OK, I know it's a little simple, but we are in for an entire week of rain here!

Shine:
How comfortable I felt on the ice after giving two private lessons and a group lesson. F power pulls are pathetically wimpy and yet I'm getting decent edges. B power pulls are still improving. Spiral stretches are starting to hurt less.

Rain:
Why do I feel so stiff and lurchy for so long after I've been on the ice? I took a whopper of a fall today right at the end of the freestyle. Did LFI Mohawk and caught my heel. The ice was pretty rough, so it may not have been my fault, but it hurt anyway. I went down like a ton of bricks. I was aware of jolting my entire spine, hitting my rear end hard, my teeth coming together with a loud clack, and my head hitting the ice - thank goodness for long hair clipped up in back! When I got up, I realized that I had also landed on my R hand and wrist is a little tweaky. I downed 600 mg ibuprofen right away and don't feel too bad at this point. Tomorrow will tell.

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OUCH, dbny!! I feel for you, I really do. Have you iced all the sore bits? (Is it possible to *get* all the sore bits - after a fall like that, there are bound to be lots.)

YIKES, dbny!!! I hope you're better tomorrow and all you have just bruise! Yes, thank goodness for ponytails and scrunchies!!! (I have mine in a scrunchie now... it's getting long again for Skate SF and this time I'm opting for at least ponytail length long well into Adult Sectionals...)

Were you wearing those SkatingSafe pads or am I thinking of someone else who has them? They really help protect my tailbone! After the initial sting, I went right back to skate... no problem!!! (Of course, I've been told NOT to wear any protection unless I am working on something that is guarantee to screw up the knee or am working on a jump I don't know. (Secondary coach's thinking AXELS, of course...)

Rain:

• Not much room to practice moves, though I did some practice...
• I ended up doing more practice for my program. Jay is watching me... and has this inquisitive look on his face. (Alright! I also zapped right by him and one of his other student during that student's lesson. I feel bad about it but where else am I gonna set up my jumps during a crowded public session but the middle of the rink??? (And of course I have to go into it at a fast speed b/c that's what he expects out of me???)

Shine:

• Well, I landed one lutz today... and discover (OH MY!!!) that I can bend my knees and my flip jump magically gets the rotation needed for me to land on one foot!!! (Doesn't work for the loop though... GRRRR! )
• Did some good sit spins... unfortunately the one embarrassing thing is that my nose was runny and "stuff" came out flying during the sit spin... (Altogether now: "EWWWWW!!!!")

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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!!!

I haven't iced, as it was several hours before I could get home. Now I'm feeling sore where I didn't know I would, but my back, which I thought would be bad, feels fine.

Someone else. I only wear knee pads and my knees seem to be the only thing I didn't hit today

Luckily, I landed sort of to the side, so I missed my tailbone and bashed the right side of my bottom instead. Altogether not nearly so bad as I expected.

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Shine:

1) Worked on back crossovers to back edges for the first time. Not bad at all. Really, I feel that it's one of the easier moves, which makes sense, given that it's prelim rather than prejuv on the standard test track.

2) Coach said that my forward perimeter power stroking was "good, nice, acceptable and all that". 1 down, 4 to go.

3) 5 step mohawk now can be done on the pattern. That's a step up for me! Sadly, left mohawk is not very good at all. But I can work on that.

Rain:

1) Backward perimeter stroking--I'm making the same mistake I make on the power 3s. I'm stepping on an outside rather than an inside edge on the transition. I thought that I had had a breakthrough with this on the Power 3s....turns out....not so much.

I'm getting my skates sharpened on Saturday, it has been well over a year. That may help once I adjust. Let's hope so.

On to freestyle practice Wednesday!

Since we were off for Columbus day, we went to the public session-which had about 15-20 kids, only 3 were terrors!

Rain: Spins sucked....although they were better than some I've done. I did manage a 3 rev sit, but wasnt down as far as I could have been. Did a few toe-loops, although they are mostly cheated toe-waltz's (one wasn't) Salchow-what more can I say! I need serious help on that one. Back crossovers-still scratching on right toepick. Left is good (can I say stealth!)

Shine: Waltz jump-got a few good ones with good height and distance-from a back glide! Yay! The distance was 3 blade lengths, which was 2 blade lengths longer than all my other ones!!! My husband swears that they were at least 1 foot high! I'm bringing the camera to freestyle session today to tape a few for reference. Then I will track my height and distance. My calves hurt from really using them...

I have skated since Sunday-4 hours on Sunday, 2 hours Monday and it's only Tuesday....I will have 1.5 hours today to do homework for my coach session on Wednesday and I want to fix my Salchow! I'm so frustrated (and a bit tired)! But I've sworn to only work on a frustrating element for so long then move on to something else; go back to it later. I realize I'm freezing up after the 3-turn, it just doesn't "feel" right....

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

I have been wearing the SkatingSafe tailbone pad-since I lost weight-I got nothing back there! Of course, since I started wearing it, I don't seem to fall on that part of the body!

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

Good title, DBNY - there's heavy rain over parts of the UK, but here in London it's been warm and sunny! Even our rink was boiling today, and it's a cold rink! We all wore T-shirts.

Shine: Managed to practice most things I meant to, including my solo dances for the next competition. Ran through the couples dances again, too, for the first time since the British Adults, and our Free Dance, all of which seemed okay-ish. We'll need to work them up a bit, though, between now and 6 November!

We also did some exercises, including doing chassés in waltz hold. Discovered, almost serendipitously (is that a word?) that if you hold your elbow right up, like the elite skaters do, you get much closer to your partner and the style is better! Hmmm, maybe we should do that more often!

Rain: The two spins we're working on (as opposed to the one we use in our programme) aren't at all working yet. And I bottled out of trying our new lift on the ice. Plus the first time we did it off-ice, our hips ground together and hurt! At least, mine hurt, don't know about his!

Spent rather too long just skating round and round with a friend discussing differences in Orthodox and Protestant religious practice..... of all things!

My Dance Moves were not just so good today, and my solo dances - well, I think the Dutch Waltz was okay, but my Canasta is still vile. Oh well....

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

Rain I don't understand what has happened to my skating. It's gotten very strange - I'll nail elements one second, then on the next attempt I'm on my butt...then I'll do it again and I'll be fine, then again and I'll be on my butt. It makes no sense.

The zamboni left ridges in the ice where the extra water dried so if I happened to do a spin on one of these lovely ridges it was like I was on a rollercoaster.

I couldn't do my sit spin at all today. At ALL.

I took a hard fall on my first lutz attempt of the day. Wham bam, right on my knees...I landed the jump but must've been underrotated because I pitched right forward on my knees. FOrtunately the ice was smooth so I kind of slid across the ice but the initial impact was NOT fun. I'll be bruised tomorrow for sure.

I'm just going to stop mentioning the camel altogether. It's a waste of time.

Shine
I got to the rink on the early side and there was not a soul to be found. So I had the rink to MYSELF for half an hour. I didn't know what to work on first lol. I decided to work on a mixture of moves I've heard about. Ive discovered I can't do forward power pulls as well as I can do back power pulls. My back ones would pass the test, the forward ones are pretty weak. I can't seem to find the rhythm there. Oh well, yay me for trying. I also worked on power 3 turns and brackets and mohawks and everything else in between. I also did the spiral sequence from preliminary moves...at least I think that's what it's from....

I did manage a couple of good flips and loops in between all the falling. When I'm on, the jumps are perfect. It's all or nothing these days.

I did a bunch of good scratch spins. They're just not as fast as they used to be, but definitely more controlled and centered more often than not. I'll take that over speed. I did a couple of one foot spin variations that were nice.

I worked up a really good sweat today but I did take a break now and then to watch this girls exhibition program. Man, I don't care for country music but her choreography and her skating was so good that I was just mesmerized by her program. I want to skate like her when I grow up lol (she's probably 10 years younger than me, easy lol).

I wanted to start choreographing my silly christmas duet but I don't have the music so I'll have to wait until I can get it cut (after making a FINAL decision about it). I did get some good ideas watching the country-music girl.

Cloudy
The past couple of times I've been skating I've felt...blah. Two weeks ago I was having the time of my life at the rink, now it's like I'm going through the motions, even regressing a little. I know skating has it's ups and downs but man, I want there to be another patch of ups - I love that feeling!

Ah well, hopefully I can pull it together so my coach will show me the layback on Thursday. If I skate for him like I did today I doubt he'll have me learn anything new.

Shine!!!: i'm finally getting the hang of my loop!! Also my sitspins weren't too bad. i got third place in moves, and last place (again! ) on my freeskate.

Rain: Isn't much rain up here, weather wise or skating wise!!!

~kittie

shine:
my jumps were pretty big and high today, i had a dance lesson today

RAIN: coach cut my lesson because i was popping out of my axels, i didnt have the energy for them to day (sighs) hopefully i will be able to do them on thursday

~Cutie

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Skating is suppose to be fun , no PRESSURE at all

~*Courage*~*Confidence*~*Consistance*~

Rain:
Returned to working on the forward/back three turn patterns for Silver moves. Blech. A previous coach had taught me to do back three turns by letting the hips guide the roation. My current coach has told me to forget that and use my shoulders and stong checks before & after the turns to get them done. I understand her point completely, but it's hard to re-think the move in that way. So the bottom line is that I had the stumbliest three turns ever this morning.

Shine:
Despite the issues with three turns, I did manage to pull off some very nice BO three turns on both feet. At the end of my lesson my coach wanted me close out the day by trying a flip jump and doing a sit spin, just for the sake of doing something other than moves for the first time in three weeks. I got enough rotation on the flip, although I landed double footed. I was satisfied considering I hadn't even practiced it once for about five months. My sit spin was still looking good, despite weeks of non-practice. All the power pull and crossroll drills must be paying off because there was a loud, distinct "rip" sound as I was holding the BI edge before the entry.

I was all alone for 20 minutes-I played Enya! Then put on Ice Princess! Cool (yeah, I'm that weird!)

Rain: for some reason (I'm TIRED maybe?) my height wasn't on my waltz's today; couldn't or didn't really bend in the knee....and my sit spins weren't all that deep, more hunched over than anything (although one was 4 revs).

Shine: Eureka! I think I've made a breakthrough on the Salchow!!! I'm hoping it sticks at least through tomorrow (private lesson)....I did pad up quite a bit but didn't fall (don't know if that's good or not?) And, I did get some "coaching" from a 9-year-old who watched and helped me out...(hey, any port in a storm!) I did 2-foot some, but did 2 without putting my foot down! My spins were ok. Back edges ROCKED!!!!!!!!!! I had LOBES!!!!!! I only 2-footed once!!!!!!!

Then I had to leave early to get my son from daycare, stuff some McD's into him and drive him to Scouts, only to find out that they had called the house (duh, I wasn't there-they have my cell #) to say no Scouts tonight.......so we went back home, took showers and ate candy (shhhh! don't tell!) And for some strange reason, I've been incredibly thirsty today! Parched! Even with all this rain!!!! Weird!

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

Shine-
Flying camel is back and so is low sit spin.

Rain-Fell on power pulls into rockers! GGRRRR. Saw my feet as I fell. Ouch.
I'm too old for this &^%*.

Tomorrow I hope to get brackets semi decent. Can't control the free hip. Something different! Why oh why do I do this to myself?
This is why I don't test, just practice!

Sunshine (not that there's a lot around today - but we really need the rain down here):

BO edges this morning (these ones are my favourite of all the edges anyway. Go figure.) I actually managed accurate half circles (no cheating the entry) without putting the free foot down. Both feet. Yay! (Not every attempt, but hey, it's a start!) FO edges had an "aha" moment (many such moments are still needed on these) - I found that by placing the arms lower by my sides and passing them through actually touching the hips on the way, I maintained the edges and the lobes were accurate. (Sadly, this didn't work as well for the FI ones. We won't even talk about the BI ones.)

Plus dance coach told free coach that I "can" push hard and extend the leg and point the toe and keep the back straight and get a really nice line now, on the progressives as well as general stroking....

Rain

.....but I don't. Not all the time anyway. It's so hard to keep it up for every stroke! No wonder they say dance is such a good workout.

Also (perpetual whinge), my blades need re-setting, and I'm really starting to notice it. I know I need to do something about it, but I was hoping to get something done about the blades first. In another thread someone suggested I keep an eye out for secondhand blades, so I started that process this morning. My dance coach (who has some blades) said she'd check around for me.

While I was talking to the dance coach about the whole blade problem, the freestyle coach came up, and indicated that he doesn't want dance blades, but the dance coach does. What to do? To get out of a tight spot, I half-jokingly suggested they sort it out between themselves and tell me the correct answer in due course. Has anyone else encountered this? What did you do?

Cloudy (?)

I'm not sure whether this is rain or shine: why oh why are FI mohawks so much harder than FI choctaws??

We were forecast shedloads of rain overnight and all day today, but here we are at lunchtime and not a drop has fallen!

Rain: Had a really bad skating day today, one of those days when very little worked well. My coach was 45 minutes late, and by the time he finally got there, he was like, "What have you worked on, how has it gone?" so I was like, "This was cr*p, that was cr*p, the other was okay, but only okay....". Especially my back cross-rolls.

Sunshine, I think: Whereupon I proceeded to have one of those "inverse coach moments" when everything really worked pretty well! Better, in fact, than in my practice. Even the back cross-rolls were reasonable. After three reminders, coach did look at my solo dances for Oxford, but the only real criticism he had was that I need to point my toes more.

Overcast and cloudy: The big problem with having improved this year - and I have - is that I'm so aware of what I'm doing badly! I can often feel what is wrong, but can't correct it. Why do we do this so-frustrating sport???? There are times when it really doesn't feel as though I am any better than the first day I tottered into group lessons. The other day a friend commented on my improved speed during my FO swing rolls - I felt they were really slow!!!!

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

When we were taught the forward edges (and we still work on them in class, you can never get too much of a good thing) she tells us to keep our arms close to our body like we do when we walk-and for the FI edges to really keep them close (think "penguin arms"). If that helps. It's really hard to think arms & legs at the same time with edges-I get really confused at times....my other coach had me "do the hula" for my back inside edges in order to get me to swing my weight over that edge scary but it worked.
Good luck finding blades!!!

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

Rain: I fell on a forward crossover. How dumb!

Shine: I learned how to spin today! So now I can do a two-foot spin and the beginning of a one foot spin. Coach says I might be a natural spinner and next week I'm going to learn a proper entry into a scratch spin. Ack! But spinning is a lot of fun.

We also revisited bunny hops and then I learned mazurkas. I have a feelings these jumps would have been much cooler when I was six. But I feel prancy! Poing poing poing...

Lol....my skate buddy never fails to mention just how silly adults look doing ballet jumps and bunny hops. It's just something you CAN'T do cool, no matter how good you are if you're over the age of say, 10.

bunny hops are EVIL!!!!!

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

Shine: Began the process of choreography this morning. We've got about a minute done. I really like my music (LOTR) and my coach came up with some good, klutz friendly moves. I performed just over a minute of the program at the end of our lesson. That's more than 1/2 because it's a bronze lady program. I managed to land lutz/loop, salchow and loop. I've got a sit/change sit and a serpentine spiral sequence thus far.

During my warmup, the backcrossovers to back outside edges were ok. The pattern needs sharpening, but I am getting four nice glides on each side and I'm not having trouble finished the entire sequence. I did two complete patterns.

Rain: Lots more work to do on 5 step mohawks.

I do bunny hops as part of a section of my footwork in my FS program. But since I'm a grown-up, it looks more like "funny hops" to me!

Rain:

• Sleep-skating again!!! I was barely awake during my lesson and was trying to absorb my secondary coach's instructions on footwork. (She made one minor change to my footwork on my existing FS program, never mind the layout of the rest of my program) Poor woman was frustrated trying to get things thru to me... and I was frustrated trying to get what she's telling me.
• Lower back was complaining again after the lesson... Gotta be careful...

Shine:

• The FS program is finally laid out!!! WHEW!!! Now to actually skate it to music... (It's much better now!!! VERY NICELY spread out and the jumps and spins are evenly distributed throughout the rink!!!)

__________________
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!!!

Rain: Back on the ice after 6 days and two Thanksgiving dinners. Felt rather shaky at first, and eventually got my feet under me, but I just hate that feeling of being unsure of myself after a few days off the ice. Worked on spins for most of the hour, and they were all crap. Backspin is a lost cause, and I couldn't even get my forward spin centered.

Shine: A couple was practicing some gold dances, so I played around with those a bit while the music was on. Funny how much easier they feel now! Did two loop jumps without any warm-up (usually work up from waltz, sal, toe, to loop), so that was a nice confidence-booster.

Blades felt a bit skiddy today, so I got them sharpened after the session since they haven't been done for a while. Hoping that will make a difference for tomorrow's lesson!

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Rain:
The sitspin, ugghh!!! When will I EVER get this???

Shine:
Everything else, but especially my loop and skating the ENTIRE Bronze MIF test in 15 minutes with little or no exhaustion. Now, I can't wait to take this test, but will someone ask me that again closer to test day.

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Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Shine: Getting circular footwork for freedance, already fast just working on making unison better. Getting better on some dances
Axel 1/2 loop d sow got 2 clean, several large easy d toes, and solid on flip 2 toe, very strange. Axel is also getting very easy and lazy. Spins continue to get better.

Rain: Something has to change soon, my luck is not this good.

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