Between the cold and my Advair I now have bronchitis. There is a warning on Advair "increased risk of respiratory infections" right next to the warning "may cause lethal asthma attack". Go figure. My asthma medication can make me sick might cause asthma and death. Since I am rather partial to breathing I guess I have to keep taking the stuff. I don't have any other options since the lamer non-lethal inhalers aren't strong enough for me. In any case, I have a headache and my ribs are killing me from coughing so much. I went to my doc and got put on antibiotics and went to my acupuncturist and got stuck full of needles. Today I am feeling a bit better. It is easier for me to breath and I'm not coughing so much. Now you would think that with bronchitis and spates of frequent hard coughing fits I would be at home in bed. Au contraire, not only am I at work, I have made it to the rink twice this week. I just can't stand not being on the ice any longer. I don't care that I can't jump or spin (too dizzy from the meds) I just want to be out on the ice, feel the breeze on my face and hear the wind across my ears from skating too fast. There is a certain freedom when skating. Another skater said that it feels like flying. I think it feels like swimming but without the drag of the water. There is certainly a liquidness to the movements which is delicious to feel.
I managed to see both of my friends and my coach on Wednesday night. I got to see both of them skate their programs. Jackie looks wonderful and Amy's spread eagle has improved greatly. We are all bummed that there is no ice next week but we are all looking forward to group lessons starting again in mid September. The North Shore FSC, where we all skate, is considering adding an adult membership option for their club. Right now we are each individual members of USFSA. It hasn't made sense for us to join a club since they are expensive and we tend to walk on to different session at different clubs each week as our work tends to interfere with skating quite a bit. Jackie is going to join anyway but she makes it to the same rink more regularly than Amy and I. Amy and I will probably join if they decide to have a reduced adult membership rate. My coach is rooting for it during the meetings. She has a very good point; adults shouldn't have to pay as much since most of the ice times fall during work hours and are inaccessible to us. The club has actually reduced their evening hours this fall which is terrible for us adults. There are no more 7pm slots which means I have to go straight to the rink from work to make the 6pm slot. No more dinner for me before I skate and if Amy misses her train from Boston she can't make it to the rink either. Bummer. It is a good thing that there is a rink near work where I can skate a couple of times a week.
Anyway, I only lasted 40 minutes skating on Wednesday but I have great news. I was doing patch and I did two perfect forward figure eights! The first since the mid 70's. I was so excited. I managed to trace two entire figure eights on single edges without accidentally hitting my second edge (or going on the flat of my blade as it is also known). This is huge! This is what I have been trying to do since I started patch practice last year at adult skate camp in Lake Placid. I am so pleased with myself! I also did some decent three turn eights and some serpentine (three circles) figures. I am still trying to do back outside eights. I can now make one complete circle from a dead stop on my right foot but I can only make it half way round on my left foot before the whole circle spirals in to the center of the figure. It'll come with practice. My forward eights are now starting to look like something. Most of the tracings are on top of each other to within two inches instead of a foot and a half. They are close to the correct size and shape. I am going to have to take my scribe to the rink soon and check the circles I'm making and see how out of round they are. To me they are looking pretty good but I'm prejudiced.
I have been working on my three turns and counters as well. I have decided that there must be something in the air at Lake Placid. For some reason both of these were much easier to do up there. I have been able to do a few lame back outside threes; I always touch my foot down on the counters; and I don't have the nerve to do the back inside threes. When I was at camp I was able to do all three most of the time. It must be the Olympic air. I always skate better up there. Of course being on the ice three hours a day might have something to do with it also.
When I got off the ice and was telling my coach about my excellent figures we decided that all three of us will learn loops during our first group lessons. We are all very excited about this. My coach says it will help with many of our freestyle elements. I have just always thought they looked cool ever since I first saw them skated when I was a kid. I wanted to take patch just so I could learn loops. I didn't stay in the sport long enough to ever learn them. I was very bummed this summer when I fell up at Lake Placid and had to sit out the loop class that was held by the patch goddess there.
I miss skating. Zach tells me that his acupuncture treatments will get me off the inhaler soon. I can hardly wait. It can't come soon enough for me. I am grouchy not being able to skate.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Lung Trouble
A month later and the flu is gone but I still get out of breath just going up stairs. I have been going to the odd public session when I can and doing mostly figures. If I do any freestyle at all I have to stop often and catch my breath. I am constantly coughing. It really stinks. I had to pull out of the Charter Oak competition. Of course I put it off until the last minute to withdraw. They were going to keep my money either way so I waited until the day before.
I went skating Monday night and got to see everyone at the rink which was wonderful. I love talking to everyone and seeing how they are doing. My friend Jackie's skating has come such a long way. Her spirals look great now and I can't believe the jumps she is doing. Incredible. My other friend Amy just passed her adult silver test. And my coach is worried about me. Skating starts in mid September and we are all excited about going again. We didn't want to leave the rink since it was nice a cool inside. It has been 90+F with high humidity for the last two weeks. I have been miserable.
The day after skating I came down with a cold, so much for practicing a lot during my vacation week. Hopefully things will improve. I see a pulmonologist in early September (doesn't matter that I can't breath that is his first available: don't you just love American medicine???). I can hardly wait to get back on the ice for real. I need my lungs to heal faster.
I went skating Monday night and got to see everyone at the rink which was wonderful. I love talking to everyone and seeing how they are doing. My friend Jackie's skating has come such a long way. Her spirals look great now and I can't believe the jumps she is doing. Incredible. My other friend Amy just passed her adult silver test. And my coach is worried about me. Skating starts in mid September and we are all excited about going again. We didn't want to leave the rink since it was nice a cool inside. It has been 90+F with high humidity for the last two weeks. I have been miserable.
The day after skating I came down with a cold, so much for practicing a lot during my vacation week. Hopefully things will improve. I see a pulmonologist in early September (doesn't matter that I can't breath that is his first available: don't you just love American medicine???). I can hardly wait to get back on the ice for real. I need my lungs to heal faster.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
To Breath or Not to Breath
I haven't been writing because I haven't been skating. After I got back from LP my lungs were feeling full and kind of goopy. My acupuncturist started working to clear them out. I skated a couple of practice sessions and you would think I had been off the ice for months instead of one week. I was panting up a storm and shaky on my blades. Very strange. Then on the way to work the following week I had an asthma attack. I hadn't had one in eight years. Luckily there is a medical center at work and I drove straight there. I ended up with the traditional Albuterol inhaler. This helped except it only lasted three hours instead of six. I went to my regular doctor the next day. I got put on Flowvent. Over the weekend I started hacking up green goo balls. This was not good. Back to the doctor on Monday and I was put on antibiotics. By midweek I had something that was more than a cold but not quite the flu. Off to the doctor again. They told me I had a cold. My coworkers who came down with the same thing got diagnosed with the flu. No diff. I was sick. Really sick. No skating for me.
A week later I was done with the cold/flu but still had asthma and a horrible cough. My ribs ached. I tried skating but I ended up having coughing fits and had to get off the ice after half an hour. (That nearly killed me since I had the entire rink to myself and I just couldn't skate anymore. Bummer!) Back to the doctor and I was put on Advair. All this time I have also been going to the acupuncturist. I can't believe how horrible this has been. It has been making me tired. I get winded just walking the level corridors at work. I have missed four weeks of skating practice and I am supposed to compete this Saturday. Ugh. I am so disappointed and frustrated. I really want to go. I keep talking myself into it and then out of it. After skating for 20 minutes today I had talked myself into going. Then I went to acupuncture and he said, very wisely, "if you are on the fence, stay home and take care of your body. I know how crazy you athletes can get and you need to take care of yourself." Now I am talking myself out of it again.
Things running through my head:
A week later I was done with the cold/flu but still had asthma and a horrible cough. My ribs ached. I tried skating but I ended up having coughing fits and had to get off the ice after half an hour. (That nearly killed me since I had the entire rink to myself and I just couldn't skate anymore. Bummer!) Back to the doctor and I was put on Advair. All this time I have also been going to the acupuncturist. I can't believe how horrible this has been. It has been making me tired. I get winded just walking the level corridors at work. I have missed four weeks of skating practice and I am supposed to compete this Saturday. Ugh. I am so disappointed and frustrated. I really want to go. I keep talking myself into it and then out of it. After skating for 20 minutes today I had talked myself into going. Then I went to acupuncture and he said, very wisely, "if you are on the fence, stay home and take care of your body. I know how crazy you athletes can get and you need to take care of yourself." Now I am talking myself out of it again.
Things running through my head:
- It isn't like it is a big competition.
- I am only doing two moves in the field patterns and two spins.
- I would be on the ice less than five minutes.
- There is only one other lady competing in my group.
- I am 47 years old what the hell are you beating yourself up for?
- Stay home and take care of yourself.
- There will always be another competition.
- My competition dress never got made since I was too sick to even sew.
- I'm crazy.
- My acupuncturist is right.
- If I was a real athlete I would just suck it up and go anyway.
- I should go just for the experience.
So I vacillate back and forth. I am driving my spouse nuts since we are definitely going one minute and definitely staying home the next. I will have to make up my mind tomorrow. I'll let you know what I decide. Meanwhile I have to practice tomorrow and see what happens.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Random Skating Photos
The entire cast of the show at the Lake Placid June '09 adult skate week. Mum is second from left in the front. 
The Dueling Scribes synchro patch team. "Ta Da!" 
Rosemary skating to "Stary Night". This is one of my favorite numbers. I first saw it when she competed in the 2008 Adult Nationals. 
Mum waiting for her turn in the adult ice show. She is a member of the Dueling Scribes, a synchro patch team.
Mum and her dance coach Mark during a lesson on the 1932 rink.
Me skating patch one morning in Lake Placid
My test dress
Notice the white leotard hanging behind it.
The little white splotches are ribbon flowers with crystals in the centers. Just enough bling for a test dress in my humble opinion.
Two Tests
I didn't panic as much this time as last year. After all last year was the first time that I had tested in almost 40 years. I was okay this year until the day of. Thank God I was still sewing my costume right up until the time that I left the house or I would have had time to really panic. This year I was taking two tests, pre-bronze freestyle and bronze moves in the field.
I took the week off work after skating at Lake Placid. I figured I could sleep a lot,let my knees recover, have time to practice for my test and also time to sew my outfit. I had the design in mind but hadn't started sewing yet. I had until Friday to complete the dress. The basic design I stole- ah copied- from a dress that looked good on me. My modified design consisted of two pieces, a glittery white leotard undergarment and a black overdress with white gores in the skirt. Sewing with the serger made this a breeze. "Where have you been all my life?" I loveingly asked my machine. I always did run my old machine at top speed and it could barely keep up with me. The serger goes so fast I have to run it at half speed so that I can keep up with it. Enough of this. This blog is supposed to be about figure skating rather than sewing.
I was sitting on the couch the morning of my tests, sewing on the modesty panel and the crystal rosettes. Yes, I fell for the lure of crystals but I kept it understated. I knew I wouldn't get the the hem done but I also knew that it wouldn't matter. This year I was determined to get to the rink early. Last year they were running 45 minutes ahead of schedule and I barely had time to get my boots on and get mentally prepared before I had to be on the ice. I wasn't about to let that happen again. I got to the rink and finished dressing. My coach wasn't there yet and my husband decided to run errands for half an hour since things seemed to be running on time this year. I paced, stretched and paced some more. I'm a pacer. I like to move around a lot since it helps me release some of the tension. I started to panic. Still no Joanna. My leotard was slipping so I decided that it was safety pin time or it would bug the hell out of me while I skated. Note to self; finish costume early so you can actually skate in it and then make repairs if necessary. In this case, I shall need a different leotard design if I want to wear this outfit again. So here I am in the ladies bathroom with no coach and no husband trying to insert safety pins that are too short into my bra and leotard and I can't see since I don't have my glasses on. Now I was really starting to panic. Luckily another coach came in that I knew by sight but not to talk to and I asked her if she could help me. It took her some considerable effort and several pins (one bent) to get the two garments attached to each other. Back to pacing again. It was less than half an hour until I was due on the ice and still no husband or coach. My feet were starting to go numb. This is not good. I was just about to sit down and unlace my skates when I turned around and there was Joanna. "How is your husband?" I asked. I had assumed the worst; car accidents, sick spouse, etc. "He's fine. Why?" she replied. "You're late," I didn't mean this as tersely as it came out. "No I'm not," she shot back. I was too wound up and nervous to realize that I wasn't being very nice. Instead of apologizing I sat down and unlaced my skates. I showed her the skate order and I was in the last group and the second to last skater but we couldn't figure out when I was supposed to skate the freestyle and when I was supposed to skate the MIF tests. There were over ten people lumped together in my group with all sorts of tests listed for each one. I just sat in the crowded warming room wiggling my feet around inside my unlaced boots. I had to keep doing deep breathing to calm down. Joanna and I didn't talk at all. Finally word came back that the judges were splitting the group up into two groups of five while preserving the skating order. I was still next to last. As the group before me took to the ice I laced up my boots and resumed pacing. I watched some of the skaters. It turned out that we were all at about the same level. There were two judges so they were calling two girls onto the ice at a time and having them follow each other down the rink for their moves test and then do their freestyle test right afterward. Oh crap! I am going to have to skate the tests back to back! OMG! This is going to be horrible. Particularly since I am supposed to do the freestyle after the MIF and I am useless after the moves never mind jumping! Crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. Now I am really wound up. Suddenly I have to get to the other side of the rink. The other group had finished early and had left the ice already and I wasn't even in the hockey box yet. The other kids in my group were already on the ice warming up and I hadn't even gotten my skate guards off yet. I finally get out onto the ice and don't even make it one lap around and the judges call my name out summoning me to the boards. Since there were five people in my group and my test was different they asked if I could switch and be last. No problem I said. I took the opportunity to ask if I could do my freestyle test first which wasn't a problem and I got up the nerve to ask for a breather between laps of my MIF test. "I'm not as young as I used to be," I said, which elicited chuckles from the balding grey haired judges. He said that wasn't a problem and I could take my time. I told him that I would let the coaches and other skater know about the switch. I skated back to the other booth and let the other skater know. Fortunately she was standing right there. Unfortunately this was cutting into my warm up time. I heard the "one minute left" announcement and I hadn't done a thing yet. I skated off and did some spins. "Warm up is over. Please clear the ice." Nuts! I managed a couple of spins and a couple of waltz jumps and that was it. No moves warm up. Crap oh crap. Now I was last and had to wait. At least this year I had warm clothes with me. I couldn't sit still and kept wiggling my feet and legs. I kept using deep breathing to calm myself down. My right leg was starting to go numb. Damn, this is my landing leg. Not good. I stood up and shifted weight back and forth. There wasn't time to unlace my boots. I sat down. Wiggled and stood up again. Damn. Damn. The girl before me was still skating her freeskate test. I looked over at the judges and he signaled for me to come over. It was time.
I took off my guards and skated over to the judge. He said that we could do our freestyle tests together and then I could do my moves test on my own, which was fine by me. I think I had this judge last year but wasn't sure. He was very nice. He let me know that I could do the freestyle test in any order (no music since this was the pre-bronze test) and he would check it off that I did the element. I started with my spins. The two foot first and then the single foot spin. I had a mild panic attack going into the single foot spin but I forced myself to relax. I knew that if I relaxed and looked straight ahead then the spin would more than likely center itself. My skirt flying around me caught my eye. I could just see it at the edge of my vision and I had to fight the urge to look down and watch it (another reason I need to practice in the outfit first). During the spin exit I snuck a quick look down to see my tracing and it was centered!! Yeah me! Now for my jumps. First the half flip. I landed it a little clunky but it was technically correct. On to the waltz jump; not great height but I landed it fine if a tiny bit wobbly. Nothing that an on looker would notice. I looked around for the other girl since the next element was a huge circle of forwardcrossovers. She was further down the ice so I launched into the forward crossovers. She whizzed by me. Apparently she was setting up for a jump in the corner and now I was in her way. We did't quite crash but her sudden appearance surprised me and I lost my concentration. Luckily I was only doing crossovers so it was no big deal. I flipped around and started the back crossovers. She skated over to the boards. Yeah, she was done. I didn't have to worry about where she was and I could concentrate on what I was doing. I finished the crossovers and flipped around again and stepped right into a nice spiral. My leg doesn't get as high as the kids but at least it is above my butt. I wish I could see myself in a mirror. Oh well. I skated over to the judge. Panting of course. He asked if I needed a break and I told him that I was fine. He asked me if I knew the skate order for the moves which I did. I have skated this so much I literally skate it in my sleep. Last year I had to write the order down on my wrist; this year I didn't need a crib sheet.
Off I went to the other end of the ice. It didn't bode well that I was out of breath before I even started my MIF. "You can do this. You did this in Lake Placid. You can take little breaks. You know this stuff cold." I skated the test well. I went a little slower than usual but I wanted to skate well rather than risk making an error. As it was, I caught a little rake during the backward power crossovers. All in all everything went well. By the third lap I was skating over to Joanna and taking a very short breather, taking slugs of water to hide the fact that I was really trying to catch my breath. She looked at me and said "You can do this. You'll be fine. Just skate." I was 3/4 of the way around the rink on my last pattern when I started "You're almost done. Three more lobes. Shut up and pay attention to your feet. You're almost done. Shut up! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! You're done! Flip around. Don't trip! Present it to the judge. I'm done!!!!!! Yeah me!!!!!" He just looked at me and said "all set." "Thank you!" I breathlessly replied and I left the ice. That was a good sign. I didn't have to reskate anything! Always a good sign. We walked quietly around to the warming room. All you could hear in the rink was my breathing. "If that didn't pass, I'm a bad coach," Joanna said. I smiled. I was done. I was still panting and couldn't talk. The entire place was empty. Everyone was gone. It wasn't like last year where I had ten pairs of eyes watching me skate. There was no one left except the officials, me, Joanna and my husband. I couldn't get my boots off fast enough. I changed my clothes. I caught my breath. Finally the results came. I had passed both tests! The only comment on my freestyle test was "well centered spin." The MIF test was my first ever scored test. It takes 2.5 to pass and each of the five moves had 2.5 written down. The comments included "good edges" and "nice flow". Joanna told me that he is a hard judge. He doesn't mark high but he is fair. To my mind the comments weren't terribly helpful. I thought that I had skated some bits better than others but there was no indication of that on the test. Typical, I would see a "B+" on my test and wonder why I didn't get an "A". I passed and I passed with a hard judge. I looked up my old test and indeed he was a judge of mine last year as well. He hadn't written anything on that test at all. I guess I should take "well centered spin" as a high compliment considering the judge.
I took the week off work after skating at Lake Placid. I figured I could sleep a lot,let my knees recover, have time to practice for my test and also time to sew my outfit. I had the design in mind but hadn't started sewing yet. I had until Friday to complete the dress. The basic design I stole- ah copied- from a dress that looked good on me. My modified design consisted of two pieces, a glittery white leotard undergarment and a black overdress with white gores in the skirt. Sewing with the serger made this a breeze. "Where have you been all my life?" I loveingly asked my machine. I always did run my old machine at top speed and it could barely keep up with me. The serger goes so fast I have to run it at half speed so that I can keep up with it. Enough of this. This blog is supposed to be about figure skating rather than sewing.
I was sitting on the couch the morning of my tests, sewing on the modesty panel and the crystal rosettes. Yes, I fell for the lure of crystals but I kept it understated. I knew I wouldn't get the the hem done but I also knew that it wouldn't matter. This year I was determined to get to the rink early. Last year they were running 45 minutes ahead of schedule and I barely had time to get my boots on and get mentally prepared before I had to be on the ice. I wasn't about to let that happen again. I got to the rink and finished dressing. My coach wasn't there yet and my husband decided to run errands for half an hour since things seemed to be running on time this year. I paced, stretched and paced some more. I'm a pacer. I like to move around a lot since it helps me release some of the tension. I started to panic. Still no Joanna. My leotard was slipping so I decided that it was safety pin time or it would bug the hell out of me while I skated. Note to self; finish costume early so you can actually skate in it and then make repairs if necessary. In this case, I shall need a different leotard design if I want to wear this outfit again. So here I am in the ladies bathroom with no coach and no husband trying to insert safety pins that are too short into my bra and leotard and I can't see since I don't have my glasses on. Now I was really starting to panic. Luckily another coach came in that I knew by sight but not to talk to and I asked her if she could help me. It took her some considerable effort and several pins (one bent) to get the two garments attached to each other. Back to pacing again. It was less than half an hour until I was due on the ice and still no husband or coach. My feet were starting to go numb. This is not good. I was just about to sit down and unlace my skates when I turned around and there was Joanna. "How is your husband?" I asked. I had assumed the worst; car accidents, sick spouse, etc. "He's fine. Why?" she replied. "You're late," I didn't mean this as tersely as it came out. "No I'm not," she shot back. I was too wound up and nervous to realize that I wasn't being very nice. Instead of apologizing I sat down and unlaced my skates. I showed her the skate order and I was in the last group and the second to last skater but we couldn't figure out when I was supposed to skate the freestyle and when I was supposed to skate the MIF tests. There were over ten people lumped together in my group with all sorts of tests listed for each one. I just sat in the crowded warming room wiggling my feet around inside my unlaced boots. I had to keep doing deep breathing to calm down. Joanna and I didn't talk at all. Finally word came back that the judges were splitting the group up into two groups of five while preserving the skating order. I was still next to last. As the group before me took to the ice I laced up my boots and resumed pacing. I watched some of the skaters. It turned out that we were all at about the same level. There were two judges so they were calling two girls onto the ice at a time and having them follow each other down the rink for their moves test and then do their freestyle test right afterward. Oh crap! I am going to have to skate the tests back to back! OMG! This is going to be horrible. Particularly since I am supposed to do the freestyle after the MIF and I am useless after the moves never mind jumping! Crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. Now I am really wound up. Suddenly I have to get to the other side of the rink. The other group had finished early and had left the ice already and I wasn't even in the hockey box yet. The other kids in my group were already on the ice warming up and I hadn't even gotten my skate guards off yet. I finally get out onto the ice and don't even make it one lap around and the judges call my name out summoning me to the boards. Since there were five people in my group and my test was different they asked if I could switch and be last. No problem I said. I took the opportunity to ask if I could do my freestyle test first which wasn't a problem and I got up the nerve to ask for a breather between laps of my MIF test. "I'm not as young as I used to be," I said, which elicited chuckles from the balding grey haired judges. He said that wasn't a problem and I could take my time. I told him that I would let the coaches and other skater know about the switch. I skated back to the other booth and let the other skater know. Fortunately she was standing right there. Unfortunately this was cutting into my warm up time. I heard the "one minute left" announcement and I hadn't done a thing yet. I skated off and did some spins. "Warm up is over. Please clear the ice." Nuts! I managed a couple of spins and a couple of waltz jumps and that was it. No moves warm up. Crap oh crap. Now I was last and had to wait. At least this year I had warm clothes with me. I couldn't sit still and kept wiggling my feet and legs. I kept using deep breathing to calm myself down. My right leg was starting to go numb. Damn, this is my landing leg. Not good. I stood up and shifted weight back and forth. There wasn't time to unlace my boots. I sat down. Wiggled and stood up again. Damn. Damn. The girl before me was still skating her freeskate test. I looked over at the judges and he signaled for me to come over. It was time.
I took off my guards and skated over to the judge. He said that we could do our freestyle tests together and then I could do my moves test on my own, which was fine by me. I think I had this judge last year but wasn't sure. He was very nice. He let me know that I could do the freestyle test in any order (no music since this was the pre-bronze test) and he would check it off that I did the element. I started with my spins. The two foot first and then the single foot spin. I had a mild panic attack going into the single foot spin but I forced myself to relax. I knew that if I relaxed and looked straight ahead then the spin would more than likely center itself. My skirt flying around me caught my eye. I could just see it at the edge of my vision and I had to fight the urge to look down and watch it (another reason I need to practice in the outfit first). During the spin exit I snuck a quick look down to see my tracing and it was centered!! Yeah me! Now for my jumps. First the half flip. I landed it a little clunky but it was technically correct. On to the waltz jump; not great height but I landed it fine if a tiny bit wobbly. Nothing that an on looker would notice. I looked around for the other girl since the next element was a huge circle of forwardcrossovers. She was further down the ice so I launched into the forward crossovers. She whizzed by me. Apparently she was setting up for a jump in the corner and now I was in her way. We did't quite crash but her sudden appearance surprised me and I lost my concentration. Luckily I was only doing crossovers so it was no big deal. I flipped around and started the back crossovers. She skated over to the boards. Yeah, she was done. I didn't have to worry about where she was and I could concentrate on what I was doing. I finished the crossovers and flipped around again and stepped right into a nice spiral. My leg doesn't get as high as the kids but at least it is above my butt. I wish I could see myself in a mirror. Oh well. I skated over to the judge. Panting of course. He asked if I needed a break and I told him that I was fine. He asked me if I knew the skate order for the moves which I did. I have skated this so much I literally skate it in my sleep. Last year I had to write the order down on my wrist; this year I didn't need a crib sheet.
Off I went to the other end of the ice. It didn't bode well that I was out of breath before I even started my MIF. "You can do this. You did this in Lake Placid. You can take little breaks. You know this stuff cold." I skated the test well. I went a little slower than usual but I wanted to skate well rather than risk making an error. As it was, I caught a little rake during the backward power crossovers. All in all everything went well. By the third lap I was skating over to Joanna and taking a very short breather, taking slugs of water to hide the fact that I was really trying to catch my breath. She looked at me and said "You can do this. You'll be fine. Just skate." I was 3/4 of the way around the rink on my last pattern when I started "You're almost done. Three more lobes. Shut up and pay attention to your feet. You're almost done. Shut up! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! You're done! Flip around. Don't trip! Present it to the judge. I'm done!!!!!! Yeah me!!!!!" He just looked at me and said "all set." "Thank you!" I breathlessly replied and I left the ice. That was a good sign. I didn't have to reskate anything! Always a good sign. We walked quietly around to the warming room. All you could hear in the rink was my breathing. "If that didn't pass, I'm a bad coach," Joanna said. I smiled. I was done. I was still panting and couldn't talk. The entire place was empty. Everyone was gone. It wasn't like last year where I had ten pairs of eyes watching me skate. There was no one left except the officials, me, Joanna and my husband. I couldn't get my boots off fast enough. I changed my clothes. I caught my breath. Finally the results came. I had passed both tests! The only comment on my freestyle test was "well centered spin." The MIF test was my first ever scored test. It takes 2.5 to pass and each of the five moves had 2.5 written down. The comments included "good edges" and "nice flow". Joanna told me that he is a hard judge. He doesn't mark high but he is fair. To my mind the comments weren't terribly helpful. I thought that I had skated some bits better than others but there was no indication of that on the test. Typical, I would see a "B+" on my test and wonder why I didn't get an "A". I passed and I passed with a hard judge. I looked up my old test and indeed he was a judge of mine last year as well. He hadn't written anything on that test at all. I guess I should take "well centered spin" as a high compliment considering the judge.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Lake Placid Day 7: A Jam Packed Day
Saturday actually started Friday night. Mum and I were at the condo watching another old ice skating movie. This time it was the Ice Capades. I am old enough to have actually seen some Ice Capades shows live. This was before Disney took them over and turned them into merchandise tie ins. I used to go to the Boston Garden to see them and once in a while one of my parents' old show buddies (Mum and dad met while they were touring in ice shows together: gee I wonder where I got the ice skating bug from?) was on tour with the Capades and I remember going backstage and meeting the skaters. Of course I don't remember any of the names anymore. I'm sure Mum could rattle them off. Anyway, the movie we were watching was an old black and white film with lots of drop outs. It was probably a copy of a copy of a copy but I didn't care. It was a fun movie along the lines of the old "hey kids lets put on a show" genres but on ice instead of the stage. About half way through the movie the phone rang. It was Barbara Colby. She was choreographing another synchronized patch number for the ice show. Turns out she lost several members who went home early due to the lack of ice on Saturday and a stomach bug that was making the rounds. She wanted Mum to skate in the number and the rehearsal was at 9am in the USA rink. So much for our sleep in tomorrow.
We woke up early and had a good breakfast. We got to the rink in plenty of time. The ice was a bit off though. There was a lot of humidity in the rink so the ceiling was dripping down onto the ice surface making horrible discolored bumps in the ice. You had to be careful skating around. Mum got her skates on and I went up into the stands which are way high up in the USA rink. They put them above some offices but the view is really good. This is the ice surface that is used for curling so they not only have hockey lines on the ice but also three curling lane markings. I always thought that was cool. I spent the next hour reading a trashy novel (this is a requirement for a vacation) and watching the patch group rehearse. They had the ice to themselves except for one dance couple who were also rehearsing for the afternoon show. To explain a little synchronised patch is harking back to the origins of figure skating. Back in the 1800s in England skating clubs used to compete with each other drawing figures on the ice. They frequently skated as a team rather than individual members, often tracing figures holding hands in groups of two, three or four people. Barbara started the synchro patch last year and a small write up ended up in Skating magazine. She has modernized it a bit having two groups of four people doing a variety of figures and edges while a single person skates the compulsory figure eights. This is all done to music by Enya which lends itself well to the methodical movements. When Mum got off the ice and we were making our last trip up to the coffee shop we got to talking about how much we love Barbara's choreography. She has to deal with people with mixed skill levels some of whom never did patch prior to coming to adult week up to ones that has passed tests. This forces her to keep the difficulty levels simple but somehow still makes interesting patterns on the ice that are enjoyable to watch. This takes quite a bit of talent on her part.
After coffee and tea it was back to the USA rink for my lesson and my last MIF practice. I had gotten used to doing these in the 1980 rink which Mum told me Friday was indeed bigger since it is an Olympic sized hockey rink. To which I responded "Thank God!". I thought I had lost stamina over night. I looked it up later and found out the rink is actually wider rather than longer however. I must have been skating whopping huge lobes back and forth across the ice which also allowed me to fit in an extra lobe at the end. My first pass around the USA rink was really easy in comparison and I ended up adding in the extra lobe and getting stuck in the boards in the corner of the rink without enough space left to elegantly flip around and go the other way. Something I had just managed to fix before I left for LP. I made several passes before I even got slightly winded. Something that made me very very happy. Now I am glad that I had practiced these all week in an oversized rink.
Robin showed up for my spin lesson and she had me demonstrate my spin which is still not centering right away. Since we had fresh ice we could examine my tracings. She had me use a three turn entrance into the spin and it immediately centered right over the three turn entrance. Turns out that I step slightly to the left when I step into my crossover circle and this de-centers the spin. Fortunately I have figured out how to correct for this mid spin and can center it up after I make one or two rotations after the three turn. Ideally it needs to center right away so I keep spinning. We then moved onto camel spins which I was doing horribly that day. I kept going onto a hard inside edge which made me loose my balance and I would dump out of it. Robin stops me from spinning and we had huge discussion on spinning philosophy. My coach at home didn't want me to waste my time on a bad spin and wants me to stop as soon as it goes wrong and start over again. The idea being that you don't have enough time to waste on something that is going horribly wrong. Robin's idea is that you have to learn to finish even a bad spin because you never know what is going to happen out on the ice during a test or competition. You have to learn how to handle a bad spin or a bad jump and finish it elegantly as possible. This way if it goes bad when you are under pressure you have actually practiced how to recover from it and continue. Since I am an adult skater and not too worried about taking my time learning something I rather like Robin's idea better. It makes sense that you need to practice recovering from errors. I have watched kids make the exact same mistake in their program over and over again. It is almost like they have learned to skate the mistake rather than the element. My spins are still unstable enough that it is hit or miss if I get it right. I have to be able to recover from a mistake. One weird problem I seem to be having now is that I am centering my spin often enough that I am now digging huge ruts in the ice during the spin and then tripping over my own rut. I am going to have to back off my toe pick so they aren't as deep. Robin was telling me that her daughter (who is a high level competitive skater) is so consistent with her lutz jump that she will now use the exact same toe pick hole each time she jumps which becomes a problem.
Once we were done with spins Robin wanted me to skate my test, non-stop, end to end just like I was being judged. She even got off the ice. I had only the dance pair to contend with so I could concentrate really well on the steps and skating around the little brown stalactites forming on the ice surface. I skated down to the hockey goal area while Robin left the ice and stood in the hockey box along with my mother and a few other adult skaters. I felt like I had a little judging panel all of my own and I was even nervous. I stood at attention raised my arms looked down the rink and launched into the first pattern. One lap of the rink come to a nice stop, elegantly glide back to the goal area and start again. By the third pattern I was panting hard and was glad that the dance pair was in my way. I got to wait an extra 30 seconds before starting the next pattern. By the forth pattern I was beginning to feel light headed and was breathing really hard. I heard Robin yell "Breath! Breath!" at me as I whizzed past the hockey box. I was now feeling weak in the knees and praying that my legs would hold my edges and knee bends. I started chanting "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5" in time to the steps and to help me breath. I was SO out of breath. "I can do this! I can do this! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I am almost at the end. Just a couple more." and I was at the end. Somehow I made it over to the box and Robin was beaming at me. "I knew you could do it. I wanted to show that you can do it. Now I want you to do that every day between now and the test. Also skate the patterns in reverse order so your weakest one isn't always last." I was bent over the boards gasping for breath. A couple of the other women looked at me in alarm. Robin said "You can collapse when you get off the ice but you have to show the judges that you can do this. You can throw up later. While you are on the ice you have to show control." This is a level of skating that I am not familiar with. I am very very glad I came here to practice. I am so happy that Robin is willing to help me. She has so much good information not just about the actual skating skills but also the psychology and how to train in a way that makes it more likely that I'll succeed. I am a lucky lucky person. Eventually I caught my breath and came back to earth. "I did it!" "I can't believe I did it!" "Now you know you can," Robin just smiled at me.
After lunch was the show at 2:30pm in the 1932 rink. My Mum got to change into her "costume" of a white shirt which we had bought at Robin's second hand shop for the patch number last year and some black pants. Since my Mum knows everyone there she got to change in the coaches room which is a converted locker room left over from when it was built for the Olympics in 1932. The showers didn't work but heck there was heat in there and a rug.
I sat up in the stands to watch Mum. Barbara sat next to me and gave me a running commentary on many of the skaters. I remember some of them from the previous year. I guess some of them have been coming for decades and the coaches know them well. Several people did their singles freestyle program (I hope to do this next year), some skated their dances. There were two group numbers, one freestyle done by Mary Elizabeth and the patch number by Barbara. Since there were a couple of people subbing in, they had only learned the pattern that morning. I could hear Barbara giving directions under her breath. When the pattern got messed up Barbara almost jumped out of her seat to yell directions. It was killing her to sit still. She is very cute. She cares so much about the women on the ice. Even though it got a bit messed up it still looked really good. I told her that Mum and I like her choreography very much. "You just made my day," she returned. She is such a nice lady.
The show came to a close and there was lots of picture taking. The show was fun and I am very bummed it is all over. In the flurry of email exchanges and photos people kept coming up to me and telling me that I will do great on my test next week. I can't believe how many people wished me luck. It was so wonderful.
To see pictures go to Lake Placid Skater's Blog where she has a slide show of it, http://lakeplacidskater.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-adult-week-photos.html
Her photos are much better than mine. I still haven't gotten the hang of taking photos with a digital camera in an ice rink. They come out horrible. I'll have to talk to my photographer friend and get some help.
After the show we have a reception. There were door prizes and I won a wonderful gift bag with Adirondack style stuff in it such as a picture frame, candle, chocolates and my prize possession a small black bear with an LP tee shirt on (these small stuffed animals are common in the skating world at higher levels: they get thrown on the ice when someone does a nice freeskate during a competition). The food was wonderful but I could only pick at it since most of it was wrapped in wheat. We stood around and talked about the past week and adult week next year. I gave some money for a collection to help pay for a kid to skate. Then Ludmilla came up to me, "you skate test next week?" she asked me in her broken English. "Yes," I replied. "You will do well. I watch you skate and you will pass. No problem." Here was a multiple Olympic champion, holding my hands and telling me I was good enough to pass my tests!! OMG!! I could faint to the floor right now. How wonderful! I was almost in tears. I can not get over the support from everyone. People asking me how my shoulder was doing since my bad fall. People telling me that I would do well on my tests. Coaches helping me out so much with my training. How wonderful!! Words fail me. I am proud and happy and lucky and blessed. I don't want to leave.
The reception did come to an end so Mum and I went walking down Main Street. It was finally sunny and I wanted to go to the book store. There is a wonderful store called the Pipe and Book which has old and antique books for sale. Mum was going through a cabinet of figure skating books. "They are half price," she whispered. I just hit pay dirt! I had to decide between a dozen books which ones I wanted. I picked up one unassuming book with a plain red cover "Advanced Figures" by Maribel Vinson. That is my coaches' coach! That was her maiden name. My Mum got her hands on "The Fun of Figure Skating" which was published after she was married, Marible Vinson Owen. I cracked it open and it was how to do all of the compulsory figures. Turns out this was the second book which started at the third figure test. She had published another book that covered the first three tests which the dealer didn't have. I'll have to look for it on Amazon which is where Mum got her Fun book from. I have to buy this book. I also decided on the first edition of "Single Figure Skating for Beginners and Champions" by Dr J. Dedic and published by the ISU (International Skating Union). I had this book when I was a kid. It has some math in it and is an excellent primer on skating being split evenly between figures and freestyle with lots of diagrams and photos. It is written in the order that it would be learned. I asked Mum what happened to it and it turns out that she had given it to Robin since no one was interested in skating at the time. Who knew I was going to get addicted again?
Time to go home, start packing and find out what my sister is up to. On the walk back to the car we run into one of the other skaters and told her about the book sale so she ran off to catch the store before it closed for the day. We get home to find multiple messages on the answering machine from my sister. She is in Loon Lake and wants us to come over for dinner. We head out there which is about a 20 minute drive and spend a nice evening sitting around the dinner table talking. We don't leave until after 10pm. I can't believe how fast it went. I won't see her again for months and I am sad. Mum and I collapse in bed. We plan on going to the diner for breakfast together and then I finish packing and leave for Boston. I think I'll take the ferry again since the weather is supposed to be okay tomorrow. I truly wish I could stay here and train the rest of the summer. It would be great fun.
We woke up early and had a good breakfast. We got to the rink in plenty of time. The ice was a bit off though. There was a lot of humidity in the rink so the ceiling was dripping down onto the ice surface making horrible discolored bumps in the ice. You had to be careful skating around. Mum got her skates on and I went up into the stands which are way high up in the USA rink. They put them above some offices but the view is really good. This is the ice surface that is used for curling so they not only have hockey lines on the ice but also three curling lane markings. I always thought that was cool. I spent the next hour reading a trashy novel (this is a requirement for a vacation) and watching the patch group rehearse. They had the ice to themselves except for one dance couple who were also rehearsing for the afternoon show. To explain a little synchronised patch is harking back to the origins of figure skating. Back in the 1800s in England skating clubs used to compete with each other drawing figures on the ice. They frequently skated as a team rather than individual members, often tracing figures holding hands in groups of two, three or four people. Barbara started the synchro patch last year and a small write up ended up in Skating magazine. She has modernized it a bit having two groups of four people doing a variety of figures and edges while a single person skates the compulsory figure eights. This is all done to music by Enya which lends itself well to the methodical movements. When Mum got off the ice and we were making our last trip up to the coffee shop we got to talking about how much we love Barbara's choreography. She has to deal with people with mixed skill levels some of whom never did patch prior to coming to adult week up to ones that has passed tests. This forces her to keep the difficulty levels simple but somehow still makes interesting patterns on the ice that are enjoyable to watch. This takes quite a bit of talent on her part.
After coffee and tea it was back to the USA rink for my lesson and my last MIF practice. I had gotten used to doing these in the 1980 rink which Mum told me Friday was indeed bigger since it is an Olympic sized hockey rink. To which I responded "Thank God!". I thought I had lost stamina over night. I looked it up later and found out the rink is actually wider rather than longer however. I must have been skating whopping huge lobes back and forth across the ice which also allowed me to fit in an extra lobe at the end. My first pass around the USA rink was really easy in comparison and I ended up adding in the extra lobe and getting stuck in the boards in the corner of the rink without enough space left to elegantly flip around and go the other way. Something I had just managed to fix before I left for LP. I made several passes before I even got slightly winded. Something that made me very very happy. Now I am glad that I had practiced these all week in an oversized rink.
Robin showed up for my spin lesson and she had me demonstrate my spin which is still not centering right away. Since we had fresh ice we could examine my tracings. She had me use a three turn entrance into the spin and it immediately centered right over the three turn entrance. Turns out that I step slightly to the left when I step into my crossover circle and this de-centers the spin. Fortunately I have figured out how to correct for this mid spin and can center it up after I make one or two rotations after the three turn. Ideally it needs to center right away so I keep spinning. We then moved onto camel spins which I was doing horribly that day. I kept going onto a hard inside edge which made me loose my balance and I would dump out of it. Robin stops me from spinning and we had huge discussion on spinning philosophy. My coach at home didn't want me to waste my time on a bad spin and wants me to stop as soon as it goes wrong and start over again. The idea being that you don't have enough time to waste on something that is going horribly wrong. Robin's idea is that you have to learn to finish even a bad spin because you never know what is going to happen out on the ice during a test or competition. You have to learn how to handle a bad spin or a bad jump and finish it elegantly as possible. This way if it goes bad when you are under pressure you have actually practiced how to recover from it and continue. Since I am an adult skater and not too worried about taking my time learning something I rather like Robin's idea better. It makes sense that you need to practice recovering from errors. I have watched kids make the exact same mistake in their program over and over again. It is almost like they have learned to skate the mistake rather than the element. My spins are still unstable enough that it is hit or miss if I get it right. I have to be able to recover from a mistake. One weird problem I seem to be having now is that I am centering my spin often enough that I am now digging huge ruts in the ice during the spin and then tripping over my own rut. I am going to have to back off my toe pick so they aren't as deep. Robin was telling me that her daughter (who is a high level competitive skater) is so consistent with her lutz jump that she will now use the exact same toe pick hole each time she jumps which becomes a problem.
Once we were done with spins Robin wanted me to skate my test, non-stop, end to end just like I was being judged. She even got off the ice. I had only the dance pair to contend with so I could concentrate really well on the steps and skating around the little brown stalactites forming on the ice surface. I skated down to the hockey goal area while Robin left the ice and stood in the hockey box along with my mother and a few other adult skaters. I felt like I had a little judging panel all of my own and I was even nervous. I stood at attention raised my arms looked down the rink and launched into the first pattern. One lap of the rink come to a nice stop, elegantly glide back to the goal area and start again. By the third pattern I was panting hard and was glad that the dance pair was in my way. I got to wait an extra 30 seconds before starting the next pattern. By the forth pattern I was beginning to feel light headed and was breathing really hard. I heard Robin yell "Breath! Breath!" at me as I whizzed past the hockey box. I was now feeling weak in the knees and praying that my legs would hold my edges and knee bends. I started chanting "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5" in time to the steps and to help me breath. I was SO out of breath. "I can do this! I can do this! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I am almost at the end. Just a couple more." and I was at the end. Somehow I made it over to the box and Robin was beaming at me. "I knew you could do it. I wanted to show that you can do it. Now I want you to do that every day between now and the test. Also skate the patterns in reverse order so your weakest one isn't always last." I was bent over the boards gasping for breath. A couple of the other women looked at me in alarm. Robin said "You can collapse when you get off the ice but you have to show the judges that you can do this. You can throw up later. While you are on the ice you have to show control." This is a level of skating that I am not familiar with. I am very very glad I came here to practice. I am so happy that Robin is willing to help me. She has so much good information not just about the actual skating skills but also the psychology and how to train in a way that makes it more likely that I'll succeed. I am a lucky lucky person. Eventually I caught my breath and came back to earth. "I did it!" "I can't believe I did it!" "Now you know you can," Robin just smiled at me.
After lunch was the show at 2:30pm in the 1932 rink. My Mum got to change into her "costume" of a white shirt which we had bought at Robin's second hand shop for the patch number last year and some black pants. Since my Mum knows everyone there she got to change in the coaches room which is a converted locker room left over from when it was built for the Olympics in 1932. The showers didn't work but heck there was heat in there and a rug.
I sat up in the stands to watch Mum. Barbara sat next to me and gave me a running commentary on many of the skaters. I remember some of them from the previous year. I guess some of them have been coming for decades and the coaches know them well. Several people did their singles freestyle program (I hope to do this next year), some skated their dances. There were two group numbers, one freestyle done by Mary Elizabeth and the patch number by Barbara. Since there were a couple of people subbing in, they had only learned the pattern that morning. I could hear Barbara giving directions under her breath. When the pattern got messed up Barbara almost jumped out of her seat to yell directions. It was killing her to sit still. She is very cute. She cares so much about the women on the ice. Even though it got a bit messed up it still looked really good. I told her that Mum and I like her choreography very much. "You just made my day," she returned. She is such a nice lady.
The show came to a close and there was lots of picture taking. The show was fun and I am very bummed it is all over. In the flurry of email exchanges and photos people kept coming up to me and telling me that I will do great on my test next week. I can't believe how many people wished me luck. It was so wonderful.
To see pictures go to Lake Placid Skater's Blog where she has a slide show of it, http://lakeplacidskater.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-adult-week-photos.html
Her photos are much better than mine. I still haven't gotten the hang of taking photos with a digital camera in an ice rink. They come out horrible. I'll have to talk to my photographer friend and get some help.
After the show we have a reception. There were door prizes and I won a wonderful gift bag with Adirondack style stuff in it such as a picture frame, candle, chocolates and my prize possession a small black bear with an LP tee shirt on (these small stuffed animals are common in the skating world at higher levels: they get thrown on the ice when someone does a nice freeskate during a competition). The food was wonderful but I could only pick at it since most of it was wrapped in wheat. We stood around and talked about the past week and adult week next year. I gave some money for a collection to help pay for a kid to skate. Then Ludmilla came up to me, "you skate test next week?" she asked me in her broken English. "Yes," I replied. "You will do well. I watch you skate and you will pass. No problem." Here was a multiple Olympic champion, holding my hands and telling me I was good enough to pass my tests!! OMG!! I could faint to the floor right now. How wonderful! I was almost in tears. I can not get over the support from everyone. People asking me how my shoulder was doing since my bad fall. People telling me that I would do well on my tests. Coaches helping me out so much with my training. How wonderful!! Words fail me. I am proud and happy and lucky and blessed. I don't want to leave.
The reception did come to an end so Mum and I went walking down Main Street. It was finally sunny and I wanted to go to the book store. There is a wonderful store called the Pipe and Book which has old and antique books for sale. Mum was going through a cabinet of figure skating books. "They are half price," she whispered. I just hit pay dirt! I had to decide between a dozen books which ones I wanted. I picked up one unassuming book with a plain red cover "Advanced Figures" by Maribel Vinson. That is my coaches' coach! That was her maiden name. My Mum got her hands on "The Fun of Figure Skating" which was published after she was married, Marible Vinson Owen. I cracked it open and it was how to do all of the compulsory figures. Turns out this was the second book which started at the third figure test. She had published another book that covered the first three tests which the dealer didn't have. I'll have to look for it on Amazon which is where Mum got her Fun book from. I have to buy this book. I also decided on the first edition of "Single Figure Skating for Beginners and Champions" by Dr J. Dedic and published by the ISU (International Skating Union). I had this book when I was a kid. It has some math in it and is an excellent primer on skating being split evenly between figures and freestyle with lots of diagrams and photos. It is written in the order that it would be learned. I asked Mum what happened to it and it turns out that she had given it to Robin since no one was interested in skating at the time. Who knew I was going to get addicted again?
Time to go home, start packing and find out what my sister is up to. On the walk back to the car we run into one of the other skaters and told her about the book sale so she ran off to catch the store before it closed for the day. We get home to find multiple messages on the answering machine from my sister. She is in Loon Lake and wants us to come over for dinner. We head out there which is about a 20 minute drive and spend a nice evening sitting around the dinner table talking. We don't leave until after 10pm. I can't believe how fast it went. I won't see her again for months and I am sad. Mum and I collapse in bed. We plan on going to the diner for breakfast together and then I finish packing and leave for Boston. I think I'll take the ferry again since the weather is supposed to be okay tomorrow. I truly wish I could stay here and train the rest of the summer. It would be great fun.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Lake Placid Day 6: Winding down
We managed to get up early enough to make it to the rink for stretch class. I'm bummed that it is the last day. I didn't have a chance to practice any toe loop jumps. Stretching felt great. I was surprised at the number of people that showed up for class. About 15 minutes in to it the class was quite crowded. The kids were all wedged on one side and the adults had the floor on the other. I guess we have cooties the kids wouldn't cross the center line to our side. We helped each other stretch out for spirals. The yoga lady had the best one out of the adults.
One more round of MIF practice during the free skate. There weren't any more classes or lessons and we were getting kicked off the ice at 11:30 so that CanAm hockey could have the rink. I asked Mum to get my scribe from the locker so I could do patch. When the free skate was over there was no sign of Mum. I started doing patch on the hockey circle. I only lasted about ten minutes. My muscles hurt so badly I couldn't skate anymore. I got off the ice. Not bad. I did patch four days in a row. A new record. Last year I barely made it through a 25 minute lesson before my muscles gave out. I went over to the hockey box to take my skates off. Mum showed up with the scribe. "Too late" I told her. "I can't skate anymore. My butt hurts too much." She sat down next to me and waited for me to take my skates off. Another lady sat down next to us and told us that she was going home. She didn't feel well and was really angry with ORDA for not letting us skate through Saturday. Turns out that what they did was illegal both federally and on the state level. They marketed six days of ice and five full days of lessons for $250. They gave us 4.5 days of ice and only 4 full days of on ice lessons. They even sold time after they knew that there was no ice after 11:30am. The lady said she was going to complain to the state and the FTC. She was really angry. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I had a great time but what they did was wrong. Our consolation prize was an off ice creative movement class with Paula Wagener. This is where it gets really weird. We had a party and ORDA had drawings for prizes. Almost everyone got something which meant unless the stuff was donated it cost them quite a bit of money. So why didn't they just give back the $60 per person as a refund for the lost ice time? This would have resulted in way fewer pissed off attendants. Strange.
We left the rink, ate lunch and went to Robin's shop to poke around. She opened a used clothing store in LP and it is doing really well particularly since the economy tanked. It was great fun rummaging in the racks. Tons of stuff in there. Her daughter who also skated produced an ice schedule for the weekend. Turns out that they had been putting down ice in the USA rink since Wednesday and it would be open on Saturday for skating. The adults now had ice on Saturday but ORDA hadn't told anyone about it. I certainly didn't get any sort of notification. The last I heard there was no schedule available yet. I know several adults had left already. Robin asked if I still wanted my spin lesson and I jumped at the chance. Suddenly I was skating on Saturday morning. Yeah!
One more round of MIF practice during the free skate. There weren't any more classes or lessons and we were getting kicked off the ice at 11:30 so that CanAm hockey could have the rink. I asked Mum to get my scribe from the locker so I could do patch. When the free skate was over there was no sign of Mum. I started doing patch on the hockey circle. I only lasted about ten minutes. My muscles hurt so badly I couldn't skate anymore. I got off the ice. Not bad. I did patch four days in a row. A new record. Last year I barely made it through a 25 minute lesson before my muscles gave out. I went over to the hockey box to take my skates off. Mum showed up with the scribe. "Too late" I told her. "I can't skate anymore. My butt hurts too much." She sat down next to me and waited for me to take my skates off. Another lady sat down next to us and told us that she was going home. She didn't feel well and was really angry with ORDA for not letting us skate through Saturday. Turns out that what they did was illegal both federally and on the state level. They marketed six days of ice and five full days of lessons for $250. They gave us 4.5 days of ice and only 4 full days of on ice lessons. They even sold time after they knew that there was no ice after 11:30am. The lady said she was going to complain to the state and the FTC. She was really angry. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I had a great time but what they did was wrong. Our consolation prize was an off ice creative movement class with Paula Wagener. This is where it gets really weird. We had a party and ORDA had drawings for prizes. Almost everyone got something which meant unless the stuff was donated it cost them quite a bit of money. So why didn't they just give back the $60 per person as a refund for the lost ice time? This would have resulted in way fewer pissed off attendants. Strange.
We left the rink, ate lunch and went to Robin's shop to poke around. She opened a used clothing store in LP and it is doing really well particularly since the economy tanked. It was great fun rummaging in the racks. Tons of stuff in there. Her daughter who also skated produced an ice schedule for the weekend. Turns out that they had been putting down ice in the USA rink since Wednesday and it would be open on Saturday for skating. The adults now had ice on Saturday but ORDA hadn't told anyone about it. I certainly didn't get any sort of notification. The last I heard there was no schedule available yet. I know several adults had left already. Robin asked if I still wanted my spin lesson and I jumped at the chance. Suddenly I was skating on Saturday morning. Yeah!
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