The Theraband is my new BFF

I have had a love/hate relationship with the Theraband ever since Christopher introduced me to it. Everything is so much more difficult with it. I know that's the point but I've always...resisted...working with it (heh, puns). Anyway, today was different. I discovered how helpful it actually is and I think I like it now :) 

Gold Moves - Ahhhh, day 1 of working on a new level of moves. It's always a humbling experience. My first day with Gold Moves was not nearly as defeating as my first day working on Silver Moves and for that I'm thankful! I started easy with the Backward Circle 8. I just wanted to work on the outside circles today and I was having a difficult time making it back to center. In addition, my circle sizes were not the same and my arms were all kinds of wonky. I broke out the Theraband and like a miracle, things worked! Like, what? How? So I did a bunch more and they were all really nice. I moved on to Forward Double 3 Turns. I just did the first side trying to focus on placement of the turns since I know that's a big deal. I did one full length down the ice without a foot down and I didn't struggle on a single turn. When I was done I literally stood there and said out loud "Why is this so much easier?!" So, I ventured back down the other side of the ice and did the second side and yeah, I struggled a bit but it really wasn't terrible. So, I grabbed the Theraband and did them with that and they were even better! Again, the Theraband works miracles! Finally, I thought that since today is going so well why not try some Brackets! I was only able to do them by the boards and I was only able to do the forward inside and outside brackets, nothing backwards. But! It's a start. And it's a damn good one. I'm feeling like a boss!

The 27 Program Challenge (24/27) - I'm almost done with the challenge! I ran my program twice today and both of them were clean! I'm feeling ready to rock my freeskate in two weeks!

Dances - I ran through all of them and they are looking good enough to compete with. I'm excited to run these during my next lesson with Christopher so he can spruce them up a bit. I'm sure they've gotten a little rusty since I've been focusing on other things. 

The last couple of weeks have been the best I've ever skated! Clean programs, clean test run throughs, and a passing Silver Moves Test. Getting started on Gold Moves with all of this newly found confidence is really nice. I'm hoping this feeling sticks around a bit. It feels awesome!

Silver Moves in the Field Test - PASSED!

 Oh hey, I did a thing! I PASSED MY TEST! *Celebratory Noises, loud cheering, and some tears* This is going to be a long post. Be forewarned. :)

Warm-ups - I got to Apex with plenty of time to do some off-ice warm-ups before my 7:00am practice session. Btw, shout out (again) to Alpine Skating Club for providing a FREE practice session reserved just for testing skaters. It's a nice touch! I didn't think a 45 minute session would be enough to get everything done but it was actually too much time. With 5 minutes left, I told Christopher I just wanted to get off the ice so I can listen to some relaxing music and mentally prepare before getting on again for my test. I had about a 45 minute wait before I was supposed to get back on so I took my skates off and put on some relaxing tunes while I watched the group before me absolutely slay on their tests (congrats to both of them for passing!). 

5 Minute Test Warm-up - Well, this was a train wreck! I've been able to keep my nerves at bay but then I saw the judges and my legs turned to jelly (as they do when I'm nervous). I took a couple of hard falls on my easier 3 turns and then skated back to Christopher in a panic. He calmed me down and sent me back out to finish the warm-up. 

Introductions - I was the first skater in my group to go (which is always nice) and so I skated right up to the judges to introduce myself (I can't do this at the Promenade since they sit up high in the bleachers). I smiled and said "hello" and "I'm absolutely terrified right now." They said hello and that there is no need to be nervous. They are all rooting for me and they all really want me to pass. It really helped to hear that and I relaxed quite a bit. I got into starting position for my first move. Here we go...

Eight Step Mohawks - I've skated this better but I've also skated it worse. It was scratchy and my outside mohawks were not the best. Here's the video.

• Judge Betsy: Scratcy, slurred 678 step, control issues = -1
• Judge Kelly: flow consistent, some toe scratching on turning fwd to bkwd = 0
• Judge Hazel: not an even cadence on either side = -1

Cross Strokes - I heard rips on the forward strokes and I thought that was pretty neat and the backward strokes felt good. Here's the video.

• Judge Betsy: Steppy forward cross strokes, back cross strokes better = 0
• Judge Kelly: flow maintained, bkwd were cross steps, not strokes from outside edge = -1
• Judge Hazel: forward continuous flow. back continuous flow = 0

 FO-BI 3 Turns - These felt good :) Here's the video.

• Judge Betsy: Good placement. Work on push to back edge = +1
• Judge Kelly: Turns done on stable edges = +1
• Judge Hazel: RFO edge good control good. LFO edges controlled 3s pretty good = +1

FI-BO 3 Turns - These did not feel good. I had a very obvious foot down. Oops. This might be worthy of a reskate later on :(  Here's the video.

• Judge Betsy: FD. LBO weak, RBO 3 jumped on many. work on push to back edge = -1
• Judge Kelly: One touch down after LBO 3. Some BO 3s jumped = -1
• Judge Hazel: RFI "wiggles" after 3s. Watch toe pushing. LFI 3s lack control = -2 

Spirals - Wheee! Best move! This felt good. Here's the video.

• Judge Betsy: Beautiful extension. Nice control, Nice edges = +2
• Judge Kelly: Both O+I good extension and stable lobes = +1
• Judge Hazel: Outside nice extension above hip, inside nice extension = +2

Power Pulls - No audible rips on the forward (sigh) but I got a couple on the backward! At this point in the test I was just hella excited to be done! Here's the video.

• Judge Betsy: Adequate = 0
• Judge Kelly: forward pulls shallow, backward pulls strong = 0
• Judge Hazel: fwd pulls look *unreadable*, back okay with some continuous flow = 0

Final Scores - They didn't ask me to reskate anything even though I was sure they would ask to see the FI-BO 3 turns again. So, I waited anxiously for the results thinking that I probably didn't pass. When the score sheets came out and they were passing, I started crying with happiness. Christopher said "Did you not think you would pass!?" and I said "Actually, no, I didn't think I would pass." Total disbelief! I can't believe I passed!!!! Woooot!

• Judge Betsy Final Score = +1
• Judge Kelly Final Score = 0
  
• Judge Hazel Final Score = 0 

My husband wasn't able to come but Christopher took video for me (super thoughtful of him!). 

I'm Ready!

I think the old Mandi would have titled this post "I'm Ready?" but the new Mandi is going to take that question mark out and make a clear statement about tomorrow's test: I'm Ready!

Moves - I had my final practice before the test this morning at Apex and this was the best I've ever done my 3 Turns! Not a single foot down. Since they felt good today, I didn't obsess and spend the whole hour overworking them. Instead, I ran everything at least once and then moved on to Dance and Freeskate stuff. Honestly, there is nothing I can do today to make tomorrow better. I just need to go out there and skate my best for the judges. 

The 27 Program Challenge (22/27) - I ran my program and it was clean! My last few run throughs have been clean and calm so I'm feeling pretty good about CSI in a couple of weeks. There are still a couple of areas I want to spruce up but overall, if I skate like this at the competition, I think I'll make the podium. 

Dance - I just ran Dutch Waltz and Canasta today because I didn't want to use up the whole session playing my own music in case someone else wanted to run theirs (although it was just me and two other adult skaters). I spent some time on the Cha Cha on Sunday so I don't feel bad about skipping it today. Have I mentioned I hate the Dutch Waltz? 

So yeah, test tomorrow. May the odds be ever in my favor.

After School Zoo

 Lesson today and it was on a later session than I normally skate on. My session today started at 2:45pm so I got all of the after school kids. Seriously, the ice was busy! It was really hard to complete any of my patterns since there were kids everywhere. Even with Christopher spotting me, I get super anxious when the ice is this busy. I told him "it's one thing if I break my own bones, but I'll be a bit miffed if my bones break because someone wasn't watching where they were going." 

Moves - Needless to say, my moves were not as clean as they have been. When I'm distracted by trying to watch where other people are going (because I know they won't watch out for me), my technique suffers. I had a lot of "foot down" moments during my 3 Turns and I couldn't complete a full pattern of the 8 Step without having to bail. It's my last lesson with Christopher before the test and I really wanted this to go so much better than it did. Sigh. I have one more full practice early in the morning at Apex on Wednesday so hopefully I can run my test and regain some confidence for Thursday's test. 

Program - I mentioned to Christopher that he hasn't seen my program in an entire month! He literally has no idea if I've even been working on it or just slacking off. We've been so consumed in our lessons with getting me ready for this test that this has been put on the back burner. He asked to see the step sequence since it's really just too busy to run the full thing and, when I was done, I got the "slow clap" from him! Yay! The slow clap is good :) 

Dance - I showed him the intro to the Cha Cha and I guess he didn't think it was stupid because he didn't really change anything except adding a chasse. Hopefully next week we can look at my freeskate and dances since I'll be done with testing for a bit. Maybe we can start getting my Pre-Bronze dances back up to snuff to get them ready for testing too.

Two Fresh, Two Clean

I skated at the Y today. The session was later than usual and I'm not sure if it's because school started and this is the new session time now or if it's a one time kind of thing. Doesn't matter. It was a pretty good practice nonetheless. This is the third good practice in a row and I'm feeling pretty good going into the week of my test. 

Moves - I wasn't able to run a full mock test but I ran all of my moves individually and they all seemed pretty good. The 3 Turns were even stable today! Yay. 

The 27 Practice Challenge (21/27) - I was able to run my program twice today and both times were CLEAN! I didn't bail on any jumps, everything got landed, all of my spins were good, step sequence was nice and covered some ground, and I ended on time with the music. I can't ask for anything more. If I can skate like this at the competition in a couple of weeks, I'll be in good shape. 

Dance - I ran all three of the dances I'm performing at the competition and they are looking mighty fine! Since I know the patterns are good, I spent the majority of my time working on some intro choreography for the Waltz and the Cha Cha (I already have an intro for the Canasta since I performed it back in March). I'm recycling my old "Memoirs of a Geisha" intro from a few years ago as my Dutch Waltz intro. It works because they are both waltzes and I'm too busy to choreograph something from scratch. The Cha Cha was a bit trickier. I did have to start from scratch on this one since I've never competed with it before. I came up with something sorta sassy and I hope Christopher doesn't think it's too stupid. 

So yeah, today was a good day on the ice. I got a lot of work done and I'm feeling really prepared for everything coming up. I just need to keep this momentum going until mid-September when I'm done with testing and competitions and I can just relax for a bit.

Schedules!

I had a great practice this morning and then opened my email later to discover that the schedules have been put out for both CSI and my Test Session next Thursday! Yay!

Practice - Speaking of schedules, I messed up this morning and didn't realize that the 6:15am session changed to 6:30am. Oops. The guy at the desk was super nice and just let me on the ice early. With me showing up early and him letting me on early, I had a full 30 minutes to myself before anyone else got on the ice. I took advantage of full ice and ran my test. The whole test was nice! Like, I think I would have passed without a re-skate. I only had one tiny tap of a foot on my first LBO 3 Turn. I wouldn't even classify it as a "foot down" as it was such a light tap. I didn't think it warranted a re-skate so I moved on to the rest of the test. This is the best I've felt about this test! It was CLEAN! If I can skate like this on Thursday, I might potentially get a pass. :) 

Once people got on the ice, it got a little cray so I mostly just worked on spins and some jumps. It was a good first 30 minutes so I didn't want to over do anything by drilling it needlessly. 

Schedules - Ok, so there are SEVEN of us in the Bronze Freeskate at CSI! That's awesome! With the exception of one person, I know everyone I'm competing with. It should be fun! I'm also skating with two familiar faces in my pattern dances too. Nice! Finally, The Memorial Cha Cha. There are 14 people skating this event and since it's a memorial dance it's open to all levels. I'm competing with some Senior -level skaters. It's kind of intimidating but also kinda neat. I have absolutely ZERO expectations of winning this. It's just for fun. But...I wouldn't hate placing in the top half of the group. Other than practicing the patterns, I've done almost nothing to prepare for my Dance events. It's been pretty low down on my priority list with the test coming up and a new Freeskate to debut. Once my test is over, I'll figure out some opening choreography to go with my intros. 

Speaking of the test, I'll be skating pretty early on in the day so I can still get to work on time. It's not ideal. I would love to take my test and just chill the rest of the day but with the last minute change of dates, I couldn't make that happen. So, I'll need to go right to work after I test and I'll either arrive to work elated that I passed or I'll show up with a big cup of pity Starbucks and wallow throughout the day if I get a retry. Maybe I won't wallow but the coffee will definitely happen. 

Also, shout out to Alpine Skating Club! When my old test got cancelled and I registered for the one at Apex, I emailed their test chair to ask if I could be scheduled early in the day so I can still make it for work. They listened and honored my request! I'm so glad I switched to Alpine SC. I love how they value ALL of their skaters (including their adults!).

Getting Pretty Damn Close!

 I had a great practice this morning at Apex! It was one of those magical days where things went the way they were supposed to and mostly everything I did was "passing" in regards to MIF. 

8 Step Mohawks - The first one I did was kind of a disaster. I think I caught a rut or got on a goofy edge and it kinda slipped away from me. I gave myself a reskate on this and it was much better. 

Forward and Backward Cross Strokes - The forward strokes were awesome! I had a loud rip on each stroke. Neat! The backward strokes were good too but there were no audible rips. However, my strokes are more strokey and less steppy so that's nice. My imaginary judges passed me on this move. 

FO-BI 3 Turns - Not a single foot down! This is as clean as I've skated it in a while. Nice!

FI-BO 3 Turns - I had one tap of a foot down on one of my backward turns (LBO side) but the other two were good. In fact the last one on that side was really nice and I think my imaginary judges saw that and appreciated it. So, they passed me. 

Spirals - Lovely. Plus points here as always. I tried even harder to extend more on my bad side (the inside spirals) and I think this brought them closer to what the outsides look like. 

Power Pulls - Final move yay! I did not get any rips going forward but got a couple going backward. Overall, it wasn't bad but it wasn't as good as I've done them lately. Still passing with a 0, I think. 

So yeah, today was just what I needed. A good skate, things working the way they should, and a little confidence boost. I was supposed to test tomorrow at the Promenade but that's cancelled (even though they still haven't contacted me to tell me so, kinda annoyed at that). Instead I'll be testing 6 days from now on Thursday the 26th. Will it be nice to pass? Heck yeah! Do I expect to pass? Well, I know I still need a lot of work on these things so it's realistic that I might not pass this time. And that's okay too. I'm not going to put pressure on myself to pass this right now. This is all about putting it out there for the first time and seeing where I stand. I've worked my ass off for the last 2 years (the last 8 months in particular) to get this test ready. I'm proud of how far I've come and what I've been able to accomplish. Although I have good days and bad days, overall I've steadily progressed and grown as a skater. And that's pretty cool.

Stick of doom

 Lesson today and it was more Moves. Can I just say how excited I am to potentially pass this test next week and move on to more exciting things? Because two years of working on the same stuff really gets boring. I dream in 3 Turns now. :(

So yeah, we worked a bit more on the 3 Turns using the end part of the pole harness which was a lot trickier than the theraband (and happened to aggravate an old hand injury). We also spent more time working on the 8 Step to try to make the movements more sharp. If I can remember all of the things Christopher told me to do on this move, I might be able to get a 0 on this. Fingers crossed. 

At the end of our lesson, we had a few minutes to work on anything that was giving me trouble and I told him I was struggling a little with consistency on my opening jump combo in my program (Salchow-loop-toe loop). He took some video and you can really see how I'm over-rotating everything. I need to flatten out the salchow, let the loop happen naturally with the leg crossed in front instead of out to the side, and relax a bit more on the toe loop. I feel like I'm a tornado and nothing feels quite secure. I'm landing the combo more often than not but I'm never confident that things will turn out well like I am with my other jumps. I usually just enter the jump combo and hope for the best but there are so many things that can go wrong. 

Christopher gave me a bit of a pep talk at the end. He told me he can see how steadily I've improved on everything and to relax more about this test. If I treat it like an opportunity to show the judges how hard I've worked instead of like a life or death situation, I'll do well. I need to trust myself. There's a passing test in me somewhere. I need to let it shine through :)

High Five!

 I stayed a full two hours at the Y today and I accomplished a lot, especially toward the end since I had the rink to myself during the second hour. 

Moves - I was able to do two full test run throughs. I did not pass myself on either although I felt I was close (and maybe I was a little hard on myself). The big problem, once again, is consistency on those 3 Turns. During the first run through, my FO-BI turns were good but the FI-BO were gross. During the second run through it was the opposite. However, I really feel like I've turned the corner on my Power Pulls! The forward pulls are quicker and stronger and sometimes I even hear some baby rips! The backward pulls are nice too. I'm hoping I can get a +1 or at least a 0. That will help.

The 27 Program Challenge (19/27) - I did five run throughs today. FIVE! Can I just tell you how tiring that is?! But I had open ice and I wanted to take advantage of it. Out of the five, I had two that were complete disasters, one that was just okay, and two that were clean. The clean versions were the only two where I focused on expression (smiles and such). So, maybe smiling helps me relax and skate better. If the cure for skating poorly is to smile more, that seems like an easy enough fix and I'm willing to work on being more consistent with it. 

Cha Cha - I was sharing the ice with two other adult skaters who I'm friends with and, since we are all dancers, I put on some Cha Cha music and we all danced! It was fun and it was good practice for the Memorial Cha Cha coming up next month. I need to study the pattern placement though. It felt off to me. Hopefully, after I test next week, Christopher can take a look at my dances and make sure they are competition ready.

Well, that was unexpected!

 So I'm sitting on my couch at home and I see that I have a voicemail from Christopher on my phone. I know he doesn't usually call unless it's urgent so I listened. Turns out, The Promenade (where I was registered to take my test next Friday) is going to cancel the test session due to a low amount of signups. It wouldn't be cost effective for them to run the test session blah blah blah. 

I called Christopher back and he told me there is a test session at Apex (my new home rink) on the 26th instead but the deadline to register is literally hours away. So I hung up and registered to take my test at Apex instead. He's already planning to be there that day because he has another student testing so I don't need to feel guilty about him driving so far just to be there for my test. 

On the downside, I have to wait another week to test. I've been wanting to do it and get it over with and now I have to wait a little longer. On the plus side, I get another week's worth of practices and I can test at a rink where I feel more comfortable (Apex has better ice and doesn't feel as strict and stuffy as the Promenade). ALSO! It's so much cheaper to test on home ice!

This may all work in my favor after all but now I need to scramble to get my work schedule switched around to accommodate the new date. That's giving me some anxiety. Also, I'm kind of miffed that the Promenade didn't reach out to me at all yet about the cancellation. I'm thankful Christopher told me when he did because otherwise I would have missed the deadline to register at Apex. Imagine the students who don't have a Christopher and how in the dark they are about everything. That kind of sucks.

All 3 Turns. All the time.

 My typical Saturday morning session is gone this week so I picked up a session this morning to make up for it. Minus the last 15 minutes or so when I started to work on jumps and spins, I spent the whole time on...you guessed it! 3 Turns! 

Today actually felt better! I did several full patterns of the FO-BI 3 Turns without a foot down and I was able to get better consistency with the FI-BO 3 Turns as well. I did ALL of the exercises Christopher has given me in the past to try to improve these. I did some with the theraband, I did some without the theraband, I did backward power 3 turns in both directions, and I did some isolated on the circle. I'm trying everything!

Honestly, it's been months (8 months probably) since I've worked on the backward power 3s and even then, I was only able to do one side since I didn't have my LBO turn yet. But today, I was able to do both directions and it was kind of, dare I say, fun? I'm definitely going to integrate these back into my practices. If I ever decide to move on after Adult Gold MIF, I'll need to know them so why not start now? 

Mock Test...again.

 Lesson today! Christopher gave me another mock test and this time I passed without a reskate so woo! Once again, my 3 Turns were unsteady so we worked a bit on getting my arms right on those so I can stop the rotation after the turn (my biggest problem). 

After a few weeks of mock tests, this was my best one, I think. He said the test overall has improved even though I'm still struggling on a couple of the elements. That's good to hear because I'm honestly not too confident that I'll get a pass from the judges next week. 

I've been trying so hard to train myself to relax during the 3 turns. My heart rate used to skyrocket when I did them and now my fitbit is just registering a relaxed cardio. So I went from an HR of 178-180 to an HR of 140-150. I know it's not huge progress and I'm not sure if it's because I'm more relaxed or if it's because I'm practicing them so often I've become desensitized to the fear of them. Regardless of why, I'm glad I'm not near heart attack status when I practice them now :)

3 Turns Aplenty

 I skated at the Y today for 1 hour and 45 minutes and I dedicated a good chunk of that time to just 3 turns. I wish I could say that it helped or that I had a revelation but alas. They are pretty much the same as always. They aren't bad, but they are not the best either. They are just some form of permanent adequate.

Moves - I did two full test run throughs and they were just okay. Nothing stunning happened and I definitely didn't give myself honors. On a good day, I feel like I can do enough to pass the test. Today was a pretty decent day and I feel like I did enough to get a pass by my imaginary judges. I gave myself a reskate each time. The first time, I reskated the FO-BI 3 Turns and after the second run through, I reskated the FI-BO 3 Turns. It's always the 3 turns. Sigh. So, I spent a lot of time trying to make corrections to get these a little more consistent. 

The 27 Program Challenge (14/27) - Since I was there for almost the full two hours, I had enough time to skate my program twice. Again, I wish I could say they were fantastic programs but they were just okay. I guess that's better than total suck but it would be nice to say I killed it, you know? Just once. 

Dance - I registered for Adult Preliminary Solo Pattern Dance at CSI so I ran through a few patterns each of the Dutch Waltz and the Canasta. I have also registered for the Memorial Cha Cha so I did a few patterns of that as well. I'm on the fence about using popular music or using the official US Figure Skating dance music. I feel like I skate better with the USFS music but god it's awful to listen to! We'll see. I still have time to upload my music so I'll think about it some more. 

Semi-Private Ice

 I guess everyone is busy up at National Showcase because it was super dead at Apex this morning. Just myself and another adult skater. It was really nice and I got a lot of meaningful work done. It kind of made up for Thursday's loss. 

Movez - Since there was so much room to do things, I decided I would give myself a mock test and run it just like it would be run on test day. I gave myself a brief 10 minute warmup. I'm not sure how much I'll get on test day. I probably should have only done 5 minutes. Then I got to my starting position for the 8 Step Mohawk. My pattern was better and overall it was a little less scratchy then it has been but I know my bad side outside mohawk still has the tiny subcurve. I think because of that I'm not quite at a 0. Next up were the Cross Strokes. My forward strokes had some rips and I remembered to use my shoulders more but the backward strokes were still slightly steppy. I think they get better every time I skate them so they weren't the worst. I moved on to the FO-BI 3 Turns and those were fine with not a single foot down. Yay. Now onto the FI-BO 3 Turns. These were gross. I had a foot down on every backward turn on the second side. I knew this would be a reskate. Next up were spirals. These were really nice! In fact, the other adult skater commented on how great they look! That's awesome because I'm really counting on these spirals to push me into the "passing" zone. Finally, Power Pulls. I wasn't able to get any rips, although I tried. They looked okay though and the backward pulls were really nice. I added everything up and came out with -1 overall so I allowed myself a reskate of the FI-BO 3 Turns and came up with a 0!  

8 Step Mohawk = -1

Forward and Backward Cross Strokes = 0

FO-BI 3 Turns = 0

FI-BO 3 Turns = -2 (reskate -1)

Spirals = +3

Power Pulls = -1

Total Score with Reskate = 0 (Pass....but barely and I might be biased in my scoring)

So yeah, I feel like I'm really close! I have two more weeks to spice up these 3 Turns and I think I'll be okay.

The 27 Program Challenge (12/27) - After warming up all of my jumps and spins, I put my music on and ran the program. Everything was fine but I got a little too overzealous on my twizzle and ended up with an extra turn? So I missed the toe turns and the mohawk but I made up for it with a nice second half. This still needs some polish but I think I will be able to make it nice for next month's competition. I'm starting to commit more to the Lutz-Toe which is progress but the jump itself is still pretty garbage in terms of technique. Sigh.  

Waste

With my test rapidly approaching, I decided to add a session this week to work out some of the kinks. What I didn't think through very well was the fact that this week is National Showcase up in Fort Collins and everyone and their mother is squeezing in last minute practices at all the local rinks. So, Apex was crazy busy with people running their programs and I mostly spent the entire session trying to stay out of everyone's way. Needless to say, my kinks did not get worked out. 

Moves - As soon as I started a pattern of something, I would have to break out of it to make way for someone in their program. Literally, it was endless program run throughs the entire time. I was so distracted trying to anticipate where someone was going that, even when I was able to do part of a pattern, it sucked because I wasn't concentrating as I should. There was only one moment where everyone decided to go to the boards all at once for water so I was able to squeeze in one complete pattern of the 8 Step. It was actually pretty okay and I was able to even out the pattern more on both sides. But yeah, nothing else really got worked on so today's practice was a bit of a waste. Sigh. 

Program - I really wanted to run my program today but, seeing as how these girls were getting ready to compete in a few hours, I wanted them to have all the time. I would feel guilty taking up their program time for mine when mine isn't pressing. I was able to run it once without the music and it went well until I had to break out after my last jump to make way for a girl with Chinese fans (beautiful program, btw!). I picked it back up at the spiral into the final spin and ended it nicely. 

As much as I feel like I didn't get a lot of work done today, it was still nice to see everyone's programs. Everyone looks great and I hope they all get GOLD!

Edit to add: I just registered for CSI! I'll be competing Adult Bronze Freeskate (6.0), Adult Solo Pattern Dances (Preliminary), and the Ashlyann Carlson Memorial Cha Cha. Yay!

Closer than I've ever been

The 27 Program Challenge (11/27) - Ok, so first let me start by wrapping up my Sunday practice at the Y. Nothing exceptional happened. I ran through all of my Moves (a few times), I ran my program and it went well for the first time in a few weeks, and I finished up with some dances. I showed up and work got done. 

Lesson - Today I had my lesson with Christopher and we did another mock test. This time...I passed! Even though he gave me a pass, there is still work to be done. I only passed with a 0 and that was after having to reskate my FO-BI 3 Turns. First up was the 8 Step! I made some noticeable improvements! He actually gave me a 0 on this which is nice considering he put me a -2 last week. I'm still having some issues with pattern placement. My good side is a bit bigger than my bad side so I tend to come up short when coming back to center. This is totally fixable though. The Cross Strokes were also a bit more improved from last week. Even though the backward strokes were still slightly steppy, they were better than they were the last time we ran a mock test. The FO-BI 3 turns are usually my better turns but I was struggling today on the bad side. I put a foot down every time. The good side was good though. Christopher warned me that this might be a reskate. Up next were the FI-BO 3 Turns and he noticed improvement on my bad side with coming back to the axis. Yay! Spirals were up next and I improved on those as well. He gave me a +3! That's awesome because I need all the + points I can get. Finally, the Power Pulls. These have also improved but he really wants the judges to hear rips. He passed me on them, though. So, the reskate. He asked me to reskate the bad side of the FO-BI turns and I put my foot down on on 1 of the 3 sets I did. Ugh. So, overall, he gave me a pass but I'm still not really comfortable with the score. He said he wasn't just being kind and that I actually earned the pass but man, it sure didn't feel like I earned it. I still have a lot to clean up and a few weeks to go before August 20th. I think if I just keep doing what I doing, I'll keep moving in the right direction. Christopher did say that this is the closest I've ever been with this test so I think there is hope for me yet. Thank god for spirals or there would be no hope for me. Come on Spirals! I'm counting on you! 

We spent the rest of our lesson on trying to get rips on the Power Pulls. So, he had me just skating on the inside edges of each foot to really dig into the ice and get a sound. Then we did the same for the outside edges. Once there were rips, he had me put it all together and I did pattern of forward pulls and guess what? THERE WERE RIPS! I think him isolating the edges like that really helped. I'll need to dedicate some serious time to it in my practices because with this move, it's important for the judges to hear it as well as see it. 

On a side note, I never really had rips on anything until I started working on Silver Moves. Now, I'm getting them consistently on my cross strokes and sometimes I hear them when I'm doing my 8 Step...and now I'm getting them on my Power Pulls. It's a beautiful sound.