| Time | Event |
| 8:59a | Competition report: Day 2 Sorry this is so long. Here's the funny part for those who won't read on. My supportive husband and his friends brought signs to hold up for me for synchro and interp. A "go Jessi" sign so that I couldn't disown them and a giant "D" and a cutout of a picket fence- like you see at football games. Goofy, but I was so glad they came. 2nd day of the competition had some ups and downs. Downs: Compulsory program. The compulsory elements were salchow, change foot spin, toe loop. It did NOT go well. My jumps were alright (they are never really good), but the change foot spin was not. I wasn't spinning very well in warm up, but I was doing the spin. Well, in the compulsory program I did an okay forward spin, then about half of a backspin, bobbled a bit, set my foot down, completed a revolution on 2 feet, then went back into my forward spin. It was horrible. Burton told me it was the worst one he's seen me do since I figured out how to do them (I imagine my very first attempts were actually worse). The only small concession is it did get called as a change foot spin, rather than a missed element. I did enough of it that it was just a really bad one. I got 2nd place, since I was competing against another girl. I probably would have gotten lower against the book. The small victory- as I came off the ice "Coach Jenny" from Capital Ice Academy in Des Moines told me "You have beautiful extension in your landing position." Well I'm doing something right I guess. Latin Program: It actually wasn't THAT bad, but it wasn't good. I didn't lean in enough on our traveling circle at the beginning (which wasn't traveling at all...) and got flipped around momentarily to be moving forward, I got back to backward quicker than I normally do in practice though. Then in our breakout traveling circles from the S pinwheel we broke out funky, and had to dodge the other circle. I thought we were clear and went to pump and Jen and I had our blades collide. It was a LOUD click and a huge jolt. Courtenay said she hung onto me because she thought I'd stay up, but I ended up falling and breaking our circle. It was a pretty good fall though, and I managed to kind of slide in a trajectory so that even though my circle kept moving I was mostly able to get back up in the right place (plus they didn't move too much). We got back together for the next pass through though, so it wasn't a horrible fall. Then at the end, this wasn't so much MY mistake, as the team apparently just got lost in our last pass through- I don't pass and am on the end of the line, so I didn't really know it was happening. We still got a first place though, the books at this competition were easy to beat. Ups: Thriller: Program went fantastic. I judged the event immediately afterwards and the judges told me that they really liked that program- it was a real fun synchro program and it looked great. Then they made snide comments about how I managed to stay on my feet. :) I actually really love the Thriller program, but I think most of the team doesn't like it so much. They are crazy. The circle footwork went pretty well too. For some reason with the smaller group we do the tap toe hops much better than the large group. I did however go the entire season without hitting a back lunge :( Apparently we not only beat the book here, we also got a perfect score. Mostly it was just a lot of fun. Kevin, Amanda, and Erin came and watched the program- and they brought signs. A "D" and a "fence" (like a cutout fence) like you'd bring to football games, because they are big dorks, and a Go Jessi sign, so that I couldn't claim to not know them. I just really appreciated the support, and at least a few of the synchro girls thought it was funny. Interpretive: When I said I wanted to do this on skatingforums, someone told me it was a horrible event. Essentially they said they just got nervous and only did crossovers and maybe a spin. I have horrible nerves, so I laughed it off and said- but that was my plan! I convinced Courtenay to do the event with me and we called it our official "arm off" - neither of us has too many tricks, but emoting on ice we can do! We went to the locker room and the monitor played us a super fast "are you kidding me" music. It turns out she played the wrong one!!! The actual music we were skating to was a Gloria Estafan song that I now can't remember the name of. (Courtenay was appalled I didn't know it. But I was only 4 when she remembers it from! I missed some of the 80s). Anyhow it was slow and the perfect song for emoting on ice. The warm up went well, I did my back 3 turns, I warmed up all my jumps just in case I found myself in the entrance to one of them while I was skating (I can never tell what I'm about to do! I had no plan). I did my spins, though the lean over one wasn't going too well. Made a promise to myself that I WAS NOT to attempt a camel or a backspin, which are the things I practice the most now. Warmed up my forward 3- outside 3-forward 3 extension thingy I've been wanting to do. Then went back to being sequestered while the first person skated. Then I was pulled out, gave Courtenay a big high 5 as she took the ice, and faced away while I listened to the music one last time. (I wish I could have seen her skate. I want to know what an inside slide chasse is, and she said she pulled off a jump!) Then it was my turn to take the ice. This was, without a doubt my FAVORITE event of the entire competition. I wish I had asked someone to tape me, because I have no recollection of what exactly I did. Lots of arms, that's for sure. I did a forward spiral to a backward spiral and Kevin told me they were both pretty high. I did a waltz jump toe tap, but then forgot to do the 2nd waltz jump. Kevin told me he could tell I was jumping. I did a good scratch spin (Kevin's comment when I asked if it was fast was diplomatic and nice: It was faster than I expected you to be able to spin.) I did a forward 3-backward 3 to an extension but didn't have the power to get the third one on there. I threw in a salchow when I realized I had only jumped once. I did another spin, but didn't center and traveled a ton- this was the one where I kept my leg out and tried to lean to the side. I only "learned" to do that Tuesday. Towards the very end, I kind of ran out of ideas, did a two foot spin and the music just ended (the song was repetitive and the cut odd, it was hard to tell when it stopped) and I managed to hit a pose maybe 1 or 2 counts late, so not too bad. But mostly I felt great, and Kevin said he didn't notice the 'deer in the headlights' moment I felt like I had towards the end when I ran out of things to do. It was an awesome awesome event. (And I placed first.) I'm so glad I did this- I wasn't nervous for it like my freeskate- and it actually turned out really well. It's my new favorite event. (Though the fast music might not have turned out quite so well- when we heard it I said "I can do it, but I'm gonna kill Burton." Thankfully it was for the high freestyle group, not the low one.) So I came home from the competition with all kinds of hardware: 4 first place medals and 2 second place medals. |
| 5:16p | This is my freeskate program from this weekend. The quality of the video isn't good, and I don't really know why. It's fine on the file I uploaded but looks bad on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N510cq8V9 I'm kicking myself for not asking someone to tape the interp. |
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