Selling Skates

So...I needed to write in a seperate post about my desire to start making some extra money for ice skating. I'm thinking I might want to start selling ice skates. There's no one in the Austin area that sells them anymore, as the woman I bought mine from stopped selling them. So I'm wanting to start. I need to find out what all I need to do.

Synchro bitchfest

$70 is the amount I pay per month to be on my rink's synchro team. We pay $70 regardless if we practice 4 times a month, or if we only practice 2.
$90 is the amount I paid for a synchro jacket and t-shirt.
$190 is the amount I am paying for my synchro dress that we will wear exactly twice. $190 is approximately $140 more than any other ice skating dress I currently own.
$750 is the amount I've estimated I will spend on Air fare and hotel for our trip to ISI (yes...ISI...*barf*) Worlds.
$100 is the amount I estimate I will spend on entry fees for ISI Worlds.

Am I leaving anything out? If not, that brings my grand total spent on Synchro this year to around $2000. That is approximately 5% of my gross annual salary. Is this worth it? Somedays I'm not so sure. *sigh*

A DOUBLE?!?!

Holy moly. I think it's time I invest in some crash pads. Today at the rink my sister suggested I try a double toe-loop. After I got done looking at her like she had lost her mind and I realized that she was serious, I decided to go for it. On my first attempt she said I made it about 1.5 rotations before I popped out and promptly fell in a slightly painful split sort of position. After that we decided to do some toe-loop-loop combos, and then I tried it once more, but I was too freaked out and only made it one revolution. So yeah...she said she wants me to start playing around with that. Pretty darn exciting...and scary at the same time!

Ow

I am VERY sore today. My sister made me do about 50 lutzes last night, and today I can barely walk, and my right knee hurts a little. *sigh* We were trying to get me on a good outside edge. I've been either switching to an inside edge right as I take off or right before. So I really need to break that habit. My skating this morning wasn't very productive. I worked on my Chorus Line program some, and I worked on MITF (and I found out I might not get to test until april :( boo). Things are progressing nicely. My sister said she thinks I'm about ready to start competing silver. I about fell over when she told me this because not two months ago had she said she thought it would be a while. So either I've improved dramaticaly in recent months, or she's changed her mind. :) Either way I'd like to at least be working on an axel before I start competing silver. I started trying them off-ice today. I used to be able to do them off ice, but today they were terrible. I'm not sure what that was about.
Tomorrow Ally and I are going to start learning our showskate routine. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it's going to be very cute. Alright...I'm off to bed. Early saturdays suck.

Another Awesome Skate

So I had another great skate tonight. I skated on both of the freestyles, and my sister worked with me almost the entire time! We worked on my camel spins. Those are coming along. I can at least feel what I should be doing. My sit spins are also getting better. We also worked alot on the flutz...really trying to get me on that outside edge. My niece and I started learning our routine for showskate. I'm excited about that.
I'm not feeling very chatty tonight, maybe I'll post more later.

Awesome skate

So I decided to hang around and skate the over-crowded wednesday night freestyle. My sister stayed and worked with me for a good half-hour which made me very happy. We worked on spins the whole time. We worked on getting me into more of a sit position on my sit spin, rather than leaning over, sticking my butt out. I had one at the very end that felt pretty good. I really wish I could see myself. *sigh* We also worked alot on camels. Those didn't go terrible. I was surprised that she told me I should keep my right side sort-of open as opposed to a spiral position. I've been trying to do it just like a spiral...so that made a difference. I can't wait to practice those more.
After she left I worked on jumping. My flutz is coming along nicely. I'm pretty consistent and even getting big jumps with the mohawk entrance. I tried to do a few with the back crossovers enterance since that is probably going to give me better technique. I did land a few, but I also fell on a few. I also did some loop-loops (which hurt my stress-injury...boooo), and I tried some toe-split jumps. Those feel pretty good. They feel like they might not be ugly. I just need to get my sister to look at them and tell me. If they're not ugly, maybe I can put one in my chorus line routine.
Synchro got cancelled tonight which I was a little bummed about, but that means I can go to bed early...I'm tired. Oh...and nationals start tomorrow!!! I'm beyond excited. The girl who won the novice ladies was at the houtson invitational in our locker room. Her coach was a real bitch, but I guess she fired her. Seems like that was probably a good decision.

Monday monday

Skating today went well. I love skating on monday afternoons because it's usually jsut me and 4 or 5 little kids. It's like having the ice all to myself. I ran through all of my pre-pre MIF. Overall they went okay. My back edges are getting better. I am forcing myself to just do them the whole length of the ice. Perfect or not. I'm trying to remind myself that at one time I couldn't do forward edges either and it didn't take very long to get those decent. My waltz 8s are feeling good, stroking and spirals as well. I'm still a little nervous about having the edges ready for the test on feb 18th, but I really need to get this test out of the way, because I still need to test Preliminary MIF before I can take my pre-bronze freeskate. I really wish I had started on all this a long time ago.
Other than MIF I worked on my usual list. Change foot spins are getting better. My backspin is getting much better since I started working on these. My sitspins were pretty on today. They felt much lower than usual (which doesn't say much). I tried a couple camels and they went okay.
I worked more on my flutzes, they went well. I'm still landing them consistently, now I just need to get off that pesky inside edge! I didn't work any on loop combos because my right leg has been bothering me.
Overall it was a good skate, I think I'm going to go ahead and turn in the paperwork for my test. It is just pass/retry, so I think they are a little more linient than other tests. Here's hoping at least. :)

30 minutes/week

30 minutes, that's all I would like with a coach. Any coach. My current coach, my sister, doesn't really have time for me, and as a result, I am largely self-taught. Which, as a result, means my technique isn't the best. So anyway...I'm considering asking another coach for a 30 minute lesson/week to just work on spins, jumps, and MIF. We'll see. Overall I've just been very frustrated with the progress I've made. I feel like I should be moving faster than I am, and I think more coaching would definately help that.
Other than the coaching stuff I've had a roller coaster of skating yesterday and today. Let's start with last night. I went to the freestyle, and the ice was still very soft which made it difficult to skate. I ended up falling 3 times on my flip (I can't remember the last time I actually fell on that jump). My sister did work with my some on my edges which was good. We talked about me leaning into them too much, and I'm not coming to the line straight...which is probably because my hoops are too shallow. So I've got to work on all of those things. I can't decide if I should go ahead and sign up for the test and cross my fingers I'll be ready. I only have one more week to decide.
This morning I went to the freestyle and I actuall landed some lutzes! I changed my entrance...I had been doing it from back crossovers, but I switched to doing a mohawk and two steps. This new entrance is letting me get into it without thinking so much, so it's letting me get the feeling for it. I'm still cheating a little bit in that I think I'm going onto an inside edge right as I pick, but I think that will come as I get more comfortable and maybe go back to the other entrance. I also worked on change foot spins, and those went remarkably well. I just need to get more comfortable on my backspin.
So for this week, I need to work on MIF...alot, change foot spins, sit spins, and my lutz. The first three are my priority. I'm going to Chicago this summer for ISI worlds with my synchro team, and I'm going to compete individually. I've been told that I should probably do freeskate 4, so I need to get the change foot and sit spin for that.
Okay...time for me to work on cutting music for showskate and for my ISI program.

No skating...again

The rink is closed again today. This time it's because the water supply line froze somehow making the ice too soft for skating (I don't really know...I don't know how rinks work). So anyway...we're finally above freezing, I'm back at work, and I can't even go skating today. :( BOO.

Snow day skate

The rink finally opened today and I got to go skating. My sister/coach didn't come, though because my niece didn't want to (something must be wrong with her). The ice was awesome because there were only about 6 people skating. I worked alot on Pre-pre MIF. Everything is feeling pretty okay. My forward stroking is good, of course CCW is much better than CW. My edges are all passable, except my back inside. They are downright aweful. I need some serious coach time on that. My spirals are good, except I'm having a hard time staying off my outside edge on my left one. Finally, my waltz 8's are much improved, and I am hitting that center mark pretty consistently.
Other than that I worked on loop-loops which I have never done before. They were surprisingly good, and I like them alot more than waltz-loops. I also worked on lutzes (sp?). Sheesh...I'm not sure why I'm having such a difficult time with these. If anybody has any tips, I would love to hear them.
I also worked alot on spins. After my competition this weekend, I realized I need to pick it up in the spin department. So I worked on camels, laybacks, and I started to attempt a scratch-back scratch, although that one didn't go so well.
Overall it was a good and productive skate.

I've also decided that I should post some of my goals for 2007:
1. Pass through Juvenile MIF (I'm hoping to test Pre-pre on feb 18, we'll see what my coach has to say)
2. Pass adult silver free skate
3. Of course, land an axel consistently, and maybe some doubles

Beyond that, I hope to compete in the 2008 adult nationals at the silver level, and I really would like to compete championship gold by 2009. I've got alot of hard work ahead of me before that can happen, though.

Stupid weather

So because it's snowing outside, the ice skating rink has been closed since yesterday. :( All I've wanted to do is skate, but I can't. I did at least go work out last night, so that was good. I did 43 minutes on the bike. Hopefully the gym is open today so we can go this afternoon.

Pictures!

Pictures from the competition are up here. My events were: saturday, event 2 and 8, and sunday, event 20.

New Layout

I was tired of the old one, so I finally sucked it up and redid my blog. As for the rest of my day off? I hope to go skating to work on my MIF, and I really need to go work out. I'll probably end up just watching Grey's Anatomy all day, though.

Star of Texas Recap

Well, I had a pretty good weekend in Houston. It made me want to go to Adult Nationals really bad, though. And I have neither the time nor the money to go this year. I WILL go next year, though. Hopefully competing as a silver.
Yesterday I skated my compulsories and freeskate. I was originally signed up for Pre-Bronze compulsories, but this week they told me my competitor dropped out, so on wednesday I decided to skate bronze, and had to learn a new program, full of things I'm bad at like waltz-toe loop and a sit spin. I actually skated pretty well, though. I was pleased, and I placed 1st out of 2.
My freeskate wasn't what I was hoping for. My first jump is a loop and it was fabulous, then on my waltz-loop I put my foot down, but I was happy with this because I had been struggling all week with it. Then I almost put my hand down on my flip jump. This exact same thing has happened every time I have done it in competition. Finally, I feel on my salchow-toe loop!!! Seriously, something must be wrong with me. Everything else in the program was fin, though, but I really was not pleased with my performance and I expected to get last. Turns out the judges disagreed, though, and I got 2nd/4. And, one judge put me first. I'm guessing that my artistic score is what made me do so well, because technically I was way behind the person who got first. I didn't really watch the other two though because they were before and after me.
Today I had my artistic. I was relatively nervous because I didn't do much practicing on this one. But it went great. I did the same thing I always do on my flip, but everything else was good. It was my competitor's first competition and she was very nervous. She did well, though. I think she was annoyed that I was in the no-test group, but I just don't have the jumps or spins to compete bronze yet, and this is where my coach thought I should be.
Overall everyone was very nice. I left saturday feeling great. I left today feeling pretty good, although I felt attacked by this girl. It was a good competition, though, and I look forward to going back next year. I need a new freeskate program, though. I am totally over this days of thunder one.

Next up I have Austin Showskate. I am going to be doing my same chorus line number (although we may improve it a bit), and I'm also going to be doing something with my niece. I'm looking forward to this one. I think we're going to do a song from the princess diaries 2.
I'm going to try to post more regularly as now I'll be working on my pre-preliminary moves in the field.

Star of Texas

Wow. It has been a long time since I last posted. Not too much has happened. My loop has become pretty consistent, my flip has become really good, and I've been working hard on my waltz-loop. The past week I have been helping my sister coach the basic 1 and 2 classes. That has been a fun opportunity for me to learn some about coaching. Today I'm heading to Houston with her for a competition my niece is in. Next weekend I'm heading back to houston (solo) for a competition I am competitng in. I'm feeling pretty good about that competition, and I'm really looking forward to it. My last competition in Houston was my first competition ever and I was pretty dissappointed with my performance. I think I've improved tremendously since then, and I think I should do well. I feel good about the levels I'm competing in, and I think it should be fun. The only bad thing is my sister (my coach) can't come, so it's going to be my first competition alone.
My sister is here to pick me up. Time to go.