Coffee Club

Went to public session today to skate with my friends Heather and Hank.  Heather is an Adult Bronze skater and Hank is Adult Silver.  You will see them in the background of my videos from time to time.  I went wine tasting yesterday and followed up with dinner and more wine with friends.. .gee I wonder why I had no energy today?

Knowing I have a lesson on Thursday on the harness I know I need to keep moving each day.. so I did what I could, but it felt awful.  I was really fatigued and it shows.

Twizzles

I had to name my post today Twizzles because my MIF lesson was long and boring (on video) and I just didn't have the energy to sit at the computer for hours doing an edit to find something worthwhile to post.

Need to spend more time on the ice and actually doing off ice exercises than talking about it.

.... Sorry everyone... here's a few RFI Twizzles to entertain you today.  Maybe less IS more !

No Weekends Off For Me!

I did skip Friday so I thought I better find some ice today.  Went to a nearby rink for their freestyle session.  It's always a real mixed bag of skaters there.  They had 4 coaches giving lessons and the club is new so the skaters are going every which way - some still in rental skates.

Nevertheless, I had an ok session.  This is the rink I usually have a blade-click incident or take a header doing a spin.  The ice was really bad today - but I just did my best to skate through it.  It was really bumpy like they didn't lay a fresh sheet of ice and only scraped.  I don't know anything about how to Zamboni.

I did not feel like I had a good session while I was there, but the video shows I worked hard!  I was only on the ice for 45 minutes total.

Thank you Lake City Figure Skating Club for letting me skate.

And.... oh yea -  I bought a SCRIBE today on Ebay.  So excited I will be able to make a real circle to practice my Backwards Circle Eights with.  I am also thinking about getting into the old school compulsory figures. They still have a rule book for them and judges who can test them... just not at my rink.  I will have to investigate.  They are really good for all aspects of  your skating.

Click that link if you want to read (a lot) about figures.

1st Axel Lesson On The Harness

As promised - my first lesson in the harness.  I was pretty nervous.  My coach thought it went really well and you will see by her reactions.  I see that I have much to learn off ice and on before this jump will ever be something I would do off the harness.  Time will tell....

Poppurri Skating

Today I had a fresh nearly private sheet of clean ice but no legs or stamina.  I did my best and got some practice in but it was a disappointment in my book.

I did make some Backward Circle 8 progress thanks to tips from my viewers... THANK YOU.  Keeping my back arm up higher helped a lot. (no video)

But if you want to see a really great fall... my video is at the bottom of the page!

Here's a few stills of the week

These pictures were from Monday ...
See if you can guess what I was working on from the pink tracing my coach laid out for me.  I must have done something right because my skate picked up the pink dye!

Special Congrats to my friend Penny who underwent TKR (total knee replacement) in August and

got back on the ice this week.  (wonder how many Advil that took?)

Off and On Ice Practice & A Lesson

I wasn't planning on much more than working on Moves In The Field today, but here's how it played out:

I got to the rink and decided to do a little off ice warm up.  I often wonder if I am the only one (adult) who struggles trying to do off ice jumps. I really fear torquing my knee and twisting my ankle.  Which I did today.. on a Loop Jump.

On ice I worked on my Gold Moves.  I was able to get in 2 sets of each of the Power Crossovers in both directions and both frontwards and backwards. Without someone filming you - the video is not good from the rail, so I didn't capture that.

I worked on my Backward Outside Eight many times both before and during my lesson.  My coach could see during my lesson that I need to raise my hip on my free leg and that should help my trouble spots on this move.

During practice I got frustrated .. again.. and moved onto free style before my lesson and I was really happy with my Waltz Loop Loop progress.

Thursday.. the plan is to put me in the harness for my first Axel - in harness - lesson.  We probably won't be attempting the whole jump, just trying to initiate more rotation.. we'll see, I hope to capture it.

Axel Prep Exercises

Today I had a really frustrating session and decided since my moves in the field were not working why not try some Axel Prep!

Here's the result.  I had a lesson yesterday which I didn't video and this was what we worked on for the last 15 minutes.  This was drawn out for me yesterday with a pink marker.  Basically it's a Waltz Jump (on a specific tracing) then a Loop Jump on-the-ice to finish.

3 Fall Tuesday

Bought a new pair of Mondor shorts with padding in them.  I put them on this morning and was so disgusted with how my already oversized hips looked even more "out there" that I took them off.  I said to myself.. I won't be falling today.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...

First on my moves (which I spared you of sitting through) - had a blade click on the double three turns - BAM.

Second on my Flip jump, which is usually my strongest jump next to a Waltz Jump, BAM

Third on my Loop Loop combo (not seen) BAM.

Wish I had been wearing those ugly shorts!

Great session though.  3 of us regular ADULT FIGURE SKATERS plus a new girl and another new (younger adult .. 22) ... I wish we could encourage more of this at our rink.  It's quite motivating to be on the ice with kindred spirits and arthritis ~!

Public + FS Session and Lesson

I double dipped today.  Public was great.  3 Adults.. all "skaters". Beautiful quiet, clean ice.
Then I had to unlace, take a break for lunch and come back for Freestyle session - only I was so tired I could only do moves.  Had my first couple of hard falls today on brackets!

Also took my pattern and material to a seamstress for my 2015 or 2016 LE program.  I am NOT committing yet to passing my Silver and making it to Nationals - not sure I have it in me... but the programs and dresses and costumes are in progress... so we'll se.

Moves Practice Continues ....

I missed some practice last week and was out of town for a few days -

Monday I had a MIF lesson which I did not record.  We worked on brackets mostly.

Tuesday I went to a nice quiet public session and spent most of it working on the MIF.  There was a lot of practice, but I only made a video with one of each element.  (And that is too boring for most to sit through ... )

After that I spent a few minutes on my freestyle.  Nothing too exciting to report, except that it felt good to be back on the ice.

MIF




FREESTYLE