Super Early AM Lesson

I couldn't skate on Monday due to a library staff training day so we rescheduled for this morning at 6:15am. Ew. I don't mind skating in the morning but I haven't done a morning session at the Promenade since probably before the pandemic. 

I had a brief warm up on ice before my lesson started and I tried to fit in as much as I could including Gold Moves, jumps, spins, and footwork. I didn't get very far before Christopher got on the ice. It's a 45 minute session and I usually do a 40 minute lesson. Luckily, he was smidge late so I was able to fit the warm-up in.  

Lesson - We started with the Backward Circle 8. Ok, here's the thing...it's been a year of working on this and I'm finally making it around on all of the circles. My arms are flail-y and the circles are small but I'm doing it. Now, I need more power in my pushes (they get progressively weaker with each push) and I need to expand my circles. So, we spent some time working on those two things specifically. My first circle is my strongest so if I can get a really strong push there, the momentum from that might help carry me through the weaker pushes. Next up were spins. Still working on the entry to my camel to keep my chest up and my left arm in the lead. I also need to work on leading with the left shoulder as well. When I do this, things look a lot better. We dabbled in some sit spins. Same thing - lead with the left and really focus on the entry edge. I had one really nice one so we moved on from there. Flips and Lutzs were on the menu this morning. Lots of time with these but not sure if improvement was made. These will forever be a headache for me. 

Janet Champion Spin Clinic - Our club is hosting Janet Champion once more, this time for a spin clinic. Eight hours of spins. Woot! I signed up right away. 

Fort Collins Fright Fest - It's not in the cards for me this year. I hemmed. I hawed. I ultimately decided that as much I love the medals from this particular competition, I don't want to push myself to make it happen when I'm still trying to take it easy. I just don't want the pressure right now. I probably shouldn't be doing the spin clinic either but I NEED help with my spins. A trip to the ER a couple of weeks ago and a doctor's follow up visit last week showed the cause of my back problems and, although it wasn't what I expected, it's not entirely surprising. I'm scheduled for surgery soon and recovery from that will take me off the ice for the rest of the year. In the meantime, I do what I can and rest in between. Sigh. 

Smells like Team Spirit

Another week went by without practice. The back issues turned into something else entirely so I've been taking it easy so as not to further aggravate things. I skipped last Monday's lesson to rest but I felt well enough today for a lesson so to the rink I went! 

Team Spirit - When Christopher got on the ice he asked why I didn't go to our club banquet yesterday evening. I went last year and it was wonderful but, again, resting took top priority. He said it was a shame I didn't go because he put my name in for the Team Spirit Award. This award is given to a club member who always cheers for others and encourages others to do their best. I'm always cheering for my competition or anyone who takes the ice. It's a hard sport and cheers help. It was super sweet of him to nominate me. Alas, my club has this weird rule that if you don't attend the banquet to receive your award, you just don't get it. Drats. That's fine. I'm honored that Christopher nominated me :) 

Lesson - We started the lesson with some clean up work on the Flip and Lutz. After awhile, they started to look better, but only slightly. We moved on to camels and sits. I still have the bad habit of scooping down and up into the camel. If I just keep my head and chest up and don't swing my left arm, I get a better spin. Bad habits are hard to break. He surprised me by asking to see my sit spins so I reeled one off for him that felt really good. He challenged me to do another one and force myself to go even lower. I did the best sit spin I think I've ever done. It felt like my ass was on the ice. Neat! But when I skated back to him he said he thinks I can go even lower! Aghghghg. Like, that felt pretty damn low. Finally, we worked on Brackets. FI brackets are still my strongest but the progress I made on the FO ones disappeared over the week of no practice. So we spent some time on those and then took them to the pattern (were I immediately ate shit on the first LFO bracket I did). Sigh. But hey, a month or so ago I was too afraid to do them away from the wall so this is progress regardless. 

Even though I was off the ice for a week, my husband said this is the strongest I've skated during a lesson in a while. Maybe resting has benefits. 

Bracket Hell

Practice at the Y today and the ice was lovely. Only 3 of us on the ice too so that was nice. Two adults and an older teen working on doubles. 

I spent half of my practice working on both the Free Dance and the Free Skate. I've noticed that I'm no longer getting extremely exhausted during the dreaded last 30 seconds of my Free Skate so yay for building up some stamina! As always, my camel spins in both programs are a mess so I spent some time working on getting more consistency with those. 

The other half of my practice was dedicated to Gold Moves. I finally feel like these Forward Brackets are getting to a good place. The FI brackets are pretty good so I'm working on holding the exit edge longer and getting my wild upper half to be less flail-y. The FO brackets are doing well too. Now that they are less scary to do, I was working on getting the turn placed right at the top of the lobe. So I chose a hockey circle and just did brackets for like 15 minutes. But that's what Christopher wants me to do - work on them so much that they are a). less scary and b). more consistent. My life is brackets now. Sigh. I touched on the backward brackets too. I started at the wall trying to get a feel for the turn then I went back to the hockey circle and did some two-foot brackets (inside and outside) and, finally, I tried a BO bracket away from the wall and almost died so I stopped there. Christopher says these might be easier than the forward brackets but I hella disagree. These are terrifying! 

I spent some time on the Backward Circle 8 (which is coming along albeit slowly) and the Double 3s. Gold Moves is tough, ya'll. 

Bracket Breakthrough

So, the day after my competition, I bent down to pick up the cat and pulled my back. I was on the couch for two days with Motrin and a heating pad. Figures that I can do all of these amazing physical feats and then I pull my back picking up the damn cat. Stupid. Needless to say, I took a week off of the ice to recover. I still have moments where it feels twingy but at least I don't have back spasms anymore. That was rough. 

Sunday Practice - I was expecting to be awful given the fact that I've been off the ice and my back still sorta hurts but it was a really good practice! I felt fast and capable. All of my spins and jumps were lovely too. I ran both my Free Skate and my Free Dance and those went as planned. Maybe I should take a week off for rest more often! In addition to the program stuff, I wanted to spend half of my practice getting back into Gold Moves. I haven't really touched these since the beginning of Summer so I was expecting trash but, oddly, things seemed to have improved slightly. Weird. I made it around on all of the circles of my Backward Circle 8. I mean, the circles were deformed and my upper body was wonky but I got it done. Also, my Forward Double 3s were nice! I made it all the way down one side without a foot down! Finally, Brackets. I just did these in isolation working on the FI Brackets first and then working on the FO Brackets. But, get this! I didn't do any of them at the boards! They were all on open ice! That's cool. I didn't feel comfortable working on the Power Circles with so many people on the ice so I skipped these. All in all, it was a lovely hour of getting things done and I didn't have any issues with my back. I came home and immediately put the heating pad on just in case. But...yay!

Monday Lesson - We spent some time before the lesson talking about my #OldLadyBack. Christopher has a history of back issues as well so he gave me some good information on supplements and therapies. I actually stopped by his house on the way home to pick up a lower back massage thing that he is letting me borrow to see if that provides some relief. We'll see if it helps. On to the lesson! I told him I need to get back into Gold Moves so we started with the Backward Circle 8. The ice was pretty chewed up so I wasn't anticipating making it all the way around. But more than the bad ice, my pushes are still pretty weak so I don't have the momentum to get all the way around. Ugh. But still, I feel like they are at least a little better than they were. Next, we worked on the Forward Double 3s. It was a lesson in patience. The turns themselves are fine but on every forward turn he said "late" and on every backward turn I heard him say "early." The problem is I take too much time on the forward turn and almost treat like the Silver Moves turns where they are at the top of the lobe. Then, I start pre-rotating the backward turn so that it goes early. Ugh. I really have to focus on timing to get these right. Finally, we worked on Brackets. This is where I feel I had a bit of a bravery breakthrough. I froze up on the FO brackets and was struggling so he had me do 4-5 in a row on each foot. They got a little better each time. We also looked at BO Brackets. In the past, I have had to hold on to the wall or onto him but I just went out and tried them! And I didn't die! They weren't good but they were attempted and that's the first step, right? We wrapped the lesson up with some work on the Camel. Some slight improvement. 

So yeah, I felt good today. Maybe taking a week off was just what I needed :) 

CSI 2022 - Silver Free Skate Recap

AGHGHGHGHGH, here we go! 

Practice Ice - I really hated this. I skated well but it was stressful. I'm not doing this again. It wasn't as bad today as it was yesterday but it was intense and I'm not a fan. 

Silver Free Skate - First time doing IJS and first time skating at the Silver level. I'll keep you in suspense and let you know how I did in a bit ;) I was the third skater to go on the ice so I had some time to wait before I was announced. When it was my turn to go, I was ready! I took my starting pose, took a deep breath, and waited for my music to start. However, the announcer immediately told me to relax (I guess the judges still needed more time). It was only a few minutes but it felt like forever just out there by myself on center ice...waiting. Finally, they were ready for me and I was announced again. I took my starting pose and my music started. My opening loop jump was big and floaty and really set the tone. However, the combo spin didn't go. I got too much under myself and couldn't hook the camel so I popped up into an upright spin and then went for the backspin (which only got two sloppy revs). The spin was gross. But I didn't let that bother me as I still had some big things coming up that needed my focus. My step sequence was really good and everything went as planned. Finally...the dreaded last 30 seconds. I'm happy to report I landed all six of those damn jumps and got the halfway mark bonus for them too! Hell yeah! My final camel spin did the thing and then I was done! Whew!

Results - I got a total score of 19.71! Heck yeah! I also got a BRONZE MEDAL!!!!! Totally unexpected! I was just hoping to not get last place but I made the podium! I got positive GOE on my loop jump, step sequence, and my salchow. The things I got knocked on the hardest were my botched combo spin (of course) and the edge call on my Lutz (which I knew was coming). But now I have a baseline for how I skate this routine and I can use that to improve for the future. I really didn't think I could hold my own at Silver but here I am! Holding it! Woot!

 

 

CSI 2022 - Solo Free Dance Recap

Day one is done! It was a long day but I got to take home a Gold medal so, yay!

Morning Practice Ice - Note to self: 30 minute Practice Ice stresses me the hell out. From now on, I'm signing up for the 15 minute warm-up ice instead. Like, I already have pretty bad anxiety but trying to survive for 30 minutes with a bunch of competition-mode skaters whizzing by me was a bit much. I tried hard not to cry, actually (which is embarrassing to type out but it's my reality so...). But, survive I did. Barely. I feel like I spent more time trying to find a spot to do something instead of working on the things that needed work. Everything went as it should despite the anxiety. My camel spins were fine and my footwork was nice. The last 10 minutes weren't really needed for my dance stuff so I worked on Free Skate jumps and spins. The other thing I didn't love about this practice ice was that it was at 11-something in the morning and I wasn't performing my Solo Free Dance until about 4:30pm. That was a lot of sitting around in between. 

Solo Free Dance Event - As I said, I got Gold. It was a default Gold since I was the only competitor in my event but I like to think I earned it too. I skated well and hit all of my musical cues. The only thing that got wonky was my end pose. I got on my knee and when I reached my right hand down for the pose, it slipped out from under me. I played it off and posed on the ice (kinda like a sassy mermaid pose, lol). I blame my gloves. I normally wear knitted gloves for practice which are a tad grippy but my competition gloves are nude mesh and they are slippery, I guess. I also blame myself for not practicing the end pose during warm-up. It really wasn't anything I was concerned about since I usually hit it but, had I practiced it on competition ice with the gloves, I would have known how slippery they were. Alas. Live and learn. It really wasn't a big deal. More embarrassing than anything. 

Overall, it was a good experience competing my Solo Free Dance. I just wish I had competitors. Honestly, there just weren't a lot of dancers this year. There was only one other Solo Free Dance competitor and she was doing a Senior Solo Free Dance. She didn't have anyone to skate against either. Anyway, my dress looked cool and I got a medal so yeah, it was a good time :) 

Polishing a Turd

I've been working hard this past week putting the finishing touches on both programs for this weekend's competition. Man, I know I've said this before, but I am not ready to be at Silver. I still have not had a clean run through of my Free Skate and that has me stressing out quite a bit. In addition, I shared the ice with one of my competitors yesterday and she was skating beautifully (as she always does). I'm really trying hard not to get in my head about all of this but it's hard to not think of all of the areas in this program where I am not excelling. I'm not even maintaining. I'm just...struggling. 

Solo Free Dance - Okay, I mean, this is fine. But I'm the only competitor in this event so even if I'm not fine it doesn't matter. I'm still treating this event as I would any other and will be giving it my all but I'm still a little bummed that it will be a default Gold no matter what. The good news is that I finally got around to stoning my dress (this is the one I had to get taken in). It's lovely and I think I made some good choices for the colors. I did crystal AB, Blue Zircon, and Capri Blue in various sizes ranging from ss20 all the way to ss48. I just did a scatter pattern along the high neck and along the edges of the front and back outlines where the lycra meets the mesh, if that makes sense. I really like how it turned out although I wish I would have done it a few weeks earlier so I won't smell so strongly of E6000 on competition day, lol. 

Silver Free Skate - You know, at this point I've got nothing to lose, right? I don't have anything to prove. I know I won't make the podium. I think my goal is to just not embarrass myself and maybe do well enough that I can buy the video of my skate and not be embarrassed to show it to people. I'll update this blog after the weekend. Keep me in your thoughts. Send me positive vibes. I'll need all the help I can get! Here's the video from today's Free Skate run through in case you're curious about what it looks like so far. I'm wearing my Free Dance dress in this video since I wore my Free Skate dress for the dress rehearsal last week.