June

Wow, has June been a busy month!

Skating wise, I had both a competition and an ice dance weekend. They both had me thinking a lot about where I was at this time last year.

Ice Dance
The June ice dance weekend last year was my first ice dance weekend. I was just about to take my pre-bronze dances. I knew a grand total of 6 dances and when I showed up for the Friday evening dance session, I knew a grand total of no one. I was considering giving up ice dance after I tested, but the dance weekend totally changed my mind. I saw how fun social dancing was and how interesting the higher level dances were, and I decided to stick with it. Since then, I've travelled to two other ice dance weekends, did the social ice dance session at Nationals and have made occasional treks to a neighboring skate to get partnering practice with an ice dance friend. Going into the weekend this year, I was looking forward to seeing the friends I'd made throughout the year and excited to dance 13 or so different dances. Hard to believe all that has changed in a year

Competition
At the June competition last year, I skated pre-bronze. I was probably borderline bronze at the time, but my coach didn't want me to move up just yet. I didn't have a great skate. Neither of my spins were very successful, but I won anyway. I felt a little bad. This year, I skated at silver. Comparing the program I did in this year's competition to last year's competition makes it really evident how far I've come in a year. A lot of that progress I didn't really notice it as it was happening.

Other June news
I started my first double jump! We started with double loop. I think it's because there's no weight shift in it. I'm off to a pretty good start, I'm mostly trying to work out the timing. Too bad it's not even allowed at gold, but I think it will help with axel and other doubles. Also, in one banner day, we started both flying camel and flying sit. I don't have a really strong back camel so flying camel will probably take a while. But flying sit I think will be a good spin for me. Coach is even talking about putting it in my program for a competition at the end of August.

I'm trying to talk dance coach into letting me take my bronze dances. He's agreed, but I haven't gotten him to sign the test papers yet. I can't quite figure out what the hold up is. It may just be that he's not sure of his schedule yet, but I keep wondering if he doesn't think I'm ready yet, or if he doesn't want me to stop working on these dances yet. I probably won't get the test in time to do the next level of dance at the competition in August, so I may not do solo dance and instead try to put together a dramatic program.

Let's see, any other skating news? Well, I'm enjoying myself at a skate camp right now, which I hope to post about later. Camel spin continues to come and go. Axel is still not fully rotated. So, you know, business as usual :) How's your summer skating going?