Spring Flowers My lesson went great. My edges on a circle rock. I did a 2 footed spin (without using a toe pick pivot i can do them just fine) I'm getting the idea of backwards stroking, and my 3-turns weren't a total disaster.

Snow Drift I have a stress fracture in my ankle and I was told to stay off it for 8 weeks. I guess I shouldn't have gone to the lesson, but they are paid for and I'm going. It's only 30 minutes. (It does hurt though) I'm stopping my 8 hours of ballet per week and not going to adult session (2 hours) of skating, so I think that's staying off of it. Not going to that adult session though means no practice, so I won't pass this level, which stinks.

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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)

Spring Flowers: 2 sow is really getting much better, 2 toe left me, but -- came back today on late session when I was really tired, even from the bauer. 2 loop looking good, consistent w/ 1/4 cheat and typical fall when done cleanly. Flip 2 loop is the same 1/4 cheat is okay, full rotation with a fall. Coach is threatening to kill me very soon if I don't make it work. Trying to do full deep sit with chest on knee and then to broken leg. Maybe. Jr moves look ok.

Snow drifts: Hip is starting to hurt again, maybe to many deep spins and jump practice, go to doctor in a weeko-and-a-half so maybe he can tell me. Will test few dances, not expecting a lot.

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

Spring Flowers:
Heard from our skating director today that the rink is trying to work on some afternoon sessions for the summer!! Relief!
Had a good lesson with secondary coach where we revisted the camel, I did a really nice low sitspin (where is a camera when I need one?) and attempted back sit and sit change sit.
We also finished my freeskate program which I have five weeks to get from discombobulated mess to presentable!

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Yes, a developpe spiral is similar to a developpe in ballet. It's also similar to a grand rond de jambe and sorta similar to a renverse (without the sideways lean of the torso). The one I learned starts on an FO edge. Free foot starts in front of the skating leg in a position similar to free leg position in a spin or a loop jump. The developpe/and around part takes the free knee up in the front and to the side. As the free knee reaches the side, the free leg is unfurling, then straightens, then is carried around to the back to a traditional forward spiral position. As this all happens, the forward outside edge takes you around on a curve and you wind up in an FO spiral.

The hard part (other than the strength required to do it, which my quads and hip flexors lack at the moment) is to get the free leg straight before it goes to the back, otherwise it looks like a badly done attitude position. It's fun but very hard and I have to be careful as I do it so that I don't go up on the toe pick of my skating leg during the front/side portions.

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Snow drifts: I have contracted Shingles. It's uncomfortable as hell...visualize a perpetual gall bladder attack.

Spring Flowers:For some reason, it has not affected my figure skating! Had lesson today and coach was extremely pleased at how I nailed my figure 8s. A side benefit is that the cold environment really lowers the pain. Since this may go on for a few months, I will be in the rink as much as possible!

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

I love that spiral!!! At least I love watching it done well. I started working on learning it a couple of weeks ago and my butt hurt for DAYS. I am a long way from doing it well, but it IS coming.

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If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

Snow Drifts After a VERY hectic day at work I was pretty pooped for the evening’s skate and left 20 minutes early. No point skating in The Twilight Zone, not with an hour’s drive home!

My “good foot” seems to have switched again. After so many weeks of focusing on my RF edges (which were the pits) , they were back really good tonight, even some nice form on RFO glides, but it seems the “dead foot syndrom” moved to my left foot (which USED to be good)!

Spring Flowers Worked on some hip rotations - left foot directly ahead of and in line with the right, switch, switch again - kind of nice - might be able to develop it into a program move. Did some more backward sculling and question marks (alternate half-sculls) but being tired my balance wasn’t right on. Oh well, at least there was significant progress on the RF edges.

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

Snow Drifts: I found out that to join the adult synchro team properly I have to work on "Basic footwork mostly, forward and backward crossovers, chasses, 3-turns, mohawks, taptoes and stops. A few field moves like spirals would be great too"

Now I have about as much hope in learning a spiral as I have of growing another head. The chasses I can do. Tap Toes, 3 turns & mohawks I am learning and I can stop (well I can do t stops much better than snowplough stops). Seems like I will never get to where I want to be any time soon

Oh and still 3 weeks or so until my new skates arrive grrr at having these horrible ducks feet.

Spring Flowers : It's the beginning of a long weekend, and I'm going camping - there's no skating except for Monday and I'll be back by then to give it another shot.

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

spring flowers
Worked on those cursed crossovers tonight and actually managed to *almost* get the hang of it. Now if I could just get my arms to behave and keep my upper body still. lol

snow drifts
However, those same crossovers are wild/crazy. I feel so uncontrolled when I do them that my upper body twists back around and I'm just stroking like mad. And I don't feel I have a lot of security on the ice -- very unstable. I manage to cross over just fine, but when I push off, my blade sometimes just skids across the ice. I think it may be a sharpening issue (currently playing phonetag with the sharpener to set up an appointment), so hopefully when I get that taken care of (finally), it might help me a great deal. In more dreadful news, I filed my taxes. Oy! For the 1st time ever, I owe a lot of money --- a LOT of money (close to $1300). I am not amused.

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"finger painting?"

Snow Drifts:In group lessons today we didn't do any spins! I so much wanted to try them again to see if I can feel the edge like I did last week. I won't be able to find out next week either as it's an off week.

We worked on toe loops and it was a bit frustrating as I couldn't get a good draw from not being able to bend my ankles enough in my new boots. Click-Splat is also more common due to lack of ankle bend although I've avoided falling so far.

Spring Flowers:Even though my boots are loose and stiff, left right forwads and backwards crossovers are excellent, I don't feel like I'm going to tilt out of the circle like I did with my old boots. I'm also getting better memory for doing the toe loop and my spirals are still ok with no strain.

Having a week off is annoying, but is good as I can send my boots back to Klingbeil and fix the looseness. Don looked at them at Nationals and figured out what would need done so off they go!

Steven

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"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

Spring Flowers: Why is the last lesson of the season always the greatest? My spins came back (they had left because of ear/sinus congestion). So, we hit the spins first. I learned to do a scratch and raise my arms up over my head! Then we worked on some very fast scratch spins...and I did one soooo fast (and centered) that my coach said "OMG! Keep it!!! Keep it!!! WOW!!!" It was cool, a barf-o-matic spin! Just in time for the show!!

Then we worked on camels, and I learned to push my right arm through, my left leg through and hold on!

Next was jumps and I managed to do several decent loops that were interesting-kept putting my left foot down first, then my right. So we switched to waltz-loops and I did manage one that was just slightly 2-footed!

Last, backspins. I showed her my "amazing" 2-revolution spin and she was very happy, because up till now she had only seen my 1/2 revolution ones. Then she had me hold my free leg out a bit longer, then bring it across and I managed a few 3-4 revolution backspins!!!!

Snow Drifts: I'm physically tired and emotionally drained......Dress rehearsal is tomorrow. I took tomorrow off to finish costumes and buy some food to have in the house. One show on Friday, two shows on Saturday.....I start my vacation after that!!!!! One week of messing around!!! Then I kick it up with my off-ice workouts (which have really helped my jumps and core strength).

Then I will decide what to do for skating. I hear there is a rink going into a sports facility in Salisbury MD. That would be an easier drive for me. My coach's rink gets ice in August, so I will kick it up then, she will let me know so I can take from her there. I'm planning on skating a few times a month. We'll see. I want to do the Halloween Classic, so I need to keep up with stuff. And if I don't have a good sitspin by then, maybe I'll have a good camel!!

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

Figureskates, so sorry to hear about your shingles. I hope you're coping okay with the pain. {{{hugs}}}

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Oh, geez! SHINGLES!!! EEEEEEK!!!! I HATE THOSE!!! I had them a few years ago! Yup! I got the whole chickenpox thing when I was 13-14 and again when I was about 20-something. (It was before I got married, but I remembered being engaged by then.) SOOOO NOT FUN!!! Took a month for me to totally recover. (Still have scars on my face from the shingles.)

Hopefully you'll feel better soon, Figureskates!

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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!!!

Hubby and I went down today... He skated for about an hour or so with the girl who wants to learn dance, then I got him back

Snow Drifts:

• My head/neck is REALLY killing me... so much that I got frustrated, burst into tears and hopped off the ice and sat with my head in my hands for about 10mins I received a great neck and shoulder massage from hubby which made it feel a lot better (he thinks its mainly muscular and from my fall yesterday.. which is kinda ok, because at least it means I dont have to head back to the chiropractor).
  
• Because of said headache, I couldnt do anything.. I wasnt feeling 'with it' enough to do crossovers or too many fancy moves.. so stroking and edges it was. (which isnt totally a bad thing)
  
• Need to practise back edges more... at the moment, I dont have any.. and I have no push!

Spring Flowers:

• Hubby came and became my coach for a little bit once I got back on the ice. He helped me correct my posture for my edges (knees bent (BEND MORE!! ), shoulders down, arms up, shoulder blade muscles tense, butt taut and free leg up... UP!!!!... ) and of course it did help.
  
• He also helped me with my cross rolls that I learnt the other day (yesterday?), and we did one in Reverse Killian hold... I was very pleased with myself Tell you what though, it make a difference doing it with a man next to you who does really deep edges!!!
  
• Hubby FINALLY saw my spins... cos of my headache I only tried it about 5-6 times.. and then stopped because I fell over due to getting dizzy.
  
• My backward crossovers going anti clockwise are still there YAY!!! the other direction needs some work, but I didnt do much, once again because of my head.. I couldnt get my head around anything new or too difficult.
  
• And after all this, and sometime in the middle when I did something well, coach became hubby again and gave me a hug

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--------------
-Erinna-
aka cassarilda

My Progress Report!
"Did I mention there is only ONE rink in Melbourne?!"
"If you're not flying, you're obviously not trying!!!" - courtsey of the guy who helped me up off the ice after my last spectacular and sore fall

Sorry Jazzpants...

There will be no spring this year.. we're going directly from "rainy season" (which makes all the grass grow very fast and tall) into "fire season" (when all that tall grass dries out overnight and becomes tinder for any idiot who thinks it's perfectly all right and legal to throw a lit cigarette out of a moving car onto the hillside by the freeway).

Off topic sorry but I have just had this same thing yesterday when I was sitting in my car I saw this guy throw his cigarette butt out the window, and I was tempted to hop out of my car, pick it up and throw it back into his car.... only for fear of being charged for either assault or road rage

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

I have so wanted to do that too!!! Tempted to say, "Excuse me, you dropped this"

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

Glad I'm not the only one who has these thoughts S@D

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

I drive a van and have had them bounce off my windshield.

How tempting it is to give them a nudge

Steven (who knows someone who got a ticket for throwing an apple core out the window, what makes cigarette butts exempt?)

__________________
"A sure sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson
"Got Edge?" - Steven J. Arness - Coachless, two years and counting.
"He who carves himself to suit others will soon whittle himself away."
"Sometimes you get what you want but loose what you have."

Spring Flowers: Sharp blades

Snow Showers: Sharp blades!

Enough said.... plus was really tired; I don't normally skate on Thursdays, it's a rest day, so only skated for 45 minutes or so. Tomorrow should be fantastic!

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

Snow Drifts: Ran through both synchro programs in practice last night -- pretty much stunk up the ice as 1/3 of our team wasn't there. I have also contracted my yung'un's cold and was exhausted and dizzy, so did not do any turns for fear of wiping out and taking half of the remaining two-thirds of the team.

Spring Flowers: We tried some new things that we'd seen at Nationals and through might be fun for a new program. And I could do all of them, even theough I was weak and a bit dizzy, yay! I even got to be a "backwards" person -- meaning that my coach deemed my backwards skating and lunging better than the four she picked to go forward in an alternating line. Of course, the three people not at practice all have better backwards swing rolls than me, so I'll likely be a forwards person if we really do this, but I also have a very reliable back lunge, so I guess we'll see how it really goes.

We also tried all sorts of varieties of spirals in a circle and, as I suspected, all of mine are fine EXCEPT the RBO that was in our program from this year, sheesh! I was actually one of the more steady when we tried one that starts front and swings back.

Lastly: Jessi -- take care of your ankle and Figureskates get well soon!

Mika - the developpe spirals are my favorites! They're beautiful when done with a partner as you start sbs and end up one following the other. We did this once, and then he caught my skate and drew me back into a loop lift. Hmm...something Loops and Nova could do nicely....

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Spring Flowers: Great practice this morning. Landed a ton of loop-jumps! These are finally becoming almost reliable.YAAAAAAAY
Kept almost splatting into the boards on runthroughs of my Freeskate Program, so Coach had to re-choreograph a good part of it. Apparently, I have developed more speed and power since the original choreography was done and it doesn't fit on the ice anymore. I'm not complaining, it's a nice problem to have!

Snow Showers: I only have five weeks to have the newly choreographed program ready for the European competitons.

More Flowers: At least hockey is over at my main rink, so there's more ice available for figure skaters....

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If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

Hi, flo--The funny thing about this all was about a week ago, I was thinking about the developpe spiral in your Elgar bird program (I think) and I was wondering how on earth one does that kind of spiral--then on Sunday, it popped up in the choreography for the group number I'm in!

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

Snow Drifts:

• Still working on that power 3's... My primary coach still maintains that my LFO3 is now better than my RFO3 (and RFO3 is my SPIN ENTRY??? ) My primary coach suggest I do them like I'm entering my spins... I didn't think they're that great, but primary coach is insistent that I do them that way.
• Primary coach was not happy scheduling for this critique so soon b/c it doesn't leave him enough time to "get me ready." I reminded him that this is merely a "critique" and to see how far along I've gone.

Spring Flowers:

FINALLY, I am addressing one of my "skating on flats" issues for the power 3's... on the back crossovers, I'm not pushing down on the heel in the BI edge. When primary coach insisted that I do them... lo and behold, the edge curved more and I was better able to adjust the choctaw for the power 3's on the RFO side *AND* my "skating on flats" issue. (Or at least that's what my primary coach says... I don't have any video to see what I really did.)

Funny thing happen during FS:
A bunch of my secondary coach's young students were trying for a "reverse axel" (i.e. doing the axel not in the direction that they're used to... apparently my primary coach got wind of the challenge and decided to join in on the fun just before my lessons start. (And if you're curious... yes, my primary coach DID land it cleanly also!) So not fair that my coach can do things better than me in my direction... GRRRR!!!

Of course, my secondary coach had to drop in the line about "Jazzpant's coach in NYC" can landing the "reverse axel" on "that TV skating show..." (And I added that he won that challenge too!!!) To which the primary coach replied "I'll bet he skated ISI before!" (Think ISI FS 10 requirement...)

__________________
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!!!