OK, the district championships are over and while they were great fun to watch, coach Mike says it's time to get back in the harness (figuratively--I'm not advanced enough for the jump harness). A couple posts ago I outlined the first half of our FS-1 test program. You can refresh you memory by clicking on the link in the preceding sentence if you don't want to scroll down a noodge. Last Saturday he gave me and my three foot tall classmates the rest of the moves. The kids quickly caught on but I realized that I'd need some practice time to knit all the parts together without ploughing a furrow. With only a couple of lessons to go the heat is on. So it was off to a couple of public sessions earlier this week.
Recall that our program left off with us doing a forward spiral and dropping into a lunge. The last half picks up at that point. We rise from the lunge, do a couple of forward inside edges and then a forward inside Mohawk which places us in position to do our required outside and inside back edges. From the last back inside edge we step around and do a waltz jump, then a couple of back cross-overs, step into a two-foot spin and finally stop with a presentation pose. The required elements for FS-1 are the forward pivot, back inside and outside edges, the waltz jump, the half-flip jump, a forward spiral and the two-foot spin. The lunge, forward and back cross-overs, forward edges, Mohawk, etc. that knit the program together are from lower test levels and are not graded--which is a good thing. That blasted ccw Mohawk cost me a broken radius last year. I'm rigging the order of my forward edges to set me up for a cw Mohawk instead! We'll see if Mike buys it...
Monday afternoon I got to the rink and saw one of my classmates. Lydia, smiling as ever, quickly got down to practicing the program. I was distracted by a couple of adult skaters and instead of working on the program I got involved in learning the steps for the chassé which of course has nothing to do with the business at hand.
Now the several figure skating books that I have attempt to explain the chassé but either they don't get the job done or I'm a poor reader because I could never quite figure out what now seems to be a simple sequence of a stroke, followed by lifting the skating foot followed by another stroke by the original pushing foot. This is followed by the same steps but with the roles of the feet reversed: push, lift, push; push, lift, push. I circulated the rink practicing this over and over, mesmerized by the rhythm of thing. I guess it was one of those elements I just needed to see done on-ice. All this was a nice revelation and definitely worth learning, but before I knew it the session was over and I'd accomplished diddly-squat in terms of practicing the program! Yes, I'm easily distracted, sigh... Why is it that when you have a test coming up that almost anything but the assigned task seems so irresistible?
Fortunately for me, Tuesday also offered a late afternoon public session and I was able to get away from the lab in time to take advantage of it. Equally fortunate for me, neither Lydia or my adult skating buddies were present this day and with the rink almost deserted I got down to work. I was able to run through the entire program several times and iron out a few question marks that were part of my faulty recall when making notes after the lesson. And it appears that my half-flip jump is slightly improved. I think at this point if I can get the required six revolutions for the two-foot spin I just may be able to pass this thing. Towards the end of the session I knew it was time to get off the ice as my ability to execute deteriorated. At least I had the satisfaction of a couple of good run-throughs before my performance started to go pear shaped. I'll get another shot practicing all this on Friday afternoon.
The remaining missing puzzle piece is the music. This coming Saturday Mike will no doubt introduce that. I'm not sure how I'll be able to practice timing the program to the music after the lesson unless I can download what ever he selects to my iPod shuffle. Our test will take place on the last Saturday of the month, the 27th. On the 1st of May the rink closes for two months. It would be nice to escape FS-1 and have the last couple of skates before the annual shut down just to enjoy skating! We shall see.
Showing posts with label Programs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Programs. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Programs, Programs, get yer Program. Ya can't tella Knight from a Day without a Program...
My sincerest apology to Bugs Bunny for today's post title. This line bubbled to the top of my memory bank from the hours upon hours of watching "Loony Tunes" as a kid and I just had to steal it.
Today was my first class in a group lesson series billed "Free Style Program". Basically this is a 45 minute Saturday class, spread out over the next four weeks that follows my power stroke session, so for once in my life I ought to arrive at a lesson warmed up! The idea is to take skaters of similar free style abilities and for the first 30 minutes work on the skill elements that are part and parcel of whatever free style level they are attempting to pass. The last 15 minutes of this class is devoted to stringing those isolated elements together in a pleasing-to-watch array set to music.
Now this class is a bit different from the Adult group lessons diaristdaughter and I've been taking on Thursday evenings. The class density is roughly the same but instead of having a broad spectrum of skill levels typically ranging from nervous board-huggers to free-stylers, this class was subdivided into skaters all at about the same level. It was more like a true lesson rather than like being in a one room school house. Our instructor didn't have to split attention between folks attempting vastly different skills. Instead he could focus on specific elements within a given ISI free-style level and work all of us through a specific skill and after watching each of us attempt the skill have the luxury of time to break a given element, say the half-flip jump, into pieces for us to practice, according to our individual weaknesses. As a result, my forward inside pivot greatly improved with the very first lesson and I now have a piece of the half-flip to practice the next time I'm at a public session. I suspect this is why young, competitively driven skaters have private coaches!
Oh, and the other major difference between this class and my regular adult class is that my three classmates were "perky" and on average about three feet tall--the kind of skaters adults usually worry about tripping over. Fortunately, for the sake of my ego, they weren't too much beyond me skill-wise! The young ladies could all do pivots and two-foot spins more gracefully than I but my Waltz jump and back edges were better than theirs. As the thirty minutes progressed we all worked through the half dozen required FS-1 elements: forward inside pivot, two-foot spin, half-flip, Waltz jump, forward spiral and back inside and outside edges.
For the last 15 minutes of this 45 minute class our instructor told us we now needed to knit these skills together to form an interesting program. We quickly ran out of time but so far our "program" is as follows: we start off facing the long axis of the ice and do an inside pivot (two turns, then freeze facing the original direction) we then take a couple of forward strokes, do a couple left forward cross-overs into a left forward outside 3 turn which provides the entry edge for the half-flip jump. The jump is followed by a couple more forward strokes and cross-overs to bring us into position for a forward spiral. The spiral is followed by a lunge. Time ran out and we still have to figure out how to incorporate a Waltz jump, the two-foot spin and the required FS-1 back edges. That will be work for next Saturday. After we have the basic program figured out the next step is to make it work to music. Ah yes, the music. I'm a little antsy about this. Will the music be something classy or will it be something dripping with teeny-blopper angst?
Now it's one thing for a grown man to attempt to do something "graceful" in the arm gesture department and something else again to do so while skating to music from the discography of, oh I don't know, maybe Miley Cyrus--oh the humanity! The risk in all this is that some smart-aleck will capture the moment with a smart phone and with my luck the resulting video will go viral on youtube. It's so true--one must suffer for one's art! Programs, Programs, get yer Program!
Today was my first class in a group lesson series billed "Free Style Program". Basically this is a 45 minute Saturday class, spread out over the next four weeks that follows my power stroke session, so for once in my life I ought to arrive at a lesson warmed up! The idea is to take skaters of similar free style abilities and for the first 30 minutes work on the skill elements that are part and parcel of whatever free style level they are attempting to pass. The last 15 minutes of this class is devoted to stringing those isolated elements together in a pleasing-to-watch array set to music.
Now this class is a bit different from the Adult group lessons diaristdaughter and I've been taking on Thursday evenings. The class density is roughly the same but instead of having a broad spectrum of skill levels typically ranging from nervous board-huggers to free-stylers, this class was subdivided into skaters all at about the same level. It was more like a true lesson rather than like being in a one room school house. Our instructor didn't have to split attention between folks attempting vastly different skills. Instead he could focus on specific elements within a given ISI free-style level and work all of us through a specific skill and after watching each of us attempt the skill have the luxury of time to break a given element, say the half-flip jump, into pieces for us to practice, according to our individual weaknesses. As a result, my forward inside pivot greatly improved with the very first lesson and I now have a piece of the half-flip to practice the next time I'm at a public session. I suspect this is why young, competitively driven skaters have private coaches!
Oh, and the other major difference between this class and my regular adult class is that my three classmates were "perky" and on average about three feet tall--the kind of skaters adults usually worry about tripping over. Fortunately, for the sake of my ego, they weren't too much beyond me skill-wise! The young ladies could all do pivots and two-foot spins more gracefully than I but my Waltz jump and back edges were better than theirs. As the thirty minutes progressed we all worked through the half dozen required FS-1 elements: forward inside pivot, two-foot spin, half-flip, Waltz jump, forward spiral and back inside and outside edges.
For the last 15 minutes of this 45 minute class our instructor told us we now needed to knit these skills together to form an interesting program. We quickly ran out of time but so far our "program" is as follows: we start off facing the long axis of the ice and do an inside pivot (two turns, then freeze facing the original direction) we then take a couple of forward strokes, do a couple left forward cross-overs into a left forward outside 3 turn which provides the entry edge for the half-flip jump. The jump is followed by a couple more forward strokes and cross-overs to bring us into position for a forward spiral. The spiral is followed by a lunge. Time ran out and we still have to figure out how to incorporate a Waltz jump, the two-foot spin and the required FS-1 back edges. That will be work for next Saturday. After we have the basic program figured out the next step is to make it work to music. Ah yes, the music. I'm a little antsy about this. Will the music be something classy or will it be something dripping with teeny-blopper angst?
Now it's one thing for a grown man to attempt to do something "graceful" in the arm gesture department and something else again to do so while skating to music from the discography of, oh I don't know, maybe Miley Cyrus--oh the humanity! The risk in all this is that some smart-aleck will capture the moment with a smart phone and with my luck the resulting video will go viral on youtube. It's so true--one must suffer for one's art! Programs, Programs, get yer Program!
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