves.. even the skating gods can't take that away from you!

Congratulations, Badaxel.

Sinking: Last run-through before competition; one dance really needs at least another week.

Floating: At least our Dutch Waltz is in practice. And Husband's solos are looking good.

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

Yay! Congratulations!

Now on to Novice, which were my very favorite MIF test when I took 'em. Congrats again!

But you handled the situation with grace and dignity - lol.

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badaxel- congratulations!
jskater- You're post was perfectly coherent, not matter how tired you were. I'm so impressed with you for getting through that camp. I can barely make an hour most days.

Floating Got a compliment on my back spiral I love those. I had to demo the power 3s for my freestyle class and I was able to do the first 3 turn on my first try!!!! I also got a compliment on my stroking. And I'm finally getting my backspin back- I've gotten over the fear of the bad blades and am able to use them again. Did some good mohawks without any scrapping!

Sinking My new blades are STILL not here. I'm so mad the rink ordered the wrong size, because while I understood that backordered blades have to wait, I asked for the right size, and I shouldn't have to wait twice for their mistake. Still- they were about $40 less then I could get them anywhere else and thats a good amount of money.

I have no stamina at all. I am so out of shape and just generally unathletic. My knees were killing me by the end of the night. Even though my mohawks are more reliable I still can't do the one in our synchro short program. I'm wondering if in addition to the speed the fact that it's very flat is part of the problem.

Last my coach wants my moves test ready by the end of July. Problem is between her schedule and mine I only have two lessons between now and then! EEK. The test isn't until late August though, so there is still a bit of refinement time.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Congratulations, badaxel!

I just started learning the power circles for Gold MIF. I found out last night that the club where I was going to test my Silver MIF (for hopefully the last time) couldn't get enough judges for their upcoming test session, so I will likely not be able to test until September. I could test at another rink in July, but it's an hour away and I've never skated there. So my coach decided to start me on the Gold Moves while we continue to work on the RBI 3's (my nemesis).

Last night, I did the forward double 3's, power circles, and I tried the slide chasses - I think this test is going to take a while.

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

Thanks - I am fine, actually!

Yeah that particular click of death was probably because of coming up too quickly - I wasn't exactly doing back-cross-over, more like crossing strokes or something - just getting my knees warmed up and must have come up too quickly. It was really startling, that's for sure!

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Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Yeah! Badaxel! That is a really impressive feat - IM on the first try! Congrats!

Sinking - I'm off the ice from my fall last week. Hopefully by tomorrow or Friday I can get back to it. Totally agree with the comment about how long it takes to mend as you get older. I am kicking myself for not stretching. I stretch my legs before skating, but not my upper body. So I pulled a muscle around my ribcage (again). Sign...

Actually, that's my favorite fall, since you just glide across the rink and have plenty of time to figure out how to cushion your collision into the boards. It's actually kind of fun, and always great for the spectators, LOL!

As for passing your Intermediate MIF test on the first try. . . and please take this as the ultimate compliment. . . I HATE YOU! (Congratulations!)

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

this is from monday:

Floating: I passed my NISA Level 1 field moves!!!

Sinking: I said goodbye to my rink for 3 months

Congrats badaxel, that really is a great achievement!!

Floating: Senior MIF coming along swimmingly. I can actually envision testing these by the end of the year, which is definitely something I wouldn't have said six months ago.

Sinking: Me, on the landing of every jump harder than axel.

CONGRATULATIONS, BADAXEL!!! WOO HOO!!! WOO HOO!!!



Floating:

Got to work on something I wanted to work on... back power 3's!!! I now got (in my mind anyway) the general gist of where the "power" from the back power 3's are supposed to come from.

Sinking:
...or rather NOT sinking into the ice is my problem! I'm supposed to sink into that BO edge on the back of the blade and (what I understood anyway... I'm probably wrong here...) pump, rise up, turn, then sink down again. I have trouble doing this w/o jerking the edge, though the "pump, rise up and turn, sink" method does help a little from jerking, doing it at faster speeds doesn't seem to help me much. I still curve too much into the circle coming out of the BO3 turn.

Am I missing something here?

One more question to ask: On a LBO3 turn... which arm is supposed to be in front and which one is supposed to be behind AFTER the turn?

One other minor sink... choreographer had to postpone our lesson. Had a family emergency to take care of. We're trying to reschedule but so far, no luck yet.

Floating
But...I actually had a chance to do a runthru of the program that's put together so far, so I can honestly say that I've worked on it w/o too much guilt.

Sinking:
Caught a cold from a coworker!!!

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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!!!