In "honor" of my injuries from my most recent accident!

Smooth landing:
Skating seems to be strong this evening. The moves (where I can managed thru b/c of the big crowds tonight) seem to be pretty strong.

Face Plant:
This is what's gonna happen to me AGAIN if they don't fix this ditch on one side of the rink before the test session!!! Seems NOTHING is getting done about this problem and the likelihood of it being fixed is nil until Sept., when our annual ice maintanance happens. Thank goodness I skate at another rink on weekends and have tons of other rinks to go to practice in my neck of the woods if I absolutely needed to!

__________________
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!!!

Smooth landing: Spins! A waltz jump that made my group lesson coach go "Oh, that was nice," and he is awfully stingy with the praise.

Face plant: I have been wearing sweatpants to skate in, and unfortunately they are somewhat loose in the ankle. Two days ago, I was going backward and caught the back of my blade in the cuff and went down like a sack of rocks. Missed the back of my head, though I hit so hard that I saw stars anyway- I was skating on an empty adult session and spent an anxious 10 seconds or so laying on the ice trying to figure out if I'd seriously injured myself, and if so, whether anyone would find me. No more of those pants!

Speaking of which, what do you DO when you faceplant in a competition? I watched the rink's summer competition recently, and some of the girls fell- one girl looked like she fell HARD and even slid a ways, but she was up so fast and smiling that if you had looked away for a few seconds you wouldn't have known she fell. Other girls, everything was thrown off for the rest of their skate. So, is there some trick to continuing a skate when you feel like your hip might be broken?

ACTING! If you're not sure if you are hurt, get up as quickly as possible and act like nothing happened. You can limp off the ice afterwards and get an ice pack. But if you're body is sending out shooting pains -- skate/hobble/limp over to the referee and say "I'm hurt and have to withdraw". I've fallen MANY times during competitions.. and just the idea of having to say that has made me feel worse than a little bang-up on a hip/knee/elbow. The worst thing that ever happened to me was I had a bad (landing) ankle and re-sprained it about 1/3 of the way through a program... so I just favored that side the best I could and acted as if "Everything is JUST fine!" -- only my coach knew what had happened, until after I took my bow... then I skated on my good foot over to the boards and my coach said "You hurt it again on the flip, didn't you?" Everyone else thought my program was fine. It may not have been my greatest skate, but it was one of my better PERFORMANCES!

Also my coach has a rule when we do program run-throughs: No stopping unless you are actually hurt or you fall and get the wind knocked out of you and CANNOT skate. And if you are that badly hurt, she insists on getting off the ice... and the lesson clock is still ticking... which helps me decide if I'm REALLY hurt.. or just feeling sorry for myself for falling.

Mostly, the adrenaline from competing carries you through. I know it did us when we had a crashing fall in our last competition - Husband said he was fine, so we scrambled up and carried on, without missing a beat, practically. It wasn't until a couple of days later that he started to really feel the bruises!

Back on the ice today:

Smooth Landing:

• Coaches were back, so we had our lesson.
• John Hamer, the British champion, was visiting, as he sometimes does; always good to watch him skate.
• Lesson went well, mostly exercises, which were simple in idea, but hugely difficult to do well.
• Our friend K landed her axel and our coach saw her do it!

Face Plants:

• Although we only missed one practice while we were away, it felt as if we hadn't been on the ice for a month! And there was so much to catch up on with the coach, including the judge's critique of our Fiesta, and who had passed what test, and..... felt like we'd been away a month and he'd been away for several....
• Ice was packed: all the dancers, plus our coaches' summer school, plus John and his girlfriend, plus various others.
• Coaches were late! Not badly, but enough that Husband couldn't concentrate on our practice.
• We didn't get to do more than exercises in our lesson; mind you, we needed them!
• Mostly to do with moving our shoulders and upper bodies; we both have problems with that.
• In solo practice, I'm quite sure my dance moves get worse and worse and worse....

been away two months!

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

Plant - was working on brackets trying to break in the skates and fell over like a tree.

Smooth - Did about 1/2 hour in the killer skates, could do lutz-loops and more spins. I'm going to have them stretched. Also smooth - Mika's lutzes!

__________________
Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

Smooth Landing: Feeling great physically these days and it is starting to reflect in my skating! Bronze Moves getting stronger and prettier and coach is starting to add hand and arm gestures in an effort to get me to show "me" off more.

I think I am FINALLY starting to break in the new boots (gee only 15 months after first putting them on!) Breaking in the ankles and getting more ankle bend, being on the right part of the blade, feeling the flow, yea! Yea! Yea!

The ice this week is finally good (is it the weather -- we've been enjoying cool, sunny '70's) and everything feels smooth, smooth smooth!

Face Plant: I can hardly think of anything -- maybe that BO 3s still my nemesis, along with that right Power 3 -- not the 3, just that darn step forward, but starting to get more in line with that too.

Will I join the Bronze MITF club someday? (Hope, Hope).

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

Smooth landing:
-got to skate today for the first time in a week and a half. Very uncrowded rink. $3 for the hour--a real bargain!

Face plant:
-Felt like I haven't been skating in a year and a half. I felt like an impostor!! Took most of the hour I had to feel at all confident doing most of the things I know how to do, and I didn't feel at all comfortable pulling off a full spiral position (was sure I'd really *do* a face plant if I tried!). I hereby resolve to avoid being off the ice for more than a week at a time (less if possible).
-BI consecutive edges have not deserted me! I don't know if they're pretty but they felt pretty steady; steadier than BO consecutive edges, in fact.

Smooth landing:

Back on the ice after being away for 11 days - wasn’t as rusty as I thought I would be. Worked on forward edges again (control and improving depth) then focused on backward skating. Back inside edges were ok, back outside pretty poor (to be expected since I am so new to backward). Backward stroking started to show some improvement, ALMOST to the point of back cross-over and we finished up with some forward cross-overs. Coach liked my CCW forward cross-overs though I scared the daylights out of her when I was coming toward her and lost my edge!!! LOL!

Face Plant:

MUST get those skates sharpened before I do a face plant! (Or plant someone else's face when I lose my edge - LOL!!!)

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

Smooth Landing:
We finally have a sound system back in our afternoon freestyle rink Yay!
Moves were fairly good- yay again!

Face Plant:
Having a working sound system prompted Secondary Coach to have me do my freestyle program on lesson today. It was only the second time I've done this program since May. Yes it is a mess!!

Loop is still on vacation and the salchow is trying to sneak off too!
Mother Nature was on the ice with me today and stole my sit spin and forward scratch spin- almost stole the backscratch as well!

__________________
Adult Nationals, 2009 "The Time of My Life"

Aww, thanks, but they're really lutz attempts or baby lutzes right now. I have yet to land one completely rotated and completely on one foot except for the one that I think I accidentally did 3 weeks after I started learning the jump. And it happened so quickly that I'm not sure that it wasn't really a bad flip....

Attitude spins were cooperating in my lesson (coach effect strikes again) and we worked on improving height and distance and technique in the sal.

Face plant: Camel spins--here one day, gone the next.... Also, I was a bad girl and didn't do *any* moves practice on Sunday...

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

Plant: Jumps are just wrong. And this from a high of quite a while so its not like I dont know how to do them. Maybe I'm just stressing too much now.

Smooth: Layback is still there

__________________
~
Tidesong

Smooth: My RFI and LBI pivots are actually pivoting, rather than coming to a rapid halt.
My B xrolls are *less* on the toepicks than they were.

Plant: Everything else...

__________________
"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases:
(1) It's completely impossible.
(2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing.
(3) I said it was a good idea all along."
- Arthur C Clarke

Smooth Landing: Nobody much under 50, and certainly nobody under 40, for the first hour this morning - who said this was a kids' sport?

The elite dancers were away, so there were no issues about music at all (when the summer school came on, they had allocated 90 minutes for programme run-throughs; they had done them all in less than half an hour!). We were able to do our compulsory dances - and Husband his solo compulsories, which use the same music - and our free dance. First full run-through of that since our accident; we are deliberately keeping the lift lower than it needs to be, reckoning that it will go higher on the day. It went well..... we were told we looked good - by our opposition, not our coaches!

Opposition looked good, too, and their lift is better than ours, I think. They have a hip lift, which I should have liked to have had in our programme, but only one lift is allowed this year and the hip lift made my back hurt. The woman in the couple said that it makes hers hurt, too, unless they get it just right.

After Husband left it was time for my private lesson - ice was less used than sometimes, so my dance moves went well. Not yet, alas, as well as they need to be.....

Face Plant: Coach made me do forward cross-rolls as an exercise to improve my backwards ones. I had to tell him that for me, they were two totally unrelated things.....

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

Major Face Plant

• Did forward crossovers today and it was the WORST I've ever done. It took 3 tries to finally got it to the point where secondary coach was REMOTELY happy about it. (And the worst part is that this is usually my BEST move!!!)
• Power 3's still needs work. Right now the 3turn is turning too early for her. I'll try to fix this part tomorrow morning with my primary coach.
• Tried doing back crossovers to BO edge but almost got clobbered by more Sr. skaters several times. Finally moved on to another move where at least I could see where I'm going and if there's someone coming up towards me.
• The ditch is getting much better, but there are still patches where it's not fixed. I am adjusting the pattern so I don't run over those patches, but this partly contributed to some of my problems this morning b/c we don't have as much space to skate on. I'm hoping that the patches get fixed soon so I can go back to my comfortable patterns.

Smooth Landing

• Back perimeter crossover were good.
• 5 step mohawks are for the most part pretty good. Of course, I didn't go over that with the coach today.

__________________
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!!!

Smooth Landing: My winter coach (and DEAR friend) finally decided to throw her full support behind my goal of skating at the (Canadian) Adult Nationals next spring. Not only has she agreed to support my quest but would like to come WITH me - WAHOO!!!

Face Plant: Going from a RO to RI edge yesterday, something "popped" in my right ankle. It didn't feel too bad yesterday but today is REALLY sore and weak if I put my weight on the inside of my foot. Going to have to see what it feels like when I put my boots on in a couple of hours. Might have to avoid RI edges today IF I can skate at all!

[Added:]

Super-Duper Face Plant: Went to the rink, put on my boots - some swelling in right ankle - did NOT feel good, no strength. Told coach I'd rather miss a couple of days than risk further injury and miss a couple of weeks (especially with everything coming together) so I packed up and came home. Going to go elevate the foot and put an ice pack on the ankle. Maybe skate tomorrow, maybe not....

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

Smooth Landing: Coach commented on my very nice straight back today on BO edges -- was working on lots of edge exercises -- a straight back is not something I usually have, but for some reason my back has "released" and my posture is better. Is it the new memory foam topper we put on our bed about a month ago?

5-step mohawks and all other moves involving the dreaded step forward are getting better, too --

Did I mention that a couple of weeks ago sexyskates came to visit at our rink and we talked about my step-forward "problem"? She gave me a visual for how my shoulders should be (she has GREAT posture) that has stuck with me and is really helping. Thanks, sexyskates!!

Face Plant: Paint fumes and big painting machine on the ice during the session this morning -- first of all the machine takes up a large corner of the ice, and they keep moving it to different parts of the arena, and they are spray-painting so we are all kind of light-headed and anticipating headaches, but the ice itself is so beautiful this week that you want to take advantage of that and just skate and skate!

It is always something, but I guess that's what keeps it interesting. Of course, for the hockey "stick-time" that follows the public, I am sure that machine will be gone!!

Oh well, at least while they are painting, they have all of the lights on, instead of us figure/public skaters squinting in the dim light they usually have on...

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

Smooth Landing

Struggled through ice dance lesson this morning, posture, position of free leg etc is improving

Lil' brother may be able to lend me the money for new boots

Face Plant

Same old, same old....freakin' right foot still not right - I could hardly walk on it at the weekend. Getting really fed-up, I haven't been able to skate more than once or twice a week (don't want to risk it more than that).

Not skating, but totally fed-up with my job...skating is the one thing I do to release pent-up agression/enjoy myself...and that's scr**** now because of my foot.

S xxx (feeling really down, sorry, will cheer up for next post)

Smooth landing:
I landed a salchow. Well.. I learned it.. and I did it with the half turn on the ice cheaty thing but i jumped and did it and I was so excited. I totally did not understand how you jump from gliding backwards. But yay.

Face Plant:
Ummmmm Hm. Oh I took my Freestyle one test last night and I failed because of my back edges. THEY WERE PERFECTLY FINE. The lady just hates me and wants me to fail at life.

No but seriously.. they were fine. And my coach said to me the day before that they were fine and I'd have no trouble passing.. but whatever.

Oooo do share. that step forward on the power 3's has me baffled. You can send me a PM or an email and we can arrange a meeting for visuals if needed. Oh. and by the way. my coach informed me that there was not an adult MIF event at our comp in Sept. The moves I saw were from the standard track. (pre-juv. I think.)How nice of my rink to be so supportive of adult skaters.

Smooth Landing:
I am finally home from a 10 day business trip from Hades.
At home, the air is cool and crisp in the mornings and evenings. Temperatures are perfect around 78 degrees and 0-10 percent humidity around mid-day. aaaaahhhh!! There's no place like home!

Face Plant:
I have the day off, but I feel so jet lagged I don't even feel like skating today. ...Totally sapped of energy

Smooth Landing
Fiesta tango feels pretty good. Not sure if it is actually good or if that is just in comparison to the willow waltz. But I had a cross rolls breakthrough. I wasn't getting it to centre enough or through quick enough and something clicked and it makes more sense. And I think I understand the pattern of the end properly now so I know what I should be doing. Its just hard as I have to modify slightly to fit our little rink so it will be a bit different for real at competitions

I realised the other day that I'm not aware of which foot I do three turns on now - which is a HUGE breakthrough since I hated doing right forward inside threes or right forward outside threes (actually its basically I hated doing things on my right foot) and the fact that I'm now not aware of it must mean they feel more natural. Its only taken years. I'm a weird one that can jump and spin but can't do a three turn at speed without mildly freaking out.

Axels were good. I'm so happy. I hope it comes back. I even tried double cherries. Haven't tried them since about January. My friend said I nearly landed about 4 properly but I kept falling. No idea why.

Tried double loops which I don't understand and double flips which are fun. I felt much better trying doubles again (even though I can't land any apart from the salchow! and even then only sometimes)

AND I almost did an outside spread - definitely got onto the outside side of a flat - if that makes sense.........

Skating was so much fun this week - more so than normal

Face Plant
Spins. I hate camel spins. I've passed the stupid level 3 test but I still don't feel I can do a camel spin comfortably. My own fault. I should spend as much time on spins as I do on jumps

I miss my free skating lessons.

I'm an odd one apparently as I find double forward outside 3s easier than double forward inside 3s. I swing too much on the inside ones. Dance teacher showed me my tracings. All over the place. First one is good - proper half cirle, all the others were mental.

I am on 2 feet for too long in one part of the willow waltz. I want to blame it one the small rink but I don't think I can. Although it is the back edge before the step forwards after the 1st chasse and out our little rink there just isn't the width.

Spent a LOT of time skating forwards and presenting. I am so rubbish at things like that. Arms and legs just don't like to move at different speeds. Dance teacher wants me to finish my lap of forwards with a cross roll swing but with my arms out and continuing to move to present to the judges. I'm too jerky. My arms so of stop. He does it so nicely and easily. And I feel like an idiot presenting and showing off like that. But he says he used to be like that when he skated so he says he understands and if he can do it so can I.....

Wow that was long....

Face Plant:

Well, not as good as can be... and at the end of the session, I was told to "read the rulebook" and memorize the notes for each of those moves you do!!! It was in the "you better read it dearie, b/c I think you missed something that you should have gotten while doing your moves..." (Great! FINE time to tell me this!!!) Also, the primary coach thinks the ditch is fixed enough that he now wants me to stay on pattern and skate OVER the ditch!!! (His words was "Don't worry about the ditch! You got OTHER things to worry about as is!!! ")

Smooth Landing
Well after my lesson and my being pissy about how my moves are and the comment about checking the rulebook, I was left feeling like I wasn't gonna pass again this time (and it might happen...) Primary coach came out of the coaches' locker room, give me a big hug and said "You're going pass this test! You're gonna do fine!!!" Still pissy, I told him "Stop joking! It was sucky this morning!!!" But he counters "I *AM* being sincere here!!! I really think you will pass it this time!" still laughing. (I don't buy it still!!!)

Then he commented that another coach expresses his exact words of encouragement for my test... "Skate B****!!!" ROFLMAO!!!

__________________
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!!!

Do you mean the rulebook or this?
http://www.usfigureskating.org/conte...hoolManual.pdf

I think this document should be made easier to find. It's so helpful!

$#%@&$# Face Plant! Right ankle still not right - second day of skating missed - no more until Tuesday. *#%$@*%$%# I don'tNEED this - GRRRRR

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

I'll read that when I get home from my job... (Hmmm? Should I be working now? )

__________________
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!!!

No, of course not! (Silly!)