Glorious/Grinchy Lessons & practices, 12/8 - 12/14/03

[Yazmeen]

Its holiday time and time to talk about our skating week:

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch: Synchro was very scratchy at first this week. Had trouble again a couple of times with the mohawk joining of the lines, but it comes together most of the time--hopefully we'll hit it well on Sunday for the exhibition.

Glory, glory: Overall for synchro, we're looking pretty good. The bodysuits look wonderful and the skirts finally came in and will be "glitzed" to go with the bodysuits prior to Sunday. Hubby's pants from Blue Sky are perfect, perfect, perfect and he looks positively Boitano-like in them! They were worth every penny.

As for my solo, it looks like its going to work. We changed a few things and solidified arm movements. Now its runthrough after runthrough, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday just to get it as much in muscle memory as possible. Not bad for only two weeks!!!!

So, how's it going everyone? Are the glorious angels flying or has the GRRRRRINCH visited your rink?



Yaz

 

[sk8tngcanuck]

Well, it's brag time again, lol!

My daugter has had an awesome two weeks of skating... she has landed about a half dozen PROPER lutzes in the past week. She also is landing her flip/loop combination and her loop/loop. She got the music last Monday for her pre prelim freeskate (first time she had a "real" program, and the program looks pretty good considering it is only a week old. These are her elements : starts off with footwork sequence, flip, change sit, salchow, side hop, loop, front spiral, back catch foot spiral, camel spin, front axel (we hope), footwork, lutz/loop

Its a pretty heavy program for my poor little one but I have confidence in her. She is still landing the axel forward, but coach figures she should have it by the end of January.

She has also started work on her elements program for our region closed. It is looking great too considering it has only just been put together.

So far her progress has been incredible, and thanks so much to all of you that listen to me brag@!

Canuck


oops, forgot to mention the music, lol. Because she is only 8, her coach didn't want anything too mature, so the music is off a fisher price CD, lol! The fast part is "popcorn" and the slow part is a jazzy version of hush little baby! It is perfect for her, and she loves it!

 

[luenatic]

I was back on ice for the first time last night after my 2 weeks break. To my surprise, I still knew how to skate and didn't just fall flat on my face.

I only had the MITF class and won't have any private lesson until Janurary. It's actually good since I don't want to skate too much during the holiday season anyway. It's way too crowded skating in public sessions in the mall during shopping frenzy holiday season.

We learned how to do bracket last night. I'm so proud of myself I actually understood and could do forward inside bracket and backward outside bracket on my right foot. That's a very good start. Now I'll have to do it on my left foot. My goal is to do FI/BO brackets continuouly down the line in one foot without losing too much speed.

My LBO 3 is getting a little better. RBO is still much better. Our exercise in the MITF class was to do a power back outside 3 then into a mohawk and repeat the pattern in a circle. My RBO pattern was much better then the LBO one. That's something I can work on. I do want to improve my LBO 3 and this is a good exercise to do.

I won't be skating until my next class on Tuesday. I'm going to GPF tomorrow!!!! Can't wait to go to Colorado Spring.

Happy skating everyone.

 

[Yazmeen]

GRRRRRRRINCH!!!!! This morning was TOTAL GRINCH!!!!

I get up at 5:00, and the rain is pouring down. I guess I should have known what to expect when I looked into my yard and saw, even in the darkness, that almost all of the snow was gone. I get ready and head out to the rink...

And encounter massive flooding on the main road going there. I have to crawl like a snail to be safe, and its taking twice as long, but then I finally reach the road the rink is on, drive down it and realize all the cars in front of me are turning around. The blocked off the road 50 feet from the rink entrance due to flooding...

So its turn around, back down the road, go back swing around, drive through more water in the dark and go around the back way. The 7 minute drive has now taken 40 minutes, and I'm 15 minutes late for my lesson. At that point, I just ran in, showed my coach the dress for my program and headed back home so I could get on the road for work.

The weather gods were not with me today, and I really NEEDED the practice!!! AAUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

 

[dlkksk8fan]

Tuesday I decided to go to another ice rink that is in a mall so I could go shopping later and meet my husband for lunch. Well when I drove into the parking lot I noticed about 3 empty school buses and I thought this isn't good. Sure enough when I walked into the rink there must have been 100+ middle schoolers all over the rink. I quickly turned around and went back to my car to drop off my skates and shop instead.

Tomorrow I will skate at my usual rink at the ADULT ONLY session.

 

[blurrysarah]

Gosh, I hate schools in public sessions. I was fuming when halfway through the normally peaceful lunchtime session of adults having lessons, hundreds of school kids arrived. My coach was confused as to why they were so early, as they normally have their own session after, but assured me they would probably just sit in the seats and wait. Not today. The gremlins all started putting on their skates and jumped on the ice. Try having a jumping lesson during that. I couldn't even Ina Bauer 5 feet befpre having to abort because of a kid stumbling through the center. When we asked the rink management why they were here, he told us it was a "once off event because the school kids have some other activity this afternoon". So they had to cram in skating as well instead of putting it off for the week.

I should have asked for my damn money back now I think about it.

 

[Cinderella on Ice]

Glory, glory, halleluja - Like angels' wings, my first practice since passing that gold freestyle test made me feel so light and airy and FREE! Whoopie, it was so nice to skate without the tension and stress of thinking "I only have X more days before I have to do this program in front of the judges."

One of the reasons I had been so scarce on this site is that I was trying to keep my self-talk positive and energizing and I didn't want to sound like I was bragging or anything. I just needed to say many many positive things in my own head so that I would believe them and act accordingly. My turning point was last week when for the first time ever I did my gold program clean. And then I did it again. And then I did the two halves clean. Wow, that gave me the confidence to do the test.

Anyway, back to yesterday - even though I could have practiced anything in the world, I found myself drawn back to the gold elements and trying to improve those areas where I know I can do better. I worked on the camel/sit/back sit, single and in combo, and added at least 2 revs to each one. I worked on bigger, less hunchy axels, a bunch of flying camels, and smoother flow to the footwork. I started working on arm movements to go with the steps and wasn't as awkward as I thought. In fact, the whole experience was like flying, as I felt at least 10 pounds lighter from the lack of worry! Also, I've recently actually lost about 6 pounds and have strengthened my core muscles, and it makes me feel like I'm floating over the ice.

You're a mean one - The only Grinchy thing has been my new skates. I finally had several days of skating in them with no pain whatsoever, when all of a sudden some little "hot spots" started developing. My right heel has been slipping up and down and created a huge nasty blistery thing that I'm now having trouble getting rid of. I sort of fixed that, and then my boot tongue started biting into the side of my shin and ripped a hunk of skin off there. Owie. Anything I put there balls up and takes more skin with it. Then on the left foot, I developed a deep blister on the bone that pokes out midway up your foot (to the inside, right above the arch). These used to be my hotspots as a kid, but every time I try to fix it, it moves elsewhere. Sheesh! I've got more bungas, corn pads, blister healers, moleskin, etc. than anyone should ever be using. It takes me an extra 15 minutes to get ready for skating as I'm gluing, taping, pressing, bandaging, and so on.

I've only been in the skates 4 weeks, but I was so disappointed when troubles started cropping up after having skated pain free all those sessions. Bummer!

I've got to head off to racquetball now, but just wanted to say WOO HOO to everyone here for their accomplishments this week. Sorry I didn't have time to reply individually. I'll do better next week!