Combo spin fail

Music

On Monday, my coach brought me some music to listen to and pick something out for my program. It's a CD of Spanish guitar music, and I love it. Hopefully we can piece something good together that will work.

What did I do at practice on Monday? After a bit of a warmup with stroking and power pulls and two-foot turns, etc. I did some 3-turns down the line and took a quick look at my new Jr. Bronze Skills patterns. After a lot of searching I finally found them on the Skate Canada website, so I printed them out. But, it was too crowded to have my nose buried in a sheet of paper while skating around so I will try them another time.

As usual I put a large fraction of my session into spins. I have quite a number of them to practice now! The upright, sit, and camel version on both feet makes six. Then there are combinations and variations and the occasional layback or attitude making quite a significant number of spins that I like to practice. And now I have my new flying camel to add to the mix! I tried to focus on the ones that we were experimenting with for my program. Sit-broken leg is not too bad as long as I don't screw up the entry (sometimes my free blade scrapes the ice). I did one of them that felt really good and solid and then I saw the trace and it had traveled badly, sigh. It hadn't even felt like it was traveling! Then I experimented with camel-layback-backsit, and it is a mess. The layback is hard to centre, and I get up onto my toe, yuck. If I can get it down this will be a cool, and probably less common, combination, but it might be wise to pick something I can actually do well. If I can get a bunch of time to practice it, we'll see where it goes.

I always get in a few spirals and leg pulls before I get to camel spins for a bit of a stretch, and they were alright. I tried my catchfoot spiral again, but my balance gets messed up and my free arm ends up sort of desperately reaching out to the side which must look ridiculous. I tried doing something with it like bringing the hand up to my face or taking the hand back to my free knee, but it threw my balance off. This is going to take some practice! I tried a leg pull going backward but was too frazzled trying to watch for traffic that it didn't go so well. Will have to wait until Friday.

After that I started working on jumps but I felt a sharp pain in my left knee during the takeoff of a Salchow. I've had issues with my knees for years and it's exactly this type of thing that sets them off, but this time it didn't just shake off right away. I went and sat on the bench for a minute and it felt ok so we went ahead with my lesson, but we focused on elements that keep the weight on my right foot like backspins, loops, and flips. I had one terrific backspin and my coach was really impressed with the newfound height in the free leg. Unfortunately I couldn't repeat it but that's the way with skating, sometimes you do something cool and you don't know how you pulled it off! For loops she had me try doing 4 in a row after I mentioned having accomplished this the other day. My first attempt was ok but she says not to jump again immediately after landing, but hold the landing edge for a few moments before doing the next one. And to try making those edges less curvy, haha. I did better the next time but the upper body was a bit wild, so that's something to aim for improving. For my flip it was the same old story about needing to check the 3-turn better, and a new bit of advice about keeping my arms still for longer. I tend to sort of pull them in as I initiate the jump, instead of waiting until I have already left the ice. That's going to take some time to get into that new habit!

In our group lesson we ran through our number for the Christmas show again. It was not too shabby. I have to remember to ask on Friday what I am supposed to wear to it. I am guessing I shouldn't wear my silly elf hat :)

Beware of Flying Camels

Yesterday was my last Saturday practice of the year. It was very eventful!

My coach had a good idea. I have a 1/2 hour timeslot each week to practice Skills, but she has other students during that time. Another coach teaches two students who are at my level in that timeslot, so my coach suggested that I join them and then we can learn the next level together in a group lesson. Everybody wins! I think that usually you're not supposed to get lessons from another coach once you have your own coach, but my own coach suggested the whole arrangement so if she is happy, I am happy. Group lessons are cheaper and my coach admits that she's not super excited about teaching skills anyway.

• Skating Skills: So we started in on learning the Junior Bronze Skills level. One of the girls was away so it was just two of us. The pattern we learned is a series of crossovers around two hockey circles that get progressively faster. So the first two pushes are held for a count of four, the next four held for a count of two, then the last eight are one count each. After going around one circle forwards, we switch to the other circle and go backwards. The transition is just a Mohawk but I get going very fast and it's scary! The backward circles aren't quite crossovers though. They are a push-and-lift, and underpush instead of push-and-crossover. The feel a bit like figures for the four-count hold, but the others just feel like weird crossovers. Anyway the pattern goes backward in each direction and then one more transition back to forwards for the other forwards circle. After that, two steps takes you toward the blue line and then a T-stop is supposed to end the whole thing. These are not easy and by this point I am going ridiculously fast so I'm going to have to practice those.
• CanSkate: It was our last lesson of the year and I got into the spirit with a cheesy elf hat from the dollar store. I also got out my lightbulb earrings and necklace. The kids loved them! All my kids got their badges for the next level. I think I will kinda miss them...sniff sniff. The coaches gave me a Christmas card and a chocolate shaped like a skate as a thank-you for helping out in the lessons :)
• Group lesson: More practice for the Christmas show. We didn't do too badly. Still need to pick a good spin and jump....eh. I noticed that like 5 other girls did flips so I changed it to my new Sal-toe combination like my coach suggested.
  
• Spin lesson

1. Backsits- I asked to work on these because they are just not there for me anymore. My coach says it's a matter of a 'snap and square'. Snap into the the spin and square up the body position. She says I've got the hang of that generally, I think it's still a matter of balance or something.
2. Sit-change-sit - the next natural thing to work on after backsits. I dunno, I used to be able to do this spin a couple of months ago but it's just not working for me right now. The change is tough, it's important to step down with the weight overtop of the new foot, and not with it out to the side. Meh.
   
3. Back camel - my coach was really into the backspins today. She said that you go into a back camel the same way as the other backspins. But unlike the other backspins, the free leg doesn't come in toard the midline of the body, so it is much harder to really get the spin going. My first attempt was extremely poor, but my second attempt was surprisingly good. I might have pulled off two revolutions. Clearly more practice is needed. I have only tried these a couple of times before, it was fun to learn something new.
4. Flying camel! - this was a bit of a surprise, but my lesson-mates are now working on their Jr. Bronze freeskate elements so it shouldn't have been a surprise really. Coach says that for the entry, you start like you are going to do a forward camel. Then at the moment when you would initiate the spin, jump and scissor the legs to land in a back camel. We tried it at the boards and I watched the others try theirs a few times before trying it myself. I actually did not too badly! I tried it a few times. Coach says that I have the right timing and snap/pivot action into the jump, which is cool. But she says my back camel position actually looks like a camel, and that sent all four of us into a giggle fit :P

• Freeskate - Fresh off the flying camel lesson, I wanted to practice my new element. I had a few that were about the same as my attempts in the lesson. Then, I had one where I didn't really get my foot underneath me enough and I sort of crumpled forwards onto the ice. I landed on my right chest and shoulder with my right arm underneath me. I could have landed on my face! One of the coaches asked if I was ok and one of the girls too. It's nice, this other coach is always looking out for me :) Again I was surprised that the fall didn't actually hurt. But today my arm and shoulder were sore, and that is probably why. After that I took a break from flying spins! I worked on my other spins and even my jumps. Forward camels are still going decently well. They're not always strong, but when I fight for them I can usually complete the spin instead of falling.
• Lesson - we spent some more time talking about elements to put in my program. This time we focused on spins. Coach likes my sit-broken leg spin, especially (as she says every time) if I can get into a deeper position. For a combination spin we experimented with some new combinations. Coach surprised me by suggesting camel-layback-backsit! I was working on this combination a couple of months ago with some success but stopped for a while because my layback just didn't seem to be going anywhere and it's a more advanced element anyway. I tried her suggestion which was to transition from camel into an upright position with the leg in front, then take the leg back into the attitude position. Before I had been doing it directly from the camel into attitude, but this way we think that I pick up a bit more speed. Attitudes are definitely easier once you already have a centred spin going on, so I will make sure to practice this. The way my backsits are going though, I'm not sure I want to have it in my program yet. But I still have a couple of months.
  

Sudden Rush

I check the web frequently for competition postings, hoping that a local competition with adult categories will come up. Well one finally did! It's in February, yikes! That's pretty soon considering that I don't even have a program and have real consistency problems in many of my elements. But I mentioned it to my coach anyway. I wasn't sure how she would react, but she is into it and wants to help me find music and get a program. There are not a lot of adult competitions and if I miss this one it might be six months or even a year until the next one, so we figured I should just go for it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my coach is interested, this is more what she does than teaching Skating Skills.

We spent some time today talking about what kind of elements we could put in my program. She likes my spirals and leg pulls and wants to put them in as a spiral sequence. I tried a catch-foot spiral but it's a bit wobbly. I'll need to practice it to get my balance. I know I said that I hate leg pulls, but I can actually do them, and I don't think they look so awful in a backward glide. But they are more difficult going backward! Two jump combinations are allowed in my category so my coach had me try out some Salchow-toe loop and loop-loop combinations. They didn't go too badly considering that I've never done loop-loop (that I can recall) and it's certainly been a long time since I did any combination in fact. My coach was relatively pleased with my efforts. Then her charity ran out when she took a look at my flip, and decided that I need more control on the 3-turn; that's a shocker :) So now I am supposed to practice them and make sure they are not too curvy. It's surprisingly difficult!

I spent the rest of the time going back to fundamentals mostly. I put in a good chunk of time on edges and even forward circle eights. The forward edges are getting a bit better and I am on the edge for more like 3/4 of the lobe instead of only 1/2. But the circle eights are still on the flat from about the halfway mark. Figures are all about balance and lean, which are obviously going to take me some time to develop. On the bright side, the size and shape of my circles were quite good.

I managed to get in several laps of stroking both forward/backward, and CW/CCW. I haven't done that in a while. Also worked on crossovers in all directions, feeling motivated knowing that they are in the next Skills level!

I put in some good practice on my spins probably managing at least 5-10 of each type. Backsits and forward uprights are still a bit crappy which means I should be doing more of them, but I did fewer oops! Camels were going well for me, I had several that were quite good and I didn't fall out of any of them. Some of them did not really come together, but I didn't fall out or have to give up on them. I tried to reach back for a catchfoot position, but while I can reach my blade I can't quite reach far enough to grab the part that you can hold on to. It takes a surprising amount of hamstring strength. Other than that, I didn't try any wild positions, just trying to get the basics down a little more. Consistency is key!

Good weekend ice and stupid toe loops

Another multiple day post, yeesh.

On Saturday my regular session was cancelled for a ringette tournament. I paid extra money to go to the national training rink and it was wonderful. I skated for over 2 hours with only about 4 other skaters on the ice! I tried to work on just about everything but I definitely practice camel spins and combination spins the most. I had some fun with spin variations that travelled wildly but were fun. When I left I had blisters on both heels but it was totally worth it!

On Sunday I made it to a women's drop-in hockey scrimmage at yet another rink. It was pretty fun and I got in some good practice. It would be nice to get in some skills practice but there aren't any ice times for that that suit my schedule. Fun to meet some new friends too!

On Monday I had one of those throwaway practices where things just didn't go well. The ice felt crowded after the empty session I had on Saturday, and it was hard to even find enough space for a spin or a waltz jump. My blades felt like they were wobbling and my boots were too tight or loose no matter how many times I adjusted them. In my lesson I got flustered attempting my stupid toe loops and was downgraded to practicing them from a standstill again. Actually even through I was frustrated it was a bit funny when my coach asked me "Are you practicing these?" LOL!

Also I got a bit confused with the loop. It's a four step process: bend the knee, pivot on the ball of the foot/blade, push onto the toepick, pivot more and jump. I was combining everything into a big scratchy mess instead. I don't know how I will be able to do all that in the actual splitsecond of the real jump, blah. The real demoralizing moment happened when my coach said "I want you to get up to Lutz feeling all the jumps as being a natural motion. Then we will go back and do another round of fixing stuff." Gah, like we're not already doing them properly? Yuck.

At one point my coach made yet another reference to double jumps and it's making me wonder what I really want to do with my skating. I don't really like jumps and I don't learn them quickly. I'm afraid of falling and have zero kinesthetic awareness for skating. Even good single jumps don't seem to be in the cards for me, so where do I want to go with all this? I mentioned the 'artistic' category of competition to my coach once and she was not too jazzed about it but I wonder if it might be a better fit for me. Seriously persuing ice dance is out of the question not only because of the difficulty of finding an adult male partner but also because I'm ticklish. So while I'm going to continue with freestyle for a while yet I'm going to try to really focus on my basic skating skills and maybe try to make it onto the adult synchro team next year. With enough practice there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do all the skating skills levels and there's nothing more fun to me than actual skating to music.

The group lesson on Monday was also a bit of a wash, partly because we spend probably less than half of the time actually practicing the skills. The other part was that the coach would show us something complicated very quickly and then expect us all to know it. It's probably a technique for teaching kids but I don't appreciate being talked down to so it can be a bit annoying at times. On the bright side, I worked up the courage to ask the other coach to list the steps again and she spent a couple of minutes teaching me the steps and correcting me, which was very nice of her. Then instead of getting in line to practice the sequence I just did it by myself, to the side out of the way and nobody seemed to mind. I like this better than waiting in line to practice it down the ice and then running over little girls. I have tried to go ahead of them but they all bunch up in front of me! Next season I will probably skip the group lessons. The ice time is better spent when I can dictate my own practice routine.

Bonus Ice

I had the day off today for the Remembrance Day holiday and took advantage of it by hitting the rink! I looked up the schedule for the national training centre and found an open session that I could go to (no accreditation required). They were also offering public skating on another surface so I used that to get warmed up. It was actually not too terribly busy but still too crowded to practice anything much more than stroking exercises and some turns. Also this facility has recently prohibited figure skating at public sessions so I didn't even try spins >:( So I used the public ice for about 40 minutes and then went and paid for the open session. What a difference! At its peak there were probably only about 10 skaters on the ice, most of them just little kids so not too intimidating. Of course they were all much more skilled than me but only a couple of taller girls working on doubles skated fast enough to bother me. One girl showed some alarming confidence as she whizzed past me as I was clearly winding up for a spin. What she might not have bargained for is that I was winding up for a camel spin and she nearly got smacked by my blade! It would have been really cool if it had been one of my better camels, but alas I sort of fell out of that particular one. Oh well.
Mostly I worked on spins, especially camels and combination spins starting with camels. My consistency with the camel is improving a bit but still not what it used to be. But I did have a couple of fast, centred ones. I even had one half-decent layback, of all things. I wish I had it on video so I could see if it was as good as it felt! I had some fun with sit-spin variations, so far the broken leg one is not too shabby but any other type of positional change throws my balance way off. They make them look so easy on TV grrr!!
I did practice all my jumps and found some new confidence in the waltz and loop jumps. In the waltz I am working on what my coach recently suggested which is to bend the takeoff knee more before jumping. I am taking that to mean that I should bend it LESS on the initial step forward, then increase the bend. For some reason I was kind of stepping into a very bent knee to begin with. This way, I feel something about it feeling more smooth - kind of a snapping action as the free leg swings though. I like it, I hope it is correct :P I did scrimp a bit on the toe loop, was feeling kind of self-conscious or something as I tried to carve out a bit of ice to practice them amid the axels and double lutzes, meh. For a jump that is supposed to be one of the easiest I sure struggle with it! On the flip side (pun intended) I find the flip a very easy fun jump and had a good time practicing them with a bit of speed.

I wish I could make it to ice like this every day >:|

Catching up on the Weekend

I just can't seem to blog on the days I actually skate....need to do something about that! Another post covering multiple skates, here we go:

Friday

On Fridays I have to get up early which can be a bit of a struggle. I was a bit behind schedule when I left the house and I started running to catch the bus. As I jogged through the foggy darkness and drizzle I realized that I must really LOVE skating!

• Edges: worked on these going down the hockey lines. Had some real wobbliness going on but started to get the feel for them after about four lines. Forward insides were especially wobbly and noticed that I need to put the weight slightly further back on the blade as the free leg comes through. Also focusing helps a lot.. :S
• Figures: skipped them! :O Was a bit late getting on the ice and finding the half-lobes of edges enough of a challenge.
• Crossovers: I really need to work on these every time I skate. I practiced them going around the circles and worked up a good sweat. They always feel clumsy at first and then feel better as I get used to the movement.
• Perimeter stroking: did sort of a bare minimum of this in the interest of time but it's always fun to skate really fast on a nearly-empty rink.
• Spins: I didn't have a great spin day but practiced them nonetheless. I wanted to work on my combination spin but was falling out of the camel again >:( Good practice though. I noticed that some of the kids look outside the circle on their 'windup' glide so I decided to try it and it produced a couple of well-centred spins. It also produced some real wild ones too so I'm not sure if it's any better, so I will keep trying it for a while.
  
• Skating skills: my coach and I worked on the three patterns that I will be tested on next month. She thinks that in general they are decent but could use a lot of cleaning up. We focused on getting proper coverage of the ice and really checking those FO3's like crazy. She wasn't too happy with my circles though and tried to contort me into the gliding position that she would like to see. The forward position is much more painful than the backward one so my backward circles are actual better than my forward ones which is apparently unusual. I am looking forward to testing these patterns and moving on to something more interesting!
• Jumps: didn't get to them, no tears shed over that.

Saturday

• Skating skills: as usual I got to practice these to the music during the first time slot. Also some Dutch Waltz, whee! Practiced a bunch of the circles especially backward inside (blech). Trying to make each stroke smooth and deliberate because I get a bit sloppy/awkward on the forward crossovers from a standstill. This 1/2 hour of skills always gets my temperature up! Good thing because CanSkate is right after that.
• Group lesson: We got to practice some fun things like those quick turns where you go forward-backward-forward really fast. I guess it would be a bracket followed by a 3-turn if it was on a curve. I did them two-footed :) Another new thing for me was to forward crossovers interspersed with changes of edge. Fun! And the group lesson coach seems to think I am a "Senior" level skater (i.e. passed the first freeskating test). Ha!
• Spin lesson (small group): This lesson can be a mixed bag because the kids in the group are so much better than me, but this time I had a lot of fun. We reviewed the basic spins and then we even worked on some fun variations like the broken-leg sit-spin. I had never learned this one before and my first attempts were sad but after the lesson I worked on it for a while and had a few good ones. I don't know how my position looks but I was able to keep my balance at least.
• Freeskate: I always enjoy this freeskate session because I have already warmed up and done a ton of skills practice so I have lots of time to practice jumps, spins, footwork, and stuff like spirals. I didn't make any big breakthroughs or anything but it was some good solid practice.
  
• Private lesson: We covered spins in more depth because it had been a while. The biggest change that coach suggested is to swing the free leg around sort of bigger and higher going into the sit spin. I tried this and it seemed to help a lot! Sometimes I just feel my inner thighs screaming though so obviously I need more power in those muscles to get the leg around quicker. Coach wants me to squat down lower, but I know that it will take time. She also noticed that my knee is falling inwards which is making me lose my balance. My physiotherapist noticed this too! OH and I had one fabulous backspin. We both wished that it had been captured on tape >:(
  
• Field moves competition: I'm not registered in this but because I missed skating last Monday I decided to stay and nobody seemed to mind. We did leg-pulls, where you grab the blade and pull your leg up and out to the side. I hate these things but I really tried to stretch out and "sell" them with good presentation. A cute little girl won the competition but they told me I was a close second! The others are all better but the coaches have higher expectations from them, so ha :P Maybe I should actually practice these things since I'm apparently not as terrible at them as I thought. But there is no way one of those is going into my program! :O

Sunday

Sunday was a hockey day! I actually had a great game and our team played well too. We were very even for the first half of the game and the score was also tied 1-1. Then one of our players went out with a knee injury and we had only 3 defence for the rest of the game :( I was totally sucking wind! THEN another woman got thrown out of the game (!) for apparently having some words with the ref so even the forwards had a short bench. We only had three players on the bench at a time after that. So, for the rest of the game I was just concentrating on surviving rather than channeling Bobby Orr but I did still get 2 shots on goal! When the final buzzer rang I was stoked to go home until I realized that we would have a 3-on-3 overtime period for 5 minutes. I was lucky enough to get the first shift and discovered that 3-on-3 sucks! Constant sprinting! But because it was so open I had a chance to go on the attack and had another shot on goal and had another sequence of trying to pass the puck but it somehow kept hitting a skate or something and coming back to me so I had quite a few chances to make some moves. We were playing so well in the overtime I was really hoping we could win it, and in fact our captain/star player managed to end the torture with a nice goal with about a minute left. That was exciting and it was fun to win again. Also no goals were scored against us while I was on the ice!

Monday

After the long ice time I have on Saturday it feels like such a rip-off to skate for only an hour on Mondays :P I only get 25-30 minutes to practice before private and group lesson. So I scrimped on quantity but tried to practice as many things as possible.

• Perimeter stroking: Again did sort of a requisite 3-4 laps going forward and backward (but not both CW and CCW, for shame) and then some laps doing 2-foot slalom and 1-foot power pulls. For a while I thought I was decent at the power pulls but lately I have been really sucking at them, especially backwards.
• Crossovers: on the circle, all 4 varieties. A bit tough with so many skaters on the ice though. Same thing with stroking.
• Spins: Wow I had an amazing day for spins! I had a couple of centred one-foot upright spins but I don't know what I did differently. Some of them also traveled ridiculously. Eh. Also practiced making a higher swing-around on the sit spin with some success. Backspins mediocre but camels were amazing! Combination spins were also coming easily to me today and I practiced camel-sit-change-sit, and camel-sit-broken leg sit. Worked on just the sit-broken leg too, it's fun and a nice challenge that's not outrageously frustrating.
• Private lesson: I started by showing off my combination spin to my coach and she was suitably impressed. BUT she had to point out that my camel position is still not perfect, haha. Then we moved on to jumps.
  

1. Waltz: need more knee bend just before the jump and kick the free leg straight through and not across the midline of the body. Timing still needs work.
   
2. Salchow: need more "pressing down" with the arms and check/control after the 3-turn. Otherwise pretty good, my best jump.
3. Toe loop: need more pressing down with the arms, standing up straight, and pulling the right foot in close to the left. Why does she have to tell me this stuff EVERY time? This jump just makes no sense to me. Was relegated to practicing the nasty do-them-from-a-standstill exercise. We moved on to the loop probably because my coach was going to gouge her eyes out rather than any actual progress :S
4. Loop: more blechiness here, this one is in a contest with toe loop for worst technique. It's all about getting a timing and confidence. A snap of the hips and a deep knee bend initiates the jump, arms only move after leaving the ice. I want to initiate the jump with my arms though. Not long ago my coach said this jump looked "natural", not sure what happened??

Well working on jumps always brings me back to the reality that I have a long way to go before I can create a program for testing and competition etc. but it usually seems that while some days they regress, other days they improve greatly and over time there is a net improvement. I'm feeling less impatient than I used to and have a little more confidence that I will eventually be able to do all the preliminary elements with consistency and decent technique.

"Soon I'll be thirty; I don't want to be thirty"

Yup, that's a line from the Moxy Fruvous song, "Stuck in the '90's again". The fact that I know it probably gives away my age as well! I turned thirty years old today and while I had some moments of sadness/regret I have generally been making the most of it. The best thing about a birthday is how you can drag it out into a week-long affair :D

So far I've done 2 things out of the ordinary:

• Monday: normally I skate on Mondays but my husband insisted that I had to skip it for some unknown event that we would be attending downtown. I asked somewhat dubiously if it would be better than skating, and he was sure that it would be. Well in fact he was right! He took me to a Vancouver Canucks game :) the first NHL game I have ever been to in fact. When we started walking down the steps to our seat I looked at my ticket and it said ROW: 1 on the bottom but I didn't realize we were really sitting in the front row until we got there! We were sitting in the corner right at the front which made for excellent viewing of some battles and collisions. My observations?

1. NHL players are HUGE!
2. You can see their FACES.
3. They skate really fast
4. Their edges are so deep they spray up snow
5. Their pants are dirty
6. They shoot the puck faster than the speed of light
7. When it hits the glass, it runs around the corner and sounds like a train
8. It also scared the shit out of me!

Anyway we had a great time and the Canucks even won, 3-0. Really fun! Can't wait to go to another one. But I have to sit in the front row from now on.

• Today (Thursday): My husband took me to public skate after my aerobics class at the new rink. I looked forward to it all day! Unfortunately the ice was not too great and I actually fell down several times just doing regular things but I somehow managed to pull off my BEST camel-sit-change-sit combination spin in 16 years >:D And my husband saw it too. When he got tired I didn't mind leaving early because of the ice anyway. Besides, it was just to have some fun right?! On the way home we picked up some birthday cake. AND he had some flowers sent to me at work. Who could ask for anything more?

On Saturday we are going out to a friend's place for an unrelated party but I'm using the birthday as an excuse to sub out my Sunday morning aerobics class and really live it up!

Halloween Skating

We had a Halloween theme at CanSkate today. There were some great costumes! One kid was dressed like a zombie and looked horrendous. Another kid was dressed as an Incredible and there was a ninja, superwoman, and about sixty princesses *roll eyes*. Two of the program assistants had cool wings. My coach was an angel with a vertical halo and another coach wore a snorkel. What did I wear? Just my usual figure skating clothes, blah. I had a couple of fun ideas for costumes but ran out of time/money/energy for them. Lame excuse, but true. One idea was to make a Rainbow Brite costume that I could also wear as a skating dress, but I scratched that when I saw the price of spandex. I probably could have bought a blue skirt at the thrift store but I was too lazy. My other idea was to go to American Apparel and buy an 80's aerobics instructor outfit. But when I was there I discovered how much it would cost and it was more than I wanted for a one-time gag.

Ok, lame excuses aside, I had fun even though I didn't dress up, loser that I am.

Here is how my practice went:

• Skating skills: They always play the music for my three Preliminary patterns during this time slot so I got to practice them all. I brought my printouts this time and noticed a couple of errors I had been making yesterday so I tried to fix them. Also noticed how another skater really covered the ice in her 3-turn pattern, need to figure out what she is doing in order to achieve that. We also worked on these during my private lesson with my coach, and one of the other coaches agreed that the Mohawk music is too fast and not to worry about it. My coach thinks both the 3-turns and Mohawks patterns are looking decent but to make it look easier/less stiff (i.e. practice a whole bunch). I practiced the preliminary circles too (long held edges on circle) but didn't get any feedback from my coach because it was right at the transition to the next session, oh well. They are fine just a bit wobbly and not sure what to do with my arms.
• Group lesson: We practiced doing edges down the ice and back. But not quite figures-style, the free leg is to be held in one position until the next push instead of passing the skating leg halfway through. My coach had to shout this at me a couple of times as well as reminders to extend the free leg, hehe. Since a couple of the younger girls didn't seem to know this exercise they got a bit of a primer while the rest of us practiced them in laps around the rink. Of course the top two skaters decided to turn it into a race and barreled around the rink rushing their edges so everyone lapped me and another girl and it got quite messy and dangerous with blades flying about. Then the silly thing is that the coaches cued us to change direction when the fastest skaters finished their laps, which meant that I had to skip the backward inside edges, which are the ones that need the MOST practice. The second time around I was lapped again but I still completed the last lap after everyone else was called in. I need the practice, and they were just saying the same old stuff anyway ;) This might be considered impolite or disrespectful to the coaches I suppose, but I don't like to skip an exercise just because someone else was able to do it faster. Well, group lessons aren't perfect, it's the nature of things.
• Spin lesson (small group): We started with backspins and mine have improved a lot. I still feel that I fall too much on the outside edge but I don't fall right out of the spin as much anymore. We also practiced sits and camels. The other girls practiced their combination spins and I told my coach that my old combo spin had been camel-sit-change-sit, so she got me to work on just the sit for now. It sucks, I lose the inward lean as soon as I try to bring the free leg around. After the lesson I put some quality time into it and tweaked my inner thigh a bit *roll eyes*. But the key seems to be to bring the leg around quickly, then there is less time for it to pull the centre of mass away from over top of the spinning foot. Of course, this means developing some power in my inner thigh muscles! :) I did notice though that it's easier to get into the sit position from camel.
• Spin practice: After lesson I got to practice stuff on my own. I started with my spins since we had just been doing them. My sits and uprights still don't centre but I'm trying not to overthink it. Sometimes a spin feels like it's centring but I check the tracing and it turns out that it traveled more than one that felt unbalanced. This makes it hard for me to really tell what to do differently and indicates that I still can't detect when I properly have my weight over top of the spinning point. Anyway, I tried not to worry about it too much and practiced upright, sit, camel, and attitude. I have been practicing the attitude position off-ice but it's much more difficult on skates *furrow brow*. I'm trying to lean back a bit more since I get very toe-scratchy in this position. I think I did a bit better today but the spin really slows down. This is harder than I expected! Then I practiced some backspins, upright and sitting. And, I worked on my old combination spin. I am still having some trouble with falling out of my camels about half the time but the other half the time they feel fast and balanced on the sweet spot of the blade. On those occasions, I tried the full combination and then I screw up the spin on the backsit because I get going so fast, I can't control it. And because they freak me out! Before I put my right foot down I have a moment of doubt and that probably doesn't help.
• Jumps:
  

1. Waltz - did the obligitory exercise of holding the forward edge without jumping, probably about 5-7 times. I tend to automatically curve to avoid someone, need to think more clearly about stepping onto a shallower curve. Then I did a bunch of the actual jump. Not sure how it looks but they feel klunky at first until I have done a few of them then I start to actually get some height and feel more comfortable.
2. Salchow - also did the exercise for THIS jump of 3-turn, HOLD, bring free leg around, HOLD. Trying to lean back more, to get off of the toepicks. Then practiced the jump, starting to get some height. Not sure if it is any good.
3. Toe loop - exercise involves doing them from a standstill. Also made myself do about 5-7 of them. Noticed that it really doesn't work if I try to jump while my weight is still mostly over the non-picking foot; that's not a shocker but I was trying to do it anyway, by jumping with my shoulders, heheh. Practiced the actual jump and sometimes it feels smooth. Would like to know if the ones that feel good actually look good!
4. Loop - didn't do the exercise (slo-mo at boards) but did try doing them slow on the circle like last time. When I can remember everything, this jump is actually fun!
5. Flip - I like to warm these up with some split jumps and then do them at low speed, then at higher speed. They still get a bit scary which causes me to hesitate a bit. I wonder how long I will have the luxury of not having to practice a dreaded exercise for the flip??!
6. Lutz - since I'm still afraid of these I don't mind just doing the exercise. From a left backward outside edge, I pick and do a little hop and land on two feet without rotating. It probably looks ridiculous, but I don't care. I was working up the nerve to do the whole jump when my coach called me for my lesson. Saved by the bell! :)
   

Well that's about it. I had a fair bit of fun today even if I didn't get to practice footwork or improvising to whatever is playing on the stereo. And I got to take home a Halloween cookie!