Grin: Couples lesson today; Coach doesn't try to kill one quite so much in that as in solo lesson - mind you, with a new lift being learnt, I did rather wonder..... We didn't try it on ice, though, and I have a pulled muscle in my abs (not from on-ice work, but from off-ice toning!), so didn't want to work on our "good" lift. We did our spin, though, and some bits of choreography which were quite fun, and then we were good and turned our attention to the compulsory dances.

Grimace: And then we were good and turned our attention to the compulsory dances. I am so holding Husband back, he could pass his level 4 CDs tomorrow if he did them solo, and I couldn't, yet. But sometimes it's him-not-me; when Coach told him to relax his hold a bit in the Fiesta Tango, it was Much Improved! He doesn't find it easy to find the exact place between holding one in a death grip and not holding one hard enough, as we proved in our Swing Dance (Coach2 had been abominably - but deservedly - rude about it on Sunday!), when I was much too able to push it around....

Among other things, we really must work on our posture, we do know this, but.... Coach focusses on other things like extension and pushing and toe-point. We still haven't got to the place where we can really make our blades work for us, not against us. I don't know if we ever will.... but maybe one of these days.

Cross-cuts marginally better today, beginning to be able to get a bit of up-and-down in them; back cross-rolls on edges now, but I can't get enough flow or curve.... still not able to make my blade work for me!

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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!

This is for last night's ice dance lesson:

Grimace: First, hubby had a hissy about not feeling proficient on the progressives so he sat out the lesson (hello? how can you gain skills if you don't skate??? So I agreed to skate with him on Thursday and help him out-I told him he owes me-time to buy more fabric!!!). I'm going crooked on my swing rolls-I don't think my body position is right or something-I think I'm trying to compensate.....and those darn cross-behinds are HARD!! I keep thinking that they are another way I'm going to kill myself!

Grin: Hey!!! I actually slid my foot in front and did a real progressive (both directions)!!! YAY!! Now if I can just feel like I won't dive on my toepicks....i know, bend my knees!

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

Grin: Partner practice went great this week, we got one of our side by side footwork exercises down really good, so we're really moving & it takes the whole rink length to get one set in since we're going so fast. & just everything is getting better w/ getting comfortable skating together. Am feeling much encouraged by all that!

GRIMACE: Money is so tight this month I had to cancel my private lessons for the next 2 weeks, & frankly I'm not sure I can pick them back up even then. I'm going to do everything I can to try & get some more cash flow coming in (freelance starving designer/artist--sometimes having your own business sucks!! Anyone want to buy a painting??) I sent coach an email to let him know this & am hoping he's okay with holding my slot for me for a few weeks. I'll still keep our team lessons since that cost gets split w/ my partner, so it's not too bad. I've never had to cancel lessons before & I'm totally over it.

I feel your pain! I just paid a $400+++ electric bill and I haven't seen my gas or oil bill yet I told the family that we are going to pretend the house is the rink and everyone is to wear skating tights and sweaters to get used to the cold! Then my daughter had the nerve to show me a $1,500 prom dress! (of course, she was just showing me-she didn't want me to buy it for her-but I was upset anyways).

Can you pick up a part-time job on the side to improve your cash flow in the mean time? That might help for a pinch-maybe substitute teaching (pays very well around here and they are very much in demand).

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

Yowser! And LOL, pretending to have your own mini-rink at home.
I just had sticker shock, and I need to have my gas bill evened out over the year: It jumped from ~$9 to $128 this month. Ugh.

__________________
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

Singles lesson today, but first plenty of drills with husband!

Grin: Because we'd learnt so much listening to the commentators at the Europeans, we tried to put some of it into practice, notably our posture and extension. Don't know how well we managed.

Lesson went reasonably well - I do wish I knew what was the matter with my left boot. Coach says he doesn't see anything wrong with it, but will take it back to the sharpener next week, when he is going.

My mohawks are improving - so I got to work on outside Mohawks, too! For now, he wants me to focus on the position, rather than the edge, but I can't see that lasting very long!

Back cross-rolls not at all bad, for me. Beginning to get some flow into them. Mind you, the ice was good today, which helped.

Grimace: Caught my toe-rake and measured my length in the Fiesta Tango, fortunately not hard. Back cross-cuts only managing 3/4 lap - which I suppose is an improvement on 3/4 length - and not flowy. Changes-of-edge okay, but insides-outsides skiddy on the left foot - and even FI swing rolls skidded very slightly as I brought my foot through. And I know I had my free leg in the right place on those....

Coach explained that the reason I have to work so hard for so little reward when pushing is that I don't have the lean that better skaters have - or the lean of the foot, for dance. I must work on that a bit, I think.

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

Grin: Tim is ready to get me out and testing as soon is as convienent for me (which it may not be for another two or three months because I'm finishing up with my university degree and trying the maintain the 4.0 GPA I've kept for the last two semesters, plus write a senior thesis, plus get ready for grad school). He personally thought given enough time, I could have competed at Adult Nationals this year, but the deadline is today so that is out. Due to my rate of progress he believes that serious training will make ready for the championship event at Adult Nationals next year.

Grimace: Because of the holiday, although I ordered my SP Teri's many days ago, they will not arrive until tomorrow or friday, and I am impatient. And the blades? Not even shipped yet! They won't be shipped until probably friday, so I'll have to wait even longer. BOO.

$400+ bill?!?!? Good LORD!!!

BTW: S@D, my home IS an ice rink. Hubby does NOT like turning on the heater for more than a few minutes to get the initial chill out... He actually likes it cold!!! I, of course, being anemic, is NOT a happy camper. You can put as many layers on me as you want and I'll STILL be complaining that I'm cold!!!

Grimace:

My secondary coach rarely has her skates on the day of my lesson... but this morning she just came over and pointed to her skates!!! And when she DOES have her skates on, you know what that means... yup!!! Skate FAST like the grim reaper (aka secondary coach) is coming after ya'! She chased me for at least a few laps (about 4 laps.) And thankfully, she didn't have to resort to catching up with me and pulling me along!!! Oh and if that's not any better, THEN she wants to see me (still at speed) doing a mohawk into smooth and FAST back crossovers, which got better after she reminded me to look behind me. But still...EEEEEK!!!

Oh, and then there's the waltz jump too!!! I'm not kicking thru... so she made me into a puppet and had me on the harness doing jump lessons. I'm trying. She knows that... but I'm not getting it yet. And of course, since I'm not one of her little kiddie skaters, she couldn't hold me that long on the harness so when I had to fall, I did fall... (Thankfully this time, the falls are like...nothing!!!)

Grin:
I survived the grim reaper today!?!?! (But who knows for next week...)

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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!!!

Grin: Good partner lesson today! At least I still am keeping those for the next 2 weeks, though it's completely different work than in my solo lessons. Our last 2 weeks of separate practice have really paid off, & we only had to repeat one exercise; the rest we just ran through & went on to the next thing. We also at the very end finally got a weird little step in the Starlight corrected, so now I can actually step onto the correct edge I need to! Turns out it was both of us that needed to adjust our shoulders to make it work.

Grimace: As we were getting a drink, my partner asked if this (Starlight) was one of my test dances & I said yes. He & coach both chuckled....then coach said "don't look at me!" Like he's thinking to have my partner take me through the test? I think not! I need all the help I can get to look as good as possible for tests, & as much as I'm enjoying skating w/ my partner, my coach is a much better 'visual' match with me (I'm a little taller than my partner, coach is taller than me), not to mention rock solid & able to help if I make a mistake. I hope he wasn't serious. Not like we have a test date on the horizon, so not time to panic yet, but I think I'd better clarify that with him at some point.

Grimace x 2: I'm so sad about missing my lessons these next 2 weeks! I always stay after our team lesson to work on my own stuff for awhile & today my heart was just not in it. I need to look at this break as a chance to work my butt off & have some real progress to show when I do come back, so I need to get over just being sad out there & skating listlessly around.

Grin
Arrived for my hour's patch and had the rink to myself. This has been happening a lot lately. It sure makes you work hard when you have no distractions. I spent the half hour before my lesson running through all my forward and backward double three turn exercises and felt a huge improvement on last week's effort. I ran through all my jumps to lutz-loop and landed them all with no problems, and I did some decent spins - upright, cross-toe, sit, camel and camel-sit. I even did a much improved change-foot camel.

Lesson went well. We spent the whole time running through all six of my bronze field moves exercises and they were a lot better than last week.

Grimace
Struggled with the serpentine step sequence exercise. Although I'm improving on my back inside threes, I find the one in this exercise somewhat awkward and tend to scrape it.

Nicki

I hate being the only skater on the ice! One other skater, even if I don't even know them, fine.... but just me? No.

Mind you, this morning I waited to get on until another young woman was ready - the ice was covered with middle-aged men, including Husband, who pointed this out to me, and no women at all!

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

Hubby freaked out about that-we try to keep the house slightly warm but now we are down to 60-65....less at night. Hubby could sleep with windows open in the winter-he likes it cold! Must be a guy thing! I was anemic-had a folic acid deficiency (weird, huh?)

I don't kick thru on my waltz-I knee it (way I was taught)....don't know if I could kick thru now, being somewhat set in my ways

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

Grimace: New boots 2 weeks before competition and added another event so someone could have some competition. Have to do the Sr. sustained edge step and inside counters.

Grin: Axel is back, spread eagle is back and spins are back but not as fast. Coach saw sustained edge and said is was good, not passing level but good. Got double toe in combo w/ flip and lutz back. Double sow is moving along and did first double loops attempts with out death.

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

Hey coskater, I'm doing the same thing - competing a move that I'm not working on - and wasn't even on my radar screen when I got the NYI announcement. My goal for the 8-step is to get through w/o falling - lol. I'm really doing the MIF event as practice for testing, so it doesn't matter to me where I place, although it would be nice not to finish last (but hey, someone's got to do it, right?).

To be honest I do like to have at least one other person there, purely because if I splat nobody would probably notice and I'd be left in a heap on the ice for ages! I'm getting more used to skating alone though, it's been happening a lot lately. It sure makes you work hard mind. No distractions when there's nobody else there!

Nicki

Well, like you I'd like to not finish last but what's more important is that it actually looks like the move. You'll do fine on the 8 step-- I pick what elements are important to me, like on the sustained I want to have nice extension and keep good flow and edge quality.

On the 8 step try to keep an even cadence and quick, crisp steps, you may have to sacrifice speed and circle size but pick what you want to get out of the move since you are doing it for fun.

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

Grin: Got the application for the competition next month-now I'm 90% committed (someone commit me for doing this!!!). It's an ISI and I'm entering as Artistic 1.

We worked on Moves....stroking was better but pointing that left toe is still hard (and she wants more push). Waltz-8's are better (it's still a work in progress, though). Crossovers are also a work in progress and this time I'm to sit lower and do them inside the hockey circle and really ride the edges. We also worked on 3-turns on the circle (3-turns are an issue with me) and a really, really strong check.

Waltz jump got an ok. Coach liked it during the exhibition (as well as my spiral which was a surprise for her to see as it was very high). I did say that I would like to get a higher, better waltz jump, but later on.

Grimace: Loop. Worked on that for a bit...it started good, but when asked to bring my left leg up and leave it up on the landing, everything fell apart. Sit spin. Did 2 crappy ones and my laces were very loose! Yikes!

Just for fun, I wore my new boots while watching a movie today (don't worry, I didn't walk or stand in them). Just waiting on my blades! It will be nice to have boots that really fit well! Then, it's off to a good place to have the blades mounted (won't happen at my rink, that's for sure!)

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

Hey, Skate@Delaware, I am competing Freestyle 1 at an ISI comp. next month.

...Not sure if I'm mentioning this in order to encourage/prod you or just to say that I should be committed along with you!

I like being alone on the ice in terms of not having to dodge traffic, but I find I push myself harder to skate fast when I'm on the ice with people of similar level or higher, especially people who have good speed. Somehow I can feed off their energy, plus I'm trying to keep moving so as not to get in their way, since they move faster than me....

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I must be the odd one out - I found the "pick-up-the-free-foot-and place it over" fwd cross-overs so hard to get, but got the timing and technique of progressives with no trouble. Now that's all I do - to save the life of my aged grandmother, I couldn't do the other sort now at any speed greater than that of my pet arthritic snail...

Grin: I hadn't actually intended to skate much this morning; we don't normally skate on a Thursday morning, but the Husband had booked an extra lesson to do some choreography while the ice was quiet. So we were in for 07:40, for an 08:00 lesson (got at least the first 30 seconds of his programme organised; I was surprised he remembered my tentative suggestion for a beginning, which they have more or less implemented). I was really propping up the barrier and making notes - Husband learns best if it's written down for him, so he has gone off with half a page of notes!

Anyway, by the time he'd gone to work and I'd chatted with a friend who'd come in, it was only 08:30 and I really didn't fancy driving home in the rush hour, so though I'd skate for an hour, doing some aerobic-type stroking, and just keeping going. Well, that didn't happen, as I ended up chatting in the pros' room for a bit, but I did do quite a lot of stroking exercises!

Then a couple of celebrities and pros came in to rehearse for Dancing on Ice. And of course, when they are on the ice, they're just skaters, like the rest of us. So I ended up staying right to the end of the patch - which I never do - watching them, chatting a bit, and skating.

Back cross-cuts seem to be beginning to happen (there, now I won't be able to do them tomorrow!), still can't get a whole length, but managed 2/3, with a bit of flow. And got some flow on my back cross-rolls, too. AND some not-bad back inside edges.... Changes-of-edge not what they should be. Walked myself through the Fiesta Tango and began to get the end pattern a little better.... More kneebend, more kneebend!

Grimace: Tried to do my left boot up tighter to see if coach was right that this was the problem with it, and all that happened was that I practically cut the circulation off in my foot! Had to loosen it a bit, and somehow it was all right after that, at least, perhaps because I was working on outside edges not inside!

Tried to do that exercise where you do 4 cross-rolls then hold the 5th round in a circle. Could do it forward, just, but backwards? You guess.... Still, it was better than last time I tried.

My shins ache! Too much kneebend (but I'm quite pleased, all the same!).

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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!

I found where someone posted it online-so I downloaded it and watched it at home (hubby and I). We found it very entertaining!!! We didn't like the one judge (the one in the middle with the dance background-don't know his name). Thought everyone did a great job for such a short amount of time learning! I think it actually motivated hubby-hence the lesson today!

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

The trouble is, when you get a shedload of people you only really know off the television suddenly coming in (and I include people like Torvill & Dean), to quote Coach2: "Everybody looks like somebody, even when they aren't!"

I am SOOOOOOOOOO cross - utterly bloody Eurosport hasn't shown Pip & Phil's Original Dance - I hope to goodness they'll show it when they do deign to show the top group a little later, but I'm not holding my breath. And just looking at the results isn't the same thing at all! Plus I want to see the Kerr's OD, too. Who the heck thought biathlon was more interesting than ODs? It's like watching paint dry! So I'm listening to Kirsty McColl and swearing.

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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!

Hi Annabel,

I know it's not quite the same but there are already some photo's of todays ODs posted here: Thursday, including P&P. The rest can be seen here: Wednesday and here: Tuesday.

Mike (who doesn't have Eurosport and will have to make do with whatever the BBC might provide ...)

Thanks, Mike. Looks as though they will show highlights on Sunday, at 12:45 - but not, alas, interactively as on Saturday. I just hope Eurosport shows their FD tomorrow, but I'm not going to hold my breath!

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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!