Crazy Skating Dreams

I want YOU to share your crazy skating dreams. The other night I had the weirdest dream that caused me all kinds of stress. Now I don't know about you, but I stay stressed enough in real life without having to be stressed in my dreams. So we are at this really big competition. I don't know if it was a big Open or supposed to be Regionals. But we were in this huge arena. It didn't look like any rink my daughter has ever done a competition at. It was more like a professional Hockey Arena. I'm stuck way up in the nosebleeds about as far away as possible as I can get from my child. Some of the competitions she has done have No Parent Zones. I'm SO not a fan of those. My daughter is down on the ice and the music begins to play. And she begins to skate. But the music isn't right. It is her music from 2 years ago. The length is just about a minute long from the level that she was in then. The music sounds different than her current music so not conducive to the moves (jumps, spins, spirals, etc) that she needs to be able to do. Think Cinderella, IMO a great cut of music, it ended with the actual ending with the music to "I'd rather rescue myself" (sans vocals which was good for current level but was allowed 2 years ago though it was cut without vocals per then coach's request). Because this is music she recognizes as 'hers' she begins skating. And skates program to music that's not long enough, not working with her current program. I'm hyperventilating up in the nosebleeds. And then running down the bleachers. I didn't think the judges would let her reskate as she didn't know it wasn't right. And because I wasn't even sure we had the right music at all.

Now what causes crazy dreams like that. The season has ended. We've been taking the off-season pretty relaxed this year with no shows or anything. There is a small competition that our rink is having at Christmas. The program is pretty much her old program from the Fall so no new cut of music or moves to learn. A few minor changes but nothing to stress over.

Sweeper Day Arrived

It has been a LONG day. And at almost 8pm I haven't even had a nap yet. Today started at a quarter til 5am when my alarm went off. We headed to the rink with just enough time to stretch and warm-up before her lesson at 6:15am. She worked on a few changes to her 1:08 Tots program for a Christmas Competition she is doing next month. Its been at least two months since she worked on the program... She did really well remembering it I think. She had nice low sitspins. Not much changes toe loops to loops and power threes to footwork (so its a matter of getting the changes straight) but there's time. Continuing on.. we stayed at the rink thru synchro practice so we could all follow each other over. **I got lost last time. We got to Wake Forest around 10am. Got the girls in their skates, vests and gloves. We stayed in the locker rooms mostly until Junior Ladies (our sweeping assignment) skated. But I did see some of the dances prior. It was freezing cold in the rink. My toes were cold. I'm used to skating myself and being rinkside with my daughter and I'm normally okay with rink-cold. Outside I like it to be warm. Yeah I know I'm whiny. But its my blog and I get to be whiny. From 10am to 1:30pm seemed like an eternity. Did I mention my toes were cold? After we were done with sweeping we got lunch. And then came back to see the Senior Mens skate. I told an online friend I'd check out Derrick Delmore and say a hello to his coach (their choregrapher). So I watched a few of the men leading up to his skate. It seems like everybody I watched skate messed up something. A stumble, fall, a hand down, popped jumps... something. I'm not so good with judging what's wrong with jumps I know I saw a lot supposed to be triples that were maybe over rotated singles or under rotated doubles or something but not triples. I hope they do better at Nationals... whoever gets to go. As far as scoring - I didn't even look at the results sheets. So I got nothing to share. I imagine they will be posted at usfsa.org tomorrow or soon. I want to share pics of my little one in her uniform/dress whatever I'm supposed to call it. At least we got a cool souvenir.

Good Luck at Eastern Sectionals!

I imagined writing some long post wishing all the skaters that I know Good luck at Sectionals. When I'd been skating for about a year I skated in my first Nutcracker on Ice. In the dance in Act I, I was paired with a young girl named Mariah. I apologized to her that she had to dance with me. She said "That's okay I haven't been skating that long I'm not very good either." Anyway on Wednesday Mariah will be skating in Novice Dance at Eastern Sectionals. I wish her lots and lots of luck. To Jane Bugaeva Senior Ladies - I hope she has an awesome Sectionals. And knocks them off their feet at Nationals. Well that's all I've got. Lots of luck to all the skaters.

HSMoI

I started to just post this here to see how many people emailed me asking me for pictures and autographs and stuff. Oh well - I was too excited to wait to blog.

***drum roll*****

our rink which is of course the best rink ever is having a preview of the numbers from the cast of High School Musical on Ice. And we can get photos and autographs of the cast. Did I mention the showing at our rink is free??? I hope they don't make that known to the general public. We want to actually get close to the stars of the show? Right. Well since I already emailed everybody and told them.. and stopped people on the street.. and told just about everybody I could tell in one day THAT I'M seeing HSMoI up close and in person. I know that only sub-thirteen year old girls and those of us who are parents of sub-thirteen year old girls actually care about seeing the hottest show on ice.

You know you are jealous.. admit it.

I'll post pictures.. next month.. after it happens here.

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.