I still exist!
Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, I've been really frustrated with skating and busy with work. Which combines to not getting much on the skating journal.
Since I last updated (January 8th) I have skated on the 13th, 14th, 17th, 20th, and 21st. Oops. I need to do some more writing.
The 10th was a scheduled rehearsal for the ice show and we were greated with a huge amount of snow and a canceled practice. I appreciate not driving all that way on awful roads, but am very concerned how we will ever get the choreography done, much less cleaned! We didn't have ice show practice this past weekend, or this upcoming weekend (my birthday!) because Andy is away at Nationals. (The novice pairs team from our club placed 4th!)
Rather than go over all the different practices here is what has been going on.
In individual lessons- my backspin rocks now, my jumps do not.
In group lessons- we are mostly doing show choreography and I do it well at a medium speed. At full speed, it ain't happening. Also, my jumps suck.
In synchro- I've been incredibly frustrated and not enjoying it. I need to be a stronger skater before I will ever be happy with it.
Which brings us to this week. First on Tuesday, learn to skate was crazy. We have 6 coaches (I think) that do learn to skate. Four of them were at nationals, plus one of the rink employees who is a regular sub also went. So 3 substitutes came in, plus the two of us who stayed. I had an hour of snowplow on my own. I couldn't talk at the end of it. Man is it tough to talk for a full hour. With the older kids you can just tell them to do something, with the younger ones it is constant chatter to keep their attention. I am so thankful that the two girls I do freestyle with came out on the ice with me, as they did all the potty runs ("take her off the ice, if she sees her parents, let her go with them, if not walk her to the bathroom, but don't go in with her. If she can't go by herself, go get Sue.") and shuttling kids back on the ice after them. And man this group seems to need to go to the bathroom more than any group I've ever had. They are all young enough that if they even mention it I put them off the ice. I've seen way too many accidents to ask a 3 year old to hold it.
My freestyle class was with the coach who usually subs it, and while she has a good perspective and good comments, I don't care for her classes. I think we spend too long on each skill, only covering maybe 3 things in the half hour. The younger girls often get bored with whatever jump and stop doing it, but when I also run out of attention span, we've been doing it too long (because I try really hard to do what the coach says. And I'm an adult whose mind doesn't wander much). But she did some good work with me on getting my toe waltz to be a toe loop. Unfortunately I can't feel the difference at all, and it's just a matter of if I get lucky. She also commented my backspin was getting very good- because the last time she coached I think was december, and it is definetly noticeably better now :)
I had a lesson this Saturday on moves (an extra lesson, since we've missed so many)- there are things that are getting better, and things I just feel stuck on. Courtney really wants to keep working moves because she thinks I'll burn out on just freestyle, but right now my goal is bronze free. I'll be away for ISI Synchro Nats at the clubs next test session, so hopefully they will have another this summer. That gives me plenty of time. Yesterdays lesson focused on the individual elements needed in the program and I got a big thumbs up. She might have to find a way to creatively stop and then do the loop from almost a standstill, but I'm pretty close to having it. My toe loops were discouraging, because I can't tell the difference between the good and the bad ones, and she changed the way I "think" about them, so now I'm two footing them a lot, but entering them correctly. My salchows were fine and she wants me to do them more on a straight line now. My waltz jump-toe loop is okay, but if I get a good amount of "oomph" on the waltz jump, I can't do the second jump, it's just too fast. Sit spin was okay- I'm taking my hand off my leg now so I don't lean forward. Backspins were awesome, IMO, and I'm actually getting to where I can sort of exit them. Apparently the problem before was that I wasn't spinning fast enough. I fell down on a few of them, because i'm now instructed to hold them until 3 revolutions past where I don't feel comfortable spinning anymore. HAHA. The last thing we worked on was the loop, and it's so close to almost there, I just can't get off the ice. So now I'm required to land in a backspin, so I stop kicking my foot out and keep it crossed. Good thing the backspin exists now :) I'm going to ask Andy if he has time to do a harness lesson, since Courtney isn't able to. I just need to get my butt off the ice, and know that I can do it.
Synchro last night was more enjoyable than it has been. We are still working on getting all the new pieces of the Thriller program in place.
Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, I've been really frustrated with skating and busy with work. Which combines to not getting much on the skating journal.
Since I last updated (January 8th) I have skated on the 13th, 14th, 17th, 20th, and 21st. Oops. I need to do some more writing.
The 10th was a scheduled rehearsal for the ice show and we were greated with a huge amount of snow and a canceled practice. I appreciate not driving all that way on awful roads, but am very concerned how we will ever get the choreography done, much less cleaned! We didn't have ice show practice this past weekend, or this upcoming weekend (my birthday!) because Andy is away at Nationals. (The novice pairs team from our club placed 4th!)
Rather than go over all the different practices here is what has been going on.
In individual lessons- my backspin rocks now, my jumps do not.
In group lessons- we are mostly doing show choreography and I do it well at a medium speed. At full speed, it ain't happening. Also, my jumps suck.
In synchro- I've been incredibly frustrated and not enjoying it. I need to be a stronger skater before I will ever be happy with it.
Which brings us to this week. First on Tuesday, learn to skate was crazy. We have 6 coaches (I think) that do learn to skate. Four of them were at nationals, plus one of the rink employees who is a regular sub also went. So 3 substitutes came in, plus the two of us who stayed. I had an hour of snowplow on my own. I couldn't talk at the end of it. Man is it tough to talk for a full hour. With the older kids you can just tell them to do something, with the younger ones it is constant chatter to keep their attention. I am so thankful that the two girls I do freestyle with came out on the ice with me, as they did all the potty runs ("take her off the ice, if she sees her parents, let her go with them, if not walk her to the bathroom, but don't go in with her. If she can't go by herself, go get Sue.") and shuttling kids back on the ice after them. And man this group seems to need to go to the bathroom more than any group I've ever had. They are all young enough that if they even mention it I put them off the ice. I've seen way too many accidents to ask a 3 year old to hold it.
My freestyle class was with the coach who usually subs it, and while she has a good perspective and good comments, I don't care for her classes. I think we spend too long on each skill, only covering maybe 3 things in the half hour. The younger girls often get bored with whatever jump and stop doing it, but when I also run out of attention span, we've been doing it too long (because I try really hard to do what the coach says. And I'm an adult whose mind doesn't wander much). But she did some good work with me on getting my toe waltz to be a toe loop. Unfortunately I can't feel the difference at all, and it's just a matter of if I get lucky. She also commented my backspin was getting very good- because the last time she coached I think was december, and it is definetly noticeably better now :)
I had a lesson this Saturday on moves (an extra lesson, since we've missed so many)- there are things that are getting better, and things I just feel stuck on. Courtney really wants to keep working moves because she thinks I'll burn out on just freestyle, but right now my goal is bronze free. I'll be away for ISI Synchro Nats at the clubs next test session, so hopefully they will have another this summer. That gives me plenty of time. Yesterdays lesson focused on the individual elements needed in the program and I got a big thumbs up. She might have to find a way to creatively stop and then do the loop from almost a standstill, but I'm pretty close to having it. My toe loops were discouraging, because I can't tell the difference between the good and the bad ones, and she changed the way I "think" about them, so now I'm two footing them a lot, but entering them correctly. My salchows were fine and she wants me to do them more on a straight line now. My waltz jump-toe loop is okay, but if I get a good amount of "oomph" on the waltz jump, I can't do the second jump, it's just too fast. Sit spin was okay- I'm taking my hand off my leg now so I don't lean forward. Backspins were awesome, IMO, and I'm actually getting to where I can sort of exit them. Apparently the problem before was that I wasn't spinning fast enough. I fell down on a few of them, because i'm now instructed to hold them until 3 revolutions past where I don't feel comfortable spinning anymore. HAHA. The last thing we worked on was the loop, and it's so close to almost there, I just can't get off the ice. So now I'm required to land in a backspin, so I stop kicking my foot out and keep it crossed. Good thing the backspin exists now :) I'm going to ask Andy if he has time to do a harness lesson, since Courtney isn't able to. I just need to get my butt off the ice, and know that I can do it.
Synchro last night was more enjoyable than it has been. We are still working on getting all the new pieces of the Thriller program in place.
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