Testing done, Scratch spin done!

YEA!!!! I passed my Adult Pre-bronze MIF and Freestyle tests this morning! I had a shaky start on my consecutive BIE's but recovered and made it across in only four, which happened to be a new feat for me....I guess I pushed extra hard since I was nervous. My waltz eight went well and the only other fumble I had on the MIF test was the back half of the "power three turn pattern thingy". I refer to it as that because it is power threes, you just have that second three turn in it. I did the first half nicely but when I came around the corner for the back half I COMPLETELY BLANKED on what foot I was supposed to start with. How embarrassing. I quickly remembered but it just kind of threw the whole back half off. But I passed so we move on. I was much more comfortable with my freestyle test because the only hitch in the elements was, of course, whether or not my one foot spin would center up and cooperate. I had two so-so ones and one really nice one in my warm up. I did my Salchow which was clean first and then set up to wow them with my flip. Now let me interject for a minute here, you have to understand that this is the only freestyle test that is not a program, it's just the required elements and it only requires 2 half or single revolution jumps. So, I could have just done a Waltz jump and a half flip if I wanted to. But I had to be a hot shot and show off my flip which is very strong and I actually end up 'hanging' in the air for a good second or two before 'deciding' to come down. Should make doubles fun and hopefully easy! But as I was saying, I set up for it and just didn't quite vault up right and therefore ended up sort of halfway two-footing the landing. I rolled my eyes, cussed silently and then moved on. One foot spin centered up nicely, I was just too nervous to really push the crossing over and down for the scratch! The rest was cake. I assumed that they would ask me to reskate my flip jump properly and honestly I wanted to because I couldn't believe I fumbled the landing, but of course, they just said thank you. My coach said that since they had seen me warm it up three minutes before and I had landed all four or five I jumped, they probably would just give it to me since I obviously had it. They did. So yea, I passed both tests. Now it's onward and upwards to putting together a program and hopefully when my coach gets back from vacation the first week in August, we get to start working on Axels and DOUBLES!!!! I'm really tempted to just try throwing a double Salchow for kicks and grins this week and I just might if I have private ice this Friday. I think it should be fairly easy for me as I have to force myself not to put too much into my single or else I over-rotate it. I wasn't allowed to work on Axels until after the testing session today so bring them on! There's also that little bet I made with the rink manager that I'd have a double in two months out of the harness. So I have until the middle of September.....surely that's feasible?! The other highlight of my day today was that I....drumroll please...STARTED SCRATCHING!!!!!! THANK YOU FINALLY!!!! I felt like it would never happen! I think I actually might have done one yesterday but I did several today! One of the girls I skate with on Saturdays was telling me yesterday that her coach always tells her to breathe in as she's spinning and it helps cross your free leg over your skating leg. As I'm sure you're thinking right now, I told her that's complete poo. But to humor her I tried it yesterday. Well, I'll be a donkey kong, it works. So if you're stuck on your scratch spin like me, try breathing in. It's harder than you think because you naturally want to breathe out as you spin. But for some reason the breathing in helps pull your free leg across your skating one. So I was quite happy about this situation today....it's only taken nearly 3 months! For the next two weeks, my coach wants me to really focus on combinations until she gets back. Prep work for doubles. This means after warming up all six jumps, I have to first do all of them with a toe loop added on (Waltz-toe, toe-toe, Salchow-toe, loop-toe, flip-toe, and Lutz-toe) and then I have to do all of them with a loop. Toe loop is no problem, but loops are another story. Loops and I are still friends at a distance. Sometimes we get along and sometimes we don't. I can do a Salchow-loop fairly well and I really started doing toe loop-loops well today. But not so much on the other jumps, especially of all things, Waltz jumps. But I'll keep working on them. And I do need to also work on my spins. Backspin is coming along, I can usually get three revolutions and then exit. I learned camels this week in class and I need to figure out how to actually spin on those! Thanks to Shauna for the shout out this last week and I hope to connect with more college-aged skaters. Pass this site on to your skating buddies!

5 days!!!

There's only 5 days left until testing day and I'm partially excited and partially nervous. I'm not really worried that I won't pass the test, it's more that I'm worried that I'll be so nervous I'll be shaky and not hold my edges! It will be nice to get the testing out of the way as learning new things on the ice has really been stalled out for the last several weeks. I'm really looking forward to working on my Axel and maybe some double Salchows and toe loops after this weekend! I'm ready to work on some new tricks! I need to put in some more work on my backspin and I would also like to start working on my sit spin. I'm really getting centered much more now on my one foot spin and I'm so close to actually scratching it's making me crazy. It's kind of addictive really because I'll work on it for fifteen minutes or so and I'll get really close and but never actually get there. I think it's a combination of the strength it takes and the fact that I always feel like I'm going to fall over if I cross my leg over any farther. I know, though, that once I do it for the first time, I'll know exactly how to do it again. A funny little incident happened today. I finally broke down and purchased a pair of Chloe Noel pants and they sent a child's size instead of an adult size! My skating dress I had ordered a few weeks ago finally arrived this week. It is absolutely stunning! As beautiful as it is, the down side is that it is absolutely not a practice dress, it's definitely a competition dress. That is the final thing I'm looking forward to post testing session, is putting together a freestyle and artistic program. Then I'll know I'm getting close to my first competition!

Testing in Two Weeks!

I don't have much new progress to report for the last week....I'm two weeks away from testing into Adult Pre-bronze so I'm really focusing on everything that I'm testing on. I'm still feeling fairly nervous about my back inside consecutive edges as well as my waltz eight. I'm honestly not sure whether or not what happened at practice today is a good thing or a bad thing. One of the guys who usually judges skates on the same time as I do Sundays. He saw me working on my waltz eight and made some suggestions on how to fix it. Now if this was from any other coach I would have just taken it at face value. But because he was a judge and was fairly adamant about the way to execute a waltz eight it kind of made me nervous because now I'm worried that he's going to watch it even more analytically than he would if he hadn't stopped and said something. But on the other hand he knows how hard I train and perhaps he was trying to be kind and point out what they look for. But then again, my coach said it was fine and I was good to go for testing even though it's not my strongest element. So that is my debate. I'll have to chat with my coach on Tuesday about it. I'm really starting to get the hang of my backspin and I was definitely getting three or more revolutions out of every one today, however my jumps were really off. But I chalk that up to my blades needing sharpening. (I dropped them off for the pro after practice). I had to laugh when I totally fell on a waltz jump and a couple of girls who had stayed after the public skate right before my practice reacted as if I broke every bone in my body. Ironically, it was a perfect fall, as in it didn't hurt at all because I landed on my butt and because I had a lot of velocity still, I slid about 15 feet across the ice. I laughed at myself because it was a dumb jump to fall on (who falls on a waltz jump?) and those poor girls will now probably never want to skate again since I sufficiently scared the need for ice out of them. I'm hoping my skating dress arrives this week so that I can make sure it fits....I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't! Well that's about all for this week. Hopefully I'll have something that I've progressed on to report for next week, like my loop jump that is still stumping me!

Combos, Backspins, and a Competition Plan

This week's title pretty much sums it all up. I put in a lot of jump time this week and it has paid off. I'm landing really good flips and my Lutz is now coming along nicely. I'm able to tack a toe-loop on to pretty much everything. I still don't really have loop jump down, so that is my mission for this coming week. Then I should be able to really mix things up! My backspin finally started to fall into place this week and I can get about 2 revolutions out of it consistently and sometimes quite a few more. This is a huge relief to me as I was NOT getting the concept of it at first and I had read online that for many skaters who didn't start in early childhood, a backspin is often extremely hard to master, and therefore really stalls out their advancement into the Adult Bronze sector. My coach had been out of town all of last week and missed our class on Thursday so Friday was the first day I saw her. I've decided that the best payoff for lots of practice is when you can actually surprise your coach with how much you've improved on something. She liked my Lutz, which was great considering I had barely learned my flip when she left for the last competition, but it was definitely her reaction to my scratch spin that has made every fall and countless hours of work for the last 10 weeks worthwhile. If you remember from last week, I had finally figured out what I needed to do to fix my scratch spin. I started swinging my free leg around to the front more before straightening up on my skating leg. This really centered the spin much better and even though I still travel about 70% of the time, it's much more controlled, sometimes I'm perfectly centered and don't travel and regardless, I get tons of revolutions and have to be careful getting out of the spins now because I'm so dizzy! But this is a good thing. Anyway, so I told her my spin was getting a lot better and I wound up into one, praying of course, that my spin would back up my talk. I whipped into it and two turns in I could tell that I had centered up nicely. After about five or six spins my coach exclaimed, "Honey!" (which is a phrase she uses a lot) while I continued to slowly pull everything in nicely before doing a toe stop instead of exiting, so I wouldn't fall on my face. Needless to say, it had reduced her to a one-word reaction. I was VERY proud of myself! We also formulated a game plan for testing and competing. I have to say that I was hoping it would all happen a little faster but I understand at the same time that a solid, consistent routine is important before competing with it. I will be testing at the end of the month in both my Adult Pre-bronze MIF and Freestyle, which will require me to compete in Adult Pre-bronze. Which is fine....I'm jumping on an Adult Silver level and once I get my Axel, I'll be on an Adult Gold. Then there is another testing session at the end of August and I'm going to test my Adult Bronze MIF only. You can test as high as you want in MIF but it's not until you take the Freestyle test that you're required to compete at that level. Then we will start preparing a Pre-bronze program and hopefully one that is easily adjusted to work for Bronze as well. My coach says that she really wants two months of solid practice on a routine before using it to compete and test with. Also, she wants me to do at least one Pre-bronze competition or exhibition so that I can get the feel of competing and we can see how I perform in front of people. All in all, I'm really just nervous about the MIF portion of the test at the end of July. I'm still a little shaky on my Waltz-eight and my BI consecutive edges aren't quite there yet. But I still have three weeks and I plan on working harder than ever. All in all, another good week of skating. Personally, the week ended on a bit of a rocky note as I lost one of my two jobs without any warning or severance pay. I think, however, that I have been able to realign everything and should be back on track in a week or two. I may just need to put off joining my skating club for a month or two. Happy Fourth of July to all and God Bless America!