Toothsome / Tiresome Lessons & Practices 8/31-9/6

[Cinderella on Ice]

Starshine and Rachel - Congrats on your moves and best wishes for a fun and wonderful school year. Hope the skating things sort themselves out soon and that you can indulge your obsession like the rest of us.

Yazmeen - crack me up with that story!!! I love the image of you doing your 3 turns in lab coat and wedgie sandals!

TOOTHSOME - can you say AXEL/AXEL??!!! Yes, it's true. I was practicing my axels and thinking it would be cool if I could do an axel/toe loop in my new gold program (instead of "just" an axel). Even though I was landing the axels, I didn't like the landings (wasn't checking properly), so I thought maybe I'd try to do an axel/waltz jump to settle things down. But when I landed the first axel, it felt so good, I decided to try a second one and I landed it! Then, just to be sure it wasn't a fluke, I did another set! Wow that felt good.

We only had three people on the freshly made ice today, so it was like bonus day. Plus, they let us skate from 1:15 until 3:30. I worked hard on all my gold elements and also timing of the first part of my program which we've reworked. I was pleased with my practice and kicked my own butt. I ended with 8 minutes of power skating to my music.

TIRESOME: My camel spins aren't as dead-on as they were last week and my camel/sit/back sit felt like I was sliding sideways. Sure enough, I think my blades are too dull to "hold" the spin! So I'm going to take the skates in this weekend. Also, adding the new connecting moves to my program has made getting into the elements so much more difficult. Not that that's bad--I like the challenge. But while I felt like I had finally "conquered" my silver program and was beginning to add flair to it, now I'm back to just trying to slog through the basics and get the program down.

TOOTHSOME: But that's the fun of it, isn't it???!!! :D

[Figureskates]

Would you believe I had the whole rink to myself? And after the Zamboni too!!

Worked on alternating 3's, pwer 3's, edges in general and my Salchow and Waltz jump, plus a few attempts at the toe loop.

What ticked me off was I forgot to bring my scribe so I blew a chance to do patch.

[sk8er1964]

Cinder - If you go to AN with an axel-axel in Gold III, I bet you would have a guaranteed Gold medal! Wow - that's great!

Also, Figureskates, isn't it a good feeling to leave the ice after you've had it all to yourself and look back at the tracings and marks and think "that's all mine"?

Love the story, Yazmeen!

Lanie - what kind of music are you looking for? Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is nice. Let's see...Rimsky-Korsekov has some good skating music, like Snow Maiden and Tsar's Bride. John Williams has some interesting music too, stuff that isn't super recognizable like Star Wars. Vivaldi's Four Seasons is another good choice. A lot of people like Yanni too, but that's more modern. If you have a Borders Bookstore around you, they will let you listen to music without buying it first (a much cheaper way than buying and finding out there's nothing useful on the cd).

To those of you starting college -- good luck and have fun (but not too much fun - you do have to go to class sometime ).

As for me, just one cute story. I took the afternoon off, so I didn't do my usual session. I went to my club, but the ice was cancelled for a hockey tournament (I knew it was tomorrow, but didn't realize it was for today too). Anyway, I ended up at another nearby rink that had drop in freestyle. There were a lot of kids there from my rink, plus the kids from that rink that usually skated this session.

I decided to run part of my program (just the beginning, so I could practice the spiral sequence into the axel - the bauer is long gone, BTW, Cinder). Anyway, I landed the axel, and decided to go on past where I had intended to stop. I guess I went too far, because I got to one point, tripped over the back of my blade doing a mohawk, and did one of those heliocopter, flailing trips to the ice on my back end. Ended up at the feet of a young teenager who I had not seen before. What cracked me up was here I was in a rather funny/spectacular fall and she looked down at me and said "You're good!" She actually meant it - I doubt she had ever seen an adult doing axels and then flailing around doing heliocopter falls like me . I really did appreciate the compliment, though.

Happy skating to all!

[Figureskates]

You bet sk8er1964!!

Also it really is a great opportunity to look at your edge quality and see whrther you were really on an outside edge. The tracings don't lie!! That's why I was upset I didn't have the scribe with me. With a clean patch of ice I could really critique my edge quality on my figures.

[Cinderella on Ice]

Sk8er1964 - Yeah, I'm guaranteed gold if the judges don't care at all about style or presentation! Or that wheezing sound I make by the end of my program.

And if I'm not mistaken, there's been talk about making your helicopter flailing move mandatory in ALL the gold levels! Luckily, you have a head start on it.

I might have been practicing its cousin today, because when I tried to do a program run-through at the end (pant, pant), I opened out on the axel and did something that looked like a sideways cartwheel/discus thingie. Maybe you and I could combine ideas and come up with a new move called the Cindemar. Or the Marderella. Who needs a bauer anyway???

P.S. How has the injury been? Do you feel 100%? I'm so jealous of your doubles! I think I'd like to start working on one or two this fall. Do you have any advice (you can email me if it's not appropriate for the board here)? Should I try to work on just one, or more than one at once? Any thoughts about how I learn to cross my feet? Should I start only in the harness (never used one in my life)? Did you start with the one you used to do best (I think I learned the 2toe first, but my flip is my best single jump)? I would LOVE to be known at my rink as "that old lady who's doing doubles!"

[starshinexavier]

Toothsome: Got my skates sharpened today in preparation for Monday. Got an e-mail from my coach too. We're excited to meet each other. :D I can't wait!

I found out yesterday that my new friend Rob's roommate Jay used to skate. He's super hot! I'm going to try to convince him to come and do open skates with me at the campus arena, and maybe we can do dance together, since he's at about the same level as me. Skating on campus is "free", so I really hope that he comes and skates with me. I just hope Rob doesn't tell Jay that I have the hots for him.

That's it for me, Happy Skating!

[sk8er1964]

Cinder - relearning the doubles for me has been so weird.

I was doing a 2sal when I hurt myself. (BTW, yes - after six months and physical therapy, my injury is healed, thankfully). Anyway, I really want to do a 2 sal, but I am afraid to try one without my coach watching (this sport is so mental), so until the MIF test is done I won't try one. We did a couple of 2loops in the harness, but I haven't done any out of the harness yet. I don't know about the harness - it's great in that you don't have to worry about hurting yourself falling - because your coach will catch you (most of the time - he did drop me once). However, eventually you have to do it without, and if you learn to depend on it that is not a good thing.

I have focused on the one jump - the 2toe. I don't really know if that's a good strategy. My coach and I discussed bringing the 2loop into the mix, because the crossed foot is already there in the 2loop. After the MIF test we will explore this further. I still am not crossing the feet in the 2toe, but they are fully rotated. I am beginning to wonder if the crossed foot is really necessary at my level - realistically I will never try a triple - so if I can land a 2toe without a crossed foot I am doing pretty well for an adult.

I have to keep remembering that I am not 16, and that I have to approach things differently. I have no doubt that I will eventually get the doubles - and that my feet will be crossed on some, if not most, of them. Like you, I have wondered about trying the 2flip since it is my best jump too. Maybe we'll try it after the MIF test.

I know you haven't taken your Gold test yet - it's soon, isn't it? Have you considered a competition for the heck of it? My home club's comp is in late October - we are only about 4-5 hours from you. It's too early in the season for any of us to be competitive - I'm sure this one (very nice) woman will win if she skates because her excellent presentation covers her mistakes (unlike me - the mistakes cover the presentation ). Anyway, if you want info on it let me know - I think it closes on Sept 15th.

In my area, BTW, the competition schedule gearing up for AN is:

Port Huron in February (it's a mixed comp with good adult attendance)

Wyandotte in early March - this is an all adult comp and very good for learning what the adults are doing.

Sectionals in Cleveland in late March

AN in Lake Placid in April.

So continues the (from this post long) saga of the Adult Gold skaters :\ ..........

[Cinderella on Ice]

Sk8er1964 - Thanks for the thoughts on the doubles. I'm sure I'll be asking you all kinds of questions as I try to move forward. I agree with you that it's mostly mental -- luckily, I AM mental!

I got all excited about the competition in October (and the thought of meeting you), and then quickly my hopes were dashed (I believe) because I don't believe I'm qualified to skate in it. If I'm reading the rules correctly, I would have to have passed Gold by September 15. In the Freestyle category you can compete one level higher than current test level. But it doesn't seem to be that way in adult. Do you read it the same way or have any info on this? And wouldn't you just LOVE for your name to be Susan Sequin??

Starshine - I can't wait till you're back on the ice (probably neither can you!). And the thought of a cute guy thrown into the mix -- life is good!

[rachelstarlet]

Hey, great news: I skated today! Finally, hah. It'd been a week and a half. It wasn't very eventful... but here goes

Tiresome: A birthday party group was using the ice which was very distracting but eventually the rink manager came and told them to quit being so annoying... which was nice, because at Lynnwood I don't think I ever saw anyone doing any "disciplining" except for sometimes the figure skating coaches asking the hockey boys to quit getting in the way of lessons. I had to take the bus to the rink which wasn't bad but it was kind of tiring. Oh well. The ice felt different at first because I've never skated anywhere else, and it was hard to get used to at first. I think it was a bit softer than I'm used to, because my toe picks kept dragging during spins and on a couple three turns I went way up on it. I dunno.

Toothsome: However, the soft ice must've been good for my waltz jumps because I was doing my best ones ever! I was getting a lot of spring and power. I tried adding a few toe loops to the end but maybe I was tired or something because they were sloppy. Anyway I've noticed I'm getting better on connecting everything- I don't start and stop as much.

Anyway, that's all for me. Hopefully I'll be getting into a skating routine soon.

[sk8er1964]

Originally posted by Cinderella on Ice
I got all excited about the competition in October (and the thought of meeting you), and then quickly my hopes were dashed (I believe) because I don't believe I'm qualified to skate in it. If I'm reading the rules correctly, I would have to have passed Gold by September 15. In the Freestyle category you can compete one level higher than current test level. But it doesn't seem to be that way in adult. Do you read it the same way or have any info on this? And wouldn't you just LOVE for your name to be Susan Sequin??

I noticed that too. I doubt that that is what they meant, though. I can email Susan for you if you'd like to clarify the rule. She's really good about answering her emails. I know I wouldn't mind if you competed with the Golds, and I highly doubt anyone else would mind either. Let me know and I'll email her on Monday - I won't actually see her until next weekend.

[Figureskates]

Surprise, surprise. I managed to get some ice time this evening before I came to work (I have a nightshift tonight...yuck).

Went through everything, edges, preliminary moves( still shaky but there is small improvement), and jumps. Waltz and Salchow getting ever stronger and much more consistent. Toeloop is still flaky at best, I think I am making it harder than it really is. More ice tomorrow but it is working the general skate session, keeping the little urchins in check and keeping the Bobby Or wannabes from killing the Tara wanabes.

[Lanie]

Toothsome - My friend taught me an attitude spin. It's wobbly but I have a "nice turnout," she said, so, hey. LOL. I also have conquered the scratch. I didn't do much jumping today; didn't feel like it. Today was spin day.

Tiresome - Not much other than the fact I <i>was</i> tired and didn't feel too well the first thirty minutes of the session...

[Cinderella on Ice]

Lanie - My coach just showed me the attitude on Tuesday, and I can already tell I will NOT be a natural at it! She had me stand against the barrier at the hockey door and wrap my right leg around the edge and behind me to grip the barrier with my leg in order to show me the hip turnout and right position. Phew! That just feels weird, and when I do it while spinning, I go right up on my toepicks! Sounds like you got the hang of it fairly quickly -- good for you!

Figureskates - what a nice surprise to sneak in some ice time. Glad you enjoyed it.

Sk8er1964 - I emailed Susan earlier this evening to find out the scoop on the competition. I'll let you know what she says.

[Lanie]

Aww. *hugs Cindy* You'll get it! My friend told me do a glide with my leg in that position, and it took me a few tries to get the correct turn out, but I think with being a teenager and with skating is that one learns quickly! Heehee.