Total: 48

Passed Total: 40
Dance: 24
Moves: 8
Freestyle: 7
Figures: 1

Failed Total: 8
Dance: 6
Moves: 1
Freestyle: 1

(*Jazzpants recovers from phoenix' post on how many tests she's taken, only to faint dead away again seeing PERRY's post*)

__________________
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!!!

WHOA! Good job!

Uh, yeah. I just dragged myself up off the floor as well, LOL!

Okay, you get a

Okay, I'll bite:

Lifetime total tests taken: 23
passed: 17

FIGURES: 4 - 3 Standard, 1 Adult

Passed 3 --

MITF: 1 Adult -- passed

Dance: 18 - 10 Standard, 8 Adult

Passed: 13

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

So far I've only taken and passed pre-preliminary MITF and adult pre-bronze MITF. I'm working on bronze MITF now and will probably test pre-pre and/or pre-bronze free skate sooner or later.

Nick

Total tests taken (Passed + Failed): 15

Passed Total: 11 (all standard)

Freestyle: 5
Figures: 6

Failed Total: 4 (all standard)

Freestyle: 0
Figures: 4 (3x on 2nd figure & 1x on 6th figure)

__________________

Christy

6 taken, 6 passed (since July 2004) :

Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
FS1
FS2

This is since 1991:

Tests passed:
Figures: 5 (Prelim, 1, 2, Adult Bronze, Adult Silver)
FS: 6 (Prelim, Juv, Int, Bronze, Silver, Gold)
Passed some before MITF requirement and before pre-pre and pre-juv existed
MITF: 5 (through intermediate)
Passed adult FS prior to MITF requirement
Dance: 13

Retries:
MITF 2
Dance 2

Total: 34

Adding ISI tests: passed 24 failed 2 = 26 (FS, figures, dance, couples)
Some of those duplicate USFS tests
60 tests since 1985 Yikes!

Pedonskates

Well I suppose it depends what the tests are. I'm in Australia, so most of the tests listed are a foreign language to me.

20+ years ago I did my preliminary figures, preliminary freestyle, and bronze freestyle. I also did Aussie Skate badge tests, which must be around 14 tests. So that would make 18. All passes.

I'm not trying to be snide here, but I am wondering why there are so many failures or retries (by retry, do you mean doing an element again at the same test, or taking the whole test again?). My coach years ago didn't put people in for tests unless she was convinced you could pass it standing on your head on a bad day.

Is this ultra-performance nerves affecting how people skate on the day, or is there something else going on here?

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

I was an ISI skater, so I don't have very many USFSA tests.

ISI Alpha - Freestyle 5 (9)
ISI Figures 1 and 2 (2)

USFSA Preliminary Freestyle (old and now lost) (1)
USFSA Preliminary Figures (1)
USFSA Dance - taken on a dare (1)

Update:
USFSA Preliminary MITF and Freestyle

Total: 17
No retries.

__________________

I've taken and passed the following UK NISA tests:-

Free Skating
Novice One (old test)

Level 1 Elements

Level 2 Elements

Level 2 Free

Field Moves
Prelim

Inter-Bronze


I did fail my very first test - the novice one test, but out of nine skaters taking it that day they failed eight so it was just one of those days when the judges were being extremely picky.

I'm hoping to take my level 3 elements and free tests later this year.

Nicki

.....SO FAR!!! Knock on wood.....LOL!

I guess since I started skating as an adult, I always felt like I had to work twice as hard & make things twice as technically perfect to be considered 1/2 as good as the kids! Good thing is that along the way, I discovered I really DO love to skate so it isn't "work" to me anymore.....more like a hobby that I love to do OFTEN.

Someday I'm hoping to take a figures test to add to my collection (hopefully some of the figures judges will still be around... LOVE working on figures! It appeals to my *very* technical nature.

Kristin

Spins!!! The BAIN of my existence, LOL!

I always tell new adult skaters that spinning is hard for us to learn as adults because there is nothing in our daily lives that even comes close to putting our bodies into a "spin". And then we are on the ice & expected to go round & round & round? Yikes!!! Scary! We just have to keep working on it.....

Kristin
who also has to work very hard on spins.

Passed (all standard tests):
6 MIF (through novice)
3 FS (through pre-juv)
6 dance (through pre-bronze, though this probably should count as two tests)

Failed:
3 MIF (*&^# novice moves!)
1 FS (brain not on properly that day)


So 15 tests passed out of 19 total attempts. Fortunately, I stopped paying for tests years ago!

USFS Standard
Figures: 1
Freestyle: 2 (Prelim & Juvie -- before they did Pre-Pre & Pre-Juv)
Dance: 7
Moves: 1 (Grandfathered to start at Intermediate)

Retried: 1 (Moves)

ISI
Figures: 2
Freestyle: 10 (Alpha - FS6)

Total: 24 tests

Tests Passed:
2 MIF (Adult Pre-Bronze and Bronze)
1 FS (Adult Pre-Bronze)

Retries:
2 MIF (blasted Bronze moves!)

__________________
Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Some massive totals out there....very small here, but a good record!

MIF : 2 taken, 2 passed Adult Pre-Bronze, Bronze

FS: 3 taken, 2 passed Adult Pre Bronze, Bronze

Score 4 passed 1 Fail (1st attempt at Bronze FS!)

Time taken to do this: 13 months


Onward to silver moves (after I recover from knee surgery, TBA!)

__________________
Why are you skating so slowly? Get out of my way!

If you skate faster, it makes everything look better!

Keep in mind that many of the posters on this thread are adult (over the age of 21) skaters & many of them started skating *after* 21 or have returned to skating after a long absence involving starting families or having an illness, whatever! It can be very difficult to master some of these skating elements when your agility is not the same as a 12-yr old. I can't speak for the individual posters here, but as a judge I can tell you I have seen plenty of "nervous" testers/competitors out there. Sometimes it just isn't your day but it doesn't make you any less of a skater. It's the same as bowlers who go out one day and bowl a perfect 300 game, but the next day they don't & that has nothing to do with nerves either.

Sometimes you don't get enough sleep. Maybe your skates need sharpening & you have had to "adjust" your body to try to compensate for dull blades. Maybe you have issues outside of skating or injuries which have kept you off the ice. Sometimes you are rushing to finish a test (due to an upcoming competition deadline) and you may have taken it too early. Some tests are simply a real bugger to pass (European waltz dance, Intermediate & Novice field moves, for example). Int. moves is level 5, Novice is level 6 (out of 8 US testing levels, where "Senior" is level 8 & the level of skaters you see on TV), for example. So as you go up in level, things just simply get tougher & as an adult skater, it can be harder & harder to fit in all the practicing required to get to those higher levels.

Most coaches I know would never put out a test unless they feel that the student is capable of passing it since if they put out bad tests, then it is a reflection on them as a coach.

"Retry" means that you have to retake the whole test (must wait a min. of 30 days before doing so). If you miss an element on a test, the judges can ask you to reskate just that element at the conclusion of your test & then only the reskate of that element is taken into consideration.

Kristin

This Just In: skating is hard.

And you can't control the judges.....and you can't always control nerves.....and as you get to the higher levels you get less and less leeway for mistakes. And things like expression and the overall "look" of the skater are also getting judged. (2nd time I failed my American Waltz the comments were "good flow, good timing, good pattern, lacks expression." In other words, I did everything 'technically' right, but it didn't look 'waltzy' enough.) And you have to get a higher score at each higher level to pass the test. Novice moves is one that is nortorious for having multiple retries--the test lasts 15 minutes (I believe?) so stamina plays a huge part and the elements are very difficult. It's just very very hard to expect everything to come together perfectly every time you take a test.

If you count each MIF in USFS Novice Moves, and each direction (since several of them have to be skated both Counter-clockwise and Clockwise), there are 11 separate pieces to Novice Moves.

As Phoenix said, it is a long test. Even without re-skates, our test chair allows about 20-25 minutes per tester (generally double paneled with 2 skaters skating all of the MIF except the Spiral sequence at the same time, starting at opposite ends of the rhink).

__________________
American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

All Adult track

Passed:

FS: 4 (PB thru Gold)

MIF: 1

Retry:

FS: 1 (Gold)

Passed:

Figures: 1 (preliminary, on the second try)

Freestyle: 1 (adult bronze, before there was pre-bronze)

MITF: 1 (pre-preliminary)

Dances: 8 (prelim, pre-bronze, and Hickory and Willow on the second try each)


Failed:

Figures: 1
MITF: 1 (preliminary)
Dances: 5 (Hickory and Willow once each, Ten-Fox three times)

I plan to get the preliminary MITF this summer, and then try adult silver and/or prejuvenile next winter although I'm not counting on passing the first try.

I'll get the Ten-Fox eventually to finish those bronzes, but right now I'm not dancing.

*sigh* My primary coach was like that too, until he got his first retry ever... but we all learned from those notes that the judges put in and well, I did improve on my second try at Bronze Moves (and one judge passed then that day.) Just have to keep pluggin' at it 'til I pass it. Sometimes a retry can be a good judges critique.

I don't know if it's me, but it seems that these days the MITF tests are much harder to pass than back a few years ago. A fellow coach (not my coaches) said that as MITF mature, the judges are more particular about what they want and that's why they're tougher. Some judges are from FS backgrounds. Others are from ice dance backgrounds and as phoenix says, you really can't control who you're gonna get as a judge.

One other thing I found is that if your coach is from a FS background with no ice dance background and you get a panel of three tough judges with strict ice dance background, your chances of passing is definitely lower!!! So if you are in this case, I suggest getting someone with a strong ice dance background also to take a look at your moves too. (I have at least two people like that...and one of them is coaching me.)

phoenix: Don't remind me of the stamina problem! I told my coach to have an oxygen tank on hand at my next test session! (Of course, he cracks up at the joke then says "Two laps around the rink!" -- this is after I've did a runthru of the Moves test. Yes, I know I'm a cardio wimp and I'm supposed to SLOWLY bring down the heart rate!!! )

__________________
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!!!