I am new to skating and haven't seen myself on tape. But I have seen lots of tapes of me dancing (Irish) and boy do I cringe at times! Yes, the camera adds pounds, don't worry about that, people simply look heavier on film. As for the other stuff, I know that I get really self critical watching a tape. That can be good in the sense that it makes me work to fix things, but I also think sometimes it is easy to get too self critical. I won a silver medal at our state games and watched the tape with friends from my dance group. They all said I looked great, while I picked on tons of stuff. When I pointed most things out, they thought I was making way too much of it, or flat out disagreed with me. There was only one thing that they agreed with me that I really needed to work on (straining my neck on leaps so that I look like a bobble head doll!). Anyway, I say don't lose confidence and use the tape as motivation. Maybe pick out the one or two things you saw that you want to improve most and then work on those.

I know I have a woossy waltz jump, but nobody told me it was a 3 turn with a hop! Don't think I would believe them anyway. I wasn't kicking my leg through but cetainly thought I was until I saw it on tape. It's not 100% fixed, but I'm on my way.

I highly recommend a video at least once. You may not like what you see, but people are watching so you may as well see it yourself. Remember the story The "Emperor's New Clothes?"

Wow! I had no idea I was in such good company! Thanks for making me feel better. Now that it's been a few days, maybe I can go back and look at the video more objectively. I really need to stand up straighter in my scratch spins, front and back. And I definitely need way more jump height!

But I think I'll stop obsessing about my thighs now.

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Here's a good trick: Get a job as a judge at the Olympics. Then, if some guy sets a world record, pretend that you didn't see it and go, "Okay, is everybody ready to start now?".
- Jack Handey