Getting into new blades

Its been a while since I posted and thought I'd give a skating update as we are gearing up for Sweeper Rehearsals this weekend. So two weeks ago I had my daughter's skates sharpened at the rink where she takes classes. And they cut off the bottom of her toepick which makes the blades just about useless. Can't control edges, can't glide straight either, problem with edge jumps (salchow, loop), etc. The rink is paying for replacing her blades which is really nice of them especially since these are a little nicer than stock blades. I didn't complain because I wanted them to pay for the blades. Despite complaining on my blog I really hate the idea of people seeing me as 'difficult' I just wanted the rink to know that person had messed up because I know he does sharpen other figure skater's blades. So again EVERYONE has been great. The blades were mounted overnight and all done. So she's back skating tomorrow without missing a beat.. well other than having had two lessons on messed up blades.

Lips Together

Okay - so I love that. My daughter's off-ice coach said that to the girls on Saturday to get them to stop yapping. That's great. I like it better than hush. Anyway - I decided to take down my laziness post after the email I got on the subject. But I thought I'd give update on how the laziness was going. My daughter had a really great Saturday. I know her Saturdays are long but having good Saturdays is so important (and making the most out of a whole day of skating) since she can only skate for so long in the mornings before school. She had a very good on-ice session. No messing around when the skating director wasn't looking. Then she had a very good off-ice lesson. She still finished last on the running part but she didn't get lapped. And she never fell so far behind that anything got skipped so that she could catch up. She learned (or started to learn) a donut off the ice. It was great because they did spiral (count 1,2,3,4) then grab the foot with opposite hand to make a donut (and she kept trying to do a chinese spiral). Then when we back on the ice she saw one of the other skaters doing a donut on the ice and was like what's she doing. I said what you were just supposed to be doing off-ice a donut. And she was like that's what that is and tried to do one. About broke her neck doing it - but at least she was trying to do something new. And her off-ice coach said she landed her axel off-ice on Saturday for the first time. Yay! Not sure how her loop and flip were off-ice but it sounds like she did good. I didn't go into the area where they were jumping but I did do spirals and donuts and such outside with the kids. Another mom was doing it too so... Anyway it seems like she really enjoyed off-ice yesterday and got something out of it. So maybe we'll stick with it and I'll teach my kid something about not quitting.

Sweeper Co-Captains

So sectionals are coming to our state. And our club has been invited to create a sweeper team of little girls 7-11 years old. No one had volunteered and the deadline is Friday. So kind of sort of without thinking it through - I volunteered. Luckily my daughter's best friend's mom volunteered as well. So at least we are in this together. We've got all of four days to convince 3-4 other parents to sign their kids up for our team as well. This should be a great experience for our daughters. I don't think Sectionals get televised so its not like being a sweeper at Nationals or the Olympics or something. Can you tell I'm slightly excited? I almost like this sport. I'll post pictures of the girls (or at least my girl) in the dresses/uniform.