Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Time

Event

9:13p

Entrance to moves patterns I got an email tonight (which I'll respond to in full when I have time to sit down and type a full repsonse) asking why I do such a complicated entrance to my moves patterns, especially since I have trouble with it. For the alternating back crossovers, and the back crossovers to back outside edges, my entrance is: Start facing hockey goal, slightly off centered to side of rink where I will do move. Do 1 stroke with right foot, 3 turn on left foot, then two backwards crossovers. My synchro coach suggested this entrance for me, and provided video evidence -a senior moves test- that other skaters use it. (I was worried about being different, and having judges notice that.) What I struggle with is the 3-turn, and getting enough power in it that I look like I could be a bronze skater. So why do it this way? Well- the normal entrance around here is 4 strokes and then either a 3 turn or a mohawk. My problem by the time I do the standard across the rink stroking, I'm going too fast to do the turn. Neither my 3-turn or my mohawk over my left shoulder is strong. By starting with just one stroke and then the turn, I'm able to do it at a much slower speed, easing my worries about hitting it just a little bit. I still don't get a clean entrance 100% of the time, but I also don't bail out 90% of the time anymore. Just for those wondering, my 3 turn pattern starts at the hockey goal with 2 strokes preceding it, but my coach worries that it will make the pattern look tenative, however, there is no way I can do it from 4 strokes unless they are super weeny strokes that will make me look like a bad skater. My mohawk comes from the normal starting spot across the horizontal axis, but with 3 strong strokes, and my fwd crossover has 4 starting strokes. I have a card that tells me what foot to start on for each of these patterns, since they are all different- it's confusing, but changing those two entrances to something a bit non-standard really has been a huge help to my confidence. Edit to add: This is essentially the entrance I'm using, except I'm doing a 3-turn not a mohawk, but it's the idea of up the rink, rather than just across the horizontal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhODS6xll4A