Guess I'll start this weeks new thread!

Fast & Furious: Is how I'm to approach the toe-loop now!!! After several fwd crossovers around the center, I'm to stroke straight, set up, then hit it!!! Coach did say my speed is improving. We will see....at least I'm covering more ice!

My footwork in my routine is slooooowly improving, although it's neither fast nor furious (yet).

Did some really nice spins today. One in my routine that I hated to end...but had to.

Got the "go ahead" for the show to be "fluff" and skate however I want just to fill the time in....he-he-he!!! So the other girl and I did waltz jumps and attitude spirals around the end. That might end once the piece comes together more but it looked cool because we were in synch with each other!

Cold & Clutzy: is how I felt today after rehearsal, club ice, then ice dance....man was it COLD today! I was so cold by the time I stepped off the ice I could barely talk! Anyway, my mohawks don't seem to be improving as fast as I need them to be...and my waltz jump has some weird thing that starts in the set-up...it's drawing me off and I have to correct my direction!

Why are people always where I need to skate in my routine? I got tired of yelling "MOVE!" today....

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

I like the thread title!

Fast & Furious was pretty much how I did my first run through of my interpretive since February, but that wasn't that GOOD of a thing, LOL! I flew through the last part much faster than I needed to, left out half the steps, and finished in a rush, and then my coach and I started to laugh. It will be better the next time. Also did 2 run throughs of my new free program and it is coming along. I'm still a little late at the end, but it will come along. And during the interp run through one of the other coaches was especially courteous, pulling his student aside a couple of times for me. Very nice!

It was freezing cold in the rink but I wouldn't say anything was too klutzy, for a change, LOL!

Happy skating everyone.

__________________
August 22, back on the ice!

Oh noes! Don't tell me you're one of THOSE people...

__________________
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

Sometimes a move or excuse me is required

Wow skate@delaware....I am still doing the new to me toe loop jump from just a little push off. Awesome that you are doing yours with speed.

Cold and klutzy: Only skated freestyle one hour yesterday as I had to nurture some friendships that I am letting slide so much since I started skating. It was fun to take time with friends but I was keenly aware the skating sessions began and ended. I would more typically skate 4 hours in two sessions on a Saturday. Need to do something about my obsessive thoughts..giggle.

They only had one public session today and no freestyle. The rink was packed with 5 birthday parties and it is raining encouraging every parent to drop off their ice obstacles while the parents leave for shopping. <sigh>. Was hard to practice in chaos!

Spent a few minutes trying to do something with a scratch spin. Again, not even close. Have decided I would try to do two footed and change to one foot left and then to one foot right. Not going so well...but I will keep at it! I did not get to try a lot of spins of any sort today since the center of the rink was filled with people not doing figure skating. The guards at my rink do nothing about this. Sometimes I speak up and sometimes I just let it go and move on.

half Lutz was impossible to set up in the crowd so no idea how this would have gone but would have liked to have tried it.

Fast and Furious: I was amazed at the sudden change I had in my salchow. I did a few in front of the mirror before my step class today. I have a bad habit of doing weird things with my arms as I am so concentrated in getting that right leg to cooperate with the rotation. This time I really emphasized the right arm with the right leg and I had great fully rotated ones in my sneakers. Tried to do this on ice today too. Remarkable difference. Still flat footed but phew...it looks, acts and tastes like a baby salchow!

This must have given me some dose of jump confidence as I popped a few half flips in there and they were much higher than I typically am capable of in a normal public session. Then I moved to the waltz jump (my least favorite of all) and these too were the highest I have ever done (for me...not the gazelle like my LTS instructor can do..but at least not the hoppy little bunny looking thingy I am more likely to do). Was space challenged for the waltz-toe tap and another waltz but would have loved to do this too today. Because the crowd kept growing, I only stayed slightly more than an hour but felt it was a productive session!

Cold & Clutzy

Dance hold!!!!!! How am I ever going to get my arms in the right place and then keep them there and then actually skate the steps. argh. Dance is really hard. I had my shoulders too far back and my elbows even further back. Had to do dance hold against a wall, in mid air, also pressing exercises palm-to-palm with dance teacher. Then I get it and we start moving and I go all weak and pathetic and lose the frame. We did drills in dance hold - just chasses - but I was really hard to not let my arms and shoulders wander and go out of alignment

I'm glad he's making me do it properly though

I was a bit unfocused generally in my dance lesson - I was quite cross with the amount of times my lesson had been moved this week, but I shouldn't let that affect my skating.

Dance teacher also said I was doing a weird flappy thing with my arms on my compulsories - I asked if this was a new thing I'd developed in the last few days but he said I always do it but now is time to correct. Which must mean my feet aren't that bad maybe?

It was way to crowded to jump or spin. I think I managed one camel spin but no jumps. Every time I set up for one there was a child there.

Bit cross as someone made a comment about my relationship with my dance coach - and seeing as there isn't a relationship between us other than teacher and pupil I thought that was a bit unnecessary and I was concerned that there was gossip flying round the rink. But I think its ok. I just wonder why she said it. I don't need that to deal with too.

Fast & Furious

Dance teacher turned up for lesson. Yay! So on the 4th attempt I get my lesson.

Field moves are getting there. I really worked on back inside 3s and thought about what doubletoe told me about turning at 3.00 and I felt a lot better doing them! And brackets were good.

Helped a girl do a change foot upright - always fun.

Free skating teacher got me to demonstrate a camel spin and a change foot upright and a flip and she said all three were excellent YAY. Often when she gets me to demo for other pupils I manage to spectacularly mess up - for example I fell showing a girl a salchow once and free skating teacher said 'No we know how to do that....'

I'm generally happy about field moves :-) I feel I could pass this test.

Never spoken in anger-only in love, darling! I do go up to them after my lesson and mention that I was in lesson and they were in my way....and ask them to pay closer attention to skaters in a program when they are on the ice.
Thank you.

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

Fast and Furious:
Most of the moves I worked on during club ice. Feeling much better about this test with the exception of...

Cold and Clutzy:
Power threes!! Coach wants 6 intro steps- I can do either 5 (which causes my intro three to be too early and off pattern) or 7 (edging on three turn is lousy). Right threes are still too early- grrr.

Any suggestion on how to spend equal time on both moves and freestyle?
I know that I still need to work on spins (which I did do today) and jumps, but I get a nagging feeling with my test coming in December that moves need to be a priority right now.

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

I have noticed that my coach has a unique approach. If it's little ones, she will ask them to move out of the way for "lessons". If it's bigger girls who have a habit of not paying attention (and there are some chronic offenders!), when my coach gets annoyed she will skate backwards in front of me (on whatever move we're working on) and simply skate right through them LOL! She is REALLY good at just clipping them lightly and pretending nothing happened. (I try to supress the smirk!)

Cold & Clutzy: Oh yea, no kidding! The ice in the first hour was CRAP! There were rows and rows of stalagmites the whole length of the ice, so large that most of the skater were afraid to try anything beyond stroking. I even saw one girl scraping the ice with her blade trying to make a smooth patch large enough to do a spin!

Fast & Furious: In the second hour, the ice was much better (after a flood) so I had the chance work on stroking (without fear of falling on my head, aside from my normal “agility” LOL!), more work on turns (still favouring the sprained right ankle) and was really surprised the LFI3-turn started coming together nicely - I hadn’t even attempted those before! I even started getting the forward Mohawk! I had simply been “over analyzing” it, trying to make this foot do "this" while the other foot does "that" and the body does "the other thing". Ok, I thought, this is just a step from a LFI to a RBO - forget about all the details, just STEP and it worked! Hummmm, I am going to have to try this “simplistic approach” to some of the other stuff to! Maybe I have stumbled upon my "learning style"?

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

This is a better way than just saying MOVE! Personally I eather change the path of my routeene if the people are barly standing or I eather say excuse me. If someone is tring to move and you were to yell "move!" I think that it's totally rude. I am not saying this because I am one of the wall clenchers but because I WAS one and I hated it because I thought they were "better" than me. But, now after becomeing "one of them" I feel the fustration of the recreational skaters getting in the way.
I think there should be rules posted on rink doors saying that there are people training and would highly appreciate if you could "try not to get in there way"

__________________
What Nourishes Me Destroys Me

In my defense, I only use it when I absolutely have to (i.e. when coach says "stay on pattern") and for those that I know closely (my skating friends who know my style). We are all pretty close to one another, everyone knows my music (been using it for over a year now) and it is club ice-we do have rules.

There was one time (last season) when my coach did say in a voice loud enough to be heard across the rink, "keep skating, they will move" when I was doing a back spiral...and they did.

I usually do say "excuse me" but there are times when "move" gets more action for certain people!!!

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

I try to say "excuse me" & sometimes even manage to throw in a "please" if I'm bearing down on someone & it's my music that's playing. I tend to yield a lot even if I am on a lesson, as many of the other people are also on lessons, so I never know whether they are or not.

What DOES really tick me off is people who are just wandering absently around w/o purpose, or skating slowly along chatting w/ someone else. If you're on the ice, be skating for a reason, else get off & ponder/discuss your life somewhere else! If someone is clearly setting up a jump/spin, working on a moves pattern, etc., I'm much more likely to yield to them.....if they're just skating aimlessly and they're in my way, then I will buzz them to wake them up.

I'll also tire of yielding to someone who's played their music endlessly.....I'll give you right of way 2 or 3 times through your program, and after that I figure you can't expect right of way for the entire session, even if it is your music that's playing AGAIN.

Ohh, Dallas, I have been there too. I love my friends who do not skate, but there's this conscienciousness of when the public session is that looms in the form of whispering voices in the back of my head.("it's 3:30 pm, there's still a 1/2 hour left!") Does that make me a skating schizophrenic? or is it only if I start answering back to them. OK, I admit, sometimes meeting with my friends who don't skate just feels down right obligatory. almost as if it is burdensome. and to be truthful, it weighs heavy in my heart.

Once you learn a camel spin, you can clear out the center pretty good. .

Geez sounds just like my public session this afternoon!!!

Cold & Klutzy:
All my loop clean landing attempts!!! Well, okay, I take it back! One loop jump I did land clean for sure, but didn't has that much of a glide and I ended up having to step out to get out of being stuck. My mind was not concentrating on doing the loop jump this afternoon! It's on DODGING little kids AND some adults!!! I swear the adults don't get the words "the center of the ice is for figure skaters only!!!"

Half the time I was aborting my loop attempt b/c SOMEONE always skates thru my path where I'm able to actually jump!!! The other time I set up but instead of thinking about where my arms are, whether or not I'm bending my knees, I'm praying that there's no one coming up towards me from my blind spot.

Fast & Furious
Yup! That describe what my program runthrough should be. (Well, at least the fast part.) The furious part is what I was with those little brats and the hockey skaters wannabes!!! (And we're not talking little kids this time! Oh, no! We're talking the GROWN-UPS!!!)

I didn't exactly run the whole thing thru but more in bits and pieces of the program since I'm in a more crowded than usual public session. And times where I have to abort that part of my runthru since I get an EARSHOT of a very high pitched YELLING SCARED kid! (Don't like me going fast??? STAY OUT of the MIDDLE of the RINK!!!)

I am strongly thinking of going to my skating club's new Club Ice session where I will get smooth ice and at least skaters who have a CLUE!!!

Two words: Ginzu Knives!!! And trust me, even on those occasion times that I do get a good camel started, I get some clueless kid would would actually COME UP TO ME MID-CAMEL SPIN!! and asks "How d'ya do that?"

__________________
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!!!

I usually yell "Sorry guys!" as it takes less breath than "excuse me" (one less syllable and at my current fitness level, that counts!!), and will always cede to a skater in lesson or whose music is on (even if it is the 15th time).

Fast and furious - school's back in (for most schools) and skating's back on. Hooray! Back on the ice for the first time in some weeks today. Plus, had a great family holiday for 10 days, and rediscovered that wet water is as fun as frozen water!

Back "sort-of" twizzles were fast if nothing else ("sort-of" because the tracing doesn't show the classic double-3 yet, and I'm still working out why not).

Cold and clutzy - just about everything else, including forward twizzles.

Oh well, roll on the rest of the week. At least skating's back on!

I had this happen on a freestyle not too long ago.
When I asked the kids to move and take their conversation to the boards, I was given a "Yeah, well, but...."
Yeah well, but one day they will get knocked over if they don't move!!

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

Phoenix: I was wondering about that problem of the same person replaying their program all session. It happened to me last week with only 4 people on freestyle. One girl's mom played her programme the entire hour. Her program was extremely advanced and all over the place. It got very old and felt quite inequitable. It really limited what I could do during my practice and I thought it was quite rude by the 10th time! Ugh! I just kept thinking...surely this is the last time!

Sk8pdx: LOL...we need to be taking "special medications" for this problem of voices! hmmm, good motivation to really get my spin work going as Jazz says Ginzu blades...I need to add homocidal ideation and intent to my list of current symptoms...hope the medications help me...giggle.

Technically most clubs/sessions have rules about how many times you can play your music in one session--usually it's 3. But like you said, on a quiet session often you get people doing many more repeats. I can understand it, to take advantage of that (though it does get old), but then I don't think they can expect to be given right of way all that time. If someone's a week out from Regionals or something BIG, I'm more tolerant of it.

If I'm on that quiet of a session & I want to do multiple runthroughs, that's when I bring out the ipod!

It's usually the same 3-4 girls that stand around on the ice chatting and not moving/yielding...those are the ones I yell "Move" to...I'm not sure if they are just not aware of what's going on or just too wrapped up in their own little world. They are about 10-13 years old and very silly girls at that. I have noticed that I'm not yelling at them to move as much as I used to (I'm also not slowing down either as I approach them).

There is one girl, about 17 years old, who still does not look behind her when she skates backwards....she has had near collisions several times. When you say something to her, she shrugs her shoulders and says, "Oh well...." being a rather large girl, I'm sure she won't come to any harm (unless she backs into the whirling ginzu knives of a camel spin). That might be enough to teach her.

As for the music...try attending show rehearsals....after a while, you learn to tune out most music. I mean, really, how many times can you listen to the Nutcracker music and retain your sanity???? By Christmas I will have gone crazy if I really listen to it...(it's like going into mom/wife mode-tuning out is a vital skill!!!!)

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

Or a collision with another skater who's also not looking behind her and is going as fast as the hammers of hell! (Guess how I learned? )

__________________
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!!!

When I see someone doing that, I stand right in her path and wait for her to hit me. She'll look very surprised and then I'll say, "That's why you always have to look behind you when you're skating backwards."

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

FAST & FURIOUS
My Intermediate back power 3 move is finally getting "faster and furiouser."
And I finally got about 2 turns on a cross foot spin yesterday, which means it's something I'll eventually be able to do.

But EVERYTHING ELSE was. . .

COLD & KLUTZY!
I was feeling very tired and a little under the weather over the weekend, so I didn't even try a program run-through yesterday,which is bad, since I really need to skate my program more to build my stamina.
I was also told by a friend who's a judge that my salchow--although less than 1/4 turn cheated when I looked at my landing marks--would be seen as cheated and downgraded to a single and also that my double toe still looks too much like a toe axel and therefore might be downgraded, too. Can you say, DEPRESSED?!!

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

Fast & Furious:

Flips! My new coach (whom I absolutely ADORE!) is tweaking my flip to make it bigger & better and it was! I did probably THE BEST flip-loop combination I've ever done in my life! It felt strong, high and fast and had I quite a bit a speed coming out of it.

We also worked on my camel-change-back sit combo spin, which is going well. I just need to sit lower on my back sit and hold it a tad bit longer.

Cold & Klutzy:

Luztes! Apparently, I'm putting way to much thought and energy into the pick and not enough into the lift, so I'm not getting enough height or speed through the jump. My coach has me working on an exercise to get me thinking about picking on the way up, which is a new concept for me and will take some time to adjust to.

When my coach found out that I'm skating Bronze, she said, "Oh, we'll fix that." So, I think I'll be seeing the Silver moves test on the not-too-distant horizon - yikes!

Tee hee!!! What I've done in the past was to grab the kid on her shoulders from behind, which totally freaks the little munchkin out. (One very tall coach did that to me too when I backed into him... Oops!!! )

Of course, I can't do that with the beginning guy that were there yesterday b/c he's like 5' 10" tall and I'm only 5' 3"!!!

__________________
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!!!

Yes, size has it's advantages! (I am 5' 9")

There was one particular coach who used to drift backwards toward the boards without looking while I was struggling to learn backwards (along the boards). Now when you're a novice and struggling to learn something, it isn't nice to have somebody continually skate into your path!

After this had happened for the zillionth time, I said to heck with it and just skated into her. Of course with me being the novice, it was me that went down with a SPLAT (amid a flurry of blades and flailing arms). Ok, I "guilted" her into watching behind her but it worked

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