Dress Rehearsal and Airplane Mode

Today was my dress rehearsal/lesson with Christopher. I wore my new Free Skate dress to get a feel for how it moves in the context of my program. 

Dress Thoughts - First of all, this dress is GORGEOUS! I love it so much and I got a lot of compliments on it. It's so damn sparkly under the rink lights! I discovered that, because of the sleeves, I cannot wear my club jacket or the sleeves will get bunched up and weird. Good thing I have a really cute Lululemon vest. It works perfectly! Also, I really like that my dress designer built some bra cups into the dress. I never asked for this but what a game changer. Awesome. 

Free Skate - When I was working on some elements in the practice before my lesson, I could not get the backspin to work in the spin combo. So frustrating! However, when Christopher had me run the program with the music, the spin was lovely. Go figure. In fact, the first 3/4 of the program was really nice but things started to fall apart in the last 30 seconds. This is becoming a trend. I'm already tired and then I have a total of six jumps (some in combo) and a spin. It's a lot and I'm at the end of my rope in terms of energy. If I can hold it together, it will look nice. If not, disaster. 

Free Dance - We ran this too and it was nice. He made me do the beginning again with a focus on expression. I'm so bad at remembering to emote throughout so he wanted to see it again with FULL EMOTION! Ugh. 

We worked a bit on the camel spin because it's just so inconsistent. He told me to keep my arms out more on the spin (aka Airplane Mode) rather than sweep them back (aka Fighter Jet Mode). That really makes a difference. I'll just have to remind myself to go into Airplane Mode each time I enter a camel, lol. 

Grinding

Sunday practice at the Y! Mostly I just worked on the Free Skate and the Free Dance to get ready for CSI. Here's how it went: 

Free Dance - After working on the ending a bit to get that new twizzle down, I ran the whole thing. Everything went well enough, just a little icky where the spin was because there was a coach working with her student right where I needed to be. They moved, but at the last minute, so my spin was a bit gross. The ending was nice with the new twizzle. 

Free Skate - I worked on some spots before putting the music on. The spin combo didn't go as planned. I'm struggling with the backspin part of this. Other than that, all the jumps landed and all was well. 

Today was the first time I kinda almost sorta felt ready for the competition. It gave me some confidence anyway and I really needed that. 

Skate of Emergency

 Today was my first day back on the ice after a week and a half of very much needed vacation. To say that my programs are a mess would be an understatement. Ugh. 

Lesson from Last Week - I didn't get a chance to write about last week's lesson because I went home, packed, and got on a plane early the next morning. I ran the Free Skate twice for Christopher with the new cut of music and it went okay. It wasn't good but it wasn't total trash. He made some changes to the order of my spins and changed my twizzle in the step sequence. Nothing to get worked up about. As I've lamented before, there really isn't enough time to do a combo spin at the end of the program so he switched that spin with the one I was doing right before my step sequence (which has heeps of time). So, I'll do the camel-upright-backspin before the footwork and then the camel spin at the end. Much better! He also looked at my RFI twizzle in the step sequence and noted that it's very spinny. I mentioned that my LFO twizzle was better controlled and did one for him and he was like "why aren't we doing that one instead?!" So, I'll be doing that one instead :) 

Post-Vacation Practice - First of all, the ice was BEAUTIFUL today! So smooth! I got about 5 minutes into my warm-up when the fire alarm went off throughout the whole Rec Center. The front desk person came and got me and told me to put my guards on and take all of my stuff. And then I stood in the blistering hot parking lot for about 15 minutes while we waited for the firefighters to come and check things out and give us the all clear to go back in. So, clearly, this was not a drill. Anyway, by the time I got back on the ice, I was hot and annoyed and definitely not in the right mindset to have a good skate. They gave me two freestyle passes to use at a later date so that was nice. Once I warmed up (again), I ran my Free Dance. It was okay but had some shaky spots. The spin was wonky too. Christopher also wanted me to change the twizzle in the Free Dance as well and because I didn't get a chance to practice it with the new twizzle, that part was a little gross. I still have two weeks to get make it lovely. Moving on, I loaded up my Free Skate music and ran that. It had some nice moments but mostly it was trash. Again, I have two weeks. 

Colorado Springs Invitational - While I was on vacation, I got the schedule for CSI. I'm the only competitor in the Free Dance (bummer) so I'll get default Gold. It's actually going to be my first ever default Gold. That's not fun. But I'll go out there and try my best anyway. In contrast, there are 7 of us competing in Silver Free Skate and I know all of them except two (and those two are from Broadmoor so I'm confident they'll be strong skaters). I'm....intimidated. And I'm really feeling like I'm not ready for Silver. I know it's the next step in my skating journey but I'm really worried that my skills just aren't Silver-y enough right now to hold my own against these ladies. I'll go out there and do my best anyway. At least my dress will dazzle the judges, lol. 

Somewhere in Time

 Practice this morning was nice. I worked on both programs and then spot checked some things (mostly spins because those have been particularly wonky lately). 

Free Dance - This was nice except I didn't make it as far down the ice as I wanted to during my backward catch foot spiral. That really threw off my camel spin and step sequence after. But I got through it. 

Free Skate Music - A few days ago, Christopher made some adjustments to my music. He shaved off 7 seconds and sped it up a bit. He also made the beginning louder and smoothed out some transitions. It sounds lovely but 7 seconds is a lot. I miss them. When he cut the music initially, he thought it had to be 2 min 10 secs +/- 10 but turns out it's just 2 min 10 secs. So yeah, I had to make some timing adjustments, and speed my skating up a bit to meet the musical cues. Those last 30 seconds are going to be a real pain, though. Ugh. 

Free Skate - Well now. The first 3/4 of this was really nice. In fact, I remember thinking "I'm actually doing the thing!" at the end of my step sequence. But then...the last 30 seconds arrived and it was nonstop jumping. The final spin (camel-upright-backspin) was okay but I ended after the music so that was kind of gross. But I actually think I got 3 revs in each position! So yeah, skating a bit faster wasn't the worst and I made all of the adjustments just fine. In fact, I think the speed helped my step sequence flow a little more. Neat. 

Free Skate Dress! - It's here! My first custom dress and it's so pretty! These are the pictures my designer took before she mailed it to me so that unitard in the back is not mine. But look at it! It's got sleeeeeves. Perfect for Rachmaninov <3 

Registered!

 It's been a week. Oof. So busy! I've been practicing but I just haven't had the time to update so I'll try to sum everything up in one post.  

Practices - I've been running through both the Silver Free Skate and the Free Dance and they are actually not too bad. When I was at Apex practicing, another adult skater commented on how pretty my music was and how lovely I looked (which I really needed to hear because this is the most insecure I've felt about my skating since I came back from the broken leg years ago). Then, when I was at the Y on Sunday, I ran my Free Skate and received applause at the end from the other skaters sharing the ice with me. They may have just been being polite but I needed that too. The good thing is that I'm getting through the program, my timing is good, and I'm ending with the music (just barely). Because my practices have been okay, I went ahead and registered both the Free Skate and the Free Dance for the upcoming Colorado Springs Invitational. Honestly? I'm really anxious about skating at the Silver level. I just feel completely out of my league but I know this is where I need to be in my skating journey. Ugh, I'm just afraid of embarrassing myself, you know? I didn't feel this way when I went from Pre-Bronze to Bronze but going from Bronze to Silver is such a huge jump in skill level. I'm more than a little intimidated. Yikes. 

Lesson - We started with a run through of the Free Skate. It went well enough except for the final spin. Last week we had discussed putting a combo spin at the end. I've been playing around with combo spins for the last two years and they are barely improving. I struggle with basic spins most of the time so combo spins are not really going to happen anytime soon. I asked if I could put a layback as the final spin and he told me it really needs to be a combo. Like, I was feeling maybe okay with how the program was going. Even somewhat capable on occasion but, with a combo spin in there, I don't feel confident that I can end the program on a high note. I started anxiety-ing about it during our lesson before we came up with the plan of doing a camel to upright into a backspin. Okay, I can do that. That's within the realm of my capabilities. So we worked on that a bit before running the program again in its entirety with the new spin in place. The ending still wasn't fantastic but at least this is something that I can work on and possibly improve. The hardest thing is holding each position for at least 3 revs each. Ugh, spins. They really are my weakest element. 

IJS - This being my first foray into a new scoring system, I'm constantly bombarding Christopher with IJS questions. My question today was whether or not I will get a 10% bonus for having two jump combos and a single jump pretty much packed into the last 30 seconds of the program (that's a total of 6 jumps!). He confirmed that, yes, I will. That's nice because I'll need all I can get. I know I'll get an edge call on my Lutz and my Flip technique is not entirely clean. So that will help. This was also the first time I have had to put in Planned Program Content for a Free Skate. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. For some reason, I thought I had to know all of the codes but it was just a bunch of drop down menus where I could put in my elements. That was nice and easy. What stresses me out though is the fact that anyone ANYONE can look at the score sheet and see what got downgraded and what got +/- GOE. Like, I love that can see exactly what worked and what didn't but I don't love that everyone else can see it too. Sigh. 

Side note - I've been really hot lately during practices and I'm not sure if it's the summer heat, the extreme humidity in the rinks (especially at the Y), or just the fact that I'm working harder. But I'm wearing tank tops and I still get off the ice sweaty and red in the face. Ew. 

Silver Free Skate Choreography Done (sort of)!

Ok, let me preface this by telling you how OUCH I feel today. Everything hurts from yesterday's clinic. But with my competitive season starting soon, I really can't rest. I still went to Pilates this morning and gave my all and then showed up to my lesson this afternoon ready to work. I was running on minimal energy but I showed up. 

Christopher wanted to see the program so far with the music including the new steps he gave me last time. He seemed okay with everything but really wasn't a fan of the "almost" hydroblade he gave me last week so he changed that to a dramatic extension-glide thing and gave me some other connecting steps to get to my Flip-Toe Loop-Loop. Just when I have things worked out, he changes it on me. I guess that's to be expected at this stage of program design. 

We spent the rest of the lesson on finding a way to cram the last three elements into about 30 seconds. After my jump combo, I do a couple of crossovers into a swing mohawk into an Ina Bauer and then step forward into a Salchow. From there, I do a waltz three into a Flip-Toe Loop and then wind up immediately for my final spin. He would really like me to do a combo spin but I'm afraid I might only have time for 3-4 revs total before the music stops. 

We ran the program two more times. The third and final time was me basically clinging to life. I had nothing left to give. So exhausted! So yeah, it's done. We just need to figure out the end pose and see how much time I really have for that final spin. 

Here's what we have in terms of elements: 

• Single Loop (maybe with arms overhead)
• Single Lutz (with mohawk crossover steps leading in)
• Camel Spin
• Straight Line Choreographic Step Sequence from Goal to Goal (Includes Ina Bauers, Mohawks, Rockers, Lunges, Twizzles)
• Flip-Toe Loop-Loop Combo
• Single Salchow
• Flip-Toe Loop Combo
• Camel-Sit Combo (?)

I'm going to need speed, power, and grace to get it done. Kinda scared but also excited to compete at this new level!