Me again? We have to start the practice thread on a different day of the week so other people get a chance to start it more often!

Ok, what are we going to call it this time ? ? ? Oh, I KNOW! (Since we were complaining about hard ice last week.)

Hockey Ice: The discomfort along the outside of the tibia (both legs) was quite intense today once I got onto the ice - it MUST have been the backward stair climbing yesterday! I even looked it up in Gray’s Anatomy and sure enough there is a muscle there from which the bottom tendon wraps around the bottom of the foot but I didn’t find the name or function. Whatever it is, I obviously overworked it yesterday!

Figure Skating Ice: I did half of the two hour session working on stroking, backward glides, 3-Turns and Mohawks, all of which went reasonably well.

Time now to let things heal for a couple of days.

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

hockey ice: pre-bronze 3-turn pattern... enough said


figure skating ice: finally its a true miracle there is some..although very tiny some progress coming along in my sit spin, in my best spin today i had a decent entrance, spun 2x and then stood up with my leg together into a 1 foot spun maybe 2-3x and then exited! this was after maybe like crashing 3x on myself and attempting maybe like 20 sit spins..exhausting! my waltz 8 is also coming along

Rusty blades: Thanks for starting the new one..cute!

Froggy: Don't scare me! giggle.

Hockey Ice: Back to my rink today...5 seems to be the magic number of birthday parties on public ice each weekend day. Egads it was impossible to practice anything that required even a bit of set up. Only stayed 45 minutes as I was concerned I would smush a kid...or maybe concerned because I had thoughts of such! I remember when I first started this board and the discussion was that people at my level should only be on public ice! I would have comments..giggle.

Figure Skating Ice: Did manage a few salchows and they are still there! Fear of the toe loop from the fall last night and limited space prevented me from seeing if that was still there. Spins are definitely easier on my own rink ice. What a difference.

There is a little competition locally next weekend. Several tiny ones were attempting to practice their programs on the busy ice. It was adorable watching them attempt to navigate the crowd ....

Hockey Ice: but I wasn't wearing my hockey skates!!! Wouldn't have made any difference. Went to adult skate and I guess I was just tired and still messed up from my blood sugar (tend to get hypoglycemic)...things were kooky...and sloppy...and I must have a mental block on holding the back part of the 3-turn on the salchow...and my toe-loop...I am not getting down and picking way back. I will work on that wednesday night.

Figure Skating Ice: however, I did manage a very nicely centered spin! Yay! And I did some of the 3-turn pattern and I noticed when waltzy type music is one I can do it much better. I actually managed to get from the back crossover to the front inside edge WITHOUT setting down my free foot (major accomplishment)!!!

We took the video camera to this afternoons session, but no chance of a program run-through as there were about 10 people!!!!

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

Hockey Ice:
What was left when I first stepped on the ice. The Zamboni was busted and the ice was a bunch of very dried and bumpy crap ice.

Figure Skating Ice:
(Well, not quite) Finally the rink mgmt. fixed the Zam about an hour before the session ended and they did a quickie resurface. Ice was not perfect but... eh, at least it's not bumpy and I can spin on it. I've had a couple of cases where I couldn't tell now whether or not I've landed my loop cleanly or whether I've did a toe tap, so either I am landing them clean... or I'm so used to toe tapping my landings that I can't tell the difference anymore.

I've tried doubletoe's suggestions with the flip (aiming towards the left in my case on the entry and waiting a bit long on the entrance edge. Well, I will say this... it's a LOT more curvier and a lot more speed than I'm used to but when I'm in my braver moods, I could see where it's helping me to be more on the landing side when I land... (Now it's just a matter of being brave enough to trust that I'll land it.)

__________________
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!!!

Froggy, when do you test? The pre-bronze gallerians are awaiting your success!

Hockey Ice:
Jazzpants, did we skate at the same rink today? We had a similar situation with our zam too!

Found out that that the club hosting the test session in December cancelled it. So I will not be testing Bronze MIF. grrrrrr. Will have to wait til January. Maybe it is a good thing in disguise.

Figure Skating Ice:
Visited Seattle this weekend and met up with Casey along with some of my other pairs friends --and met new faces too. Had a wonderful skate. While Casey is nursing a broken finger, I was at the mercy of borrowing my pairs friends for a few exercises off ice. Was successful in a 1/2 press lift off ice. Totally fun. even funner is pairs spins (and for those of you who have seen Casey's spins, it is exhilirating to ride along. wheeeee!)

practiced loops (well, what would be considered something that resembles one anyway...) patiently, I am still fitting pieces together. first a few "walk through's" at the wall, feeling the edge, lifting up on the toe, feeling rotation etc... then small attempts away from the wall. I am getting a more secure RBOE in the entrance and it was a little deeper today. ... progress is being made though.

Sonic, WTG for landing yours! I am inspired

Hockey Ice School holidays (again!!!) even if I could get to the rink, our adult morning sessions are all cancelled anyway

figure skating ice I might eventually get down that mountain of ironing and feel less guilty when I do get back on the ice in.....9 days......

__________________
Level one Field Moves......PASSED 05.06.08
Level one Free dance.....PASSED 02.10.08

GOALS FOR 2009

• Level One Compulsary dances.......PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Elements.....................PASSED 10.07.09
• Level Two Free dance.................PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Free...........................
• Level Two compulsory dances.......

Loving it, Loving it, Loving it!!!!!

Great! Try to make the 3-turn long and not too curvy. The test is to do this entrance on a line and make sure that your 3-turn is on the left side of the line AND that your pick is either ON the line or a little on the left side, not on the right side of the line (if you cross the line on the 3-turn or pick, it means you over-rotated your 3-turn). Speed is good! Just remember, there's a correlation between speed and reach, so if you go into a flip or lutz with more speed, you need to reach back a little farther to pick. And when you do that, make sure you keep your upper body pulled back, with your shoulder blades squeezed together. If you lean forward at all, it will make it impossible to get your weight onto your picking foot and pull yourself back and up.

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

Hockey ice

Coach commented that I was drooping my hands in my cross spins.
Cross spins were travelling a bit

Figure Ice

Don't think I have EVER said this (and probably won't say it again for a while)but...
...pretty much EVERYTHING.

Even the spin entrances were there.

Coach said camel spin was looking very good and before long would get more revs out of it. He said 'very nice' to most of much jumps and commented that they have really improved. He was particularly pleased with my loop - and even applauded my waltz jump loop combination.

But the best news? He said flip is 'not bad at all', and thinks once I get over the tendency to lean forward and 'scratch' the take-off foot before take off it will start to look 'nice'.

I feel really happy. Bit of a contrast to last week!

S xxx

__________________
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

I like to start with the good, so

Figure skating ice: Moves in the field actually worked for me. Managed to do some power pulls on the "wrong" side, about 4 in a row. I was happy because I could never even manage 2. And on hte good side, I was thisclose to getting all the way down the rink. All my stroking and 3 turns and mohawks, it all just worked today. The skate guard actually told me I'm a very graceful skater. Then he saw my hockey ice.

Hockey Ice: After doing so nicely on the moves, I tried to do some freestyle. Tried being hte operative word. Couldn't spin, couldn't jump. When I would try to spin, I ended up skidding off the side instead, and jumping, forget it. My feet were not leaving solid ice. I couldn't do even a one foot spin, let alone a scratch or sit spin. Couldn't do a decent waltz jump. It was all just one big clunker.

Is there ever a time when everything just works? For me, it seems if my jumps are good one day, my moves and spins suck. If my spins are good, ym jumps and moves suck. Well, you get the picture. So at what point does it all just stick and all work?

Figure Skating Ice:

I skated a Dutch Waltz and a Canasta Tango yesterday with my kids. I looked like a mother duck with my ducklings trailing along! LOL

We had a great time, just fooling around and doing what we wanted instead of working on elements and programs. That's coming up soon, though.

Spins were dead-on, except the change-foots. I even did a crappy little layback. LOL

Hockey Ice:

Didn't work on MITF at all, nor jumps higher than a waltz jump.
Sometimes, fun is more important than progress.

__________________

Not actually going to bad...but...

Hockey Ice:
Axel is coming back...but slowly...*grumbles* I hate having our ice closed all summer!
Getting frustrated, as all my doubles will be there if I could just keep my arms in and foot tucked...every time I go to jump you can hear this collective gasp because I *have* it and then something in my brain bails out halfway through...

Figure Skating Ice:
Singles are finally back to having their "effortlessness"
Finally started to get my foot crossing over at end of doubles
Beilmann is better than ever
Finally managed to skate my program clean... aside from a fall on double sal but it was a good fall since I normally bail and just do one and a half rotations...ah well, will see how things go today

__________________
The Axel has been landed...

Hockey Ice on Freestyle Session:
6 Bloody AM and the ice is full of lastnight's hockey grooves. The morons keep raising Freestyle rates and can't even START the day with decent ice. Let's just say my BI3 wipeouts were more frequent than my decent BI3's.
Lyle

Hockey Ice:
Was half asleep this morning b/c I couldn't sleep.. Ended up emailing reply to a friend's email instead.

Came close again a few times but no cigar on the loop. Primary coach says that he's not as worried about my loop as he is about my toe-loop (or rather my "toe-waltz!" )

Did a runthru of the program and almost tripped on my footwork. Part of the problem is that we needed to redo certain sections so I would have more flow and so that I can demonstrate that I can push out on a BO edge from a spin. (Secondary coach said that it's mandatory for standard track but primary coach quoted our resident judge (the judge that critiqued me on my moves actually) saying that I don't really have to do it, but if I did it, it would make it more obviously to the judges that I have control coming out of my spins. So guess what? We had to rework my footwork at the beginning so I can push out. We also did some reworking on the footwork from one of my jumps so it would have more flow coming out.

Figure Skating Ice:
Well, despite all this, I did managed to get thru the program relatively clean, even when I'm sleep-skating! So I guess I'm getting closer to being ready to take my Bronze FS test soon.

__________________
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!!!

You had problems sleeping last night too? Was this a "Will I Move to Bronze Insomnia?"

Hockey Ice:
It is quite a adjustment going from roomy weekend freestyles to the weekday crowded having to fight to do elements kind of freestyle session. I almost collided twice with the same skater as I was doing moves and she was setting up for a axel.
The sitspin sucked.

Figure Skating Ice:
Moves are getting better and more comfortable every time I get on the ice, especially the power threes!

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Hockey Ice: literally, as the ice had been zammed rather quickly after LTS hockey and was really crappy....so warmup for dance was on crappy ice...

Figure Skating Ice: There were only 2 of us in dance class tonight, which made it our choice-we got to re-do the Canasta Tango, which was really good-told her I was really having a brain spasm on it. By the umpteenth time around, it was finally sinking in!!! WOW! By george, I think I've got it!!! Now all I need is to do it 5 million more times and I'll have it for sure!

Again, she reminded me about testing and "renting" her partner.....I'm seriously thinking about it now.

ETA: my boss wanted me to switch my day off to another day so the office would be attended. I normally would not care, but my day off is Thursday and that is my skating day-I planned on hitting the ice twice that day (the am then the afternoon session) so I could work on some program stuff and my footwork. If I moved it to Friday, there is no session I could skate on. I have a competition on Nov 4th and this would impact me in a negative way. I hate to be selfish, but I'm going to say "no" to him...I don't know if this will impact anything down the road or not (he is only doing this because he has a new boss and it's her rule that the office be manned fully).

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

This sounds like a really good suggestion - DH and I thought we *knew* the Canasta reasonably well, and can both skate it solo without step errors (no style or grace or anything but the steps are recognisable), and we discovered at yesterday's lesson that we don't...the end pattern from the run to the cross-roll and ending at the restart is dire, because we can't partner in it. Legs, hips, arms, heads, direction - all every which way (and none of it the same way as the partner's! )

So guess who knocked whose feet out from under him (hey! it's always the man's fault, right?? ), and guess what we're practising ad nauseum this week??

Hockey ice:

The stench from the hockey guys that have the ice after figure club just about knocked me out. Why is it some sort of macho thing to never wash your equipment?

Speaking of ice, we've had freeze/thaw so the top layer is delaminating. Everybody was making dinner plate divots and the ice was chewing up.

Completely forgot my footwork. A string of mohawks does not constitute footwork says coach. ho hum. I was thinking of the loop that was coming up. I did the loop, I usually skate through it, so I'm happy.

Figure Skating Ice:

ho ho, The European is in da house! It's like this dance was made for me. I can't wait for my dance lesson to do this with the Man, hopefully the EW dance god will continue to shine on me.

(I don't want to talk about the fourteenstep)

Well, I'm glad we found the person it was made for, since it certainly wasn't made for the rest of us!! Actually I love that dance partnered, it's pretty easy & also very pretty to watch. It's just soloing it that had me all summer!

More like the "Will I ever land the loop clean" Insomnia!!!

__________________
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!!!

We have occasionally stepped through it, but you couldn't say we had danced it! I agree with you, I rather love it, too. We were taught it when we could just barely do a 3-turn (dancing it the width of the rink, not the length!). Our then group coach explained that it would be "some time" (like twelve years?) before we could dance it "properly", but that there was simply nothing better for practising back edges & 3-turns.

Hockey ice: It's all very well our skating coach saying he wants to see more kneebend in my left knee, but it doesn't bend any further! So Husband and I are a bit out of balance, as he has more bend in his left knee, and so we end up with me being about 4" taller than him on that side, but fairly together on our rights. Hmmmm.

Ghastly exercises we had to do this morning, all designed to get our edges deeper. Then later it was exercises designed to get our shoulders moving in unison. Husband was moving his shoulders all right, when he remembered - unfortunately, he was leaving his arms behind, so it didn't actually help, especially as we were working in Reverse Kilian Hold at the time!

Still having trouble with weight shift going backwards, especially the change from back crossovers to back cross-cuts in my Dance Moves. Hope to address this in my lesson tomorrow, plus figure 8s of back crossovers.

Figure Ice: Still, we are beginning to see how things must work, and I expect it will ultimately inform our competitive skating. I hope so!

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

Hockey ice:
Or should I say that I don't care what kind of ice it was... cuz I got a good amount of it on my BUTT right after my lesson!!!! Secondary coach was trying to get me to jump UP on my loop. Got frustrated and made me jump in the harness. About 10 minutes later, still couldn't get me to jump up, but my pants are TOTALLY SOAKED!!!

Figure Skating Ice:
My pants are soaked, but when I tried the loop again, I still couldn't get it, but I had NO FEAR going into it, b/c I was expecting to fall!!! The falls from the harness wasn't bad at all... and I came off feeling like I am expecting to fall and it's okay to do so b/c the falls aren't so bad! (Hmmm...weird...good weird... but weird...)

More waltz jumps attempts. I spent a good 20 minutes on those! Secondary coach seems to think that I am starting to kick thru "a little" more towards the end of the waltz jump drill. (Of course, I don't feel like I'm "kicking thru." Weird...)

Okay, time to get out of these very wet jazz pants now... YEEECH!!!

__________________
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!!!

Hockey Ice: the rink was FREEZING COLD today!!! Ok, I know it's a rink but it was about 18 degrees in there!!!!!!! sheesh!!!! It was very hard to get things pumping!!!

Figures Skating Ice: Despite the fact that it was cold, and took forever to warm up, I managed to do some of these:
crossovers: slow and deliberate and controlled; concentrating on the underpush
spins: again, slow and deliberate and 5 out of 10 attempts were centered, the remainder didn't travel too far; 3-4 were wicked fast!
3-turn pattern: managed quite well, despite almost running into people while I was going down the wrong way (I saw them and moved out of the way but they moved to where I moved to....)
program: no run through at all....maybe later when I go back
mohawks: better! Actually did some that got on the outside edge!!!
drunken sailors: at speed, not too bad; coming out of them and going into the spiral is iffy but who cares! I'm skating no-test and at this stage of the game they don't expect me to be Michelle Kwan, right?

I was supposed to work today, but my boss was insistent that I come in on Thursday (my normal day off); after looking at the ice schedule again, I realized that by taking off today I could skate twice...so I did! Thursday could be used to watch the vids on the usfsa site....since no one else will be in. I have a nice job.

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

What's a "drunken sailor"

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

Hockey Ice
Well we had no ice this morning I got to the rink and the zamboni was on the ice stuck and the ice hadn't been resurfaced after last night's disco session. The ice was very snowy and since it had been left all night the snow had frozen further forming lovely dangerous lumps and bumps. I got on to try and skate but I couldn't control my feet and my dance teacher said it was too dangerous to teach and cancelled. It was scary. Usually I'll skate on anything but that was just ridiculous. I couldn't imagine trying to skate dances on it. Yikes. So I went and had breakfast instead

Last night lutzes were all weird. I need my teacher back to tell me what weird habit I've picked up!

Change foot sit spins weren't working either - and they've been pretty consistent of late :-(

Also for fun I did a run through of my free skating programme. I'm not sure if I'm keeping it for next year and I've been practising field moves recently so it was very underrehearsed. Its scary how quickly things revert to BAD!

14 step with my teacher is amusing. I do like to wander off and do my own thing. And I really cheat the mohawk - there is a bit of inside creeping in there oops! Practice needed!

Figure skating ice
Did 3 good axels on Sunday and 3 good axels yesterday! No thud and I felt I had lift. Sadly arms still flail about desparately trying to get over my head and I don't cross my feet but they were on their way back!!!!

Did a couple of decent flying camels. One even felt so nice that I was able to control when I wanted to exit the back camel rather than waiting for the spin to slow and demand I exit.

Dance teacher said my free dance run through was good although he may just be trying to raise my confidence for the competition. Ah well

Field moves feel not scary and I like doing them ALL now - even the mohawks and back inside 3s. Back inside 3s feel really nice when they work.