I usually keep this journal strictly skating, but I thought I'd repost this from my non-skating blog, just so ya'll know where I am in life these days!
I've gotten more work done in the last 3 days than I have in the last 3 months (now that hte semester is over).  I've also gotten a lot of reading done - mainly non-fiction background work for my thesis, which is much more enjoyable now that I can pick and choose for myself.  Lovely!  Now if only my adviser would return my email...

In other exciting news, it's now been 3 years since we moved to OK and 2 years of graduate school.  This past year has been much more challenging than I expected.  I've had some disappointments, both personally and professionally and I've had a hard time letting go of them.  On the other hand, I've also had some really unexpected victories/successes.  Also I never knew that I could find my work so absorbing and rewarding.  I've always envied people who have a passion for their work.  Unexpectedly, I find myself to be one of those people.

My goal for the upcoming year is to focus on what I love, and to learn everything I can.  I need to let go of my resentments and move on.  My life is good and I have much to be grateful for.  This summer I can work and skate and even get some field work in, all with a minimum of department interaction.  What more could a Geowench in gradschool ask for?

A nice quiet day at the rink today - I had the ice to myself for a good half hour or so.  Got about 2 hours in.  Had my lesson with DavidBowie.  He asked me what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to him to look at my Silver Moves (which I don't think he really has before, other than 3s). 

We started with 8step mohawk.  I did several for him and then we went and looked at the tracings.  I was surprised that what I thought were blatant inside edges before and after the mohawk are NOT - the entry edge is absolutely fine, the exit edge is a bit skiddy, so he wants me to work on making the transfer smoother and quicker, but it's not a blatant inside edge, so that was great to hear.  He had me work on placing the exit foot further out in front of me, and that helped some, I think.  He also reminded that there are 8 steps and 7 pushes.  And to rotate skinny.  All in all, it was really useful to have another person's input on these, now I feel more confident in working them and trying to pick up the pace a bit.

Then we did cross strokes.  On these I get decent power, but it all comes from the weight of the edge and the swing of the free leg.  He had me hold onto him and he pushed me around while he did them, showing me the burst of power you get with each understroke.  Then he made me do it to him.  And I did it!  I can't even tell you how impressed I am with my bad self.  He was too actually.  These require massive amounts of knee bend!  That was all forward - the back ones are much worse.  He wants the same burst of power from the outside edge push, which is the same as the back run push.  I'm much more tentative on these, and he wants me to be more aggressive and use the power you can generate from the edge pressure and leg swing, like I already do on the forwards ones.  So again, some really useful pointers and information.

After that he wanted to see the closed chasses from Rhythm Blues.  So I did about 10 of them in a row.  Then he wanted to see the crossfront cross back from Fiesta Tango and he made me do about 20 of those because I still have a bad habit of crossing in front and then sort of setting the foot down beside instead of in back. 

Then we moved onto 3s in the Field.  He seemed quite shocked at the state of my back 3s.  He seemed amazed that I can actually do them.  I'm not sure why, because we've worked 3s in the Field before, and I've been working on BO3s with him for about 3 years, I think.  Maybe it's only 2.  Anyway, my RBI 3 is still the least reliable.  Overall, he says he wants more power and to go into them with more attack.  I'm actually loosing speed as I progress down the rink.  I told him that's because I'm still afraid of them, but that I would work on getting good pushes at the axis. 

That was all we had time for.  All in all a really good lesson.  Afterwards, I worked more on everything we talked about and I also ran through TenFox and 14Step with FO mohawk, which felt really good (where good = I didn't fall or hurt myself).  Worked my spin from a 3turn entrance and felt like I made some progress there, but who knows if it will still be there next time I skate. 

Oh, and I FINALLY got a sort of inside spread eagle, which I've been playing around with for a good 3 years now.  The entry that seems to be working is from a LFO3.  I turn the 3 with the free leg out behind me and keep it turned out, then I plie and set it down, and I'm on two inside edges.  Right now it's more of Besti squat than a spread eagle, and it only lasts a few seconds, and it's too curved - but it's more than I've ever managed before and I'm pretty dang thrilled.

Skate again Friday.  I've already been warned a big group is scheduled.  I've decided that's OK, I can work spins, 3s, brackets, and also play around with rockers and counters.

Had a really good 2 hour skate yesterday (Monday) and a lesson with Coach L.  I was pretty much determined to do anything but dance, and with the exception of a few rounds of Dutch and Canasta to warm up, I stuck with that.

In lesson she asked me what I wanted to do and I said jumps.  She got excited and said, "Oooh, which one?"  I'm like, um, yah, I only have one.  So we worked on my pathetic little waltz jump.  Which we actually got to being slightly less pathetic.  I can do several in a row and I can do them from BXOs.  Then we worked on adding a side toe hop.  I can do waltz - side toe, but for the life of me, I can't get myself to do side toe - waltz.  Will work on it.  She wants me to do waltz - side toe - watlz.  Next time she wants to revisit half flip, which I never got the knack of.

Then spins.  We looked at entering from a 3turn, which we looked at several months ago and I abandoned.  I guess all the work on fixing my 3turns has helped, 'cause these went much better than they had previously.  The main thing is to not collaps over the R side.

Then back spins.  We tried the cross foot entry, but I find this completely impossible, so we went back to a pivot entry.  At one point I managed to eek out a slow wobbly pathetic 2 rev backspin. 

We finished with forward power pulls.  These aren't bad but they are wildly inconsistent, plus my upper body gets kind of out of control.  Still they much better than they used to be, so that's encouraging. 

Skate again Wednesday, when I'm supposed to have my regular lesson with DavidBowie.

I just got back from a nice long 2.5 hour skate.  DB stood me up, but I don't even care because this morning I turned in my paper and dropped off the finals I'd graded before noon today.  What an enormous relief!  This has been a - fucked up - uh - challenging semester, to put it lightly, and I am so happy to move on with life!

The plan is to shower and wash my hair (which is dire need of it), and relax for a bit - I might even read some fiction - and then meet up with my friend L who turned in her thesis for printing today (after a frantic scramble because the original version had margins 2/16" too wide or some such nonsense) for a drink before heading out to Rae's party.  Now Rae is really letting down the Archaeology Graduate Student Drinking Team by having her gallbladder out and so is not up for the ritual end of semester getting shitfaced, despite the fact that her liver is just fine!  What a traitor! 

Ah well.  I plan to enjoy myself tonight, for tomorrow I head back to Backwater for the weekend and then on Monday I need to dig in and actually get some bloody work done on my thesis project.  I can't wait!

I swear, I think most of you read my skate journal just to hear tales of my evil insane Russian coach, aka DavidBowie, who I love dearly, at least when I don't want to wring his neck, which is at least 50% of the time.

Here's why I call him DavidBowie.  And here's a summary of why I love/hate him.

Had to miss my regular lesson with him yesterday because I had to give my kids their final.  Instead I got in about 2 hours today.  I'm purposely ignoring Fiesta Tango, and I swear I find myself at a bit of loss when I don't have to drill FT and SD over and over and over again!  Skate again tomorrow, and I'm supposed to have a makeup lesson with DB.  If he remembers.

And I must finish that damn paper that is due tomorow.

I have decided that the root of all evil –or at least my skating difficulties- lies in my weak BI edges.  I am unable to control them, I fall into the circle, and I therefore cannot adequately complete moves like the Fiesta Mohawk, or control the exit BI edge of a FO3s back to the axis for Alternating 3s and/or 3s in the Field.  (Oddly enough, the held BI edge in the Swing Mohawk is much easier for me, maybe because I get to use the extended free leg as counter balance.)  I have therefore decided to pay serious attention to BI edges each and every time I skate.

Thanks to finals week and having to give my kids their final during my usually scheduled Wednesday lesson with DavidBowie, my skating schedule is screwed up this week.  I had my regularly scheduled lesson with Coach L on Monday.  We worked on moves.  Started with alt BI edges.  Although I can pull off a decent set that is passable for PrePre moves, I really am not nearly as in control as I would like.  So we spent a lot of time on these.  Then we moved onto spirals.  The PrePre spiral (straightline) is now quite nice; both legs are well above hip level.  The Preliminary spiral sequence however, is in need of serious work!  The FO spirals are OK on the L leg (R leg up), but the R leg is not getting the L leg up high enough.  And the FIs are dire indeed, I’m not sure I’m even at a 45 angle on those!  We worked more on the upper body and transitions than the free leg position.  She wants me to get in the habit of doing them correctly while I work on hip/back strength and flexibility.

Today (Tuesday) I went in and skated for a little over an hour.  I mostly played, although I did spend some time on BI edges and spirals as promised.

I hope to skate again Thursday and to have a makeup lesson with DB on Friday.  But it all depends on if I get this gawdawful paper done and if I get my finals graded on time!

Got to Wichita in plenty of time for the first clinic, which was a low level clinic.  We worked on Hickory Hoedown, particularly the hold changes, which was really useful and finishing the way the partner switch places as you lobe down the long axis of the rink.  After that was social dance.  I did all the dances I know, and even got up the nerve to partner Swing Dance with someone other than DB.  DB was definitely "on duty" partnering all his testers for whatever dance they were planning on testing during the social dancing.

We had a long lunch break so went out to lunch with the crowd from my rink, and then we checked into the hotel.  I never got around to making a reservation, so was pleased that they took me at the weekend rate. 

The high level clinic we worked on Quickstep, which or course I don't know, and I couldn't pick up the steps with so many people there.  I did spend some time working on the choktaw (its an FO into a BI, which is considerably harder than it sounds!) and then there was another social dances.

Afterwards we went back to hotel for the banquet.  We had the option of paying for a ballroom lesson, which I did, and it turned out to be salsa.  I've had some basic salsa at my Tuesday night ballroom classes, and I was able to pick up the combination very easily.  I only wish it was as easy to pick up icedancing!  I danced quite a bit after the dinner; I found a couple of partners who were happy to partner me once they saw that I'm a considerably better ballroom dancer than ice dancer!

Sunday morning was the international clinic and she chose Silver Samba.  I basically sat most of that one out - there were too many snotty fast people on the ice for me to feel comfortable trying anything, even though I'm perfectly capable of skating most of that dance.  After that was another social dance, and I got DB to partner me on Swing and Fiesta. 

I then had to wait around for several hours to test my two dances.  I brought my computer and got a little bit of work done, but shockingly, it was far more compelling to watch the higher level dance tests than to slog through neurology text!

Finally it was my turn to test - I wore a double layer blue and black chiffon dance length skirt that I'd made a few weeks ago with a black top.  I thought it looked quite nice, but of course I don't have any pictures.

Swing Dance I thought went quite well, with good power and flow and I had pretty good extension, especially the second pattern.  The mohawks, which I usually do beautifully, were scrapier than usual, but at least they weren't wide stepped.  I thought I had probably passed, and was feeling good about that when I took the ice again for Fiesta.

So we started Fiesta - and I forgot the steps!!!! After the intro steps, instead of doing the two outside edges, I did a progressive!  ZOMG!!!!  DB let go of me and skated over the judges and totally lied, saying, "That was my fault, I did a different entry, can we start again?"  If they'd been watching, which I'm sure they were, they saw that he did the correct steps, and I didn't, but they let us start again.  So we started again and I did the correct steps.  I thought it went reasonably well - I chose to do the mohawk with correct timing, sacrificing doing it cleanly.  I thought there might be a chance that I'd passed, but figured I probably hadn't.

I had to wait forever for my results, but they finally came:  Swing Dance - unanimous pass.  Fiesta - two Retry, 1 Pass.  Since this is pretty much what I was expecting, I'm not upset, although I am disappointed and furious with myself for being such a moron!  DB thinks that skate might have passed if I hadn't screwed up to begin with.  Ah well, the truth is that I'm still not comfortable with that dance, and it probably doesn't really deserve to pass yet.  It will eventually though!

Next year, I think I will probably only go up for Saturday - the Sunday session is so far beyond my level it's not really worth the time, and unless I learn a LOT more dances, staying for a third social dance isn't really worth the extra time and money either.  We'll see - I may want to test next year again, in which case I'd have to stay.

Ah well - back to the usual.  I'm switching my focus to moves and to working on PreSilvers for a bit, before coming back to Fiesta and the Bronzes.

Had a nice long 2 hr skate today.  Worked harder and longer than I have been lately and got good and sweaty and tired.  Worked all the dances up through Ten Fox, and even through in a few runthroughs of European Waltz and 14-Step, just for kicks.  Fiesta will be a real crap shoot.  If I do the timing right on the Mohawk it is dreadfully scrapey and widestepped, if I do it nice and neat and clean it is too slow.  I think I’ll go for correct timing, since doing it too slowly (and also poorly) already failed me once. 

DB sharpened my skates on Wednesday, and while they felt heavenly on the edges, the turns are much stickier, and my spins have pretty much vanished altogether.  He says my hollow was nearly at 1/2 inch and he took back towards 3/8.

Leave tomorrow morning at dark’o clock for Wichita.  This time I am driving by myself and getting a hotel room by myself, and only staying one night.  I’m looking forward to it, but also feeling guilty about it.  I have so much work to do, plus husband is kind of unhappy that he won’t get to see me hardly at all this weekend – just dinner tonight and Sunday night before I head back down to the university on Monday.  Ah well.  He goes away for work several times a year; I go away to ice dance exactly once a year, so he can just live with it.

The kitties still have not turned up.  Boo.

Had my lesson with DavidBowie today and it was a less of a lesson than a runthrough of the first 7 dances.  They all went fine.  We spent a bit more time on Swing and Fiesta than the rest, of course.  Swing is really feeling nice.  Fiesta feels much better than it did, but I still fear the mohawk is not ready.  I won't be upset if I fail Fiesta again, tho I *will* be upset if I fail Swing!  After the ice dance weekend, I'm going to change focus and start really pounding away on Silver Moves for awhile.  I'm also going to talk to Coach L about choreographing a program - I dont' ever expect to actually perform or compete, especially given as it won't have any jumps, but it's something I've been wanting for a long time now.

Well apparently summer has arrived early.  There were 2 busload of screaming kamakazi kids at the rink yesterday - the kind who think it's fun to get a running start and then throw their bodies on the ice and slide as far as they can, usually right into whatever pattern I'm trying to work on.  I stayed about an hour and a half before giving up.  I was feeling sort of offish anyway - my back 3s just weren't happening and my hip was kind of twingy.  I left early and went and bought some black chiffon to make a long wrap skirt to wear for next weekend's dance weekend.  When I got home I did some weights.  Just started these up again and I am pretty sore, but looking forward to reaping the benefits.

Had my regularly scheduled lesson with DavidBowie today.  He asked me what I wanted to work on and I said I wanted to run through the two test dances once or twice but I didn't want to obsess on them and do them over and over again even if they were terrible.  He agreed and so we started off with Swing Dance.  He told me think about pointing my toes.  I think we did 3 complete patterns of this (he's still not used to the new 2 patterns only) and it felt quite nice, although my butt got a little behind me on the first pattern.  It even elicited a "not bad" from him, which is always music to my ears.

Fiesta Tango we did at least 4 patterns of, and that too is feeling better.  The mohawk is still not where I would like it, and I fear it is still not passable, but at this point I don't even care anymore, I just don't want to obsess over it like I did last time.

After that I asked him is we could run through the beginner dances because though I do them almost every time I skate as a warm up, I haven't partnered them since testing, I think.  So we started off with Dutch Waltz, and I have to say, I think that was quite possibly the best minute of my entire life.  It was the first time I've ever partnered a dance where I wasn't worried about falling or missing the steps, but could just concentrate on enjoying the dance.  I had soft knees and good solid edges and it felt absolutely glorious.  I know it was just Dutch Waltz, but it was so much fun to skate!

Next was Canasta Tango, which was so big we were clipping the boards on the side patterns.  This too was delightful.  Then Rhythm Blues, aka my former Nemesis, and this went so smoothly with deep edges, good timing and the dreaded cross behinds were no problem whatsoever.  This was so nice to experience because I often feel like I'm absolutely standing still (or even regressing) in my skating, but this time last year, that dance was an utter disaster, and now it's really quite nice.

After that we did ChaCha, which has definitely suffered from not being practiced much since testing it in November, but it is still easily partnerable, which was nice to see. 

He had me do Hickory Hoedown solo, and then we did it together, faster and deeper than last time, and I remembered how much fun that dance is!  Then Willow Waltz, which went considerably better than last time, although I think my timing is still a bit slow, and it 's definitely obvious that this is not a comfortable dance for me.  Still, after encouraging comments from a couple of people, I think I will go ahead and try to partner all the dances up through Bronze, with the exception of TenFox.  I'm really not able to do that FO mohawk with any degree of certainty that I won't kill myself or anyone nearby, and I don't want to work it until after Wichita for b/c I really don't want to injure myself.  It definitely benfitted from benign neglect, so maybe it will be even when I come back to it in a couple of weeks!

Anyway, we finished up with dance/drop 3s on the circle, and these have really improved.  Of course there is always work to do on dance 3s when you have a world champion insane evil Russian ice dancer for a coach!

Got to the rink only to find a busload of screaming teenagers.  Wow, I'd forgotten how badly teenage boys stink!  Skated just under 2 hours, but I was totally done in.  Had a long (makeup) lesson with DavidBowie and he totally wiped the ice with me, quite literally.  He wanted to do Bronze dances in anticipation of Wichita, to get them up to partnering speed.  I had previously had hopes of just this, but now I'm thinking I don't want to partner these dances with anyone else - I might seriously injure them!

We started with Hickory, taking it with less speed and slightly shallower edges than we've done in the past b/c we haven't looked at it in awhile.  This actually went reasonably well, and I suppose there is hope that this will be ready in two weeks.  The next two however, are pretty much a joke.

Willow Waltz - after a run through of this, he had me stop and work on the drop 3, making sure I keep my legs close and then sinking into the back run.  Then we did it together and I did my Stupid Skating Trick (TM) of jabbing the tail of my blade into the ice on the back run - not only did I go airborn and land hard on my rear, I took him down too.  I heard him klunk down on his knees and felt just horrible for him.  Needless to say, I was extremely careful to point my toes on the back runs after that, and it actually didn't go all that badly.  Still, I don't think I'll feel ready to partner this anyone else, which is too bad.

Ten Fox is my least favorite, given it features the dreaded FO mohawk, altho I rather like the rest of the dance.  So we started off with this and I promptly forgot the steps, causing him to yank my arm just about out of the socket.  Then after several successful runthroughs (where successfull = no falls, more or less correct steps, but slow, halting, and generally pathetic) I must have gotten cocky or distracted, because next thing I know, I'm flying through the air and thudding down on my hip.  This prompted a lecture from him telling me I need to start wearing hip pads and I'm thinking I just might.  He said I get way too far back on that mohawk and my shoulders are well behind my hips, causing me to go over backwards.  Also that whenever I quickly transfer weight to my R leg going backwards (so the TF mohawk and then the backrun after the Fiesta mohawk) I do this.  That was actually very useful feedback.  My R hip is the chronically injured one and I guess I really need to work on strengthening it if I don't wan to kill both myself and my poor coach.  I was ready to leave TF alone after that, but he didn't want to end the lesson on a big fall like that and made me do several FO mohawks very slowly, with  him holding onto me in to open position.  I concentrated on keeping the tummy and bum tucked tight, and they were much better.   So we did another "successful" runthrough of TenFox and he was pleased.

I'm afraid of how sore I'm going to be tomorrow, I can already feel myself stiffening up.  Ah well.  That's life on ice!

I couldn’t skate on Monday b/c I had to go to a talk.  Tuesday I did my 2.5 hrs of ballroom as usual.  Wednesday DB called to cancel my lesson b/c he had a court date.  I could/should have skated – but I didn’t want to.  So I didn’t.  Thursday I went salsa dancing for about an hour, and had a blast, but realized hey, I’ve really lost a lot of my aerobic conditioning!  Also on Thursday I had a Dr.s apt for the first time since last summer, and it’s official – I’ve gained 15 lbs this winter.  So.  Time to get back on the aerobic wagon.  I’m not going to worry too much about the actual number on the scale – I figure if I up the exercise ante, and eat more responsibly, the scale will do what it wants to do and I don’t have the time/energy/optimism to fight it any more.  

So I skated on Friday for the first time since last Friday for a good 2 hours.  Had a lesson with Coach L.  We spent the whole lesson on 3 - started with alt 3s on the line and then 3s in the Field on the line and then 3s in the Field in the field.  These have definitely improved since she saw them last.  They are still not quite big enough – for FI/BO, I am not quite filling the rink with 4 sets – and she wants me to get down to 3 sets, which I’m not sure will happen.  For FO/BI, well, I’m turning the BI3s pretty reliably, but the RBI is still pretty rough because I’m still dropping my L hip, plus I tend to be kind of hunched over.  So good stuff to work on.

Need to send off my registration and test for the Wichita Ice Dance weekend.  If any of you are within driving distance of Wichita, I highly recommend checking out the Ice Dance weekend.  It’s May 2-4, thought the bulk of it is on Saturday and you could easily just go for the one day.  Last year I only knew the first 3 dances and still had a blast and learned tons – in fact it really inspired me to start taking ice dance much more seriously.  Even though it’s more geared toward kids, there are still plenty of adults, and the organizers and instructor are very encouraging to us old ladies (and men) – I skated Dutch Waltz and Canasta Tango (the only 2 dances I could partner) with two different Gold level USFSA judges and they were just lovely with their encouragment and very useful suggestions.  I’m hugely looking forward to it this year - to the point where I’m going even though it’s the weekend before finals/papers!

Theoretically I skated for a good 2 hours today, but in reality, I probably only did an hour or so of real work.  Definitely a half-hearted skate!  Despite that, had a pretty decent lesson with Coach L.  We started off looking at Swing Rolls.  For backwards, we agreed that I should stay down in the knee for these, at least until after I'm done with  (ie passed) Swing Dance.  For forwards, we worked on getting me to stop kicking through on RFOs (I don't do it on LFOs) and to make the whole thing more flowy and less deliberate. 

From there we went onto 8 step mohawk at my request.  I've tried these the last few times I've skated and was surprised to see that even though they still feel terrible and tentative, the tracing show that I am not on such blatant inside edges for the mohawk.  She agreed that they look better than they did, and we concentrated on when to change arms.   Then we went into TenFox, which I haven't looked at with a coach in a couple of months.  We were both confused on the timing with the back runs, so we had to get a rulebook.  Once that was straightened out, I did several runthroughs and it's not feeling too bad, actually.  Of course, once I get into hold with him, I'm sure in will all go to Hades, especially the 3 turn part, but it felt like some good solid work.

I learned today that ice will be coming down for at least two weeks at the end of May.  This hasn't been done in 5 years, and maintenance is badly needed.  You know, I was actually kind of relieved to hear that I'd get a forced 2 week break.  Of course, I can still drive up to the North rink if I want, but I can also completely justify not doing so.  Once the ice dance weekend and test session are over with, I'm thinking I need a skating sabbatical.  My injuries need some time to heal and I just need a breather, I think.  It's been a tough couple of months.

Skated for just under 2 hours today.  Had a pretty good skate and a good lesson with DavidBowie.  He asked me what my plans were now and what I wanted to work on.  I said that depended - did he think I should try and test Swing and Fiesta in May at the Wichita Ice Dance Weekend?  He said absolutely.  He said he likes that test session and that I'll be nice and warmed up since I'll have been dancing all weekend.  So we're going to give it a shot.  Which means I have 3 1/2 weeks to get these dances passable. 

So we spent the 30 minutes working on the same 2 dances - again.  He's really being amazingly (and uncharacteristically) patient with me.  After we did the Feista mohawk together for approximately the eleventy billionith time, and I did it almost but not quite right yet again, I touched him on the arm and said I really appreciated how patient he's been.  He totally pretended he didn't even hear me, but I know he did.  Later he told me, "You body have possibility you no even know," and gave me another one of his entirely Russian and mostly incomprehensible lectures about potential and being hungry all the time growing up in Russia.

After my lesson I spent time on Silver moves and the Bronze and Pre Silver dances.  I need to get Coach L to show me Foxtrot again; I've completely forgotten our one lesson months ago on it.  Skate again Friday and have my makeup lessonwith Coach L.  In addition to looking at Foxtrot, I want to talk about swing rolls both forward and backward and when you rise and when you sink.

Coach L called to reschedule our lesson for Fri again.  The rink was deserted - just DB and another adult for the first hour and then I had the place to myself for the second hour.  I did a lot of playing around, but I also worked Bronze and Silver moves as well as PrePre and Preliminary.  And I spent time on Willow Waltz, Ten Fox, and European Waltz.  Only spent a few minutes on the evil Fiesta and Swing.  I even tried to work spirals and Bauers, although my still-sprained ankle pretty quickly put an end to Bauer work.   I think my FO mohawk has benefitted from weeks of neglect.  Backward cross strokes are making progress and power pulls are actually starting to have some, you know, power.  Spent a lot of time playing with back 3s, which I haven't done in awhile.  All in all a really nice, contemplative skate.  Good to have one of those every now and again!

Thank you again to everyone for your concern.  I am fine - my head is still rather tender, and I gave myself a mild case of whiplash too, but overall, I'm OK.  I debated not skating today at all ... but it's on the way home from Utown to LittleHouseonthePrairie, and since I can't skate on the weekend, I'll have two whole days off ... and, well, I wanted to.

I was on the ice for just under two hours and took it relatively easy.  There was a larger than usual crowd of adult regulars there, so that was quite nice.  I got two compliments from adult skaters on my (failed!) tests about my upper body carriage and elegance - so nice to hear, especially since it's always been my fear that I look like Quasimodo on Ice!  One was from a judge who failed me - she said I had a lovely line and a great, haughty expression on the Fiesta Tango - I just need to get that mohawk better controlled!

I had a makeup lesson with Coach L and I told her I only wanted to work fairly basic moves, didn't want to push too far out of my comfort zone today.  She totally understood.  We spent the lesson on Preliminary Moves.  We started out with FXOs on the figure 8 patterns.  For forward, she got me getting a much deeper knee bend, and on the understroke, really extending the leg under and behind and me.  It felt weird, but she said it looked *much* better, so I will try to remember that feeling.  On backwards, she says I'm bobbing up in between each BXO, and also I'm breaking at the waist, especially CCW, which tends to hurt my R hip. 

I stopped and took stock of all my injuries -
R hip flexor (chronic injury)
R knee (bruised from fall last week)
L knee (twisted from fall last week)
L ankle (sprained from fall last week)
head - still quite tender
neck - very stiff

And thought DANG!!!

Coach L asked if I wanted to work alt 3s next - I said no b/c I tend to take a lot of falls on them, but we could do power 3s.  My power 3s have really improved a lot - they still have a ways to go, but I'm really pleased with how they're coming along.  You may remember they "broke" before my Bronze test, and while I passed Bronze Moves, every single judge failed my Power 3s - deservedly so.   I am no longer scraping the R 3s at all, and barely scraping the L 3s.  Additionally, I'm getting a much better plie/push off as I step into the 3, and holding the edge nicely and turning at the top of the lobe.  I can hold the exit edge back to the axis, but the wide step to an inside edge is still giving me problems.  They are rather slower and less powerful than they were, but much cleaner.  All in all good progress on these.  At least *something* is improving!

We finished up my nemesis, the evil Fiesta Mohawk.  I showed her what DB said on Wed, about how I'm still letting my arms and shoulders get too far behind me.  She said I'm setting this up because I'm breaking at the waist as I go into the mohawk and I'm breaking at the waist b/c I'm not on a good inside edge, but rather a flat.  So we just worked the  mohawk (never mind the progressive afterwards), with me trying to step to a solid inside edge and then hold the exit edge with my free foot and knee pointing fowards, not turned out.  Maybe some progress.  It made me realize I need to really work on just holding the position with that LBI edge.

All in all a productive lesson and skate, so I'm glad I went.  I'm realizing that I need to start taking better care of my body and myself in general.  I made a resolution to do a better job of eating before I skate, and I've been pretty good about that, but the rest of the day I eat like crap and I'm putting on weight, which I think is one reason my skating is not improving.  Also, other than ballroom on Tuesdays, I'm not doing any other exercise.  I'm too tired and too busy to add kickboxing classes back into my schedule, but I really really need to start working on core strength and stamina.  I have a month left of classes, and so I need to think about my schedule for the next month and see what I can come up with which will allow me enough time to eat, sleep, study, work on my thesis, go to class, TA, skate, ballroom - *and* add in abs and cardio.  And then I'll solve that pesky palestinian problem and start working on an axel.

Thank you so much to everyone for all your supportive comments.  I can't tell you how much it means to me!  I'm afraid however that I have more discouraging news to report ... I seem to be having a string of bad luck when it comes to skating lately!

I was looking forward to getting back on the ice today (I had to skip my usual Monday skate/lesson b/c of tornado warnings).  I had a brief chat with Coach L about my test sheets and a longer one with DavidBowie.  Neither of them were terribly encouraging.  DB said he wants me to switch over to Adult Track immediately and that I'm not the "instrument" to be doing Standard Track and he should have realized this and had me doing Adult from the beginning.  I said I thought I could pass these two dances at Standard Track and he said certainly I could - eventually.  But that for now he wants me to test Adult and then later if I want, we can go back and do Standard.  Since I need him to partner me, he sort of has the last word, unless I want to test solo.  Honestly, one of the major reasons that I love ice dance so much is because I get to dance with him.  Yes he's a gigantic jerk sometimes, but honestly, I'd cut off my left arm to dance with him, and if he wants me to do Adult, OK, I'll do Adult.  He had some rather harsh (but honest) things to say about my skating - I was stiff kneed and tentative and my patterns shrank dramatically and I was not secure over my edges.  Sigh. 

I skated for about an hour before our lesson.  Mainly I just played around and enjoyed myself, and also spent some time trying to really get down into my knees.  To be honest, I have gotten lazy/sloppy about staying down - it's hard work to keep those knees bent!  Anyway, for our lesson, he immediately jumped into Fiesta Tango mohawk work.  I was sort of hoping to leave the dances alone, at least for today, but he was being very commanding and coachly and I thought it best to be meek and go along with him.  We must have spent half the lesson working on that dang end pattern and by the end - it was passable.  But it won't be next time I skate.  But maybe if I keep working this hard at it, it will become passable with only 10 minutes of work, and then 5 minutes, and then under test stress!

After that we spent some time on both forward and backward chasses, concentrating on getting much bigger lobes and better pushes with pointed toes.  I commented that it's amazing how much more work it is to point my toes, but when I think about it, the rest of the skating sort of falls into place.  He said YES, the reason he spends so much time on finger and toe placement is because if you're concentrating on these things then you're activating your entire limb.  Oooooohhhhh...... sort of an epiphany there. 

Then we worked on back progressive - and I finally figured out that I need to be turning my leg out from the hip for the outside push.  I'm not making the exchange quickly enough, but they are improving.

We finished up with that horrid exercize of his that he loves so much of swizzling to a crossfooted position and then folding over to 2 outside edges.  I was actually managing, sort of, and then I fell.  Now, dear readers, as you know, I fall all the time.  I fall on this move all the time.  But somehow I fell sideways and knocked my head on the ice - very very hard.  I didn't pass out, but I saw stars and I was sort of stunned - until the pain kicked in.  Then I reached up and felt an enormous goose egg on the L side of my head.  I sort of quietly freaked out then, got off the ice, took my skates off, and came home. 

I knew I wasn't disoriented or nauseous, and I knew what the ER would say if I went there (I'm a nurse, and I've actually worked ER).  So I called one of my friends to come baby sit me for a few hours.   My head was seriously throbbing and the goose egg kept getting bigger - but I knew I hadn't cracked my skull, and that the goose egg was just a hematoma on the outside of the skull that was causing the pain.  Sure enough, after several hours, the goose egg is almost gone and so is the headache, and I never had any disorientation or dizziness.  So I'm fine.  Although just to be sure, I'm emailing husband before I go to bed, and he will call me if I don't email him again first thing in the AM, just to make sure my brain hasn't exploded. 

I'm really OK - it was just one of those scary freak falls.  But I am a little freaked out and quite disheartened about the whole skating thing.  I'm hoping I recover my usual enthusiasm - soon.

My L ankle is still sore, and so is my L knee.  I went into my tests today feeling like I could pass Swing but that I'd fail Fiesta.    The warm up was so-so, and my fiesta mohawk was terrible.  After skating both dances, I felt exactly the same - Swing went well and Fiesta sucked.  Imagine my surprise to learn that I failed them both!  My coach DavidBowie brought me the test sheets and said that the judges grilled him about why I was testing Standard!  My scores were passing on both dances for Adult track but failing for Standard.  I am quite confused, because my Swing is *much* better than my Fiesta but neither the scores nor the comments reflect this at all.

DB feels like they want adults to test Adult Track and that the local judges feel it's "presumptuous" of us to attempt standard track and that we adults have to be three times as good as a kid to get a pass.  (His other adult student tested Willow Waltz and TenFox and she also failed the at Standard level but would have passed under Adult track.)

I uploaded the video - it's blurry and kind of hard to see (although the part where I do a lovely belly flop inbetween dances is quite clear).  I'm suprised to see that Fiesta looks much more confident than it feels - but still you can see the  mohawk is rough and I think it deserves to fail.  But I thought Swing looked passable, and so did both my coaches.  So.... the politics of ice dancing claim another victim!

Ah well.  I'm not really all that upset.  I'll probably switch over to Adult track and test again in May.

Life goes on.  I believe some retail therapy is order now and quite possibly a trashy movie and ice cream later this afternoon.

Spring Break - what break?  I'm exhausted and could sure use one.  Monday I skated about 2 hours and had a lesson with Coach L that I don't remember very well.  Tuesday I did 2.5 hrs of ballroom which for some reason wasn't nearly as enjoyable as it usually is.

For the last few weeks, my L knee has been aching pretty much all the time.  Except for when I skate.  This is somewhat worrisome, but usually these aches and pains eventually go away, so I'm hopefull this one will too.

I was looking forward to my lesson with DavidBowie today.  My dance tests are on Sunday, and I planned to do a dress rehearsal, complete with off ice warm up, then 1 minute to warm up on ice and 1 minute for each of the dances and then do the dances.  Except.  I twisted my ankle and fell during my off-ice warm-up!  No one saw.  I sat there on the floor for like 10 minutes trying not to bawl.  I twisted the L ankle and the L knee - the one that is already sore - and landed on my R knee.  Eventually I got up and wasn't sure what to do.  I could bear weight more or less, so I decided to try and skate, since my boots would provide support. 
 
Well I could skate, more or less.  Although my dances sucked hugely.  I still feel like Swing Dance is probably passable, but Fiesta is really pretty grim.  We spent a lot of time on Fiesta and towards the end of the lesson, on a back progressive, I did my stupid skating trick of jabbing the ice with my heel, and went flying.  I landed on my rear and wasn't hurt at all, but it pretty much undid me.  I sat there on the ice will big stupid tears in my eyes.  Poor DB thought I'd hurt myself.  I got up and skated away from him trying to control myself, and did eventually, while he babbled on helplessly about how all the adult skaters fall and not to get discouraged, etc. etc.  We finished up the lesson, FT still sucks and will probably fail.  On Friday he will take me for an extra, brief (15 min) lesson just to run through the dances a few more times.  I thanked him and just about ran out of the rink.

I iced down my ankle and took 800 IB and will do both again in a few minutes.  I'm not sure I'm even going to be able to skate by Friday - if not, there's really no point in testing on Sunday.  Well see how it goes.  Tonight I'm having a pity party for myself.  It has not been the best day/week/month of my life outside of skating either.  Of course it certainly hasn't been the worst either, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.  But damn.  Bad timing.