Floored:

Couldn't breath proper so I had to go to the doc after work to get my preventative changed from the nose spray to the inhaler and I had to go an anitbiotics again.

Once again on my ice (junior session), I couldn't run through my program. Just too many kids just learning to skate forwards who shouldn't be on junior ice and should be on CanSkate ice in my way. I'm the fastest skater on this ice and I'm constantly having trouble doing my programs because I have to stop dead in the middle of elements or setting up an element. I had to restart my program 20 times today and not once did I get to run through it all the way. I didn't get to do my program with my music either.

Moving Up:
Still able to do a sitspin and finally figured out how my coach got me from a RBO swing roll into my sitspin; finish back swing roll and then step forward into a LFO3 and then step onto a BI edge and start going into the sit spin prep. Coach is going to give me a make up lesson tomorrow; 1 hour. She missed last week's Wed. and Fri. lessons because her 2 year old was in the hospital for 3 days. Poor kid. Kid is doing better now.

Since I wasn't getting anywhere with my own skating, I was glad to do some teaching for my over booked coach. I took this girl who only had been on the ice a few times before and was teaching her proper forward stoking technics. I was trying to get her to lift her freeleg and touch her skating leg with it at the ankle. It took her along time to get her to stop wide stepping with her right foot. But she never quite got it with her Left skating leg. She had for the most part her legs about a foot and a half apart. I tried to teach her about inside and outside edges at the boards and showed her how to push off from a T position. I was also trying to get her to push each step from the middle of her blade and not the toe pick. I had her try to feel the outside edge of her blade at the boards on the ice and then rock to the inside edge to give the skating leg a push. She just doesn't understand yet.

My coach was talking to the skaters mom after the session and the mom was not to happy that I was coaching her daughter and not my coach. My coach was just over booked as most of the other coaches left for the day after the presectional ice was over. My coach is all stressed out over all these skating moms who have their kids skating on the junior ice thinking that their kids should be doing what I can do in a couple weeks. Hello, it didn't take me a couple weeks to get where I am and it just doesn't work that way. You don't go from barely standing on skates to doing loops, flips and sitspins in a month. These moms need to relax.

Anyway, my coach and the head coach are looking into switching me from the Junior ice to the Presectional/Sectional ice since I can't get any of my programs skated or any elements on their own done on the Junior ice because all of these preprelim and CanSkate kids are on my ice and even the other two skaters who are really working on their Prelim FS don't move fast enough for me to be able to do my programs. It wasn't bad in September before the CanSkaters and more preprelim skaters got on the Junior ice but now, it's just impossible. I should here what sessions, I'll be move to soon.

I really need this ice move since I'm teaching on my session to help out my over stressed coach and because I need ice where I can train to improve my skating skills and elements so that I can pass the tests for competitions and to be able to get my CanSkate Coaching stuff lined up for the course and so that I can also be ready to take the other courses to become a Level 1 NCCP coach. Then I will really be qualified to teach everything from Learn To Skate, CanSkate upto Junior Bronze.

I have to test 2 dance ASAP, Baby Blues and Fiesta Tango. And then I have 2 more Junior Bronze dance and 2 Senior Bronze dance to learn and the Bronze Creative dance to make up and learn and test. My coach is under the assumption that I have to do one dicipline upto the Senior Bronze level and then I can go for the coaching course. In the mean time, I'm teaching as a program assistant on Learn To Skate, CanSkate and the Junior ice of which I'm suppose to be skating.

Any other adults in this situation too (skater & teacher)?


Brigitte

__________________
"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

November 3 - Dance

Floored: Well, nothing was particularly great, so I suppose everything was a bit floored. American has improved on my own, but still needs speed--which is insanely difficult in the tiny rink I practice on--and feels awkward in places to partner. Mohawk on the Keats comes and goes. On my own I can't seem to check hard enough, and with a partner I'm scared I'm going to fall. Rocker turn felt great last week, and now it feels like garbage. *sigh*

Moving Up: The bulk of the Keats feels quite good partnered. Speed and flow are good except on the Mohawk. Coach really likes my cross-roll-progressive-mohawk on the rocker. I am fitting the American on the pattern better, so that's a step, despite the problems mentioned above.

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November 5 -Synchro Skills

Floored: My left twizzles have deserted me!

Moving Up: But, that's because I've been working hard on my right ones, and they feel great. Spins are improving--I hit the "spot" more often each time I practice them. And I'm learning a flip jump! I can get up in the air and get about 2/3 of the way around, and I land it on two feet. But considering I'm a huge chicken when it comes to jumps, and I've never tried a flip before, this is definitely promising!

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Count me in as another skater/coach. I'm not an adult in the sense of Adult Skater yet, but I'm in my fifth year teaching. Right now, believe it or not, I've been teaching some of the hockey learn-to-skate kids. I got stuck subbing for our one and only hockey/figure skater a bunch of times last session, which I was dreading at firsdt but it turned out really well. It was just one little boy, and I had taught his sister last spring so I knew his mom. Apparently the little boy and his mom were very happy, so now I'm going to have the level 1 and 2 class while our actual hockey coach has the 3s and 4s. Of course so far we don't have any hockey kids signed up, but that will probably change next session. I'm actually looking forward to it- it's a nice change of pace, and I LOVE working with the little boys. For some reason I just get along really well with 3- to 7-year-old boys. I'm seriously thinking of getting pair of hockey skates for teaching. I've always wanted to try them anyway. Anyway, I also have a Snowplow Sam 1 class right now, two girls and six boys. They're so cute. Last week was their first week and they actually did really well. Seven of the eight were skating around on their own by the end of class. I've taught private lessons too, but I'm not right now. I've taught up to FS 4 level, which is about when most kids start working on prepre moves and getting ready to switch to USFSA.

My skating has been kind of average all week. I should have something interesting to post after my lesson Friday.

__________________
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!

Floored:
Salchow was giving me trouble today and I don't know why other than my left leg lower leg feels stiff and just won't let me get off of the ice on the takeoff. Same for flips. I think I need more time to heal from all the coughing I've been doing because my old preventative wasn't working and my ab muscles seem shot at the moment. I also couldn't feel my left leg coming out of the backspin position during my loop so I two footed ever single one.

Moving Up:
My coach and I got more of my interpretive program choreographed today. Coach likes that I'm doing my sitspin each time I run through what's been already done. Still don't have my signature move in the program but I am going to put it in. Probably at the end of the program after the footwork sequence. I haven't even passed my prelim test yet, yet she has me doing rockers and Alexie Yagudin style footwork for the faster part of the footwork that goes diagonally from left bottem corner to the right top corner. I found out that these rockers and the footwork I'm doing for my interpretive is Senior Bronze level. Gees. Now I just have to do it with some speed. Just learned teh rockers today.

__________________
"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Floored: Actually, bed-ridden. Nasty virus, so no skating for me this week - bother! I was longing to show off new skills acquired at Bad Reichenhall, too....

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

Get well soon Annabel!

I skated on Tuesday. I spent some time working on spinning - the entry curve eventually got a bit better, and the spin was happening, but they were still travelling all over the place. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Practiced waltz jumps, toe loops and salchows. They were all ok, but I need to work on using my arms more. Didn't bother trying a loop or flip. I did a good bunny hop though... Seriously, I didn't have much motivation on this session. Mostly, everything was pretty "normal".

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

Floored: have an icky cold and have not skated since Saturday.

Moving up: I am adopting a rescue dog. I picked her up last Friday, and she and my other kids - a dog and two cats - are adjusting to eachother and doing relatively well. She's 11 months old, 7lbs and looks like a baby fox.

Floored: It must be something in the ice. I've got a cold, too. Worst parts are the sore throat/hacking cough and the physical blahs.

Consequently, even though I skated Monday and Wednesday nights, I really didn't practice or learn anything. Just cruised around at a slow pace. Very dull.

Moving-up: At least I got to skate.

__________________
Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Well, I was so tired by the time I got to Synchro last night that I was a little loopy. BUT I was able to hit everything again! I'm finally feeling NOT like the hugest klutz in the world. And I can honestly say that, though I can't quite get all of the steps in the footwork (yet), I can and do keep up and don't feel like I'm going to die at the speed we're going. I've gotten much better about anticipating and am more used to the effects of momentum on lines fo people. Between last week and this I've stopped feeling like a hindrance and more like a help.

Although I did get smacked in the face by someone who missed my shoulder and connected with my left eye, LOL! That sort of threw me through the footwork section -- my eye was all watery and I couldn't keep it open for about a minute, but I stayed in line and got my feet caught back up by the pass-through.

I've finally figured out that there is a sense of ruthlessness in team skating -- I can't worry that other people aren't getting where they're supposed to be, I can only worry about myself doing what I'm supposed to do, when I'm supposed to do it. Since I figure that out, the only hold I've missed was because the woman next to me had an injured shoulder and couldn't hold on due to pain. But I kept trucking and remained in formation anyway. WooHoo!

Moving-up:
I feel ready as I will ever be for my competition Saturday! Today I went to the rink and skated like it was the competition with only a 5 minute warm up and then skating my program. I only had two silly mistakes. As long as I remember to take my smile on the ice with me and don't rush everything will be great.

I learned my new program to "Silent Night" which I will use as a dramatic for the next competition, for the Christmas show, and for the evening of exhibitions. It's really pretty I love it!

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- Ashley

Your new baby sound adorable!

Wow, a lot of us are sick! I'm just getting over a nasty chest cold, meaning I've entered the coughing-up phase - yuk! Hope you all feel better soon.

Moving up
Not much as I haven't had a lesson in at least a month. Back cross strokes are still with me and I'm really enjoying "playing" with them. I'm working on some footwork that employs devil rolls followed by back cross strokes, and if I could only do a FI three instead of FO, it would all fall into place.

Floored
Well, as I already said, I've been lesson deprived for quite a while. It started with no lesson before the week I was away, and then my coach has not been able to make it to our regular time or even the possible make up times since I've been back! We are going to try for a lesson during a public session this Sunday. Coach said there have only been about 10 people at that one lately. Meanwhile, my FO threes have fallen apart, except when I have a spot, then they are great My biggest problem with everything, is fear, lack of flexibility is next, followed by weak abs.

__________________

Good luck at your competition!!!

A baby fox? Is this dog in anyway a Pomeranian? Those look like foxes at times.

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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!!!

For my Wednesday Practice:

Moving Up: Wonderful practice on Wednesday! I only started working on the half flip a few weeks ago after being scared of it because it was the jump I had to get stitched from, I deciced it was just to easy. So my coach taught my the flip jump with after several tries I landed many times. I even landed it in combination, flip-toe! Im so excited. My half flip, toe loop, waltz, and salchow were all very good as well. My moves were very nice, my edges better then ever!!

Floored: My spins were so off again. I just could not get my scratch spin to work at all. My sit spin is getting better but im still having trouble balancing it.

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~*~always, sonia~*~

moving up
yeah!!! I landed a Loop today!!!!!
It wasn't brilliant and there was certainly no flow out of it but it was fully rotated and on one foot so I do finally realise it is NOT an impossible jump. Didn't really manage another which is frustrating as it seemed so easy when I did it. But I'm still excited to have finally done it!

Sit spin got praise from my coach this week. He finally said he would recognise it as a sit spin!!!!!
!

floored
tried the flip too after my success with loop jump but it was not to be
I keep wanting to jump from my right foot and land on my left so I guess I am not getting the weight shifted to make landing on the right foot possible. nearly managed a two footed one though so there is hope!

Thanks. Hope we all feel better, and good luck this weekend at the competitions.

I skated today at a public session, for about an hour (or less) by the time I got there.

Moving up:

I spent time practicing spins, and I think they're improving. The entry was better, they didn't travel quite as much (mostly), and I kept them going a little longer than usual (lately it's only been about 3 revs before I lose balance). Hopefully they're on the way back.

On my stroking and crossovers etc, I felt like I was completely not toe-pushing. (I have a tendency to push with my toe a teensy bit, so I've been working on getting rid of that completely and as far as I can tell, I am.)

Floored:

The ice was rubbish - it was a little better in the middle so I spent most of my time practicing there, but it still wasn't amazing. I ran out of energy before the end too.

I didn't find it easy to get a good body position on the spins - mostly my free foot was just hanging next to my spinning foot, rather than being up against my knee. Will work on it though, one thing at a time.

Didn't practice any jumps, or spirals. Most other stuff was ok, but the ice made me feel a little off-balance sometimes.

__________________
"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

Moving Up: Everything! You may now refer to me as the master of the rocker turn; LOL. It was one of those days where stuff I have been working on for a while finally clicked and felt awesome. Good thing, with test day coming up! American: although I was off a bit on the pattern, I had MUCH better speed and flow. On the Keats, the mohawk is still coming. I think I will be able to check on the RBO edge harder when I'm with a partner, so I'm excited for my Monday lesson with my coach!

Floored: Nothing. I can't complain about the small issues with the American and Keats, since I made progress in other areas of both dances. Wohoo!

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Moving Up we finished my intermediate freedance wooo, i learned a new lift it's cool when we do it right i do a spiral and wrap my right leg around him catching my foot and he picks me up off the ice andi land in a shoot-the-duck position...it's nifty anywho i didn't argue this sessions so that is why it went so well

Floored nothing really, i skated on public skate afterwards and could really get anything done, but i didn't really think i would anyway...but i did get to talk to the cute rink guys

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Waffles & Vodka

Breakfast of Champions

Had a lesson today.

moving up: I didn't fall down despite the terrible ice! I made a skate friend in class who will come to public skates with me.

floored: everything else. I got taught bad technique as a kid, or maybe old fashioned technique, it has been a total relearning process. This whole leg wrapping thing on jumps is difficult.

moving up: learned anew dance it was loads of fun, went over the dances i have to test at the end of the month and they are in ship shop shape :-), off ice was fun did lots of running outside..in the cold =/

Floored: i flipped my coach over by accident while doing one of the dances and managed to knee him inthe face...i felt sooo awful!! had a horrible time breathing after the fall though and during off ice so that wasn't too good if i am still coughing/wheezing i have to see the doctors again but oh well

all in all i think today was a good day

__________________

Waffles & Vodka

Breakfast of Champions

Moving Up:

Well, it's official. I'm off of the Junior ice and on to the Pre-Sectional/Sectional ice, meaning I'm skating with skaters who are working on their junior bronze(prejuv in US) to gold/senior competitive(novice to senior in US) skaters. I start on this ice on Thursdays at 3:20 pm and Fridays at 4pm. I'm still skating my ticket ice on Wednesdays at 2pm.

I won't be teaching Learn to Skate on Fridays anymore. Instead I'll be teaching the upper level CanSkaters who are on the Junior session and leaving at 6pm. Won't be late to lead Youth Group Fridays anymore. I'm still doing Learn To Skate and CanSkate on Saturdays. My niece may join the club for CanSkate on Saturdays. I advised her mom to have her try skating at public skating first to see if she really liked it or not.

On my last Junior session on Friday, one of the skating moms asked me if I skated as a child. I said no. Never. I had to convince her that I only started skating over 4 years ago and when I did that I was barely not touching the boards at the time. She thought I had been skating for years just because I had a little speed and wasn't constantly looking at the ice. Well, if she would have seen me skate last year, she wouldn't have asked me if I skated as a kid. She would have known that I was a complete beginner adult skater. My stroking classes have been helping me tremendously to gain proper technic, power and speed. Also we've been working on the turns with flow and speed too in stroking.

One last thing, I discovered that when I'm teaching, I'm not thinking about if I can move CW. I can move CW doing turns, two foot jumps, waltz jumps, toe loops and two foot spins. Now, I'm a CCW skater so CW is not my direction of choice. I have to teach more Lefty upper CanSkaters and more Lefty preprelims so that I can get really good at moving CWs.

One foot spin had at least 3 times when I was perfectly centred on the spot with at least 6 rotations. One of the times was when my coach was coaching me. The only thing I didn't like about the one when my coach was watching was that she said, "And now out." and so I got out. I asked her why she made me get out of the spin. She said that I only needed two rotations for the prelim test but I said, "I don't care about the test. I want to have more rotations for competitions, like 7 to 9 rotations." She said that in senior bronze that they only need to have 4 rotations for the tests. I said, So what, I want more."

Floored:

Ran through my interp program and forgot how my coach laid it out. My coach at one point was following me saying that's not how I put it together. I sort of improvised as I went along after the sitspin.

Ok, Yes I have a new 4 rotation sitspin but like the commercial that says "I've fallen and I can't get up.", I said to my coach "I've sat and I can't get the freeleg up and out." Coach nearly died laughing on that one. I'm able to get back up to do a forward spin before exiting properly.

Backspin is still 1 and 1/2 rotations and I want it to be at least 4 rotations for competitions.

Flips and loops still two footing them. I'm wondering if that surgery to remove the ovarian cyst I had last year messed up some of my abdominal nerves because I can't feel my left leg falling down and out to touch the ice first. It's very frustrating. I can hear it but I just can't feel it. If I can't feel it, how do I control it? I think my right side/ab is really week. Any tips to gain strength on the right side?

Footwork sequence was good until I got to the Rocker and then the Alexie Yagudin toepicking footwork going backwards. My feet got all tangled up on which foot to pick where and when. LOL

Ok, I lost one of my stroking sessions to get my Thursday Pre-sectional ice. Hopefully, I won't miss it since I don't get a lesson on that stroking session anyway. I more or less work on stuff on my own or my coach once and a while shouts footwork steps out to me to do while teaching the kids.

__________________
"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Only ten days off can make a huge difference, you feel like you've forgotten everything you knew. Luckily, your feet haven't!

Moving up: We worked on turning our tango into a pairs' interpretive for Dunkerque; I don't want to change the steps at this stage, so we are keeping it as a dance, but finishing with a pivot-spiral instead of the rather wet finish it had as a dance. At the moment this needs work, but it'll get it! And because it's now officially pairs, not dance, we can work on it in figure club!

We worked on various new dances as "playtime" at the end. The dances at our next competition are "nothing we can't do", and we don't want to overwork them.

Floored: Sadly, the Mohawk that had just arrived at the end of Bad Reichenhall didn't reappear. And all the usual critiques - bent free legs, looking down, etc, etc.... oh well. And Robert and I couldn't remember the steps of Tulips from Amsterdam and got in a muddle when we tried. But that is easily remedied - we can look them up!

Oh, it's good to be back!

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

This weeks lesson:

Floored: 3 turns again, bleah, this is going to take work. Crossovers also nasty. Our group has a coach that is finicky on technique which is good, but I'm trying to think of so many details at the same time.

Moving up: I'm skating faster. I like all these details, just not all at the same time, it gives me lots to practice during the lunchtime skates during the week.

Moving Up--
Worked on FI3s in my MIF lesson and made some good progress. I really need my LFI3 to come along even more for the backspin and toe loop entrances...

Worked on the backward crossovers in a figure-8 pattern for the Pre-Bronze MIF test, and it was much improved. It was a lot faster and more powerful than I've been doing lately.

In group FS lesson, we worked on spirals on edges. My favorite! We started doing them around hockey circles, then worked on the Preliminary MIF pattern, forward alternating spirals. I haven't tried these in months and I actually was able to do the pattern this time.

Worked on waltz jumps in practice and they felt a little higher than my previous "waltz-hop" attempts.

Floored--
Still working on my backspin.