I LOVE YOUR SIG , doubletoe. hahahaha i feel so like that somedays.

Crayonskater, I feel your pain, I once lived in an area where the only rink was
the university rink and had no car. Whereabout are you? perhaps we can give some suggestions... I found out years afterwards that there indeed was a rink available nearby and accessible by mass transit when the university rink was closed during the summer.. duh, i know...

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Keep Evolving. "From this moment forward, every voice that told you - You Can't - , has been silenced." - Freedom Writers

As Slusher said above, you would easily be able to learn the first 5 or 6 dances. I don't know which dances you learn in the US, but here in the UK we start with the Novice Foxtrot with is just a run followed by a sustained outside edge and then swing roll. You do it to the left, then the right. It is very simple.

The next 5 dances (rhythmn blues, dutch waltz, canasta tango, golden skaters waltz and riverside rhumba) build on that and are all forwards skating but each dances introduces new steps such as chasses, closed chasses, slip chasses, cross in fronts, inside swing throughs, cross rolls.

I've been learning to skate since the beginning of May and have an ice dance coach. We are still working on the basics such as 3s, crossovers, edges, cross rolls etc but he has also taught me all of the first dances. I can't do any of them very well but I find them really good fun and working on those also has the benefit of improving my other skating. We tend to spend the first 20 mins of my lesson working on the basic skating and then we have fun in the last 10 mins doing a dance or two.

So go for it and ask your coach if you can learn some of the dances

Here is a link to a thread with MITF and Dance patterns, if that helps.
http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=21693

I thought there was also a Figures pattern website, but I can't find it now.

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These are *exactly* the type of people who can help you out! Go make friends!!! Doesn't matter if they're your age, younger than you, or older than you--they have knowledge and experience that you need, and I'll bet that they'll be just as willing to help you out as we all are.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!

Hi Crayonskater

3 points:

- I sympathise with the problem of limited ice access. If it isn't possible to get to another rink when your 'home rink' is closed, maybe you could do another activity - say dancing, during the closed season? Clearly it wouldn't be the same as skating, but at least you'd keep fit, and dance helps you improve your posture/move to music etc

- with regards to your coach, I agree with others in that your coach is being a bit restrictive. The thing with skating is, you NEVER get an element perfect, or that is to say you can always jump higher, get a deeper edge...etc etc, so IMHO it is a bit pointless only working on one element. I have found that working on different elements helps me correct faults in others...for example, working on sit spin is gradually helping me centre a camel, working on 'hard' jumps like flip has given me more guts to jump higher in waltz jumps

- I am lucky to have 2 good coaches who are very encouraging. However, as an adult skater I think you have to be a bit assertive and say what you want to achieve. When I told my respective free skate and ice dance coaches I wanted to try a programme, and was aiming to *eventually* test and compete, my free coach went straight out to find me some music, and my ice dance coach has 'decided' I'm going to try for the British adults next year....

S xxx

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

Ballet and other dance classes in the off-season is a great idea!
Also, with the money you're not using for rink entry or lessons, you can buy a pair of Pic Skates, will will allow you to do many ice skating maneuvers off the ice:
http://www.picskate.com/

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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

Ah, another reason for me to move to SF...was recently out there, didn't have time to skate but this is good to know!

Update:

The plan now is to talk to my old learn-to-skate coach this week and see if she wouldn't mind giving me ice dancing lessons once a week with a friend. We'll see how I feel once I'm a little bit less bored out of my mind.

But it seems that a Dutch Waltz is something I could do. It looks hard to perfect but easy to learn.

In addition to the moves, you could ask your coach to start teaching you some of the beginning dances; the Dutch Waltz, Canasta Tango, Rhythm Blues. They are fun to learn, all have interesting footwork, and let's not forget about tha "lovely" ice-dance music . Seriously, ice dance can really teach you to cover the rink-you have to really push yourself to get the pattern in the right place at the right time. Plus, it's fun!

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

Perhaps part of the problem with your 3-turns is with your boots and/or blade placement. In the first 2 or 3 years that I skated, I had stock boots that did not correct my foot pronation. When I got custom boots, things improved dramatically. Then later I got custom orthotics and things improved rapidly yet again. Then later I got new blades and things improved overnight again. Even later, I began to pay attention to how the blade was mounted, and having the blade straight is crucial! Depending on your preferences, it can also help to have the blade mounted slightly to the inside of center. Have an experienced skate technician look at your boots and blades. So in my experience, every improvement in equipment led to an almost instantaneous improvement in my skating skills.

How would I be able to tell if I'm pronating? Or at least pronating badly enough to warrant fiddling with the equipment?

I read somewhere that you should see what you do in a one-foot glide and if you curve inward, you pronate; problem is, my one foot glide goes whereever I tell it to, so if I am naturally pronating or supinating, I'm correcting it very quickly. Would how I normally stand be a good guide?

Musing that most problems for me are likely technique, not equipment, what with the four months of ice access and coaching issues.

Okay, there are two things to consider:

Blade alignment:
You can check if your blade alignment is right by gliding on one foot on the blue hockey line. If you curve inward and you make an effort to correct it and it's still a lot of effort, your blade alignment needs adjusting on that skate.

Pronating/Supinating:
You can tell not from your skates, but from your regular shoes. If you have shoes with wooden heels (thicker heels are better), put them next to each other with the heels next to each other. Look at the back of the heels. If you see that the heels are wearing out more on one side of the shoe than the other, you might be pronating/supinating and may need orthotics to balance things out.

You don't want pronating/supinating b/c you're favoring one side more than the other and you will wear out one side of your hips and lower back more than the other.

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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 had some of the same thoughts... I really like teaching adults (I'm only 25 myself) and I've found that a lot of coaches seem to think that you have to show kids things that are above what they can truly *do* to keep them interested, yet these same coaches seem to think adults are somehow immune from getting bored. Yes, most adults are willing to work harder and longer on basics than your average 9-year-old, but that doesn't mean they're going to be happy like that forever!

FWIW, these are a few things I'd personally be willing to introduce to a student at your level:

-back edges
-mohawks
-backward to forward turns on two feet
-lunges
-spirals
-two foot spin
-introductory dance steps (progressives, chasses, swing rolls) and possibly prelim dances
-first few pre-bronze MITF

That's not to say that you'd be able to *do* all of those things any time soon, but they're all things that take awhile to master, so there's no real reason not to start them early.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!