Erin's first competition in 17 years

Yesterday was finally competition day! I was actually relieved that it had finally arrived. I did about half of my usual practice time in the morning; enough to get my feet underneath me but not so much that I would be worn out. My event wasn't until the evening but we got to the rink plenty early to watch some of the other events. I wish I could have watched more of them. Anyway everything went pretty much as I expected and according to plan. I'm glad that I did the simulation last month and also the test day in December helped me get an idea of what to expect in terms of nervousness.

I was definitely nervous and felt really shaky in my warmup. This is about what I expected as well. Mostly I tried to remember to have fun and show everyone how much I love skating. When I skated my routine it actually went pretty well. The shakiness caused me some wobbles in a few places, like in my sit-spin entry and in a footwork section. It threw off my jumps a little bit but nothing major. Watching the recording, I could actually only see the effect in a couple of places. I was most worried about two elements: my flip and my camel spin, and both of them were ok. Not the best I've ever done (nerves) but certainly adequate. At the end of the routine I was so relieved!!! And also a bit disappointed that it was all over so fast. What a paradox.

Of course this competition for me was about the experience and challenge rather than winning or anything like that. With only two other competitors in my event, and such a casual feeling, I wasn't too worked up about the results. The other two girls were doing elements that I can't do, like Lutzes and back camels, so I was surprised to hear that I won!! We stood on a little podium and got medals and everything. I'll post some photos when I can figure out how!


What I learned from going to competition:

• Enter every event you can qualify for. I could have entered interpretive and solo dance events in addition to freeskate, I saw a lot of people do this. Makes it a bit more worthwhile especially if you are traveling.
• It's not how good you are, it's who you know. Bring your friends if you want to hear applause!
• Bring your coach.
  
• Don't rush the packing process. I thought I was clever in remembering to bring a needle and thread in case my homemade dress needed repairs. When I noticed that my applique was starting to come off, I reached for the sewing supplies I had brought and saw that I had remembered everything except a needle. I also remembered my headphones but not my iPod. Duh!
• Bring an extra pair of hard guards. After your skate, dry off your blades and put on the dry guards if you're not taking your skates off right away.
• Print out the schedule, bring it with you, and pick up a program. Not only is a program handy, it would have been a good souvenir, but I didn't get one for some reason.
  
• Remember to pick up your music afterwards! I left both of my cd's there. My coach won't be happy about this because she uses high-quality cd's.
  

Mediocrity in the Morning

This morning I had my last practice before competition. Overall I did much better than last Friday morning; I warmed up my jumps off the ice, did plenty of skating and stretching and warmed up my elements before my lesson. Part of the problem last Friday is that I got the first lesson of the morning when I was all stiff and cold. Usually I get the last 20 minutes out of the hour.

Anyway I was feeling pretty good so I asked to do a run-through first thing. I hadn't got too far when the CD skipped, but I thought my coach had stopped the music to correct something (I don't know why, she never does that) so I stopped skating. When I realized it had only skipped I tried to pick it up again but it really threw me off and I made some more mistakes. Meh.

After that we worked on the flip-toe because I had missed that one in the run-through. I didn't chicken out on any of them but I am still pre-rotating my shoulders and my coach is trying to get rid of that. Then we worked on my loop but I was really messing them up, like not wanting to actually leave the ice, and we were running out of time so I asked for another run-through. This time the CD started skipping horribly but I could hear my coach shouting "Keep going!" so I kept going like nothing had happened. It kept skipping like crazy and finally my coach turned it off thank goodness. I tried to just skate it through as best I could without the music. It actually went decently but timing was one of the things I wanted to work on! So, that was my final run-thru before competition, sheesh. Not really what I had wanted.

I spent some time going over it in my living room this evening. I realized I had forgotten some of the arm movements and tried to work on some of the sloppy sections. It's not nearly the same as skating but it is good for working on timing and boosts my confidence a bit!

My coach and I had a bit of a mix-up about the competition. She assumed she would go, and I assumed she would NOT! I hadn't even thought about it. It's a bit of a drive and it's not like I need my coach there at the boards to give me important advice about my triple-triple combination before I go skate. Of course how could I have known that she always goes to the competitions of her skaters and was fully prepared to go to mine? Oops! The longer I skate the more I learn these unspoken rules, heheh.

Tomorrow I usually skate for 3 hours but I don't want to wear myself out so I will probably just go in and do my Skills lesson (hopefully no big wipeouts), maybe teach CanSkate and warm up my elements a bit and then go home. Maybe not even that much. Then at the competition I'll make sure I'm super warm and super stretched out before it's time to get on the ice. Also I have to remember to do my jumps off-ice!

The run-through that wasn't horrible

Yesterday I finally had a program run through that got the 'OK' stamp of approval! There were still moments that were not great, and silly things like almost falling on a swing roll and some sloppiness but overall I was pretty pleased with it. After the run-through we tried to work on my elements a bit and my coach keeps repeating the things I'm not doing properly. Her latest bits of advice are to 'press down on the hands' and 'spin faster'. I'm just happy I didn't give up on my flips :)

I actually missed about 10 minutes of ice time because my bus left early (without me). I had go another way and do a bit of extra walking/running and got to the rink when it was time to get on the ice. Grrr! Well that's the first time that's happened to me getting to this ice time and I guess I will make sure I'm early from now on!

Getting ready to compete

I have been really busy time lately, and haven't made the commitment to blog about my adventures. Overall the main focus on my skating in the last 6 weeks has been on my program for the upcoming Adult Regional competition next week. I'm skating to a selection from "Mario takes a walk" by Jesse Cook. Armin Mahbanoozadeh has used it in his short program this season and I really like it. Unfortunately, I can't skate as well as he can, but I think my coach and I have done a decent job of drafting a nice program to it that showcases my better elements. It has taken us a long time to fully choreograph it (and it's still not 100% complete) but it's more complex than the programs she usually puts together (almost 1 minute longer, but fewer elements, so it's got lots of transitions, etc.) Some days I do a decent run-through and other days it's a big ol' mess, but the good run-throughs get better each time, so that's positive. Right now the biggest issues are working out the timing of some of the sections and sloppiness in transitions, along with getting 2 full rotations in the camel position for my combination spin. My sit-spin is better than ever by a mile. But I'm a little spooked that there is so little prep time left. My dress is almost finished, I'm just sewing on the last bit of trim around the hem.

While my good days on the ice are getting better and better, the bad ones still occasionally happen and are starting to worry me a bit. Lately I have been getting chicken about jumps and getting sloppy when I try to do them with more speed. The most irritating situation is with my flip; sometimes I just get a mental block and simply can't execute the jump. This especially bothers me because it used to be my favourite jump, just pure fun; then we tried to improve it and now I think about it too much and try to bail out if I don't set it up just so. I've had a couple of frustrating practices as well where nothing seemed to go right and then the next day I have a wonderful skate so it can be really baffling. Yesterday I had a crappy skate, just a big waste of time. So this morning before I got on the ice I practiced my jumps in my shoes, in the lobby, and that gave me a lot of confidence. Once it was time to warm up my jumps on the ice they were stronger and better than they usually are at first. I was kicking out further in my waltz jump, more confident in my Salchow and loop, and didn't have any aborted flips. I was better about not pre-rotating my shoulders. I didn't give up on any of my jumps. This was great for my confidence so I plan to warm up my jumps off the ice before I skate from now on. Especially at competition next week. Yikes! After my skate yesterday morning I was considering withdrawing. But after a great skate today with 2 acceptable run-throughs, I feel more optimistic about it. Skating can be so weird.

Aside from my program, I have been dabbling a bit in Skating Skills for 30 minutes a week, just one lesson a week. For the Jr. Bronze level there are again three patterns to learn:

• "Threes & Power Mohawks"
• "Power Circles 1"
• "Change Threes"

The moves at this level that were not in the Preliminary level are backward 3-turns, swing rolls, changes of edge, and tango stops (T-stops, foot in front, on outside edge). Also speed, power and control are more important.

For the first pattern I mostly struggle with checking the backward 3-turns and getting the right timing on the Mohawk/Choctaw section, but I can get through it without any major mistakes. The third pattern is my favourite, the swing roll/edge change combination is fun and I can really lean into my edges. Aside from the tango stop, it's my best of the lot. My worst is the power circles pattern. It's not complicated, just a pattern of crossovers around the hockey circles. But, it's done at full speed and the circles are tight enough that I am really deep on my edges so they are difficult to control. Last week I had a huge wipeout when I leaned too far into my backward crossovers, fell onto my hip and slid full speed across the ice. There was nothing I could do but put my feet out to let them hit the boards first and hope that the collision wouldn't damage my blades. Everyone came rushing to see if I was ok! It was a bit unnerving not to mention that it was within 5 minutes of stepping on the ice and not really the way I wanted to start the day. This morning's practice was a bit better, I didn't wipe out but I made my circles too large and couldn't get all the way around them in the prescribed number of steps. We didn't even complete a full run-through and it's been a while now since I have done one. Fortunately, I'm not too concerned about these at the moment because I'm distracted by my competition. It's definitely going to take longer before I'm able to test at this level than it did for the previous level. But if I can say it without sounding stuck-up, I am better at the other 2 patterns than the other 2 girls in my lesson, heheh. And I think they get 2 lessons a week!

In other news my foot is feeling better and ballet class has been a little bit more fun lately. It's not exactly what I expected but to practice good posture for 75 minutes once a week is not such a bad thing really.

Well, time to sign off for now. I hope to go back to more regular posting soon.

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!