Saturday Morning Confusion

DONT BE CONFUSED - WE HAVE NOT TESTED THIS FD YET.  My YouTube video didn’t give a shot to work with for the thumbnail so I grabbed an old shot of us when we passed our Pre-Bronze Pattern dances in 2017.

 So late last night I signed up for an early morning Saturday practice session.  I was a little late and hadn’t really expected Mike to be there.  He was already taking his skates off from the 5:45 am session!  So I tried a few runs of my solo free dance - since I have decided to also test it in October.  Afterwards Mike and I broke down our little program into sections and worked a few things into (hopefully) muscle memory.

Lesson Day..

 Ever leave the ice frustrated? That was me today. These crowded afternoon sessions really stink.

LESSON AND FOLLOW UP PRACTICE… it’s getting repetitive folks!

 Yep.  You know how it is when you are choreographing and working on a new program.  Also learning dance skills aren’t as easy to recognize.  It’s kind of like watching grass grow.

So now is a good time to remind any viewers that this is by no means a tutorial of any kind.  Just a video journal of my skating journey with all its’ ups and downs.

First was our lesson on Wednesday.

Then our follow up practice today at 5:45 am!!!!!!  You gotta be kidding me.

Partnering Practice

 Early call this morning for a partnering practice.  I’ll be off the ice for the next 4 days so I took advantage of the ice time despite not having even 1 cup of joe first!

We worked on parts of our free dance and trying to work out the Twizzles. Hard enough doing them alone much less in synch.

Skating with an Ankle Sprain

 I did the dumbest thing.  Off ice walking down my stairs I rolled my right ankle.  I caught it in time to stop from falling down but it definitely did some damage to the foot.  I proceeded to the rink anyway thinking the boot will act like a cast and maybe I could skate on it.

Once I got there and removed my shoe I realized flexing the foot really hurt as well as most other movements.  RATS.   Put the dance boots on anyway and gave it a go.

Surprisingly I didn’t fall and I was able to gently do quite a bit of skating for 45 minutes. I was really struggling to use my ankle to rise and fall on the turns or put pressure into the ice.

Pairs Reunion

 Today I donned my freestyle skates (boots and blades) for the first time since April (?) When I first got them new boots and blades.  I have hesitated switching them out to practice any freestyle as there is somewhat of a learning curve to the short blades without a large toe pick near the ice.

Hence, I have not jumped since early 2022.  My spins have been such a struggle.  Today when I first put the FS skates back on I was skidding a bit.  They are sharp… I had them sharpened a few weeks before the last time I wore them for competition in March.  I think they are mounted on a different angle on my boot than my dance blades.  It took about 15 minutes to acclimate.

What a fun day.  I can’t believe how much I miss skating pairs.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am really loving the discipline of ice dance but there’s just something different about pairs… aside from the obvious.  

Lesson Together on Program Choreography

 We’re working out the kinks on our free program.  A little hard during a freestyle session, but we managed to get ‘er done.

Creating A Free Dance

Here’s a few vids of the learning process of new choreography for our Pre-Bronze and Bronze Free Dance Test programs.

 

Head Over Heels

 Well I finally did it.  It’s been a long long time since took a spill like this.  Today while doing absolutely nothing - I managed to let my feet go out from under me and fell backwards and let my head bang the ice. Longest second of my life.  I thought about how much it was going to hurt my arms and shoulders .. till I heard the cranial thump!  Took me a few moments to shake it off before I could even get up and another 5 minutes off ice trying to evaluate if I had any visible signs concussion.  

Of course our motto is “We Get Up” right?

Prior to this fall we started trying out Twizzles together.  I learned a new beginners arm position for ice dance down at our sides.  We also did some practice with swing rolls in varying dance holds.  We need some serious practice time together without the coach to work on our skating rhythym together.

After today we are both out of town for a about  a week so we’ll get back to it at the end of the month again.

Snippets of Monday Morning Practice

 I ran my Gold MIF but none of them went very well.  It wasn’t worth recording.  Did some three turn practice in front of the camera - then my phone got knocked over and when it was reset .. it was out of focus.  A few Twizzles were captured in the blurry background.