Practice Reports

Hi all,
Thought I'd start this thread for all who want to post practice reports. (Toni- you can post links to your reports here, too.)

lost report

Hey, just typed a pretty big report, and it got wiped somehow. Somehow I got logged out, and it said "invalid thread specified".

Hang in there, I'll try to recap!

Sr Pairs LP practice- Jan 10

Okay, this is even more abbreviated because I'm too tired, and bummed that my earlier report got lost


Inouye and Baldwin: solid except for his triples- hands down on all lutz attempts and triple toe. Holding back a little. Just doing elements. They have one lift that's very complicated, but would be more impressive if he kept the speed through it.

Orscher and Lukash: decent. nice line, expressive, but he seemed tired/under the weather. Clean on all their elements at least once. Botched one lift on their run-through, but went back and got it, and it's very cool.

Don and Hunt: (Our faves) Showed the most speed/attack. Bad fall on one triple throw, but then some solid ones. Good side-by-side jumps, and a couple of very impressive lifts. On one, Jonathon changes direction of rotation after a couple position changes.)

Missed the last group (Scott & Dulebohn, Hinzmann and Parchem, et. al)- just got too late. Exhausted.

Others of note:
(one junior team: McLaughlin and Burgess. nice stuff. Huge triple twist, though the first time she fell backwards and pulled him down on top of her, and he's a LOT bigger. They hit it later.)

Evora and Ladwig. Very expressive, beautiful lifts. She has trouble landing the triples (throws and individual). Just like the last 2 years, after a complete run-through, they do sprints up and down the ice on one side. Nice choreography. They seem committed/hungry.

Vise and Kole. Still seem juniorish to me, though beautiful side-by-side triples. Not much connection, feeling. When they started, it was the wrong music (it was her sister's). He loudly corrected them and got big laughs, applause.

Castile and Okolski (juniors last year, don't know how they placed). Looked very polished. Potential.

Kuban and Ibarra- he's on his 3rd partner in 3 years. Looks more mature. Again, nice expression.

Roth and Hartsell were no shows. Anyone have any news? Usually even when they aren't there, the music is played, but not tonight. Hmmm.

That's it for now. Tomorrow is a big day.

Ciao.

sk8fanconvert said:

Hey, just typed a pretty big report, and it got wiped somehow. Somehow I got logged out, and it said "invalid thread specified".

Hang in there, I'll try to recap!

Click to expand...

I just hate it when that happens (fortunately not very often). One safeguard is to compose in a word processing file, then paste into GS.

Thanks for the thread.

Mathman said:

I just hate it when that happens (fortunately not very often). One safeguard is to compose in a word processing file, then paste into GS.

Thanks for the thread.

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Thanks for the tip. This was the 1st time it has happened to me- of course.

Just want to add to my report, that pairs practice was very engaging; I was impressed with a lot of 'em. Quite a nice improvement over past years.

it was more fun than I thought

sorry I didn't catch up with you... I *thought* I saw you but I wasn't sure, and I hooked up -- randomly -- with kwanfan1212 so we chatted.... then I left after Katie and Garrett's practice (and still managed to stay up way past what I should have GRRRRRRR) why do they have practices so stupidly late, anyway? LOL

I just came back from a fab day at the rink! The men practiced first this morning--Johnny looked fabulous. This is my first time seeing him live and all I can say is WOW!! He is quite handsome in person, plus he got a haircut!! Not short, but trimmed up and looking nice. He did many solid jumps (correction, many gorgeous solid jumps!), he is very fast too. It took him awhile before he started jumping so I was getting concerned, then wham 3A smack in front of me!

Tim Goebel--Timmy looked fantastic and I am not just talking about his jumps! His posture/body line has greatly improved! He gets another WOW! His jumps were pretty solid--I don't think he did any quads,...the ONLY time I saw his shoulders rounded were on a spin or two.

Jahnke--I am guessing he had a typical practice--landed most jumps but had his share of falls. He was smiling almost the whole time.

Savoie (sp?)--like Jahnke, he landed most jumps and fell here and there. He needs a haircut IMO. It has been awhile since I have seen him skate so I really enjoyed watching him again.

Lysacek-he came late but made the most of his time. He did a nice run through leaving out jumps here and there but did a lot of his footwork. He skated with the confidence he showed at Marshall's. He has a lot of charisma on the ice.

No shows for the men were Weiss, Brauniger (sp?)

Ladies:
Oh Michelle! She skated with such speed and smooooooothness! Her jumps look very solid--I think she doubled 2 jumps and had one scratchy landing. I haven't seen her in person for a couple of years and since then her jumps have greatly improved--better height, covers more ice, etc. Now I don't know if she was practicing both LP and SP footwork/in-betweens, but there was newer in-between content!! She also did some great circular footwork and a new spin--is it for the LP? The SP? Inquiring minds want to know! The ending Bolero pose is different--she ends standing with her arms and head thrown back. She didn't do a complete run-through but everything she did do looked stunning (I'll admit to being way biased!) She looked happy and composed.

Jenny Kirk had a rough practice. She looked frustrated and kept going back to Frank every 30 seconds. She landed lots, fell lots. Hopefully she reached her fall quota and will come out and land every jump!

Jennifer Don also had a rough practice. Side note: She and Kirk were having a great time laughing together as the ice was getting resurfaced.

No shows were Sasha, Angela, Kimmie Meissner, and Alissa Czisny.

Others to note: Emily Hughes had some nice jumps and some nice falls, she has a nice layback and she is pretty flexible. Kati Taylor is adorable and looked pretty good. Mok, Liang, Kahle were also nice to watch--some of these skaters were on at the same time as Michelle so my attention was elsewhere!

Don/Hunt had their SP practice tonight. They had some rough spots and then fixed them. They fell on their ending pose and were just cracking up (as was the audience), their coach, Artur Dmitriev, had an amused expression on his face--Jonathan went over to him and asked him how he liked that. I enjoy watching coach/pupil interactions! When Jennifer Don is skating pairs the smile doesn't leave her face--but when she was at her Ladies practice she wasn't smiling much.

Tomorrow it will be the SP practices for the Men and Ladies--I CANNOT WAIT!!

eliza88

eliza88 said:

Ladies:
Oh Michelle! She skated with such speed and smooooooothness! Her jumps look very solid--I think she doubled 2 jumps and had one scratchy landing. I haven't seen her in person for a couple of years and since then her jumps have greatly improved--better height, covers more ice, etc. Now I don't know if she was practicing both LP and SP footwork/in-betweens, but there was newer in-between content!! She also did some great circular footwork and a new spin--is it for the LP? The SP? Inquiring minds want to know! The ending Bolero pose is different--she ends standing with her arms and head thrown back. She didn't do a complete run-through but everything she did do looked stunning (I'll admit to being way biased!) She looked happy and composed.

Others to note: Emily Hughes had some nice jumps and some nice falls, she has a nice layback and she is pretty flexible. Kati Taylor is adorable and looked pretty good. Mok, Liang, Kahle were also nice to watch--some of these skaters were on at the same time as Michelle so my attention was elsewhere!

eliza88

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Thanks for the report! I'm glad to hear Michelle had a great practice. Is this ending the Tosca ending or similar to it?

What do you mean by nice falls in regards to Emily Hughes??

Here's another practice report I got from MKF.

http://www.frogsonice.com/skateweb/reports/2005-nationals/

Scroll all the way down to the bottom.

Judging from the practice report, I'm gonna have to agree with the poster in there: looks like this is going to be another MK love-fest

Red Dog said:

Judging from the practice report, I'm gonna have to agree with the poster in there: looks like this is going to be another MK love-fest

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Maybe, maybe not. Sasha might do it with no one expecting her to.

I'm curious, for those of you who went today, does anyone know how Scott Smith looked?

For elingrace4eva: Scott Smith looked okay, both yesterday and this morning. He worked on a quad today, and had trouble with it, but landed it some. He fell on a couple 3-axels I think too, but hit several nice ones as well, so we'll see. I did appreciate his full run-through of his long program last night.

Other notes, from last night's LP practice and Men's SP practice this morning:

Evan looks really good! He's more attractive in person (not that he wasn't on TV). Looks like the same short program from last year. He's a crowd favorite with the practice spectators.

I hope so much that Braden Overrett makes it on TV- he is such a showman.

Michael Weiss was at practice for the SP this morning. Some trouble on his axel.

Scott and Dulebohn were at practice last night, and their side-by-side triples were looking very solid.

For the Yebin Mok fans out there (like me!!!), she looked terrific. Last year she was injured and looked like she hated every minute, but this year she's all smiles and laughter.
So long for now. I'll try to post more later. (I forgot Mathman's advice and lost another big post, but I'm remembering now!)

sk8fanconvert said:

For elingrace4eva: Scott Smith looked okay, both yesterday and this morning. He worked on a quad today, and had trouble with it, but landed it some. He fell on a couple 3-axels I think too, but hit several nice ones as well, so we'll see. I did appreciate his full run-through of his long program last night.

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Thank you, I really appreciate the report. I love him, and I so hope he does well!!

MK lovefest onloy means her fans love her, and has nothing to do with her placement.

more on Mike Weiss - he redeemed himself towards the end with the 3axel... though for a while I was worried. He also hit some very clean quads, but none in combo, which I think he really wanted...

Sasha is probably in seclusion practicing triple-triples or quads. Wouldn't that be a slap in the face for Robin. She probably is going to surprise us all.

I am sleepy so I will be brief...

Men: Johnny and Evan looked great! Many of the others are a blur now! Scott Smith practiced many jumps and looked pretty good. I liked J. Brauniger (sp?), he has a spark! Tim, Matt, and Ryan practiced hard. I think Tim did a 4/3! It was nice to see the short programs--with or without the jumps!

Ladies: BOTH Michelle and Sasha looked solid! BOTH of them did complete run-throughs of their SP's! What a treat! I think both programs are more or less equal in their content...Alissa Csizny looked very very good! K. Meisner was full of smiles, she kept falling on this one jump (?) and then finally nailed it a few times in a row and the pactice crowd erupted! Jenny Kirk was much more relaxed today and had a better practice. Emily Hughes fell often. Yebin Mok looked good.

I was upset not to see Angela but then by 4pm I heard the tragic news...so very sad...

That's about all my tired self can remember now!

eliza88

Thanks, eliza.

Thanks for all the reports!

Read elsewhere that the jump Kimmie kept trying and eventually landed was a triple axel! Probably won't see it in the competition, but it's pretty exciting.

amr927 said:

Thanks for all the reports!

Read elsewhere that the jump Kimmie kept trying and eventually landed was a triple axel! Probably won't see it in the competition, but it's pretty exciting.

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Rumor has it that she has said she is going for it. She seems determined to do it and has been doing pretty well with it.

I think that it is probably a good year for her to try it if she wants. No matter what her placement, she won't get a World Team spot because of her age. She has less to lose this year if she doesn't do well than any other year.