Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Time

Event

8:49a

Last week of January I'm getting really bad about posting about skating. I used to remember to post after every session and now I barely remember to post every week. So this is last week Tuesday: Sue told me I could take low freestyle in addition to my regular class. Poor Tanya has her hands full, the girls in that class just do not pay attention at all. We worked on backward edges and waltz jumps-toe tap-waltz jump. You know what's funny. When I was in that level, I could do that from 3 crossovers no problem, now I have to do weeny little crossovers or I can't do it. Guess that says my crossovers are getting better. I generate too much power/speed from them and then can't jump. Andy was gone so Lindsey/Ryne taught Freestyle. We did some jumps, then worked on spins, and spirals. I got complimented on my backspin. Spirals were okay- we did some weird combinations of edges/directions, and man on my bad side do I feel like an ungraceful airplane. Wednesday: The good kids are back at freestyle- they had been gone for 3 weeks. I had to put contacts in because my perphial vision isn't good enough with the glasses, and with the low skaters I can look and tell where they are going and be fine, the 3-4 of the good skaters move so fast I can't always track their path and need to have that extra bit of vision! Lesson with Courtney was okay. We did backspins and sit spins. My sit spin can be really good, but not always. I don't know what I do to make it different. She wants me to hold my edge for less time on the backspin and really whip into it. I can always get into the spin, but not always get my leg crossed- urgh. Then we did an incredibly frustrating time with loops. I hate loops. I did one that Courtney said would "count" as a loop- but no way, I barely have a quarter of the rotation off the ice. We concentrated a lot on landing on my toe, crossing my leg in position. Then I had to stay for club ice for group practice for the 30s number in the club show. This is where I found out that I would be in the LTS adult group who are doing the dutch waltz solo. Yawn. I'd be okay if it was -based- on the dutch waltz, with some flourish to fit the music or something, but nope, just the dutch waltz, one pattern around the rink. I should have never done the show. see next locked post. Felt really sick and didn't go to synchro, went to bed at 8:30 instead. Saturday: Skated 8:00 freestyle, did some moves patterns, did some backspins and sitspins. Wasn't really a great practice. Had to go to club ice in Cedar Rapids- I kind of like skating up there, the ice is really fast and I can actually do power pulls! Group practice was fine, but incredibly frustrating, I cannot jump where he wants us too (an intersection where we cross every other person) it is just WAY too fast. Andy suggested I bunny hop instead. Holy crap no way is that happening, that's more terrifying than a waltz jump. We learned our end footwork, and it involves some weird toe hop backwards (while moving very fast) and a choctaw. No way, just more crap I can't do. Should have never done this show.... The week wasn't as bad as I'm recapping I'm just in a really bad mood right now. See locked post for more info. Warning: pissed off Jessica ahead. This morning we got an email about the "recast" of the 90's (Disney w/ Andy) group number. The result - a super pissed off Jessica. I'm starting to regret skating in the club show. It's expensive to be in, and ice time for practice is even more expensive. I knew all that- but here's the thing, there is no place in it for a low level freestyle skater. I really feel that I'm getting completely shafted. First off- the cost is $75. That's understandable, they have to buy a lot of ice, and that's expensive. Each number gets 1 hour of "private ice"- but the 30's number I'm in the coach chose not to use the private ice. I don't know if the club bought it and it sat empty, or if they just didn't buy it. But either way I paid for it, and I'm not skating on it. The 30s number is also pissing me off because I was cast in a number that was filled out with a bunch of coaches. Okay, that's fine. Well then they invited the LTS adult class to be in it. Being a low level skater, I'm obviously not as good as the coaches and am now skating with the LTS group. Which is not at all what I signed up for. We're doing the Dutch Waltz, solo. YUCK. AND the LTS group isn't having to pay to skate in the show. If I'm skating the same thing as them- what the heck did I have to pay for? Each number consists of 3 songs- the LTS group is skating about 1/2 a song- the coaches are filling out the other 2.5 songs. That's crap. I should have thrown a fit like Ryne did when I was cast in this group (at that point it was the club adults- Ryne, Danilo, me, and a teenage girl- and Ryne didn't want to be in the "adult" number. If I had known it would be coaches and LTS I wouldn't have wanted to be in it either) and got put into another group. I really feel like I'm being screwed here. Then there is Andy's group. Andy's group is really difficult for me, and it's very frustrating because the levels in it range from a little 4 year old who can't skate backward to novice level men. Andy told me yesterday that it was too tough for him to get everyone to skate at the same time, so he was going to recast the remaining two songs. Don't you think it would make sense that he would do one of the songs with the high level skaters, one song with the low level skaters- plus the featured pair? Nope. He dropped the low level skaters entirely. So 4 little girls, and me, just don't skate the rest of the number. WTF? Not only do we have to half ass our way through a first song that is way to hard for us, then we don't even get to skate any more? I am so upset about this. I'm probably unreasonably upset about this, but what an ass. Even if the 5 lower skaters can't do the complicated footwork he wants, he could still use them somewhere, but if you don't have an axel, you're out. They should have never put the 5 of us in that group if that's what he wanted. At least that's fewer sessions I have to pay for for rehearsals. The opening and closing numbers are just acting and skating from place to place. But at least by skating them, I'm using some of the ice time my money paid for- because the group numbers sure aren't doing that. Needless to say, I won't be doing the club show next year.