Moving Up, Moving On

Today, the axel went into the program.

We have a local competition here in June, and I was going to skip it. I just did Adult Sectionals and Nationals not so long ago, and later this year my area has a big adult competition and is hosting Regionals, both of which I was planning on skating. This June competition seemed like a good one to skip. But I was talked into it.

Sunday, I passed my silver free skate test, and my local silver level skating friend begged me to compete. Frankly, I'm interested in seeing how we'll fare against each other. She moved up to silver last year after Nationals, before I'd passed my bronze test, so we've never competed against each other. Secondly, I knew that once time for the competition rolled around, I'd be sorry not to be out on the ice. But I've spent so much time on my program since December, I kind of wanted to give it a rest and work on some other stuff.

But I signed up, and last night I sort of grudgingly recut my music, since silver allows 2:10, where bronze can only be up to 1:50. I tried my best to do something that wouldn't completely uproot my current choreography. The easiest thing was to add music to the beginning, but that's where some of my favorite choreography is. Silver allows one more jump pass than bronze, so I knew that's what would be going in there. The cut sounded decent, so I brought it to the rink to let my coach hear it to see what she wanted to do with it.

She likes it. And she wants to put the axel in there right up front. And she found a way to put in some choreography that I really like around it. We're also changing up my spins a bit, if they'll fit. The camel-back sit, will become a camel-sit-back sit. And the sit will become a sit-pancake. It feels like we've breathed new life into my program. Suddenly there's new stuff to work on baked right into the program.

I did my first run-through, and as I went into the camel, I thought, "I'm not usually this tired here." It wasn't until I was done that I realized that I had done 20 seconds more skating at the beginning! (Well, not quite, I think I added like 17 seconds.) I still kind of see this competition as a throw-away, and luckily, my coaches do too. It's an opportunity to put some new stuff out there without too much pressure, and now I'm looking forward to it. I'm glad I signed up. I knew I would be.

Mid-Year Goal Update

Eva's last post on goals inspired me to post my own. I never wrote down any official goals for this year, so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you what I had in mind at the beginning of the year.

One of the reasons I didn't write down goals for this year is because beyond the following three things I knew I wanted, I wasn't sure what else I wanted to accomplish.

I wanted to have a clean skate at Nationals, or at least feel like I'd skated my best.
I would say that I accomplished this. Could my combo spin have gone better? Yes. But I skated everything else basically as well as I possibly could have. I also wanted to medal in the free skate and finish in the top half of the solo dance event. I wasn't sure if I could make it a goal, though, since those things don't depend completely on me. But I won both events, so I realized that goal, even though I never stated it.

I want to land my axel.
Well, I'm still working on this. I still think I'll get it this year, but my experience working on the axel so far is that you can't really make predictions about it. I did have a bout of hubris with this jump when I started it. I thought I would get it faster than average, because my coach thought I had a good concept of the jump and I have pretty good body awareness. But I'm definitely not setting any speed record on this jump, and that's okay.

I wanted to pass Gold moves and Bronze dances by the end of the club year (June 30).
Honestly, I was hoping to win my club's award for most tests passed again. It's kind of a silly goal, but I had it in the back of my mind anyway. So far, I have not gone for any of these tests, and while bronze dances are still somewhat likely this summer and I'll definitely do them this calendar year, gold moves will probably not happen. But I'm testing my silver FS next week, which was not even on the radar for me at the beginning of the year. Our awards banquet is next week, so those tests wouldn't count for the award anyway.

And those were my goals for this year. I'm still working on the axel, the gold moves, and the bronze dances, so I suppose they're still in effect. I'm pretty close to obsessed with the axel, so I feel like it might be healthy to make some other goals to work on too. I'm working on the skatingforums spin challenge, though a bit informally, as well as trying to get some more interesting spins going, in anticipation of moving up to gold some day. Which brings me to my long term goal: qualify for championship gold someday. This is not a goal for this year, nor for next calendar year, but maybe the year after that? (2016) I guess if that's my long term goal, since I'll need my axel and my gold moves and that competitive experience to get there, my current goals are on the right track.

Nationals Free Skate

I'm happy to be able to share a video of my skate from Nationals with you!

I had conveniently forgotten that I tripped when I went to curtsy after the program. I think this will be the next thing I try not to do in competition, but there are only so many chances you get to stop without tripping with all that adrenaline running through you! I didn't realize we had sweepers so I tried to pick up all the tossies, which can also be hard to do right after you've skated.

In this program, I'm particularly proud of my opening jump combo, my footwork sequence and my forward sit spin. It felt great to have this skate at Nationals.

Thank you for sharing in my journey with me.

A Recap of My First Adult Nationals

I'm a little late with a Nationals recap, but there's so much to say, it's been hard to settle on what to write. So before we get *too* far removed from the event, here are a few highlights. It was my first adult nationals, and there was a theme of first running through the whole event for me.

• I was the first competitor of the first event of the entire competition. My turn to skate came up so fast, I didn't have too much time to get nervous about it. I was really pleased to be taking the ice at Nationals when I skated out to start and I think it reflected in the way I skated. I also had a great group of supporters in the stand, in the form of fellow skaters. They cheered their heads off for me and it made me feel like I belonged out there and helped me skate my best.



Heading into my opening jump pass

• I did skate well. I messed up my combo spin again, but I didn't fall. And because the spin didn't last its full time, I was a little early before my footwork and my little time filler was messy. BUT, I hit my final sit spin like I never have in competition before and I was thrilled! The joy I felt when I finished my program was electrifying! 
• After you skate, you get showered with gifts! When in your life does that ever happen?
• I got to be the first skater of the whole competition to climb on top of the podium! It can be scary to climb up a podium on skates.
• I was first to skate for my solo dance event, too. There were 12 skaters in the dance event, and we were divided into two warm up groups. For the second dance, the second of the warm-up groups goes first, so I had a while to wait between my two dances. I took off my skates after I finished my first dance. My legs were shaking and I felt really nervous. Later, putting on my skates for the medal ceremony for the dance event, my lace snapped. It freaks me out a little to realize how close I came to breaking a lace between my two dances!
• I never remember much from the actual skating in my dance events. I didn't trip when I stopped at the end like at sectionals, thanks to choreographed endings from my coach.

Ten-fox Ending Pose

• One of my favorite parts of the dance event was the camaraderie between skaters. Competitors stood together besides the boards and watched other skaters' patterns. We chatted as we watched and waited. Going into the event, I had no idea what sort of placement to expect, but I earned first place! At the awards for that event, one of the competitors told me that the result would have been the same if they had taken a vote among the competitors. It was a really sweet comment and meant a lot to me. 
• I got to be a sweeper for the silver ladies 4 and 5 light entertainment events and those women were hilarious! So fun to get to stand with them as they prepared to take the ice.
• I got to meet some new people and friends from the internet in real life. This included Eva from Eva Bakes, Diane from WaltzJump, Kate who is a friend of my non-skating sister. I even got to know some people who live close to me better. One member of my club came as a spectator. We watched some of the dance events together and during a dinner break, I discovered he and my dad had lived parallel lives. I also met Dick Button, Doug Wilson, Paul Wylie, and even danced with Mark Ladwig at the competitor's party. 
• Watching the championship gold and championship jr/sr events were highlights of the week. The skating was truly wonderful to watch. It is my dream some day to compete in championship gold. My spins are going to need a lot of work!
• Another favorite moment of the event was celebrating with a skating friend when she medaled in her LE event. She'd felt great about her FS and then placed very close to the bottom and she was really struggling with that. When she showed me her medal for her artistic program, she was absolutely overcome with joy and I got emotional sharing that moment with her.
• Returning home to my rink was also a wonderful experience. I don't think I've ever won anything this big in my life, and many skaters at my rink and coaches from my club have whole-heartedly congratulated me. It feels really nice for the kids to recognize an adult in what is such a kid dominated sport. 

Anyway, there's no rest for me... I've decided I want to test my Silver FS right away. I'm working on making the changes I need for the test, so I've jumped right back in! And of course, I want to start landing that axel. And there's gold moves, and there's my bronze dances to pass.... There's always something! But after all, that's one of the reasons I love this sport. Meanwhile, I'll try to close the book on this Nationals, ramp down a little and get focused at work again, but believe me, I've already got my sights set on Salt Lake City 2015!

I (or at least my spins) will not be denied

All this spin drama has me determined to nail my spins at Nationals. And I will say, my spin consistency does seem to be improving. I took some video during practice the other day to see how I was doing. I felt really good about the camel-back sit I caught on tape and then it looked sooooo slooooowwww on video. I also know that I used to do lower sit spins in my old boots (see here), so I've started pushing those lower and hope to get video of that sometime soon. I'm still having a hard time getting the back sit lower, but I have sore quads on both legs as evidence that I've been working on it. And to show you all that I'm not lying when I tell Coach that I *do* practice my spins, here's a little tiny bit of proof:



Edit: I added a link to an earlier sit spin and found a video of me doing better camel spins six months ago. Bummer.

Sectionals

I'm back from my first Adult Sectionals competition. I had a lovely time and it was wonderful to see adults competing in so many events.

I was pretty happy with how I skated, even though I fell on a spin. I also had a few of those normal competition bobbles, where I tripped here and there. But I held onto my sit spin at the end, even though it wasn't the best. It's too bad, since I did a terrific one in warm-up, but it was also a triumph, since I've screwed up my sit spin almost every time I've performed a program.

I thought when I fell that I had for sure lost my chance at winning, but I quickly pushed the thought aside and kept going. I got to watch the last four skaters in my group and they skated wonderfully. I was hoping I still had a chance for a medal, but I was preparing myself for other eventualities while waiting for the results.

When the runner posted the results sheet, I saw my name at the top and was confused. I'd been scanning for my name in the middle of the pack. What was this list? It wasn't the start list, wasn't it the results? And then it hit me. I'd come in first. I was shocked! And then thrilled!

I was happy it turned out as it did, especially since some family I don't get to see very often got to come and watch. I hope to continue to make some improvements before Nationals, where I hope to nail both my spins. Here's my performance:

Return of the Remedial Spinner

About six months ago, I showed my sister a video of some of my spins and she said that I no longer qualified as a remedial spinner. I'd hoped she was right, but I still didn't think it was time to change the tag line of my blog.

Well, I still deserve the title in spades. I may manage quite a nice camel, sit or back spin from time to time now, but my ability to do it on demand is horrendous.

I signed up for a club exhibition so I could try out my new program in a competition-like environment before Sectionals. They scheduled me last, for which I ended up being very glad. All the coaches left after their skaters finished and most of the skaters and parents had too.

A bronze level program is allowed two spins, and mine are a camel-back sit combo and a solo sit spin, which ends my program. My camel spin has been hot and cold this week, as always. Last weekend, it was eliciting compliments from fellow skaters, but mid-week in my lesson, it was garnishing admonitions from my coach that I need to practice my spins more. (Believe me, I practice my spins a lot!)

Well, in the program, I actually hit the camel! But the back-sit never got going. I kind of hopped around a little, trying not to lose my balance and finally stood up to move on, already late for the next segment of my program. At the end of my program, I step down directly into the sit spin from a salchow. I miss on the sit spin from time to time, but it's more stable than my camel. Well, not this time. I absolutely flubbed the entrance. I stepped into the entrance and then, next thing I knew, I was on two feet, standing up and not having a clue what to do. I absolutely blew it. I don't think I ever even got a single revolution. I basically did a nice deep edge into a two foot gobbledegook. I took a few steps forward, baffled about what to do and then posed when the music ended. It's devastating to end a program with a major mistake.

I was beyond disappointed. I've botched the spins in 2 out of the 3 competitions I've done so far, and now this. I was embarrassed as it was announced that I'd be competing at sectionals. "Not skating like that!" I wanted to shout out to the few people still watching. I felt like I'd had no business putting myself up for the exhibition.

I was so ashamed of how I'd skated. In addition to the spins, I tripped over my feet about 3 times on the hard ice. My parents and roommate who'd come to watch me were very kind, so I tried to shake off my foul attitude quickly. But I'm bummed. I was hoping I could boost my confidence with a strong showing. Maybe the fiery disappointment of knowing I can do better will strengthen me just as well.

I can't put the remedial spinner title behind me. Not yet. I can only work even harder at those spins and hope that eventually, I'll have something to show for it when it counts. (Hopefully next weekend, even?? Sigh, one can hope.)