Thursday, November 24, 2016

Post Traumatic Turkey Syndrome

We journied across the country for Thanksgiving in Chicago with my sister-in-law and her family with my skates in tow.

I had hoped to get some pre & post turkey skating in - but underestimated the popularity of a FREE OUTDOOR RINK in downtown Chicago!

At the time I got there the ice was so chewed up it felt like I was skating on pebbles.  I went LIVE on Facebook for a lap or two.  Later, my hubby and sis-in-law came down to the rink and took some video.  It was all I could do to keep from slicing off mittenless fingers from fallen skaters - much less try to do any real skating.

I presume skating at Rockefeller Center is the same.. but probably not free.  (I don't really know)


Sunday, November 20, 2016

NFL SUNDAY

 We had one last chance for practice at Riverfront Park turns out it was game day…


Saturday, November 19, 2016

Christmas Rush

Somehow we have run out of time to properly put together our Christmas program.  Today is literally the 1st day we put all the steps together and tried to run through during a lesson.  Omitting the full out jumps and lifts and forgetting much of the choreography during the run .. we did our best.

Tomorrow we get a practice on a public session - then we're apart for the holidays until December 2.

Our first performance is December 3 at another rink for their holiday show and our second will be December 10th for our own club's Christmas Pops.

On a side note ... I had to send my boots back to Harlick to hopefully find a solution to my foot problems.  I am back in my old boots with the old blades.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Da Agony of Da Feet - New Boots

This is my 2nd new pair of custom Harlick boots.  My old boots are 4 years old and I have already sent them back for reinforcement about a year ago.  As my aging feet continue to skate .. so do my foot problems.  Bunions, tailor bunions, accessory navicular and nerve compression to be specific!

My husband says ... and you do this WHY?

With all these issues, stock boots are not an option for me.  I love my Harlick's, but this time I am wondering if something went wrong in the tracing or construction.

The boots look huge, but they are the same boot.  They start with the size 8 1/2 C model and build from there.  Tracing around a very wide ball over the mountainous bunions on both feet and on the outside edge of the ball there are little bunions called "tailor" bunions.


I am showing you these diagrams because my feet are too ugly to post on my blog!

I have skated 4 times in my new boots and put about 5 hours in them.  My feet are KILLING me.
I'm working with Harlick now to find the problem and a solution.

Meanwhile my skating suffers!


Thursday, November 10, 2016

Pair New Christmas Program Start

Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat .... AGAIN ...

4 weeks until our Christmas Pops and we are just starting the choreography.
I'm in new boots that are giving me AGONY right now.
I will be gone for 4 days this week and 10 days over Thanksgiving.

Not sure how or when we will get this done.. but here goes!


Monday, November 7, 2016

Compulsory Figures 101

Operator error.  My video was off during my first compulsory figures lesson.  It was great.
My very scary Silver Test Blades are honed to a 1 1/2 " radius on hollow ... which means they are seemingly FLAT compared to the hollow of a freestyle blade.

That equates to skidding unless you have your hips under you and you are leaning into your blade.
You cannot just glide or go for a ride on these bad boys.  It takes core strength and pressure into the ice to keep them on the ice.  Practicing figures on freestyle blades is entirely different.

We worked on Preliminary figures.  Inside and outside edges across the short axis of the rink, like Pre Prelim moves in the field.  We worked on FO and FI eight.

Seems my initial problem is the push off.  I am overlapping my circles from the push.
I will describe this better in the future with video and photos... next time.

I had not had a lesson on figure blades (Patch skates) in 46 years and my coach had not given a patch lesson in 25 !!  It was fun.  People were staring at us!

Pairs Practice in New Boots

I love my new Harlick boots but I have to say my feet are aching right now!  I am 2 hours into them.  Today was my 3rd time in them.  I am getting off the ice for re-lacing less, but that is out of laziness.
I will pay the price for that on my tongue if I don't do it more often.

Hank is just coming off being sick and due to my boots being so new we hardly did any jumping or throws.  We tried some off ice lifts today and caught them on video.  I see that my free leg is doing something ugly and bending as I try to get up into the lift.


Getting busy on these Silver Dances

I have been working on these silver dances too long!   Planning to go all in on them until I can test them in the next few months.