Halo or Horns - Practise and Lessons 19th - 25th July

[TashaKat]

I hope that you don't mind me taking the liberty of starting a lessons thread, haven't done it for ages and am feeling a bit nostalgic at the mo.

I want to start skating again though I can't even think about it until I've got my job situation sorted out. I wonder how difficult it will be to pick it up again!

[flo]

At your level - not that difficult. If you were just starting then it would be another story. For me after time off the hardest part was getting back into the skating habit, not the skating itself.

[kiwibabe]

Halo: I can finally do a 3 turn, a right outside 3 turn in fact. I had my blades shifted last week as I had a lot of trouble doing some outside edges. Had sync practice last night, lots of fun it looks like there will be enough people to do it for the competition in October.

Horns: I hit my elbow up against the boards last night during sync practice when someone else and I were practicing some russian swing roll type thing (can't remember the proper name for it), we were stopping when she managed to swing me around and I ended up skating backwards before being pushed into the wall by the other person. It doesn't hurt to much, I was more worried because its the elbow I have fractured twice before.

[NCSkater02]

Halo: I had the ice to myself for 45 minutes. Kinda cool, but since it happens frequently on these Gawd-awful early sessions, it's kinda boring. However, I made do. ;) In a way, I'm kinda glad I broke my ankle. Now before you call the guys in white coats to get me, let me explain. I had to go back to my basic skills, so they have improved so much since I've been back. Some are still lacking, but most have improved. Mohawks are smoother. Back crossovers are getting less scratchy. Simple things, but so big. I've been concentrating less on the jumping that I enjoy so much and worked on other things.

Horns:On the other hand, I had one of my coaches look at my blades because I'd been struggling with thinks like 3turns--I was consistantly skidding them. She told me I have no rocker left. I wasn't too surprised--I'd kind of suspected it. The F*&%^(* kid that sharpened my skates in October destroyed my blades. Don't think I have any recourse though. I have another pair on order, and NO KID will ever touch my blades again. :evil:

[sk8pics]

Halo Even though I was very tired, had a good practice and lesson today. Two days in a row I've done good program run throughs in my lesson, and my coach continues to be amazed as my spin actually improves with my one-a-day practice philosophy, :roll: :D :D Today he said I had a "kick-a$$" run through, which is pretty high praise. I was happy because the session had been chaotic with one collision that sent two other adult skaters to the ice. Everyone was okay, but it just made me a little jumpy. Also we worked on power 3's and I did some of my best ever ones on the left side; my coach was helping me, but still they were an improvement. And my salchow continues to improve and I am loving practicing them! 8-) 8-) I did two that had perfect tracings when I practiced them and another for my coach in my lesson. They're not all perfect, but he says they're "perfectly acceptable" so it's very exciting!

Horns: Came the closest I ever have to doing a face plant on my spiral in my program, as my blade went sideways on the ice, (stupid chewed up ice :frus: ) my weight shifted side to side and then forward as a result, then my quad clenched and I put my free foot down and breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't do the spiral in the run through because of that, but at least I am okay!

Hi Terry! Maybe next time I see you up here I will be less distracted and we can talk and I can watch you skate a little!

Hi Raye! Thanks for your earlier congrats on my salchow!

Happy skating everyone,
Pat

[MusicSkateFan]

HALO: I had my last lesson tonight before my test on Sunday the 24th. I will be doing Bronze Moves! Lesson went well my coach had me do each move 2 times plus some other drills. I am feeling pretty good. We shall see how this week of practice goes. I am trying to stay focused and am just going to keep doing run throughs at my sesssions. Stayed around for the adult session after my lesson...the ice was crap and it was sort of cwowded.....after 50 min of that...I was done!


Horns: My usually rink has been having bad ice in this HUMID and HOT weather! The early morning seesion are skated in thick fog and bumpy ice. The afternoon and evening sessions are wet ice with snow!!! Basically crap! :evil: :evil: :twisted: :twisted:

[rf3ray]

HALO: Well did 21 Perfect Backspins, and lots of good Frontspins, and my 3 turns and edges are going good :D :D

HORNS Done bugger all on Jumps :cry: :cry:

[jenlyon60]

Halo: GORGEOUS back cross-rolls. Even coach thought so. (I had originally written cross-overs when I meant cross-rolls....)

I LIKE my my new boots... Now that I'm pretty much used to them, things are more comfortable and easier to do.

Horns: Tango end pattern. I'm not yet pushing into it solo as much as coach wants. Nearly did some sort of wonky fall doing the RFI after the LBO back swing in the Tango...we are re-building that part of the dance when I skate it solo and I don't have the control in the shoulders there because I'm too used to relying on partner/coach.

Tango mohawk... first time I've done that bit in the new boots. I'm much more over my feet so I was almost too close to coach. But the RFI3 afterwards was really nice and quiet.

[Mrs Redboots]

Halo: Great practice this morning. Husband and I were the first skaters on to the ice, so it was fast and lovely! We had permission to use the music, so ran through the Golden Skaters' Waltz and the Riverside Rhumba (the Elementary compulsory dances for this year). We still need more speed in the GSW, though. Then we walked through our Free Dance, as we are still settling in the changes in the step sequence that we made on Sunday. I decided to change one of my 3-turns into a rocker, but I'm not sure whether I'll keep that. I probably will.

After Husband had gone, I worked on my edges, and was amused to be told that I was skating "really fast" by the fitness trainer, who hadn't seen me skate for some months. I'd just been reckoning I was a bit slow.....

Did almost a whole lap of back cross-rolls, which pleased me, and several people said how well I was doing them. I don't think they're nearly test standard yet, too "steppy" still, but they really are coming along nicely now.

Horns: My coach is running a summer school for his younger skaters this week (some of them have had to have permission not to go into school, as not all schools have finished yet - the majority don't finish until this Friday, and some are going on until next week, even), and so once they were on the ice it wasn't easy to get things done - some of those kids are fast! But they're nice kids, and weren't going to get into our way deliberately. As one of them's mother is a gymnastics teacher, she also does fitness training and some choreography, so I asked her to look at one of our new holds and see if it worked. Needless to say, the Husband (who doesn't always like being looked at!) made a mess of it, so we had to do it again....

Back cross-rolls were still dire. They are better than they were, but that wouldn't be difficult. I cannot get them right! I am always too far forward on my skate, and lurch forwards instead of leaning back into the edge, thus running out of oomph. But I can't feel where I ought to be. Unlike in the cross-rolls, when I know how it ought to feel, and try to reproduce the feeling..... Grrrrr....

Must make a list of things to work on in my lesson tomorrow!

[*JennaD*]

horns: :frus: :frus: :frus: my axels were not working at all today!!! I can't pull into the backspin position fast enough and so I don't get enough rotation...oh well maybe on thursday...

halo: I learned the 14-step in dance! Its so fun except its fast!!

[AnnM]

Halo: Did a fairly decent runthrough "cold" at the start of my lesson and an even better one at the end of the lesson. All the work put into the attitude spin last week paid off. For the first time ever, no problems at all on the back outside pivot. And, my coach made me a nifty music which was very sweet of her.

Horns: I seemingly cannot break my bad habit of not holding the LFO edge long enough before the three turn on spin entries. It's so frustrating because I am totally aware of the problem and put thought into the entry as I do it, but my body is just not cooperating. :evil: ISI Worlds are next week and I feel not quite up to competition standard. :evil:

[luna_skater]

Halos: Big improvement to back outside twizzles. Need to work on these a lot for synchro this year. Forward spins...actually got my legs crossed properly a few times! Good flips and lutzes. I'm getting a lot braver with loops, so I'm going into them with more speed and am getting better height. Waltz-loops are getting better, too. I have no problem going into a waltz jump at full speed, but I go in a little slower when I know I'm going to do a loop on the end. I'm gradually speeding up when doing the combo, and I think I'll soon be at top speed. Loop out of cross-overs getting better, too!

Horns: Backspin progress. It IS progressing, but not as fast as I'd like. A forward spin just feels so natural for me, and a backspin feels like the LEAST natural thing in the world.

[Mrs Redboots]

Horns: I seemingly cannot break my bad habit of not holding the LFO edge long enough before the three turn on spin entries. My coach's exercise to fix that one is to stand on one of the lines, you push on to a LFO edge, but you may not do the 3-turn until you have come back to the line. In fact, that's how he teaches spin entry.... it's good practice, too, for holding your check before going into the turn (which is probably why you're turning to early - you could well be letting your right shoulder come round too far too soon....).

As for me, today was my lesson day.

Halos: Was able to spend 2 hours on the ice, which was great. For the first 20 minutes I worked with Husband on our step sequence - decided to take out the rocker, since although I can do it, we ended up on the wrong foot and that got a bit complicated. So back to an ordinary 3-turn. The back changes-of-edge need some work now we are just holding hands - it's too easy to break at the waist.... At least now I know what to look out for!

Then on to my lesson. Worked mostly on edges - I showed my coach the two solo dances I may or may not compete in November, and he said that although they were infinitely better than they used to be, "and your extension was better than you normally do", my edge quality was still poor. I plan to work hard on that, and decide nearer the time! So he gave me some exercises for improving my FO edges, although, to be honest, I think the work I did later on the Circle Cycle and Evil Eights probably helped more.

Also worked on back edges, which improve slowly, and Level 3 Dance Moves, which are nowhere near testable yet, but an awful lot nearer than they were! I even managed to get some flow in the back cross-rolls, but still don't know what I did differently to when I didn't get any flow! And managed "3/4 of the length, not bad!" (my coach) of back cross-strokes. I'm beginning to get the feel for them, but it's so hard to keep one's upper body back while crossing one's feet in front.

I then worked on speed and acceleration, including a very silly exercise where you start from a standstill and then do lemons (swizzles) all the way round, getting faster and faster - quite hard to keep one's balance, I found.

After the lesson, the coach was working on the Circle Cycle with the summer school, and no reason for other people not to join in, so I did! Hours of changing edge, very good for me! And I thought afterwards it would be good music to do Evil Eights to, although when I did them, the kids were doing programme runthroughs, so the Circle Cycle wasn't playing. One of the exercises the coach invented was worthy of Xavier Debernis at the Mountain Cup camp - all it wanted was a Mohawk instead of a 3-jump and you'd think he'd turned into Xavier all of a sudden. He said (my coach, not Xavier!) that most of the CC exercises were aimed at dancers, and he wanted to invent one that would suit free skaters.....

Talking of Mohawks, I showed off that I can at last do the baby mohawk exercise I loathe - which I only really mastered by working on back cross-rolls, you never know what will help which.....

Horns: Two hours on the ice? I'm exhausted!!!! Totally cream-crackered. Usually when I have a 2-hour session I spend far more of it propping up the barrier than I did today, when I was really trying to skate aerobically for most of the time!

Husband says that since the ice is so empty this week, we're probably going tomorrow morning as well as tomorrow evening! I'll be as tired as the children by the end of the week, shouldn't wonder!

[Skate@Delaware]

Halo Hi Terry! Maybe next time I see you up here I will be less distracted and we can talk and I can watch you skate a little!
Happy skating everyone,
Pat
You missed my Zamboni imitation (power-3's trip up onto freshly zamboni'd wet ice)!! I now sport 2 lovely bruises (right elbow/knee) :lol:
No skating for a while-State Fair!!!!!!

[dbny]

My coach's exercise to fix that one is to stand on one of the lines, you push on to a LFO edge, but you may not do the 3-turn until you have come back to the line. In fact, that's how he teaches spin entry.... it's good practice, too, for holding your check before going into the turn (which is probably why you're turning to early - you could well be letting your right shoulder come round too far too soon....).


That's my ex-coach's method also.

I've been off the ice for three weeks now. I was hoping to skate this week on a public session, but have been sheparding daughter to doctor's appts instead. We leave Fri morning for two weeks of camping. I'm taking my skates and am determined to skate twice on public sessions. I don't care if all I get to do is go round and round!

[luna_skater]

Halos: Loops out of a 3-turn have gotten really good, and loops out of cross-overs have improved a lot. Sals had really good height today! Managed to do a couple of cross-foot forward spins, and a few decent backspins.

Horns: Every session, I can do a certain amount of flip jumps, and then they just go to crap. Not just less height, or something like that, like I can't get off the ground. Same with spins. The first few spins of the session are always great, and by the end I can't spin to save my life.

Wiped out on a back outside twizzle today, bruising my rear nicely. Should be nice and stiff tomorrow from that one!

[Mrs Redboots]

Horns: Every session, I can do a certain amount of flip jumps, and then they just go to crap. Not just less height, or something like that, like I can't get off the ground. Same with spins. The first few spins of the session are always great, and by the end I can't spin to save my life.As soon as they start deteriorating, leave them, and go and do something else. You may find that you can go back to them in 15 minutes and they're fine again, or you may have had your "ration" for the day. But leave them as soon as they start deteriorating.

Not skating this morning - husband just grunted at 6.15 and went back to sleep! Very stiff, but suppose I'll drag myself down to the rink for dance club, which I'll enjoy when I get there, no doubt!

[coskater64]

Started working w/ FDance (juv & int)

Halo: Lifting me is easy enough, the drapes are getting better as is the footwork. Unison seems to be good.

Horns: Dance spins, gotta remember to lean outside the circle. Doing the footwork fast is difficult, he just had to have a full lunge, (he is so young).

The music we dance to is pretty and very soft, not very me, but i figure it's good to give different types of music a go.
My jumps are really good even though I test this saturday and was supposed to test dances next week but can't due to eye surgery. Oh well, I'll do it later.

[Mrs Redboots]

: Lifting me is easy enough,Yes..... my husband lifted her at one of the many parties at the Mountain Cup, and said "Goodness, you're light!" Which was not exactly tactful of him, but true - Coskater64 is a lot lighter than I am!

[flying~camel]

Halos:

Spins felt good. Sit-change, flying camel-back sit combos and forward camel all felt pretty solid :) I'm also getting a bit braver on the lutz, which caused me to take some falls, but at least there is progress ;) I also pulled out some nice RFI brackets as well as some RFI-RBO double brackets. I'm hoping to get them good enough to put into a footwork sequence in my new program :D

Horns:

My test program run-through was less than spectacular, though I felt pretty overheated during the entire freestyle, so I think that may have had something to do with it. :??

[Mrs Redboots]

Dance club this evening - really focussed on edges and speed. There are some times I'm sure the Husband holds back, though he always says not (well, he would say that, wouldn't he!).

Halo: Did some good work on the basic dances, and did at least one pattern of the Golden Skaters' Waltz really fast.

Horns: Some dances still felt like skating through treacle. Another skater pointed out we were probably doing the chassés in the Riolado Samba (Silver Samba with the backwards bits taken out) at half-speed. I canNOT do the 3-turn in the Hickory Hoedown, I don't think it's physically possible! Do not like the Festival Quickstep - Husband messed up the change of hold and pulled me off-balance, then blamed me! But when we did it again, he got it right, so that was all right, but I still don't like that dance, and don't know what I'm doing with my free leg on all those quick steps! Ah well.

I might grumble, but it was still enjoyable! Before it started, we tried doing 3-bracket-3s in hold, with singular lack of success, but it was fun trying....

[*JennaD*]

Halo: My spins are getting better, I am rotating a lot more than I used to! Also, I'm starting to feel really comfortable with the Ten Fox.

Horns: the 3-turn skill in preliminary skills is still bad...and my axel is the same, I was able to pull in a tiny bit tighter today, but no real progress :roll: oh well...I didn't have too much time to work on them, so maybe next week I'll have more luck with that ;)

[jazzpants]

:halo: : Trying out the last morning FS session with primary coach today... I like it!!! It's fairly quiet...
I got thru most of my moves relatively unscathed...

Guess what? He actually LIKED my nightmare forward power 3's!!! 8O 8O 8O

:twisted: : My BW crossovers around the ends of the rink! :frus: Primary coach just had to choose the time where he goes over back crossovers and telling me to LOOK behind me to remind me of the time that I almost ran him over with my car.

Coach: "You have to look... like you should have when you almost ran me over at 6th St. a few weeks ago..." :P
Me: "Well, actually YOU wouldn't have gotten hit. The guy in front of you would have gotten it!!!" :roll:

(Maybe I should have... :twisted: Just kidding... :mrgreen: And besides, after that freak accident I had about 8 days ago... I probably deserve it too!!! :P )

There are still some stuff to work on... on almost all the moves!!! More stuff to practice this weekend...

Another funny: After having a hard time stiffling a yawn and dragging on moves that are usuallly easy for me, he says that he thinks he's gonna make me take the test in Sept. so I would quickly pass it and get back into skating Monday nights again... :twisted: Of course, I quickly had to correct him that we switched to morning FS b/c of the summer weeks... and school will start soon after then anyway, so it will be Thursday afternoons again... :P

[blue111moon]

Halos: Pretty much everything which was a shock to me and my coach because I'm only skating once a week for the summer and so practice is minimal. Maybe I'm forgetting all my bad habits? It was definitely a Spin Night, since I hit everything. Camels were better than I've ever done them and I did several, not just One Lucky One. The sit-change-sit changed feet and stayed down! Even the layback was centered!

Jumps were a little less angelic but I got closer to a clean flip than I have since the week I got back from Fance. I eked out another degree or two of rotation on the axel and landed on the correct foot for a change. And we worked on the double salchow prep for a while - salchow/backspin/exit. I really like edge jumps. :lol:

Finally we worked on a straightline step sequence and I didn't trip once. It got a little wonky when we shifted it to the diagonal (blasted dancers kept STANDING in my path!!!! Not waiting for music or anything, just standing there chatting!!!!) but it was - interesting to see how different steps felt just because I changed their location in the rink.

Horns: Besides the standing dancers, the only issue we had was with a member who "forgot" to mail in her membership renewal and made a scene in the lobby when we explained that she couldn't walk in and skate because she has no insurance since she isn't a member at this time. This isn't the first time she's done this - I don't think she's ever gotten her membership application in on time in all the years I've known her, but it's the first time the club has enforced the rule about not allowing non-members to skate. She's not the only one who's tried but she is the only one who kicked up a fuss. I know I shouldn't let that stuff follw me out onto the ice but it does and it's not fun.

[NoVa Sk8r]

Halo: Getting back in to the swing of things. Finally had a pair lesson--it had been 4 weeks since the last one. Cleaned up 2 lifts, then learned the flying catch-waist spin. (I'm gonna call it the Kama Sutra pair spin because of the funky positions Loops and I end up getting into! 8O ) Flo, is this the flying spin you keep raving about? It starts off as a normal pair spin, but then we hop to each other (kinda like a mini waltz jump), assume the back camel position, and grab each other's waists--or try to! :P

After the lesson, we played around with pair brackets while we were in a Killian position and then went straight into a funky dance lift. That was pretty neat-o. 8-)

We are making nice progress on our new program--even though it's not done being choreographed. We'll get there.

Horn: I've developed a hip bursitis problem--the massage therapy seems to help a little. But doing flying camels, at times, hurts like a mother ******. :evil:

[flo]

Hi Nova,
That's one of them! There's also another where, instead of hopping, you do an inside three into eachother and end up in the same position. From this position you can go to a ball, both of you just bend your skating knee and crouch down, free leg also bent, but not on the ice. My camp partner and I decided to rename it to a "hedgehog" spin.

Also, if he hasn't done it, ask Nick to teach you too the head chopper. It's just a pair cammel and loops would crouch down for a rotation (and your leg would go over her head) and then pop back up into the cammel position.

[Mrs Redboots]

Halo: We had some visitors to our rink this morning, the British champion dance couple, down for a judge's critique. And our own elite dancers were back from holiday and illness, so we ended up training with three of the top four British couples! Can't be bad.... and two Junior couples and one that is either Novice or Primary, forget which - and another adult elementary couple! I felt rather sorry for the two free skaters, although more joined them in due course, and some more adults, too.

We had a good practice, although we still need to work on the new holds in our free dance. One of the holds showed the weaknesses in my back cross-rolls very nicely.... luckily I only have to do 2 in it in the actual dance! And we both had trouble not breaking at the waist in our changes-of-edge. Spent time working on our assisted 3-jump/sort-of lift, which ought to work a lot better than it does. It's fine if we go into it slowly, thinking of each phase of the element, but at speed it almost never works properly! Our other lift, the "real" one at the end of the programme, is almost always fine.

Mind you, I'd not do one lift I saw this morning where the woman is slung round the man's neck like a garland, and the only reason she doesn't fall off is that she's holding her blades..... Sheesh.... no thank you! Nor would I trust him to do a spread-eagle while I did a (supported) handstand on his knees, thank you very much! Or some of the other upside-down lifts I've seen our elite skaters do.

Horns: Traffic jams, mainly; you couldn't do things like Evil Eights without getting in someone's way, or they in yours. It was sort of fast out there - but I like that, as it makes me skate faster.

Did a Canasta Tango solo, and realised, when I'd finished, that I had not bent my knees at all (I exaggerate, but you know what I mean).... Oh well, trudge another mile.... and my FO edges were slow and clunky today, although I think they were deeper. Back cross-strokes coming along nicely, and back cross-rolls, too.... did some quite good forward cross-rolls in Foxtrot hold, too (this hurts like crazy if you do a whole lap, which we did - the second side really focussing on knee-bend and edges, it made a difference!).

Tried a hold we've been discussing on another forum, where I skate in front of him with my arms back, and he holds my hands. He said I might find it easier if I kept my shoulders back - er, I don't think so, much too scary! All the same, he's quite right. We'll have to try that again next time we skate.....

[NoVa Sk8r]

Hi Nova,
That's one of them! There's also another where, instead of hopping, you do an inside three into eachother and end up in the same position. From this position you can go to a ball, both of you just bend your skating knee and crouch down, free leg also bent, but not on the ice. My camp partner and I decided to rename it to a "hedgehog" spin.

Also, if he hasn't done it, ask Nick to teach you too the head chopper. It's just a pair cammel and loops would crouch down for a rotation (and your leg would go over her head) and then pop back up into the cammel position.Nick mentioned these others. Loops hates the crouch spins (but I like 'em). Nick calls the head chopper the guillotine. :P

Loops and I might also play with a pair spin where she does the forward camel and I do a forward sit. And unfortunately at the silver pairs level, changing positions is not allowed. :(

[flo]

Pooh - keep working on it for gold pairs. Remember - both of you can go up to gold when one of you passes gold.

[NoVa Sk8r]

Pooh - keep working on it for gold pairs. Remember - both of you can go up to gold when one of you passes gold.Since Loops passed gold moves, we can take the gold pairs test. Or we can take up to the juvenile pair test.

These tests won't count for me because I've not passed gold MIF or taken ANY standard track tests; I'd just be along for the ride. 8-)

[LoopLoop]

But before we could take the gold pair test we'd have to take the bronze and silver tests, or we could take preliminary and juvenile pairs. Either route is available since I've passed both gold and juvenile MIF.

That's not in the cards this year though.

[NoVa Sk8r]

Either route is available since I've passed both gold and juvenile MIF.
That's not in the cards this year though.Something to look forward to next summer, perhaps--that is if I don't actually follow through on the annual "I'm quitting for good--no, really!" bit in December. ;) :P

[flo]

Or one of you could pass gold free. The rules are too wierd. I have a juvenile pair test, which puts me in gold, but I can't take the gold test because I don't have gold moves. So it would take me two more tests to get me where I am now. Grrrr.

[NoVa Sk8r]

Or one of you could pass gold free. The rules are too wierd. I have a juvenile pair test, which puts me in gold, but I can't take the gold test because I don't have gold moves. So it would take me two more tests to get me where I am now. Grrrr.But passing gold free means you have to skate in gold singles. ( 8O 8O )
The way the rules are set up now is that you can skate gold pairs but still be a silver singles skater.

[Casey]

Halo: Did spinning today. Had a REALLY GOOD spin from the back shoot-the-duck entry, resulting in 16 revolutions. I had to count the tracing 3 times to make sure I wasn't kidding myself. Spins started going downhill after an hour though. Started toying a bit with clockwise stuff again. Managed to pull off clockwise waltz jumps, half flips, toe loops, and salchows. Not very big or stable jumps compared to my counterclockwise ones, but they're there. I think I'm going to start practicing clockwise jumping and spinning for a while every time I skate. My clockwise spins suck, but they're much better than my backspins that I can't do at all! :giveup:

Horns: My feet hurt in my skates. First the tops were sore so I loosened them a bit, then they were tool loose and I couldn't skate so I tightened them again and they were tolerable, but the backs of my heels hurt a lot after not even 2 hours on the ice. I want my new skates. :evil:

[Mrs Redboots]

Horns: We were practising changes-of-edge together and Husband mistimed his swing and kicked me in the shin. Absolutely denied he'd even touched me - until, after we got off, I showed him the mark, which only just didn't bleed, and will scab! So now I have scars on each leg from him....... :twisted:

Very tired today, but still managed to skate relatively well. Made a nonsense of my RFO 3 in the free dance, because Husband swerved out of the way to avoid people who were standing in our line of fire (I said go straight through them, they knew we were coming) so I was off-balance.

Tried to show off our pairs spin to our coach - naturally, the Laws of Skating kicked in, and we couldn't even get 1 revolution......

Haloes: Lift worked better than ever - husband managed a full 360 turn with me in his arms before the music stopped! Coach said our Swing Dance "looked easy", which is a huge compliment from him!

He finally explained to Husband, in words of one syllable, that we need to rotate our shoulders together when one of us is doing a 3-turn. So we tried it like that, and, needless to say, it was much easier, so I was like, "Can we always do it like this, please?", but I bet that won't happen!

Husband and I played with the Hickory Hoedown. I can do the 3-turn slowly now, but not yet at the correct speed. Oh well.....

[FrankR]

Hello all,

It's been a while since I've done one of these. I really didn't have much to report since I didn't really have any new things to report regarding how my skating had been going. However, I've made some progress and thought I'd share.

Horns:
I figure it's best to get the bad stuff out of the way first. Regarding the work I've been putting into the gold moves, it's been so frustrating to be struggling with what I thought was the simplest step of the test. I've been struggling with power circles. Originally, the only power circle that was decent was the forward counter-clockwise power circle. Now, after a lot of work, all but the back clockwise power circle are at least presentable if not actually passable. I think that I sometimes get carried away counting the crossovers as I do them that I forget to focus on my crossover technique and I end up tripping or losing my balance. :oops: I hate splatting on crossovers. My right forward outside bracket can still get a little bumpy. On the whole, my bracket pattern can get a little distorted when I get to the back outside brackets. I tend to make those circles a little shallow.

My freestyle has been improving steadily since my bout with waxels and wow-cows a couple of months ago. However, that being said, I'm still struggling with the entrance into my camel spin. I have a tendency to hop up into the camel position. I think I've made some progress towards fixing this but I'm still inconsistent with my camel entrances. I've also been toying with doing forward spins out of back spins. This has proved quite challenging for me. :?? I always seem to lose my balance a little bit as I step into the forward spin coming out of the back spin. The double sal is still AWOL. I've decided to take a break from it because my last few attempts were dismal at best and life-threatening at worst. :cry: I still don't get why this jump has gone away from me. So I've decided to work on other doubles which leads me to the positive, up-lifting part of the post. :)

Halos:
I'm probably most pleased about my progress with the gold moves. That's not to say that my moves are all perfect or even passable but I can at least get through each pattern and by and large I feel comfortable with everything except the back clockwise power circle. Considering my moves were a dismal eye-sore as much as two months ago that's saying a lot. My moves coach and I are working hard at refining everything and I still make dumb mistakes but I feel there's nothing on the test that I won't be able to do by the time I take the test (my goal is to take the test by the end of the year).

It's been hard to get myself going when working on freestyle elements lately. I've been doing my usual assortment of jumps (all the singles including the axel). However, my main focus for the past couple of months has really been spinning. I've had some breakthroughs in getting my sit spin lower and increasing the speed of my back scratch spin. My flying camel has also been improving in terms of speed and centering. I've been toying with a layback spin. It's been quite the adventure! :lol: I tend to go up to my toe-pick and grind to a halt but my coach tells me I have good arch in my back so I guess with some work it might be usable. I've also been working double jumps. The double toe is sometimes toe-axeled and at other times not. It's still a work in progress. I had also been working on doing double loops out of back scratch spins. This past Saturday they were feeling particularly snappy even if they weren't getting all the way around so I decided to try a double loop out of a back edge just to see what would happen. On my first attempt I landed on my right foot (opposite from the landing foot...I'm lefty) but did get all the way around. I was shocked. 8O So I figured I'd give it another shot and see what happens. The second attempt went up and rotated and actually stayed straight! I actually landed on my landing foot and everything! :D However, I was so shocked that I didn't check my free leg behind me. I tried to throw the free leg behind me quickly to try and save the landing and wound up catching the toe-pick of my free leg on the ice behind me and tripped myself. ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!! :evil: Still, I was excited that I got it all the way around and I got up from the ice laughing. It was fun trying that double loop yesterday.

So that's what's been up with me. I hope everyone is doing well both on and off the ice.

Frank

[NoVa Sk8r]

Hey Frank,
Glad to hear you are making steady progress on the gold moves. That gives me motivation to work on them.
I had one lesson on them many moons again and got so frustrated that I decided to stop and work on my spins (achieving Level 2).
Loops and I were playing around with a mini-bracket sequence (while I skate behind her and hold her arms), so myabe I can return to working on those.

Kudos, also, on your spins--they sound exciting!

[FrankR]

Hey Frank,
Glad to hear you are making steady progress on the gold moves. That gives me motivation to work on them.
I had one lesson on them many moons again and got so frustrated that I decided to stop and work on my spins (achieving Level 2).
Loops and I were playing around with a mini-bracket sequence (while I skate behind her and hold her arms), so myabe I can return to working on those.

Kudos, also, on your spins--they sound exciting!

Hey NoVa,

Good to hear from you. The gold moves are tough to begin with, but they've been very challenging for me because I've never really felt that edge control was ever a strength for me. However, I think the trick is to just keep working on them no matter how crappy they might feel. Believe me, there have been days that I've felt completely in lummox mode. Sadly enough, these days always seem to fall on days I have lessons with the aforementioned moves coach. :roll: Regardless of how badly the moves feel on any given day I always tell myself that I'm doing better with them at that moment than on the day I first started to learn them and that's always helpful.

The spins have been exciting. I don't think any of the new stuff I've been trying is quite program-ready yet but it's been fun trying it all and I think it's been helping my spinning in general. I've been toying with doing a forward catch foot camel. I'm still having trouble catching my foot but even if I don't get it, the spin tends to gather a ton of speed. People at the rink who have seen it say it looks cool even when I don't catch the foot and stay in the arched, bent-leg position. Whether that's true or not I don't really know. All I do know is that practicing this spin makes me feel as if every drop of blood in my body is rushing to my head! 8O I could do without that particular sensation. :lol:

Take care,

Frank

[sceptique]

Halo: We had some visitors to our rink this morning

Sorry for off-topic - which rink do you skate at? Eventually we'll have to move to London and I'll have switch clubs and coaches. The Covenry rink team is great and I'm wondering if I'd be able to find a good crew in London. Which rink would you recommend? Alexandra Palace looks like a good choice, if we move to North London, but we might end up in Docklands. Heard some rumors of a rink being built inside the Dome... are those just rumors?

[sceptique]

Halo: now I figured out the difference between the edges that my coach wanted me to do and the ones I was doing last time when we had a lesson. She would have been proud of me!

Horns: because of admin stuff (she's also one of the school's directors) we didn't have time for my lesson this week so I had no chance to show off my progress. All I got to show her, when she stopped by to have a quick chat, was my first feeble attempt at a bracket that I've been learning from a skating manual.

Halo: She liked it!

[Mrs Redboots]

Sorry for off-topic - which rink do you skate at? Eventually we'll have to move to London and I'll have switch clubs and coaches. The Covenry rink team is great and I'm wondering if I'd be able to find a good crew in London. Which rink would you recommend? Alexandra Palace looks like a good choice, if we move to North London, but we might end up in Docklands. Heard some rumors of a rink being built inside the Dome... are those just rumors?I skate at Streatham, in South London, which is the most convenient to me. This is to be rebuilt in a couple of years, but the present rink will remain until the new rink opens. That's "home" to me, and I recommend it, but in London you have a choice! Alexandra Palace is lovely - we skate there once a month. There is also Lee Valley, in the area that will be rebuilt for the Olympics - don't know what will happen to the rink there, though, or whether it will stay. Hope so! I've not skated there, only put Husband on the ice at a competition, but it's in a lovely setting. Then, slightly further out, there are (clockwise) Romford, Chelmsford, Gillingham, Guildford and Slough.

I don't know whether they are going to build a permanent rink in the Dome, or just a temporary one for exhibitions/competitions. I do hope we get Worlds in 2008 - an awful lot of us are planning to apply for temporary jobs there if we do!