Flip: hit the freestyle session today to get moving....the rink wasn't as cold as it had been. Backspins were nice.

Flop: scratch spins were yucky (as usual), could not seem to get the "snap" on the free leg for the sit spin, and I'm still struggling for height on the loop. I did try "kicking" my free leg UP which helped, but eh, I don't know. I take off & rotate...then land it about a hand's width (if that far) away from the takeoff point.

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

Flop:

Dragged my skates and sweat pants with the intention of skating on the little rink across the street from work, only to find it's not open yet. It looked plenty frozen to me, but there was still a sign saying "freezing in progress, keep off the ice."

Flip:

*Moves are feeling better and better...MUST work on outside rockers...if I can remember what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing Testing January 16th...we'll see how this going because of course, that Thursday/Friday are 2 of my busy work days where I need to work into the evening. So, hopefully I won't need any last minute EXTRA help.

*Coach and I worked on axels today and making them bigger I am still not crossing my feet which is

*We worked on fixing my 2 sal since I tend to kick through with my heel and not my toe...started feeling different by the end!

*We then did 2 toe and made some corrections there and now I just need to start landing the thing! My rotation is getting closer.

*Finally, for $#*@s and giggles, coach had me try some 2 flips I need to not be scared to pull in which is what I think the issue is, but I was able to get an extra 1/2 rotation which for me, for the first time working on a jump is pretty good. After my lesson I did a ton of singles to work out the timing (1, 1, AND 1) and they were HUGE! at least it gives me something new to get frustrated about

Flop:
*Axel/half loop/double sal - it's just not happening. I hate half loops and I lose so much speed on them even when I'm just doing waltz/half loop/2 sal. ugh!

*I'm so ticked - every single rink around here that normally has ice appears to have NO ice between x-mas and New Years...I have that week off from work and get back from Milwaukee on the night of the 28th and have nothing to do but SKATE and I can't even do that!! BOOOOOOOOOOO!

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Stay in Milwaukee--we have lots of extra ice that week!!

I would, but my mother may not survive that long of a stay....

I'm hoping to get to the Pettit on x-mas eve (went last year and it was wonderfully QUIET!!) so that I can get some moves practice in (the diagonal patterns would be impossible on some of the sessions I have been on at the Pettit!! And then perhaps Saturday or Sunday morning and some sessions on Monday. I need to have my yearly update with one of the coaches there (who also coaches with the Greater Milwaukee FSC).

I have figured out an alternative since the vast majority of rinks (minus 1!) don't have ice - I have a friend who lives in Cleveland and skates at Winterhurst, so I can travel down there to visit her and she will actually come back to Syracuse with me to help with the synchro team's bootcamp.

Decisions, decisions!! Because I could just stay here and skate a few days at the 1 rink that has ice...

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

FLIP

Made it to patch at local rink for practice. I've not skated here since the summer, and this rink is FREEZING cold in the winter. The ice has hard as rock. Despite this i managed to get some shakey spins out (still abit scared from fall a few weeks ago)

Landed all my jumps included a shaky and cheated Flip+Loop.

Overall was a good practice but after 45mins I was done with the cold in the rink.

Yesterday went to normal rink for a lesson and the jumps were all still there. managed several waltz+half-loop+flip+Toe+Loop sequences which felt great. The loop is fine at speed so long as there's anotehr jump in front of it. As a solo jump at speed i two foot it or simply land on the other foot. I think it's a symptom of rotating first then jumping rather than jumping then rotating.

Flop

Coach tried to teach me a split jump! Firstly split jump???? My legs can barely make a 90 degree angle let alone a split! Still it was fun to walk through and apparently my attempts to "split" my legs is one of the funniest things my coach has ever seen. To be fair it felt very funny to me too so undoubtedly we will have lots of fun with this in the new year!

Ant

Flop-er-oo:

Walked across the street at lunch, looked at ice, looked plenty frozen to me.

Laced up skates, took off hard guards, stepped on ice.

*****>>>>CRAAAAAACCCCKKKKK<<<<*****

Saw a little bit of water oozing up around the edges. Got off of there as fast as I could.

Guess it's not quite ready yet after all.

ETA: signs have been changed from yesterday's "keep off" to a sign listing the hours and rules, so it isn't like I was being entirely stupid and ignoring anything...

Flip:

Lutzes! I landed 2 clean last night, which is a HUGE feat for me because I'm usually pretty lethargic when I skate after work (ever since I developed MG).

FO-BI 3s! I actually skated 2 out of 2 clean patterns of these.

Flying camels! I had some great snaps on the jump over and even did one that was 4+ revs! Let's see if I can repeat it during my next lesson!

Flop:

FI-BO 3s. My LFI and LBO 3s suck pretty bad. It's that whole turning-in-the-opposite-direction thing that's getting those bunged. Ah well, at least I'm 1/2 way there!

Flips (ironically). While I was landing them clean, I was either slamming my tow pick in (subsequently taking out huge chunks of ice) or just not getting much height.

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I've got mad salchow disease!

Is this a natural rink or do they have a cooling system? All outdoor ice tends to melt a little as the sun hits it/temps rise, so it may not have been as thin as you think. The ice is usually thicker in the middle. How deep could it be?

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It doesn't have a cooling system. It's one of those deals where they build walls maybe 15-18" high, install a plastic liner, and fill it with water and let it freeze. The ground where it is isn't exactly level, so it looked like the ice was maybe 5 to 6" on one end, and closer to 10" on the other. Our outside temps were close to 0 the day they set it up (Tuesday I think), but it's been gradually warming up all week and today was a few degrees above freezing for sure. If nothing else it was NOT worth risking the embarassment of having to go back to my office wearing soaking wet clothes.

Flop:
Today was my last class for a while. We are coming to the end of our initial 10 weeks, which means we're done with the bridge class and now need to buy ice and instruction separately. I've been hit pretty hard by bills for the past couple months--and my car insurance keeps trying to overcharge me--so paying about $130 for a punch card is not good right now, nor probably paying the coach. I could do it if I dipped into my savings, but I might already have to do that just to be able to buy Christmas presents and pay the speeding ticket I just got (long story) and I don't want to push my luck. I'm really sad, and I'm going to miss the rink buddies as much as the skating, and am sad that only one of them was at class with me tonight, but we'll try to keep in touch and some of us also might see each other at the home rink on Sundays. I would like to go back as soon as the wolf is not quite so close to the door. But I'm evaluating whether I should go back to this class, or the one at DSC. The issue is price. A month of classes at DSC cost me I think $56/month. I've figured that this class will cost me $94/month (our price has gone up now that we're out of the bridge program). So, I dunno. I keep wish I could think of some smart idea to trade some sort of service to the club for ice time (I'm good at all sorts of administrative stuff), and then I'd only have to pay for class and I could probably swing that, but I suppose even if they had something I could do, they probably wouldn't let me, lest other people want to do the same thing...

Also, waltz jumps sorta sucked.

Flip:
I SPUN!!! I really did! Okay, only for a few revs, but it was like a real spin, unlike previous pathetic attempts. I'm so excited. Naturally I couldn't quite replicate it during our practice time after the lesson time, but at least I know I can DO it!

Spirals felt nice too. It really makes the difference to feel like I have the room to do them...just working out outside spirals right now (and the left-foot-as-skating-foot one is much better) and inside can come a bit later. Catch-foot only so-so, though.

Congratulations! Maybe it's something in the air, because all of a sudden my spins are really happening, every time!

Flip:
I only did 4 one foot spins today and every one was really good, with two of them going on until I was too dizzy to continue and had to exit, and even the exits were in control. My coach was really impressed & pleased. Then we went on to backspins and I did several more 1.5 revs, but I still get freaked and bail. I'm working on weaning myself from the wall. I'm checking FO threes better, but still not quite enough. Did one lenght of LFI/RBO threes with a spot from coach, and then we worked on holding the BO edge in a very strong position for the turn. They were playing Christmas music today, and it really energized me - just a lot of fun being on the ice! I played around with F & B cross rolls, X behinds, power pulls, etc, all in time to whatever was playing.

Flop:
I am soooo phobic of FI threes, yet again!

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Flop My whole lesson on Tuesday. I seriously felt like a should quit, because coach was unhappy with everything. I was getting a total "you suck" vibe from her. She is competitive and was hoping I'd have the flip consistent by now. She wants to put it in my program for the competition at the end of January. It also didn't help that we had no Friday ice so no lesson.

Flip Group lesson at seasonal rink this morning. Just friend B & I - last week there were 4 of us. Worked on flip and it is high, but I am putting the foot down. Worked on camel. Had some good ones when I didn't rush to pop up. I even added on the backspin to them and it was pretty good. Sit spin was good too. Scratch spins are back to being centered. Yea!

Flop Tried lutzes and I have a mental block about rotating.

Flip:
I'd like to give a huge "welcome back" to my lutz and flying camel.

Obviously my lutz isn't as good as it was pre-injury (holy crap my lutzes got so good before I was hurt, they were awesome at Peach in August). But I can now hold a steady LBO edge long enough to at least do it. I tried 2 or 3 (can't remember). Ultimately it was probably flutzed, technique sucked, but at least I can start working on it again.

Only tried one flying camel. It was cheated (the LFO edge into it makes me nervous post-injury) and the jump wasn't very aggressive, but I actually got into a back camel that I was able to hold.

Also did 3 clean flip jumps, 2 of which were really solid.

Loops were pretty good today too, that was the first jump I was able to get back and I did a bunch of them today and they were stronger than a few weeks ago now that I'm not afraid of falling/hurting myself again. Even did one loop-loop (first combo post-injury).

Since back spins have been the only spins I could really do up until now, my back sit is stronger than ever. I'm actually confident with it enough now that I might switch my sit-back sit in my program to a back sit-forward sit. I did one of those today (first and only sit spin post injury) and it was good.

I did some good back camels today, too.

Quasi-ran my program, as in I left out all the jumps except for one flip, and all of the spins.

Also was able to do a forward scratch without pain, so I plan to try and do some work on sit spins, camels and laybacks next time I skate.

I start lessons with my coach again on Wednesday

Flop:

Still keep having to get off and take my left skate off every 20 min or so because my foot either starts to hurt or falls asleep. And deep edges on the L foot are still a little painful. Tried the rockers on JR moves and those are still a no-go.

__________________
2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

Is it possible that you would do better with a different coach? I know that I need a coach who is relentlessly positive, because I have more than enough negativity on my own. IMO, a coach should always be encouraging and never discouraging. I try to do that with my own students and would bolt in a minute if I got discouragement from my coach. Also, is it possible for you to discuss it with her; let her know that you work better with encouragement.

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Flip
Good skate yesterday, spins & jumps worked and felt pretty good.
Even though I haven't been able to work on fwd camels for some time due to a muscle injury, tried one and it was surprisingly good.

Flop
Not so good today. Spins weren't as good and jumps weren't happening. Couldn't do loops today for some reason and only managed one decent flip, the rest were definitely flops.

Today was my last skate for the year. The rink closes now until 11 Jan. Sigh!

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

Flop: no skating today-both rinks are closed due to the snow! Delaware is still in a "state of emergency" which means-keep off the roads!!!! It's ok, I am sore from shoveling out my super-long driveway, and I still need to get the tree down (after the furniture is re-arranged to accommodate it) and the decorations up!!!!!

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

This is for my lesson last Thursday and Friday.

Thursday

Flip

Coach was pretty happy with my change foot spin. Said that everything was good, with the exception that my last scratch spin was travelling a bit.

Coach finally had me worked on the sit spin. Did not get down low at the beginning. So coach had me do little man and teapots, to see how low my right leg can actually go. Coach used her mobile phone camera to take a video of me, of when I get down low and when I get down not so low. Coach finally said that I could start practising on the sit spin.

Half loop: the jump is there, but needs to be higher. Actually during practice, I kind of feel the jump, as when I jumped the right way, I could feel the bit of height. But coach still wanted my jump to be higher.

Scratch spin: I could not stop beyond at least 8 revolutions. Might be coz I practise this spin every time I was at the rink.

Flop

Coach tried to teach me the proper way of doing an alternating 3 turn, just does not seem to get it, something to do with the wider feet push, which most ballet students would be able to get it, according to her.

Lost a bit of confidence after falling over on ice one time, after trying to do the sit spin low. After lesson, practised on loads of them. Tried to get down low and stayed there, and managed 5 falls. Result: a sore bum the next day.

Backspin: Still could not get past the 1 revolution.

Friday

Flip

I was at the rink early for practise as had lesson at 5:30 p.m. Lucky that I showed up early, as coach started my lesson 10 minutes early, due to a non show up of her student and that another one of her students showed up very late for the lesson.

Learnt forward outside power 3s. Eventually got it, and found it fun.

Sit spin: finally coach said that she could see that I have been practising hard on them, now I can stay down low, the most important thing is to keep down low, coach kept on shouting 'down, down' to me when I was doing the sit spin in the lesson.

Backspin: coach said that now I have the speed, what I need is a quicker snap action, so that I could have more than 1 revolution.

Forward and backward crossovers: very steady and powerful. Needs to keep working on them.

Scratch spin: still could not stop beyond 6 to 8 revolutions. My mom and hubby turned up towards the end of my lesson and practise. My hubby said that he felt dizzy looking at me practising the spins, and my mom said that I seem to be getting lower in my sit spin, though still can go lower.

Back 3s: get the hang of it. Okay. Found that I practised better on them when I was doing a double 3. No idea why though.

Flop

Did not get the forward outside power 3s at the start when my coach was teaching it to me. Finally got it. Rink was too crowded due to the school hols, so I could not fully utilise the rink. (Please see my separate post on forward spin entry hell.)

Half loop: needs to work on the rotation, the jump is still not high enough.

Sit spin: when attempting to go down low, the right boot blade caught the ice, so I dived forwards. I felt the pain, but not too bad, continued with my lesson, and about 30 minutes practise. Discovered after I arrived home that I had a big bruise and minor cuts on both knees. Rubbed my mom's deep heat oil on the injury area, seemed to be getting better.

Worked on ISI freestyle 3 dance step sequence. Not sure if I was doing the swing and the left leg mohawk position correctly. Hopefully I was.

Though I went for practise on Tuesday late afternoon, as most of the stuff are the same as what I did during my lesson and practise, so I won't put them down here again, for the sake of repetition.

I did have two nice flops during Tuesday's practise.

1.) Some teenagers at the side of the rink saw me doing a scratch spin, asked me to repeat the spin again, and asked me if the spin was a trick. :

2.) Another student of my coach asked me how many lessons I have within a week, and if I am preparing for next week's ISI freestyle testing. Another random skater said that she would follow me to do the crossovers, in the circle where I was practising.

I saw that someone mention about a spun in ice skating. What is that?

Out of fun, my hubby said that he hopes that one day he can invent some kind of machine, so that us the ice skaters will be able to know whether we are doing the spins correctly, and whether our sit spin is low enough, haha.

Was your coach seriously throwing off a "you suck" vibe, or was she just frustrated because she knows you were having a bad day or that you have the ability to get your flip consistent and it'ts just not happening? My coach and I both get frustrated over my axel (it's so close, but I scrape the free foot down and won't just suck it up and land it, so we're both pounding our heads against a wall ). And normally I'm his first skater of the day, but some days I get to him in the afternoon and he's not in the best mood to begin with because some of the kids he works with during the day are really bratty.

__________________
2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

Hahaaa! Bratty kids! What are you talking about? At an ice rink, there really are bratty kids??????!

Sorry, I'm being a brat now.

Yeah, I think it was more frustration over the flip. She is tough (which I like - most days ) and wants good technique. We have been working on this quite awhile and we have sometimes have communication issues over it. The group coach on Saturdays explains what I'm doing wrong much better.

She is also my DD's coach and one of thing that I always liked about her was her positive attitude and who cares where you place as long as you skate your best. It still applies to DD, but she has made a few comment to me about not wanting me to place last in a my first competition (the end of Jan).

Also she put us (me & DD) in the middle of a drama between her and another skater (DD's friend) and her mom. Coach broke off coaching relationship with this girl due to comments the mom said during a test session. Mom didn't think her DD was ready to test and was upset that her DD was not doing well. It was just us and another coach in the waiting area. The other coach went to our coach and said something about the mom getting upset. Coach wouldn't tell the mother who said it. They assumed it was us. We were upset that they assumed we'd bad mouth them, because we really like them and hadn't said a thing. Our DDs got along great and we have spent a lot of time on skating trips with them.

Ugh! I guess I really need to call coach and talk with her.

Hi Pinklaces


I think that you better call your coach and talk with her. It is better not to burn the bridges with your friend, if you both are great.

I used to have my skating lesson on Tuesday evenings. However, my friend (probably over 20 years age difference), her dad requested that I do not take away his dd's usual Tuesday coaching slot. As he talks to me in a very nice way, I accepted, and we eventually became friends.

I now switch my lessons from Tuesdays to Fridays with exception of this Friday and next Friday.

londonicechamp

Easy! A tail! Some sort of string/cord/ribbon with a washer or jingle bell something at the end, attached to a belt or to your pants/skirt that is just long enough to touch the ice when you're low enough....if you hear it dragging/jingling, you're there! Or you could make a skirt that is just that length, with bells or something on the hem in the back (or all the way around if you want symmetry) that would drag!

I tried calling the coach today, but she wasn't home or not answering. Saw her at the rink tonight, but only talked to her for a few minutes about other stuff. It's not something I want to get into at the rink, because Mondays are a super busy night. DD & I have lessons tomorrow so will talk to her then.

I did see DD's friend's mom and talked to her last week. We are cool. DD and her friend sat together during the ice cut tonight.

Actually, my coach gave me a fantastic tip on the sitspin! He says if you can feel the calf of your spinning leg pressing against the inside of the thigh of your free leg, that means your skating thigh is parallel to the ice.

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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