New Years Goals - Go for the (Pre) Gold

 Happy New Year.  My year started with a minor surgery on Jan 2 - Which is the reason for no video last week.  I really hope to put some extra effort into practice and these dances - all of which I kid you not.. are difficult.

Last Dance (Lesson) Before Christmas

Stiff Legs During Lesson

I’ve been too busy to get any skating in between lessons so far this year.  Maybe 2026 will be better.  Today we never got to use music - and we spent the entire lesson on breaking down sections of the Blues and Starlight Waltz.

Holiday 2 for 1

 Well my BACK TO THE ICE after all summer off is not progressing well at all.  I’m a few weeks into weekly lessons and feel like I’m starting all over again.. with a hard group of dances.  

The Blues shouldn’t be that hard since it’s a slow dance, but slow dances mean long deep edges and lots of expression and knee action.  Even with a coach to “prop” me up, I can’t feel confident enough to get into my knees and keep my hips under me.  

2 vids today.  #1 is from Tuesday and Wednesday lessons - more of the highlights.  #2 are the actual teaching sections of my problem areas.

Cyber Monday Lesson

Great lesson today but the footage was a SNOOZER. So I just threw in a couple of clips of the full patterns with no music.  I must be slowing down in my old age.  I feel like I am working so hard on the ice to keep it but looking at the playback .. we are going so slow and I am not getting good push into the ice.

 

Back to the Weekly Grind -

 I was out of town unexpectedly last week after my lesson - so no practice in between my lessons.

Today we concentrated mostly on sections of the Blues and touched a little on the Starlight Waltz.

First Lesson in 5 Months!

Ok, I’m back for the winter.  (Fingers crossed) - This is the longest time off ice I have had in 14 years of my return to skating.  We had a great time this summer traveling in our motorhome, followed by a few months in the high mountains of Arizona to escape the blistering heat, followed by a fabulous 3 week cruise across the Atlantic from England!  Who can complain about that?

But now it;s back to the drawing board.  I am going to try to UP my skating game this winter and dedicate more ice time and especially practice time on my own.,  Last year I mostly only skated on y lesson days.  That made for slow progress.

First lesson went pretty well.  We spent a good deal of time on exercises for each of the dances.  We revisited all except the Paso Doble..which we plan to leave for a later..much later time!

This video is a little longer (about 10 min) but I didn’t want to delete the exercises or my mistakes.

I’m Back - After 4 Months, 17 Days

Wow that is the longest I have been off ice in 14 years.   4 months, 17days.  And that was just a drop in lesson in late June.  Prior to that I had skated 1 day in May.  So it’s really like being off six months.  I was not as wobbly as I thought but it will be a long road back to any proficiency in my ice dances.  Next week I will start back with my lessons on Mondays.  

Pop In Summer Lesson

 I never thought I’d be one of those skaters who only skated during a certain time of year.  But here I am.  My current lifestyle only allows me to skate primarily November through May.  On our recent 46 day road trip I found ice twice toward the end of May in Spokane and Bremerton WA.  The rest of my summer is spent where it’s not 115º ….  And where there is no ice rink within 2.5 - 3 hours.  That’s too much driving for 1 hour on the ice.

 I was able to arrange a lesson with Vitali since I was in town this week.  Luckily it wasn’t at 7:00 am and luckily my lesson was on the 2nd half of the session so I had time to get my feet back under me before we started.  We focused on remembering the step of most of the dances I was working on before I left.  Starlight Waltz, Kilian and Blues.

On The Road Again ….

 Last skate and lesson before my summer hiatus.   We had an hour on clean ice to work on all the Pre-Gold Dances including a surprise introduction to the Paso Doble.  Sadly my phone started the morning with 27% and ran out during the Paso lesson.  All I can say about THAT dance is that it’s going to be another difficult one.  Fast feet.. under, over, change of edge.. whew.