Auld Lang Syne 2022!

Last skate of the year.  Good riddin’s 2022.  I’m pretty happy how it ended. 

Skating Accomplishments of 2022

March:  1st competition in 6 years - 1st place Adult Sectionals in Bronze Solo Free Dance

October: Tested/Passed  Pre-Bronze Partnered Free Dance with Mike Otis 

                Tested/Passed Adult Juvenile Solo Free Dance

December: Tested/Passed Pre-Silver Partnered Dance with coach Vitali Vakunov

So for the last skate of the year - 

  My lesson was cancelled today because we didn’t have normal ice times so I skated at Gilbert during the adult public session.  

  I’ve been trying to put some real practice into the 30 seconds of choreography so that when I do get another lesson we can move on!  Usually there is a lot of backtracking and wasting valuable coaching time so I am happy to almost have it down .. I just need to clean up the “character” extend toes and fingertips and clean up some sloppy skating.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!

The New Journey Starts Now … Silver Dance and Intermediate Solo Free Dance

 I snagged some early morning (for me) ice in Gilbert for my first attempt to try and learn some of the steps of the Silver Pattern Dances.  The American Waltz and the Silver (Harris) Tango.  I didn’t try any of the Rocker Foxtrot for obvious reasons:  I CAN’T DO A ROCKER YET!

I also put in some practice on the first 30 seconds of my new choreography for what will eventually be an Intermediate Solo Free Dance.  You can’t really see it all on camera but you get the jest. It’s a Tango.  I don’t do “emotion” very well so it will be one of many challenges.  Lesson tomorrow.

Pre Silver Dance Test - Passed by All 3 Judges

 I am so excited.  I passed my Pre-Silver Dances.  All 3 of them. 

The plan was to skate the Fourteenstep and the European Waltz and see how tired we were. We kept going and tired?  Well yes I was! We started the session at 2:00 pm and ran all the dances several times with warm up exercises before we did the dance patterns.  Then,  I ran off ice and got my dress on and we ran them again!   Then we started the test.  Geeez Louise!  It definitely gets the jitters out of your knees to warm up that much but I just about collapsed when it was all over!

I just received all the judges forms.  Happy to report a pass by all 3 judges.  Kudos to them all for pointing out my strengths and weaknesses.  I do think it would have been a better skate had we not had so many people on the ice and having to start our own music, etc.  I do appreciate all the opportunity the virtual testing offers, but there is nothing to compare to the “performance” aspect of standing in front of live judges with one shot only.  Thank you judges and thank you coaches.  Silvers are going to be tough.

Judges write ups are in the 2nd video  

Happy Holidays from Arizona

 Ok .. here’s my “Holiday Skate” from Schnepf Farms about a mile from my winter home.  The ice was atrocious ~ $18 for 1 hour.  $12 if you have your own skates.  There were more bumps and killer blobs of ice than my pond at home .. nevertheless it’s outdoor ice.  Who can resist?

Starting a New Free Dance Program!

 It’s beginning to look a lot like - New Choreography.  

Today we started the journey.  It may be a very long journey.  My amazing coach Naomi Lang coughed up some amazing opening poses and initial steps to begin this program in just moments.  It took an entire lesson to teach the EASY steps to me.  If you have followed any of my skating you already know how long this is going to take!   A five-six-seven-eight … here we go.

Goal: Adult Intermediate Free Dance

Required Elements: Below 

Getting Close to Testing Pre-Silver Dances

 During my lesson with Vitali today I arbitrarily asked him where we were with respect to testing these three dances and his reply was …. We’re ready!  Let’s have one more lesson and run them all full out and then we will test them.  

I guess this will be my first virtual test session.

Today we worked hard on doing lots of dry runs - followed by runs with music.

I feel ok about them all .. except that pesky end pattern on the Foxtrot.

Arizona Ice Again

Ok .. I’m back for the rest of the winter season in Arizona.  Time to get busy LEARNING something new and I’ll start by not making too many excuses as part of my 2023 resolutions!

I skated Monday on an adult session and did a little freestyle after running my dances (not shown).

Then had my Thursday lesson with Naomi Lang.  We are going to start working on a new program soon but I need to get my HOUSE in order.  Namely .. learn some of these harder turns and get my Twizzles moving down the ice without hesitation.  The next level free dance for me is Solo Intermediate which requires an end to end step sequence, a spin, a side to side choreographic sequence (????) a short edge and a Twizzle sequence with no more than 1 step between.  😱  Needless to say - this will take at LEAST a year for me to do .. maybe longer.  But starting is the fun part.   I’m leaning toward a tango (so I don’t have to smile!) 

But today we just worked on fundamentals.