Is anyone here competing or attending? I will be there on Saturday morning competing in the team event. I'll be doing the spiral and scratch spin. Our team (from the Chesapeake FSC) is called Dave and the Pink Ladies. (Name explanation: the other woman and I are wearing our outfits from our rink's summer show in August - by coincidence, our outfits were both pink - our male team member's name is Dave).

I had also entered Pre-B/B CM, but I withdrew because of my knee. Jumping won't be possible until my knee improves - the PT said this week that it's fine, except it still has a bit of a bruise in the bone and the quad muscles in my left leg have atrophied due to lack of use since my injury. He gave me exercises to do to strengthen my leg.

If you're there, come over and say hi! Sk8pics, are you going?

Hi Debbie,
I forgot! Glad I saw your post. I will try to get there Saturday morning. What time do you skate?
Good luck!
Pat

I'm skating at the crack of dawn, well, actually at 8:50 - 9:10. Which means I have to get up at the crack of dawn and leave at 6 a.m. to get there. I'll forgive you, sk8pics, if you can't make it , and I think I'll be hanging around a little bit afterward to see some little ones from my rink compete in Basic Skills at 10:45. If you see me, come over and say hi!

At this point, it looks like I'll compete at the Washington FSC's adult comp at the end of January, barring another knee (or other body part) injury. I'll probably do Pre-B FS.

Well, Debbie, you were right about it being hte crack of dawn! I didn't make it and I'm sorry! I hope it went well.

I may skate at that comp at the end of January, too, working on my free program right now. We'll see...

Hope you had fun!
Pat

Please, please do that competition- I need someone else in Pre B Free!

Well, I survived the event unscathed. I had a scary (to me) fall in warm-up (which my coach originally said was going to be 5 minutes but we were informed at the start that it would only be 2 minutes - eek!) where I fell on my left hip/leg - coming dangerously close to banging my bad knee. As a result, I got kind of spooked for the rest of the time. We were competing against one other team, in which all 3 skaters were Bronze (we are pre-B and no-test). I didn't skate my spiral or spin the way I'm capable of, which made me mad at myself, but the other team was so good, I think we would have finished second anyway. One of my teammates recognized them, as she's competed in comps with them (she's been "skating up" lately and doing Bronze comps) and she said they always win.

After our comp was over, I stuck around and watched the Adult Spin comp. I think everyone was Bronze or Silver in this event. One skater from U Del (Heather something) was amazing - her sit spin was very low and well-centered. Then, I watched the Basic Skills comp. Unfortunately, there was a lot of sandbagging at this event (my coach said it was among the worst she'd seen). Two skaters from my rink competed in Basic 6, and there were kids in their group who looked like they were in freestyle. For example, in the warm-up for the program portion of the comp, one girl did a waltz jump (in Basic 6? ). But the girls from my rink remained in good spirits.

I'm still debating about the Wash comp. I found out that a rink in my area is having a test session on Jan. 12. I would like to be able to take pre-B MIF by then, which would mean I wouldn't be able to work on a program (how long does it generally take to put a program together?) until then, which wouldn't give me much time to prepare. I'll have to discuss it with my coach.

Hi Debbie,
I'm glad you survived! And it sounds like you had a good time. I'm sorry I missed it!

And yes, Heather is a great, great spinner. Her sit spin is better than that of a lot of elite skaters! She won the gold medal in Bronze ladies I at nationals a few years ago and then moved up to silver. She is really a great skater, unbelievably fast. And you saw her spins.

And I thought you already had passed pre-bronze freestyle? Maybe not. Anyway, to answer your question from my perspective, it takes me several months to feel okay in a program. Last year, we started working on my interpretive program, I would say, somewhere around April or March, and I felt pretty good by June. But this year we started working on my pre-bronze free program, let's see, in September, and I still don't feel that great about it. That's partly because it's harder than the interpretive program was. For me, putting elements together with choreography makes it much harder. And you want to have good flow, and not have any extra little steps that aren't doing something. My coach pretty much has no empty spaces in my program, which is good, but makes it hard. I'll see how I feel about it by the end of December, and then decide what to do about the Ashburn competition. You could always do some of the various moves-based events.

Pat

Congrats! Hope you heal well and see you skate in the New Year's competition.

How many adult skaters came to the competition this year? We used to go when Sectionals was held...thought about going back this year, but I was afraid there wouldn't be a large number of gold or silver competitors...

Maybe next year?

__________________
"Gravity is a harsh mistress." -- The Tick

Looking at the results on the club's website, it looks like a decent turnout. There were 4 ladies in the Gold freeskate, 9 in the Bronze freeskate, and Silver freeskate was dividied into 2 age groups: A had 8 and B had 6. There were Bronze and Silver men, I noticed.

Hi,
Did anyone see the interpretives?