A long day . . .
So this morning I was up bright and early to head off to Lee Valley Ice Centre to watch the British Adult Championships - and today was Solo Dance, the one thing that I am particularly interested in at the moment. It was quite illuminating.
I believe (although please do correct me if I am wrong!) that this year, they decided to do away with minimum and maximum standards. In fact, the wording on the entry form says "Skaters will be expected to enter the Class and Category they consider appropriate to their current standard."
A couple of years ago, I was both spectating and participating in karate tournaments. And it was said to me that some individuals (or even the clubs) will hold back someone from a belt grading, so they can compete at the lower levels and subsequently have a greater chance of doing well. Surely this could happen here? If someone more experienced wanted to compete at a lower level to have a greater chance of placing, then nothing would stop them except their conscience? Anyway - a theoretical idea. Just because I've seen it in the martial arts world, doesn't mean it would happen in the figure skating world!
Any hoo, I enjoyed the skating and it gives me a good idea now of what to expect when my time comes, so to speak! I saw all the solo dance, but didn't stay for the Exhibition bit as I was a human icicle by this point (well I had been there about eight hours by that point!).
So what did I do this evening? Yup - I went skating! Just a quiet session down at the LIttlest Rink where I concentrated on a select few things.
I finally get the "push the free hip down and keep hips forward" for the FI3's. I am still near the barrier but I can feel progress on these. My theory is that if I get the entry right, then eventually they will just fall into place anyway. Mohawks were on holiday for a while still, but I realised that I wasn't turning the free leg out enough before stepping onto it, and they came back, albeit begrudgingly. Apart from that, a few edges, a few FXO's (feeling nice CCW) and same plain vanilla stroking.
Had to then wait ages for the bus to come home - lots of fun when in Holloway at 9.30pm. The rudest man barged his way in front of me onto the bus, even though the door stopped in front of me, which had me fuming but I am home now, trying to defrost from my second trip to the freezer today. What with wedding shows yesterday, and competitions today, this weekend has been rather busy. I can't believe tomorrow is Monday!
4 comments:
"Sandbagging", as it is known, is very common in some figure skating circles, but luckily not in the adult world. I won't say it doesn't happen, because it does, but not often enough for it to be a huge problem. They can trust us - it's just a PITA that they do, because you never quite know.... your coach and J could have entered Bronze, had they been so minded (and arguably should have, just to show how damn' silly it was this year!).
Hope you enjoyed watching, though, and learnt a lot, particularly from the lowest levels.
I didn't know there was a technical term for it! Glad to hear that it doesn't happen too often as well.
I did enjoy it and did learn a lot. I even took notes during the bronze solo compulsories on those things (with my inexperienced eyes!) which were both good and bad. Very useful . . .
I know this doesn't have anything to do with this post, but could you explain what russian stroking is, and what crossrolls are? I think these would really help with my crossovers and I'm getting bored doing them in a circle over and over again...lol.
I will try, but don't forget to get clarification from your coach as well!
Cross-rolls are a bit like doing continuous FO edges, but instead of doing your semi-circle on your right edge and then pushing normally onto your left edge, you cross the left foot over the right foot, and push onto the next edge from the crossed position. You are crossing over from one outside edge to another outside edge, which feels quite strange at first.
Russian Stroking is even more complicated to explain! Again, you are working on doing continuous semi-circles. On each lobe (I'll do the right side as an example), from the main axis, the sequence is RFI, LFO, XO onto RFI - then once back on the line of travel, you do the same thing on the other side, ie. LFI, RFO, XO onto LFI (back to main line). This is a good pattern to look at -- http://www.skatingaheadofthecurve.com/RussianStroking.jpg
And Backward Russian Stroking is something completely different again!
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