Wot, no practice thread yet? Obviously nobody's been skating this week....

Equinoctial storms: Was sore, stiff and tentative today after the fall on Sunday. Coach recommended a hot bath...

Spring flowers: Not a lot today; it wasn't a good skate day.

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

I wandered around on the ice yesterday, but I don't consider it a practice. I'll try to actually skate today, but no promises are being made.

Equinoctial Storms
I really have to do something about my skates/blades. I don't want to take them to the guy who handles skates at my rink because he'll "level the boot" by sanding off the bottom. Still, there's something wrong with the alignment/placement and I don't know how to fix the problems.

Arrrgh.

Spring Flowers
Bit of footwork - brackets, figure loops, twizzles, tango stops.

Both of the twins passed Pre-Preliminary MITF this weekend!
Now they're dogging me to work on Prelim MITF with them, lol.

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Equinoctial Storms

Skates are with a a gentlemen my coach trusts to sharpen them which means i am without them til my session on Thursday so no skating.

Spring Flowers

I have resumed my old regime i had three years ago of off-ice jumping on matts when i'm in the gym and have found that all the old drills i used to do came back quickly enough. I've lost some of the rotation I had then but am sure i can build it back up again so that was very positive.

I have added to the regime and practice holding camel and sit positions off ice and transitioning between them. Nearly broke my quads doing it!

And finally I have made room after my gym work outs for much more stretching - i have extremely tight non-flexible hamstrings and spend a good 15 minutes stretching my legs out last night after doing two back to back cardio classes and today my legs are tired but not aching like normal! Should have really paid attention to stretching much sooner than now!

Ant

Equinoctal Storms - utter failure to get on the ice Monday (or I'd have started a thread).

Spring Flowers - I was desperate enough for practice time to schedule a half-day off today and spent the morning on a deserted public session. Did many program runthroughs and worked on the rougher edges. Feeling much calmer now. The Camel part of the camel-upright spin may not be so pathetic by Monday.

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It's all about the dress!

Well, I have no excuse for not starting one other than I have to job hunt (and my hubby is expecting some progress in my strategy on how I job hunt in the next couple of weeks. I have to prove him wrong... and that my strategy DOES WORKS!!! ) but here goes....

Flowers:
Landed a few good flips at the beginning of the lesson

Storms:
Couldn't land any GOOD lutz at the beginning of the session, much to my primary coach chagrin, which is why the primary coach moved on to flips.

And later on I couldn't land ANY flips except the last one, cleanly. We left it at that.

Program at the beginning has been changed. My CCW back crossovers is quite sucky compared to the other.

And no runthrus today. There was a HUGE group of about 50 high school kids coming in to skate at our nice quiet public session DURING my lesson!!! GRRRR!!!

And LIZ_ON_ICE!!! I am VERY VERY HAPPY that you finally passed ISI FS 3!!!! You definitely deserve that pass!!! (Yeah, I know. The change foot spin SUCKS for me too. In fact, my backspins STILL SUCKS... and I'm a BRONZE FS lady!!! )

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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!!!

Storms: Axel, where art thou?? Since Easterns, it's completely gone. I can't seem to stop swinging it around on the takeoff, and I don't drive the knee up enough either. I have a competition this weekend and with ANs coming up, I'm in a bit of a panic about it, which dosen't help when I'm trying to practice it.

I'm also having blade issues. My Phantoms are dulling very fast. I just got them sharpened three or four weeks ago, and with skating 2x a week, they're already dull and I'm sliding around, which is making me much more tentative pushing in crossovers and into spins because I'm worried I'll just slip off the blade.

Flowers: Really worked on improving overall polish and presentation in the program and I think it's coming along nicely. Spins are also still inproving, including the flying camel. I usually have a lot of problems with it in the program because I rush it, but I've been able to hit it more often now that my chorographer gave me a point of reference to jump to, which makes me wait to snap into it.

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"Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?"

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Mix of the past two days...

Spring Flowers
-Pretty good jumping day. Everything felt pretty big, but double flips felt AMAZING. Every practice that jump makes me happier and happier. I was so upset about losing it a month or so ago, but now that I've switched to the mohawk entrance, it's so much more consistent and SO much bigger. Did nice 2flip+2loops with solid landings instead of the usual slow checkout.
-A skater asked me to do a camel spin for her after my secondary coach mentioned that I was getting the hang of doing a change edge further back on my blade. I did it and another, rather picky, sometimes nasty skater said, "She has the best camel spin in the rink"
-Split jump double toes are feeling nice. My coach said my air position on double toes is getting much better.
-I've got triple toe to half turn short when I go for it. I've only been working on it for a week, so maybe a triple really is in my future!
-LBO power 3s for intermediate were the best I've ever done them.

Equinotical storms
-FI brackets have a dimple on them most of the time. I don't know if it's bad enough to warrant a retry, but it makes me rather nervous
-Double axels are painfully close. On Monday I almost had them fully rotated, only to open up a fraction too early and crumple to the ice. Had some pretty epic pops too. One of them, I swear, I blacked out in the middle of the jump. I went up, and suddenly I was flying with my legs apart, headed straight for the ice. My coach asked me why I popped it, and I told her, honestly, I don't even remember opening up
-2lutzes are slight 2flutzes. I don't know if it's bad enough to get me an E or even a ! though. The mark on the ice shows an inside edge, but on video it doesn't seem too obvious.
-My right ankle has really been bothering me again. I know it's always going to hurt, but when it flares up, ugh. 2loops hurt the most.

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Youtube Videos

Equinoctial Storms: Back outside edges have disappeared entirely since I last practiced them (there's probably some sort of correlation there...), and I just can't persuade myself to hold the free leg in front for the first part of the curve, even though I am perfectly happy to do so when I do back chasses! Also can't persuade myself to actually jump when practicing three (waltz) jump.

Couldn't do any dances in lesson as a third of the ice was being used for broom ball.

Spring Flowers: Backward inside edges feeling more stable and starting to curve more. In fact, having a session quiet enough to practice backwards anything was good! Also feeling like I'm starting to make progress on spinning. I may get there one day!

Congratulations to the test-passers!

Storms: Only a short session this morning. We can't work out why we can't do the rechoreographed start of our free dance.

Flowers: Worked on Mohawks with Coach2 and know what I am doing wrong now. Whether or not I can correct this is another matter.... Or, not so much I know what I'm doing wrong, I know what I'm doing to make me do it wrong, does that make sense?

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

If that keeps happening, check for the dullness of the blades. And good luck on spins! If you have a spinner, use one to get used to the dizziness. When I started learning 1foot, I would step on newspapers and spin on the tile floor. Personally prefer not to spin on socks because I don't have the choice of getting out of the spin!
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I skated for the first time since 7 days ago!
STORMS
I popped about all my loops in the second half of the practice. Skated so much that my legs refused to do any more toe jumps. Camel deserted me, and all the progress I made on it is gone. Lutz is landed when it's landed, but with the knowing that my flip needs fixing, I think most lutz attempts had me changing my mind. Sat most of the sit spins when I started spinning.

SPRING FLOWERS
AND I didn't lose TOO many stuff. The loop on video looks better, and spins feel better too. I'm starting to lose consistent centering on scratch but there are more revolutions, and awesome speed. Sit spin got better and I could count to 6. Probably not 6 rev though. Friend showed flip, and she really made me realise what's wrong. The video helped that too. I now know what's to be fixed, and can fix it when I'm doing it stationary, but not when I'm moving. No point, eh?
Is that what you meant?

Lesson learnt: DO off ice positions when not skating for a period of time!

When I was a kid, I used to turn around and around until I got dizzy, lol. Maybe that's why I spin so well on the ice? I can use the spinner for a backspin, but the forward spins elude me on the spinner. I lose my balance too easily.

Equinoctial Storms: (I used copy-and-paste to put this title in my posts - I can't spell it, otherwise!)
Toe loops, mazurkas are all crappy. I just can't pick in right to get up in the air and now my ankle hurts.
MITF - While the rink wasn't crowded, I just felt uncomfortable with weaving in and out of the skaters.
Forward power pulls are very weak and my mohawks are awful!
I wish my change-foot sit spin were better. I keep missing the change - can't get the toepick in right.
I tried a few Bell jumps. I hate landing forward. *shudders*

Spring Flowers:
Spins were pretty good; having some trouble with the back scratch, which is strange and unusual but I have a good cross-foot spin coming along.
I'm really feeling the pull back on the forward camel spins and my change-foot is good, but I'm losing a lot of speed on the back camel.
Flip and Loop weren't landed cleanly, but the rotation's there. Split and Split Falling Leaf jumps were good - need more stretch.

Stupid blade alignment problems. I have a lead on a skate tech not too far away, so I'm going to give him a try at some point. I have to have the twins' blades moved to their new boots, so I'm up for a day at the pro shop.

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Do you still have the hard-steel edge or are they just at the end of their life?

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Because of schedule changes at my rink I only start my practice week on Wednesday!

Storms: I have to decide how I want to do my tests next month. I can take my bronze moves at 9:30 am and the Cha Cha at 2:15 (sit around the rink all day and must find an option for dd, who's on spring break). OR--I can take Cha Cha at 2:15 and moves around 2:30--only, if the schedule is behind by more than 15 minutes, I'd have to wait until the 3pm FS session to do my moves tests, with other skaters in the way. . . and probably no warmup. What to do?? Practices have been going pretty well, with coach only nitpicking, but . . .

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"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

CONGRATS to the TWINS!!!!

So my secondary coach asked me this morning what I wanted to learn today. My choreographer was sitting nearby coaching another student when I said (loud enough for him to hear) "I wanted to learnhow to do hockey stops well enough so I can spray ice at SOMEBODY!!!" (Gesturing at choreographer.)

Storms:
She said "<Choreographer's name> sprayed ice at you? GOOOOD!!!" (So much for moral support.... )

The lesson ended up being a loop jump day... and the purpose of this mornings lesson was to HAUL ### around the rink and then do a loop jump, land clean and GLIDE like I own the edge!!!

Storm:
Ummm... didn't quite end up that way for most of the loop jumps. In fact , I landed funny today on the very last loop! Luckily no sprain ankle or anything like that but scary enough that I basically called it the day today!!!

Lower back is slightly sore and it's tell me to "take it easy already... or ELSE!!! "

Flowers:
Choreographer liked the very first loop jump landing. (The guy yelled to my secondary coach "Did you see the flow coming out of that loop jump!?!?!" ) (Note: He was working on the flow of my program last week... the coaches here at my rink like doing the "Look what I made Jazzpants do today!?!?!" thing... )

Storms:
Unfortunately, secondary coach was NOT happy.... b/c today she has the need... for SPEED today!!! So off I go trying to do some fast back crossovers to build up speed and then land a BUNCH of clean loops that glides effortless when I land it. Most weren't that great (almost dead stop), but some were decent!

My assignment this week is to go into the loop jump from back crossovers much faster and land it clean on a nice flow and glide!!! OH, and of course, she wants it consistent too!!!

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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!!!

Regrettably, although my blades are getting towards the sharpening stage, I know in this case the problem is me and not the equipment. A lot of my skating issues are in my head. As for spinning, I'd be happy with a decent two foot spin, never mind one foot! I'm consistently getting two-two and a half revolutions these days though - would probably do better if I could persuade myself to use more push going into the spin! My husband was showing me the one foot spin entry on Monday, which was fun to try, even if I can't really get the spin part! Fortunately I don't have much problem with dizziness, though with only 2-3 slow revolutions, that's hardly surprising! Haven't used our spinner for ages - should try it again.

Storms: I fell really hard on a spiral last Friday and it took until yesterday for me to get the motivation to go to the rink again. And then, when I got there, the coach accosts me about where I had been all week...

Flowers: I did manage to do some decent spins at the beginning of the session last night. I had a really good catch-foot that was complimented and a good sit-bell-backsit.

Storms: During my program, my spins fell apart. I had a weak entrance into my camel-backsit-sit that made my sits really high, had a high sit-bell-backsit, and bailed on my last spin. I really need to work on my endurance more and on thinking through each element better.

Flowers: I got complimented on my jumps, loop in particular. It was really high and pretty (aka in control). My landings have also been very consistent and strong lately. My flip-toe (and I hate toes and think mine are horrible) even improved and was said to look decent.

Storms: My lutz-loop-loop feels really tiny. I worked on it from the entrance in my program, and I think that I lack speed... Thus, the loops are small and spiny in order for me to fit them in.

Tornado: Double run-thrus for nationals start next week!!! I am going to DIE!

Flowers - came in early and took a long lunch to practice my program for Monday. Worked jumps and transitions, put my music on the rink system and had a really good runthrough - despite public skaters and rutty ice.

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It's all about the dress!

Spring Flowers After not having a lesson yet this March, we finally started my Bronze test program this week (designed to be tested hopefully while the year is still 2009, but no time soon). We got the first 30 seconds or so into it- loop jump, footwork, and sit spin so far. Originally that also had my waltz-toe combo, but it was just SO fast that it wasn't going to happen. (I was balking at it, and my coach gave me a "you can do it" sort of speech and then went to do it herself, but in my direction. She skidded out of the waltz jump entry and said "oh, maybe not ... we'll move it"). The beginning of the program is a fun game of "hide the loop". I'm happy with it because I'm really confident with this set up I'll be able to do one as well as I possibly can. Basically we set it up so that I'm doing nice footwork into the loop (back crossrolls ending in a BO3 then step into a push, then 3-turn for the loop)- so that hopefully THAT will be nice and "impressive", and the judges won't realize it's an entrance designed specifically to not make me speed up so that I can do the jump. Then my footwork gets much faster, and I do a wind up into my sit spin- placed such that my adult knees aren't dead by the time I get to that element!

And the nice thing is that so far, it fits the music pretty perfectly! I have an hour scheduled on Saturday to, hopefully, finish it.

Synchro also went really well - with multiple really great program run throughs. We've been doing really really poorly, so it was really nice to have a good practice. Everyone has been focusing on ISI Synchro Nats, about a month off, and most the team had forgotten we have a show next weekend! So we have the programs at the "not embarassed anymore" at a show level, and now we just need to clean them for the comp.

Storms Arm STILL hurts, not sleeping well. But not really skating related, except my arms which are usually strong aren't really being used to their fullest.

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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)

Flowers: I drove to North Carolina last weekend, so I got to skate with Looplover on Sunday, it was so much fun! This week my spins have just been fantastic for me, I'm hitting that sweet spot, getting a consistent scratch spin, and really going fast. It only took 12 years....

Storms: First time I skated my footwork program today, my coach reamed me out about my posture through the mohawks and 3-turns. She was sooooo right, sigh. She rarely gets mad at me, but this time she had every right, it was the first time in years my posture had been so bad.

Flowers: Second time through my footwork program, I fixed my posture and coach was happy.

left at 5:30 am to drive 3+ hours to Omaha for a dance lesson with my daughter.

Started with the Swing - Storms - I'm still two footing my pushes with my back swing rolls and chasses. But coach said I was too strong a skater to do this and this was just a head thing, that I was capable of pushing with one foot. After while I got the hang of it and I think I'm going to kill that habit

then I decided to go back and work on my Rhythm Blues. I think I will compete it. I'm tired of competing dances I'm still working on and dont' feel totally comfortable. this is a dance I think I might be able to do well. Spring flowers - she said I had beautiful progressives - storms-- I was taught it wrong (and passed anyway!) so had to relearn some steps....not so bad.

storms - still rushing the mohawk.

j

(((((FlyAndCrash))))) Ouch! Glad you've recovered.

Flowers:
Was back on the ice today to teach, first time since I got sick on Sunday, and was pleasantly surprised to feel really good. Except for some shortness of breath, everything I tried (not much) seemed to still work. I even nailed my FO eights on the first try and did a pretty nice CCW one foot spin (I'm CW) demo for a student. I just felt so centered - maybe from watching 6 hrs of Worlds yesterday.

Storms:
Had to cancel my usual Thursday ice dance lesson because I knew I wouldn't have the stamina for it. Saw coach at rink, and he has come down with something. He'll be away on a cruise next week. I hope he'll be able to enjoy it.

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Flowers: Decent lesson yesterday. Coach says Bronze moves are just above passing at this point, so I should be good to go. Need to remember to turn out my free leg and point the toe on the FW power XOs and BO edges

Storms: Coach says there's still some wacky stuff in the Cha Cha--jerkiness--so I'll have to smooth things out a touch by 2 weeks from today.

Funny what ibreakhearts says about "dimples" on her brackets. I have dimples on a lot of my 3s (FO power 3s). . . coach says it's that I'm getting onto my toepick. Having a tough time simultaneously standing up very erect (always afraid I'll fall over backward, so I tend to lean forward) and getting into the knees enough on the power 3s. Thus, the toepick--getting too far forward on my blades.

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"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

The things we do to hide from the judges!!!

As a judge, I know I'm always relieved to see a loop come out of footwork.. since so many skaters decide to barrel down the ice as fast as they can, not paying any attention to actually skating so they can appear powerful going into the loop. So you may actually get credit for being more creative and not skating poorly to get into the jump.

Just relax and enjoy that pretty entry, and it will make the judges more relaxed.. and happier... and happier judges are usually more generous judges.