Naughty: Husband had a nasty fall doing brackets - at least, I think that's what he was doing. He's okay, but says he will be stiff tomorrow.

Nice: Coach2 explained exactly how to do back crossovers hand-in-hand, so we know what was going wrong before and can now pretty much do them! Yay!

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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!

Naughty: Still can't land a double sal without two footing it. It gets plenty of height and distance, there's just always a two foot. SO frustrating!

Nice: Good axels today with no cheat on the takeoff!! Amazing camel spins, they're SO much better from an inside 3 turn than the windup step in. I can't believe how much better and faster they are. Good back camels to back sit to back pancake as well.

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

I'll have to try camels that way, I go into other spins that way and sometimes it's better, but I've never tried it w/a camel (probably b/c I just learned how to do one earlier this year and struggled w/them until recently...I am glad to say they are no longer the bane of my existence, axels have taken their place).

Nice:
Dance session today. It was empty, just 3 of us, because the 3-5 younger dance teams usually there were all coming back from JNs, and half of the adult gold team was sick, and half of the novice dance team just her tonsils out. So that was nice. Did some loop drills, and actually worked on the newly improved step sequence for my free program a bit (I love the changes I've made to it, it's so challenging).

Worked a little on the blues choctaw, did some good patterns of the blues. Did 2 really good patterns of the starlight, focusing on turning the feet out and keeping my knees bent on those mohawks down the side, and actually got the 2nd end pattern placed properly so my 3 turn for the restart makes it to the corner. Worked a little on the Viennese solo, too, just for the heck of it.

Went through and added arm movements to my 14 step and Tango solos and worked on those a bit. Still need some sort of beginning/end. What I have now is pretty dorky.

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

I do all my camels from an inside 3-turn, and I find that my camels are so much better that way - I think I get a harder check on the entrance, which puts me into the spin better. I struggle a little with forward camels, and unless i really concentrate, I tend to fall out of them a lot. The other benefit to that entrance is that it saves you precious seconds in a program, and it makes a really nice transition out of footwork to just step into a spin that way.

Naughty: I found out on Friday that the owner of the rink decided not to open in the mornings anymore, effective immediately. After almost 12 years of skating there and bringing in lots of customers, I was upset at first, and am now just furious. I can only skate in the mornings, I never know what time I am going to get off of work. My coach, another coach, and the skating director had a meeting with him Friday afternoon to try to basically demand he keep it open, there are a couple of other long time skaters who come a couple of mornings a week also. He promised them an answer Friday night, but here it is Sunday night and no decision.

Nice: There is another rink in Oldsmar that I have been skating at twice a week that is farther from home but closer to work. My coach has gotten permission to "guest coach" me there. So, unless the current rink owner makes a 6 month or more commitment to keep it open in the mornings, I will simply skate at the Oldsmar rink every morning instead of my current twice per week. BTW, it gets me to work 15-20 minutes earlier in the morning, which is definitely a good thing, and I only have to leave the house 15 minutes earlier.

Naughty: had a hard time getting "in the mood" to skate today...not sure why. Sort of putted around for my warm up waiting my turn for my lesson.

Nice: During lessons we worked on spirals which were good, I remember when I could not lift my leg higher than knee-height (I am NOT kidding on this one)...although the right outside needs LOTS of work!!!

Naughty (this one get a lump of coal): lost interest in the loop; could not "attack" it as I should have...Coach said if I did I would have full rotation. I am my own worst enemy on this one as the set-up and everything else is there...I am blocking myself. She is right; I need to psychoanalyze myself on this one!!!! Is there a doc (of psychiatry) in the house??

Spins were wonky and didn't behave.

Nice: after a reprimand about sloppy arms and un-tidy crossovers, my jumps got better.

I also have a lot on my mind.

Then, after lesson, I was going over some stuff and re-working things...and fell kersplat on a toe-loop....yeah, I missed the toepick and skidded sort of and landed on my right hip....it hurt a lot and I was wearing my gel pads too! I will have a lovely bruise in a day or two! As consolation, I ate dinner at Panera Bread and sulked.....

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

This is for Friday December 12, 2008:

Nice:
Loop has nice height and a strong deep edge on the landing. I'm just an eighth short of full rotation but at least I won't loose marks. When I went back to check my landing I was floored to see how deep my toe pick went into the ice on the initial landing. All I can say is that I hope no one gets stuck in the ruts I'm making with my loop landings now that I'm getting the one foot landings. The only thing my coach wants me to do more is squeeze in my arms tighter to my body so that I can erase that eighth turn cheat. The only time I didn't get enough rotation to count was when I jumped too early because I was too excited that I was getting the loop again.

Flip is rotating fully but I'm still playing football with my free foot. But the game is quick and short. I just wish that I didn't score any touch downs. I don't like football at all.

Toe Loops, Sals and Waltz jumps are very consistant and since they are, unless there's a problem with them again, I'm not going to write about them 'til then.

Not Naughty or Nice: Spins were not very strong on Friday. Will say in the next session what was the cause.

Naughty: Off the ice I was having trouble with my balance due to the congestion I had from a cold that was shared from my church choir members. It was a nasty cold. I'm still not quite over it but I'm getting better. On Saturday I had to sing with my church choir but on Thursday I couldn't get a sound out. I was reduced to lip singing all Thursdays and most of Friday instead of singing. My vocal chords were all inflamed and I had to use an ice pack Friday night to get the swelling down in time for Saturday December 13th's Christmas Show or I would have been told by my choir director to not sing at all as I was told on Thursday to stop singing because I was hurting my vocal chords. Never had I a cold that affected my vocal chords that way before. And this is why I had no energy at all on Thursday and didn't go to skating at all. It's also why my spins were wimpy and didn't get more than 5 revs. I also couldn't get my Lutz to rotate at all on Friday or to get any height. I was just exhausted by the end of my lesson. I took a 15 minute break near the end and then only could skate another 20 minutes of mostly just stroking. So I left my Friday 3 hour ticket ice session a half hour early.

Question: I'm asking anyone who has been landing consistant single loops and higher level jump and is at least 25 plus (has to due with body mass), if it's normal to make deep ruts with jump landings? And just for curiousity sake, have you ever gotten stuck in your own rut the next time you skated by where you had previously landed a jump?
I'm starting to see why the clubs around here didn't want me to share the ice with those working on Pre-Prelim and Preliminary elements. They don't want my ruts to trip or my blade being just the right height to cut one of the little skaters. I really don't fit anywhere yet until I can start landing the 2 Sal again and maybe get the 2 Toe and 2 Loop so that they can put me on the Senior session with the older kids. Let's face it. At 5 feet 8 inches, I'm pretty tall for a female skater and even when I coach bumps into me now, I'm a brick wall which forces the person bumping into me to fall down. Imagine, when I first started skating, you could have blown me down I was so unstable on ice.

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"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

I did my first solo in our holiday show last night.

Naughty - we did not have an ice make after 2 hours of public ice for our warm up so it was bad bad ice. I'm going to blame the ice for the fact that I fell hard twice in the warm because I've never fallen during that program and I was not terribly nervous. Until after I fell. I made myself keep skating ...but after the second fall I didn't do anything but just skate around.

It was hard to get the falls out of my mind so I was kind of tentative in my program and I DIDN"T DO MY 3 turns. Did the mazurka, bunny hop and half lutz fine but too scared to do a 3 turn. What is wrong with me?

Nice - I kept my head up, smiled...I was cute...curled my usually straight turned under hair with rags so it was really curly...everyone commented on my showmanship. Probably the perfectionist in me that I was disappointed in the performance because it was not a disaster by any means.

I guess today in practice I'll have to work on moves. Oh no I can do dance too.

Synchro practice last night.

Nice: We are finally almost, almost, almost done with setting the program for our adult formation group. With some new people this year and some dropouts, it's been a very rough road. . . Now that nearly everything is set we can spend time actually refining so that the program is halfway decent by mid-February, when we expect to compete it.

Also nice: Our full synchro (adult/teen) team WILL compete in February; last week we were told that our category was dropped from the comp, but now in fact, we can compete. . . so. . . we FINALLY got some more choreography.

Naughty: Um, still kind of up in the air with most of the full synchro program, but hopefully we can get things ironed out enough so we don't have too rough of an outing in February. Seriously, we have like 1 minute of a 4-minute program set, and the choreographer is kind of indecisive. . .

Also naughty: We have NO OUTFITS for either team yet. Kind of fell by the wayside with dropouts and such. We're scrambling to get something. . .

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

Nice: Day 2 in new boots went better than expected! I stayed in them for the whole hour and was able to land all my jumps through axel. I decided to be bold and try a few double sals, and they were the best attempts I've done in months. I even did two really solid camel spins. I feel all bad @ss working on all pre-gold dances now.

Naughty: They still hurt! Dance and moves are still difficult because I don't have enough bend yet. Holy crap, the mohawk in the Starlight is crazy!

Yay! I love when simple changes fix all the problems. I'm jealous of pancake spins!!

Congrats & welcome to the road!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Can you explain more? I've never heard of swinging the free leg for brackets, or going up on the toes. It sounds more like a waltz jump exercise to me.

CONGRATULATIONS!

It sounds really awful. Hope your knees are feeling better. I highly recommend the SkatingSafe gel knee pads. They are expensive, but worth their weight in gold, IMO.

Bracket falls are miserable because they tend to be straight down. That's what keeps me from trying them except a few FI's at the boards. Hope hubby isn't too stiff.

Congrats on the solo. I don't know what's wrong with you - but I've got it too. My coach and I think it's mental! I'll be going along just fine, get to a three turn and balk.

Nice:
Had a relatively decent lesson Friday, in spite of almost no practice and having had to get up early and work a while first. Spins were OK. I can always feel when I have everything right now that I'm spinning CW. I could never find the right upper body position going CW. I saved several spins that were wonky in various ways, and my coach was complimentary about that. She also commented that I generally have good form, which means a lot to me. RFI threes just came naturally after the lesson. We also worked on waltz threes, which would benefit from less fear!

Naughty:
Worked on FI threes a lot because they have gotten away from me again due to no practice. LFI's still feel forced.

Yet another one fell and hit the back of her head!!! I saw it happen right in front of me. The sad thing is that I might have been able to prevent it, but didn't dare say anything to the woman because she had just been in a lesson and I didn't realize it and commented during the lesson .

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Some coaches, when first teaching brackets, teach a scissoring motion to the free-leg (same timing as for rockers). I can't quite describe it without actually doing it on the ice, but for a forwards bracket, the free leg would scissor forward and then back during the turn. Going up on the toes, I'd imagine, would describe shooting the blade forward for the turn.

My coach teaches the scissor motion to train the body, then eliminates it later.

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Yes scissor motion and by up on my toes - just toward the front of the blade like 3 turn which I have trouble doing. She also drew the pattern on the ice with a marker so I would know what I was supposed to be going for.

I'm nowhere near doing these away from the board.

j

Thanks. Scissors I understand, but we never used that in roller. Very strangely, I have the feeling for FI brackets, and it's only fear that keeps me at the boards with them. They actually feel more natural than FI threes to me. I don't push it because I don't have to. I need the FI threes right now, but the brackets can wait.

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