Purring:
-My first trip to the all-new Thursday morning "coffee club." We can play whatever music we want, and coffee and EVIL donuts are available just off the ice. And, it looks like I could even do private lessons during that time, which would rock, because I'm still at the level when I have to skate with the wee kiddies who aren't so good at yielding to a fast, crazy woman.

Gradually feeling stronger and more like myself, but

GROWL! My ankle just conks out after 35-45 minutes. It's just plumb worn out, when the rest of my body has only just gotten started. I'll have to think of something other than spins that's also easy on my left ankle (can do only so much spinning before I want to throw up--yep, back at that stage again).

Ha, coach told me our rink is hosting the state champs in December and how about getting something together because she wants as many adults competing as possible?! I said let's see. . . am I ready to humiliate myself again??

One of the rinks I skate at makes the skaters wear this bright orange vest. They tried to give to me...but it's like a child's size medium or something. I laughed - there is NO way I could fit in that tiny thing. My coach ends up carrying it and following me through my program. A sash is a much better idea!

And only because everyone else is doing it, here are my kitties (Penny is the big Maine Coon-ish one on the left, and Nutmeg is the one on the right. Her eyes are blue...they always come out devil red in photos! )

Growling, Snarling & Spitting Too:
After teaching this morning for an hour and 15 minutes, and doing just a little skating for myself, that L inside ankle bone was fiercely painful. There is now what looks like a cyst on it. I had another lesson half an hour after the last morning one, so I put a piece of sheerling on the ankle, and it got me through that lesson, but my L foot hurt so much at the end that I had to power pull off on the R foot. When I took my boot off, it was so painful that I ran home to get my old boots, hoping they would be better. Well, after teaching for three hours in them (with the sheerling), I was in so much pain that I had to take the skates off and walk barefoot through two rinks to get to my shoes in a back office. I have an 11 AM appointment with Klingbeil and have had to cancel my own lesson tomorrow afternoon. I'm really desperate now, because I have a heavy teaching schedule on both Sat and Sun. Someone suggested cutting a hole in a few cosmetic pads and I'm going to try that. Any other ideas? Off to soak the feet.

PS - the old boots are disasterous! The blades are a 1/4 inch longer and I nearly caught the toe pick several times. Now the R ankle hurts too. How did I ever manage in them? One used pair of custom Klingbeils/Coronation Aces now for sale!

What time is your coffee club, and how many usually skate on it? Ours hasn't taken off at all, and I don't know if it's the price or the time or both.

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NICE!!!

Good! That should help a little bit. We have "construction orange" sashes here... Of course, I'm surprised given how small it is that I can belt in pretty easily.

Growling:

Primary coach added more stuff to the choreography on the artistic number. And he liked the stuff that secondary coach put in there too! (His first words when I came in was "Okay, so what else did secondary coach put into your program?" There are more people who are getting a sneak peek at my artistic number now and the reception is VERY POSITIVE!!!

Purring:

WHA!?!?! I have to learn to be FUNKY, flirty and FLAMBOYANT too!?!?! (Trust me -- some of the stuff that primary coach gave me is gonna take some time for me to adjust to. )

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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!!!

Purring

Had my lesson last night and i like the way my new coach structures my weekly half hour lesson - 15 minutes on moves and basic skating then aternates between 15 minutes of spins and 15 minutes of jumps!

This week we did lots of back outside three turns and back inside turns. Having spent two years being really scared of them and getting nowhere, she's turned it all around for me, she's just so encouraging with the tiniest of advances that it really motivates to push my self out of my comfort zone and get some back inside three turns done! Hurray!

Then onto jumps. Did a couple of really nice floaty waltz jumps. The new stretching my free leg right through pointed felt so weird a month ago when i had to start doing it and now it makes so much more sense - i jump higher and longer than i ever did before and it feels great to do it.

Made some progress on the toe-loop as well. She's taken all of the curvey entry out and wants a straight entrance to it and i manged to pop a couple of big ones off in the end.

Loop was giving me fits but eventually i landed two on one foot (though too far forward). Apparently the thing that got me to keep my free hip up and skating foot off the ice was to think of a piece of string running from my foot up to my hand...hand come in and up so foot has to do the same and keep up!

Growling
My salchow has well and truly left the building Coach thinks that mt attempts (which i thought were pretty good) are too swingy. The three turn is too curvey and turn too much before the take off. She's making me work on leading with my left arm and leg and leaving them in the same place through the turn - keeping the three as flat as possible. It has thrown everything off on the jump and i can't quite feel what it is i shoul dbe doing on the prep so i can't for the life of me get the jump. I'm going to work on the prep edge and forget the jumping for while.

Same with the flip - am running the drills that everyone recommended. They are really helping but i've decided to not do any jumping yet until i've re-learned the entrance without two footing it. I braved a couple of no-rotation jumps towards the end and managed to get the free leg up and off the ice with a lot of my weight back. This will take work

Ant

Had a really bad lesson which left me feeling really bad about my skating and begging coach to let me off the ice-

Growling:
Loops, Flips, Lutzes = GONE!!! I don't know where they went but they are so far gone it is unreal. I'm not even crossing my legs in the air anymore.
Camel is regressing.

Purring:
Going through a lot of personal drama lately and for an hour I was focused on how badly I skate as opposed to all the drama in my life.

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Happily defying the laws of physics when I skate...and not in a good way

If I could meet ole Axel Paulsen, I would kick him in the teeth

President and Founding member of the I hate Toe-Loops Club

Still a member, but trying to get out of the Pre-bronze peanut gallery.

Visit my skating journal

Growling:
they don't have the skates I want! I've been trying to buy new skates for like 6 months now. Sure, I can get risport, but I don't want to!!! ugh.
Anyway they *might* come in on tuesday now. *sigh*

Purring:
sitting down on 1 leg into hydroblade/sit spin position is working while keeping the weight on my toes (I always get my weight onto my heel, so I can do hydroblades fine, but I can't do sit spins at all). I can't get back up from it yet without leaning on the heel, but hey, I've got patience

Purring: Getting more comfortable skating at the mall rink which is 5 minutes from my house. They have recently made some changes and are keeping the ice better and are cleaning the ice more often so it is more appealing to skate there than before. The silly politics at my old rink plus the 20-minute hectic-traffic commute was really starting to get to me. I will still go there once a week for maybe a lesson or at least a visit with my great coach, but the time has come to cut the apron strings to the place that basically just wants to be a hockey rink.

So the new (actually not so new - I go to dance sessions there and have been skating there off and on for the 14 years that I've been in Portland) rink has pretty sparse public session in the morning and the ice is good. I worked a little on figures (there is a rumor that Pacific Coast Sectionals will host a figures competition this year!) and did some Moves and parts of dances and it felt pretty good. There was one friend on the ice and a couple of adult lessons so we pretty much had the ice to ourselves. As I was leaving I met a new young man who just moved here to go to college and he is an ice-dancer and will be attending our social sessions - very nice! It's always good to meet new skaters! (Unfortunately I have found that the college students often show up once or twice and then they get too busy to actually do any skating...)

Growling: Well, I do miss my old friends at the other rink. At the mall rink I have to dress differently because it is basically not cold at all and there is not as good of control of the music as the mall muzak is always playing in the background. Oh well, I can always use the iPod!

My hip and right leg feel much better this week but my old fractured foot hurts to step on... I have to get a lot of body work and do a lot of yoga/PT to work this baby out - getting old is h*ll.

I'd like to post a photo or two of my cats but don't know how...

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Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

They are beeeyootiful!


PURRING
No emergency room visit needed (whew!)

WHIMPERING
This morning I made the mistake of deciding, "Just one more axel and then I can stop" instead of quitting when I knew I was getting fatigued. I don't know how the heck I did it, but I fell and hit my chin and also the top of my left hand. Now I have a big purple lump on the top of my left hand and my chin looks just like Jay Leno's (provided his was also purple with a little red scrape on the bottom). I am trying to type with one hand so I can keep my left hand elevated. . . I'm also completely avoiding typing with my chin.

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

SPSHNORT!-- oh there goes another good cup of tea! Where's my tissue?

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Bill Schneider

ROTFLMAO!

9-11 Thursday mornings, ages 21 and up. We've had 10-12 most weeks (this was only the third week). We'll see if it continues. The largest demographic is the retired folks, for obvious reasons : ) The Friday am session (7-8:30) gets quite good attendance as well--lots of people go before work/classes.

I'll be interested to see if they keep the 12-3 public sessions. . . I was there last Friday and it was just me and dance buddy. Forgot to ask him this week if anyone else showed up. Natch, I hope they keep them : )

So sorry to hear about your boot fiasco, dbny. I hope you get things sorted out quickly so the pain goes bye-bye.

Purring: I actually got ot go skating for the first time in a long time! We didnt' have classes today, so I went and basically just goofed off wth a friend. Didn't actually get much done, but it just felt so good to be back on the ice. I attempted a few spins, couple jumps. I wasn't really trying to do much, just messing around, having some fun. Me and my friend were the only ones on the ice, it was great. You could skate around, pretend to be an Olympic Champion as you skate to old 80s music. j

Growling: Not much, other than one fall I had. I was trying to spin, and somehow fell. From the waist down, I stopped spinning. The rest of me kept on spinning so my back is a bit sore because I think I twisted it, but other than that, it's fine.

Purring: Ice practically empty this morning, only one Junior couple, who left when it was time for the she-skater to go to school. After which, there were three middle-aged men and me on the ice!

We spent some time trying to choreograph Husband a spiral sequence for his new programme, but there weren't any TSs or coaches around, and we don't really know what you need to do apart from that his knee has to be higher than his behind and he has to hold that for at least 3 seconds per edge. He thinks to go in to it from a hydroblade (copying another skater at our rink, he does a hydroblade-straight-into-spiral which most people don't have enough leg-strength to do, and he is wobbly), and then finish with his spiral-into-loop-jump, which he reckons is the only way he _can_ do a loop jump right now!

Then we worked on our step sequence and then the Fiesta Tango.

Growling: Husband had a nasty fall, although he only banged his elbow. But now his bruises have bruises.... Our Fiesta was dreadful. After he'd gone, I was all alone on the ice, something I hate unless I'm competing.

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

what's a hydroblade?

growling - Too many munchkins on the ice. I'm getting spoiled from early am sessions with almost no one on the ice. These pm sessions have too many little people! I really don't want to behead any of them with my blade, but somehow I seem to be invisible to them.

purring - oooh coach says I'll be ready soon to test my pre-bronze moves!!! Yikes, that's scary.

sorry about your chin, doubletoe - I agree you should avoid typing with it for a few days

nice kitties, everyone.

Thanks for the info, LilJen.

doubletoe - Weren't we just talking about that kind of thing on another thread? It's always that "just one more" that does it! Glad you didn't need stitches, and you are wise, indeed, to watch out for those nasty keyboards.

My boot seemed good when I tried it on at Klingbeils, and Don also worked on the R boot, which had become a bit loose, and was pronating like the L used to do . I ended up working a few hours today (my only day off), off ice, because of special circumstances, but resisted putting the skates on. I'm working from 10 to 3 tomorrow, and bought a gel insert for shoes that I can cut into doughnuts for more ankle protection, if necessary. The skating director actually said she would make an exception for me and let me coach from the boards in my shoes, but there's only one student I could actually make that work with, so my feet have to hold out tomorrow!

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Like a shoot-the-duck, but done travelling backwards and on an edge, oftentimes a very deep one.

Like this, only Husband's isn't nearly as good.

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

Why is it that this just sounds so totally normal for a skating message board?

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When asked what his "secret" to success was, Wayne Gretsky said: "Skate to where the puck is going and not to where it has been."
Is the figure skating version of this: Skate as if you're doing an axel and not just learning how to hop?

Ooops! You are right! I haven't seen too many announcements that mention ISI3=pre-bronze but then again, I'm here in ISI country...I'm going mostly by the chart on Don Korte's site. http://www.sk8stuff.com/f_rules/level_equivs.htm

I ditched work yesterday because I was feeling the need for a personal day. I really miss my daughter and was feeling overwhelmed. So-GO SKATING!!! I had a nice skate, even though the ice was really crappy from the previous night's hockey. My back 3s are coming along. Did some toe-loops at speed (i.e. going around the rink and speeding up) and they were nice. My spins are happening if I take them easy.

I need to swap out my blades soon, and hit the new ones with the Pro-Filer I bought (3/8"). My back is slowly healing so that's a good thing. And tomorrow is audition for the ice show. I am to the point where i dont care if i am a snowflake or not. I have better jumps now and more flow.

ETA: My coach gave me a nice compliment Wednesday at the end of the lesson..,.forgot to mention it here. She said that compared to last year, my skating has improved so much! Not a little bit, but a lot! From her, that means a lot! She does give praise, but sparingly so it means more when you do get it.

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

Matt Savoie doing a hydroblade

Fast forward to about 3:00 and you'll see a fine example. Although I highly recommend the rest of the program as well!

Congratulations Emberchylde!!!!!!

Purring: Good sit spin today - good 8 step sequence (I don't know when I'll test silver moves but I like to practice this) - and I finally memorized the part of the program we've got choreographed so far. Got skates sharpened...yay for edges! Worked on forward power pulls a little.

Growling: Sheesh what a crowded freestyle I was on - I envy all of the kids who just go for what they need to do and don't care how crowded it is. I on the other hand search for free ice which is no longer free by the time I get there and then bail out and I look like nervous adult skater lady to them.

My loop was kinda lame, I could tell it had no height - but I had a nasty fall on it last week so wasn't as gutsy today. One part of footwork feels awkward. Stuck butt out too much because I kept leaning over and looking for people around me.

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Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

*swoon* I miss his skating.

Growling Woke up this morning with my eye completely red, hoping I don't have pink eye or another corneal ulcer- can't wear contacts today, which stinks because I hate skating in my glasses. The world is trying to make this test hard on me!

PurringEdge class went well. I can't do spirals on edges at all. My leg just goes crazy.

Went back after LTS and practiced only about 20 minutes. Ran through everything on the test, and I know I can do it. Now I just have to wait until test time.

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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)

Morgail PM'd me and told me how to upload an image so I'm trying that out right now...

but it didn't work out....

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Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/