Sara Skates

Catch-up

Where to start.

There has been knitting.  A hat is done, more mittens are in progress, a sweater is Very Nearly Done, I am itching to cast on for any number of new things.  I have lots of ideas about using the Kauni Effekt yarn (with long striping sequences) - that may be its own blog post though.  I went to the Rochester Knitting Guild's monthly meeting tonight - I haven't gone in 4 or 5 years, they have switched spaces and now meet within walking distance of my house (!).  I serendipitously had put on my Lite Brite sweater this morning and it got a slew of compliments from the knitters.  Combined with a huge array of desserts that folks had brought - let's just say there was comfort food in my belly, comfort clothes on my body, and really comfortable people to be around - not a bad evening at all.

Sadly though, we had to say goodbye to my Clyde kitty the day after Thanksgiving.  He has been declining for a while now - losing weight (he used to be 17 or 18 pounds - he was down to 7 lbs on his last day), looking rather scraggly, and just not as perky as usual.  His kidneys were on their last legs, and while he was reasonably happy all along, we woke up Friday morning to a kitty in distress.  We took him in that day, and while they could have tried some IV fluid therapy and that would have probably made him feel a little better, it was a matter of time - and not much time at that.  His kidneys were down to "little nubs" (I believe that's the technical term that the vet used...) - they were just worn out.

Our other three kitties have been doing admirably at reorganizing themselves into a three-cat household.  The day after, Akasha (the three-legged wonder cat) crawled under the covers in exactly the same spot where Clyde usually checked in at night and in the morning.  She has not made a regular habit of it - but it was poignant for her to crawl in there on the first morning without Clyde.  Sweetie Pie kitty is becoming quite the bathroom buddy (as Clyde was), and Henry cat (the big rather brainless cat - while Clyde wasn't as honkin' huge, he was similar in temperament) is holding down the fort on my bed's down comforter.  Clyde is sorely missed - I had him for 15 years, and he was totally "my" cat.  he had the hugest feet with two extra toes on each front foot, and he just adored me.  But the three others are dears - and all fairly young so we won't be doing the old-pet thing for a good long while grin.

Lastly - skating.  I am SO excited.  The competitive season is around the corner - Sectionals are in March, and Adult Nationals in April.  Typically I go to Easterns as that's the section where I reside (there are three - Easterns, Midwesterns, and Pacific Coasts).  And typically the competitions have two "tracks" - the qualifying events - where the top 3 from each Section go on to the Championship round of that event at Nationals, and the non-qualifying events - where anyone can enter as long as they meet the test qualifications for whatever level they are entering. 

So - the exciting part is that Pacific Coasts will have a *figures* event in the non-qualifying part of the competition.  As in compulsory school figures - that's Tenley Albright in the photo on the left sidebar doing a patch loop.  The two figures being competed at my level are the one-foot eight, and a forward inside bracket to a backward outside bracket.  I am *beyond* excited. 

I need to decide whether I am going to submit a "change of home club" form to switch to a Pacific Coast figure skating club, and therefore buy myself the ability to skate in the qualifying round and make a rather unlikely bid for one of the three slots skating in the championship round at Nationals, or not bother and just skate in non-qualifying events.  I'd skate the same program - no worries there.  I have the form ready to go....typically, my rationale is "why not skate the qualifying round, it's there" but I'm not convinced it's worth the frenzy of changing home clubs etc.

I broke out my patch skates over the weekend (they have been sadly ignored since this summer) and - I have missed the patch time. 

The kids - Toby especially - are in their pre-Christmas/holiday frenzy.  This too shall pass ROFL.

Aesthetic ice

A friend of mind lives abutting a lake in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Where it gets colder than Western NY even.  They get to skate on their pond in the winter - currently, the pond has an 8-inch layer of ice on it.

And this is what it looks like:

It looks like a mosaic to me.  While freezing, the ice layer had broken up, and then the bits in between froze as clear as glass.

I have lots to say about skating - this weekend is the first competition of the season (with 3 more to go later this spring) and I am *mortified* at the prospect of skating to pots and pans.  I mean, I have loved the creative process and working it out.  But the reality of getting out there to do it?  The point was to push me beyond my usual comfort zone.  Let's just say that in that respect, it has been a total success.

And that makes three -

I whomped both knees again this morning - for the third weekend in a row.  And I got home and promptely ordered kneepads.

About a year ago, the topic of knee pads came up and I more or less thought to myself "Nah, you hardly ever fall on your knees, why bother."  Apparently self has changed.  I mostly attribute it to tackling some hard-for-me footwork - which doesn't really describe last week's fall (on a forward crossover, practically from a standstill), but it does describe today's so whatever.

And consistently banging BOTH knees is a talent.  So much so that one of the two versions of skating kneepads I could find sells them singly, not by the pair.  (Why "skating" knee pads?  They're fairly trim, and don't have plastic on the front - that'd be overkill. The version I got attaches via velcro straps - so I can put them on/off  without taking skates off.)

I started tackling the choreography for an interp program this morning - to a Sandra Boynton song called Pots and Pans.  Technically, it's not a Sandra Boynton song - but by the Bacon Brothers with Mickey Hart.  If you check the link, DUH the reason it has such great rhythm to play with is because those folks have Footloose and the Grateful Dead as their claim to fame.   My big skating goals this year are shaping up to mostly center around upping my footwork ability and developing any sense of using my upper body in skating - moving arms out of neutral zone every now and then.  Let's just say that at the moment, if my arms do anything other than stay solidly in compulsory school figures neutral position, my feet immediately become clutzy.  This program won't have much in the way of jumps in it - but it'll have a lot of feet and arms.  And bruises as near as I can tell.

My other program (freestyle, to a bunch of stuff from the Afro Celt Sound System - african celtic fusion music!) is shaping up.  It has a lot of rhythmic stuff going on too - and is a real stretch for me.  Hopefully in a few months parts will get easier.

I'm off to bed so I can skate early in the am - I'll leave Terry with the kids plugged in to some sort of media and I suspect they'll all be fine when I get back hom.  Terry's doing ok.  She's starting to be awake more, and she has migrated from our new comfy recliner chair to a non-reclining (but still comfy) chair in our living room.  She might even try to sleep prone in a bed tonight - whoo hoo!

Feeling loopy!

No, not loops of yarn -

but patch loops!  I am *finally* getting back patch loops to look, well, like loops.  They have been a LONG time coming.  They still need work to get them test-ready (pretty and consistently so), but they're not half bad.  On both the outside and inside edge ones one foot is better than the other, but they'll even out.

The fourth figures test (and to some extent, the USFSA Adult Gold figures test) both feel within reach.  Forward brackets are the most un-ready at the moment.  I can do them really well in freestyle boots, and even the quick bracket-three-bracket pattern from the Novice Moves test, but the precision, shape and edge finesse they require on a patch test still elludes me (they're not clean, or quite the right shape, certainly not all four of them for the test - right and left foward inside, and right and left backward outside).

Anyway - maybe by this spring I'll tackle the test...

Edited to add visuals of what loops are:  There's a photo of Tenley Albright doing a back outside one in my sidebar, here, I'll put it in this post:

and a schematic: Each of the larger circles is about the same size as my height.  The inner loop is two blade lengths long and one blade length wide - roughly.  The goal is to lay out tree repeats on each foot - with each repeat tracing over the previous attempt.  Part of the reason they're so difficult to do is (a) b/c they're a small figure, and (b) the inner loop requires that you essentially speed up and then slow down rotation.  Once you figure it out, they're totally do-able.  Getting to that point takes way too long.

And I forget who this is - someone with the initials SWG (!) doing a back inside edge loop:

Gender and sports.

'k.  I figure skate.  Wherein gender roles are utterly entrenched.  Typical competion garb includes things like this and this and this.  About two years ago, the official governing body of US competitive figure skating changed the rules so that in freestyle and pairs competition, women are *allowed* - oh my - to wear pants!!  (But not in dance skating competition.)

Props to Grace for pointing me in the direction of this twist:  SkirtSports.  Skirts for women runners, complete with this number apparently specifically for marathoners, the MarathonDress: 

 

It comes in screaming pink, and

black with white trim (with keyhole back detailing).

Holy hell, while I am ecstatic that there are signs of movement towards widening the range of choice on ice, it's totally different when the flip is occuring with running, and marketing of clothing for women runners.  The "look hot, run faster!" (running faster in this attire is "unscientifically proven" according to their website - good to know) is the modus operandi.

Grace (in training for a marathon as I type) suggests a tiara to go with.  I predict sparkles and sequins are next.  Skates, running shoes, who cares. Just dress up the chicks folks - since looking sweaty and athletic is way too "male" for words.

How far we have come; how far we have yet to go.

Skating fix anyone?

Go here for a pretty inspiring creative amazing awesome example of figure skating.  It's Gary Beacom.  I want to skate like he does when I grow up.  Complete with head-to-toe lycra body suit - that'll solve my urge to "hide" while out there on ice alone ;)

Hmm...I wonder which...

Today in a parking lot I saw this bumper sticker - really, a series of them, each word was it's own magnet sticker thing on the back of a car.  It said:

WE ARE THE AXELS OF EVIL

So whaddya think - illiterate punk rock group, or goth figure skater???

It was parked in the general vicinity of the only area skate/dance store.  I'm going with the gothic version.  While I don't find axels particularly evil in the grand scale of jumps, they can be a bugger.

Sunday smatterings of news

Today's main activity has consisted of working on clearing out the 4th bedroom in the house.  We originally configured it as a home office workspace for me, and overflow guest bedding (in addition to our other guest bedroom, as the kids shared a room).  Hannah seems to be transitioning to wanting her own room - so it's time.  The "office" will be repainted to suit Toby, and he'll move in there. 

Functionally speaking, the room has never really been used as an "office".  Mostly, it has been a repository for junk we mean to get rid of but never do.  We now have 8 boxes of books packed and ready to be donated to the college library; scads of kids clothes and toys ready to go to Goodwill or better yet, Volunteers of America since I believe they'll come pick up, especially when we have a twin trundle bed and two mattresses to donate to the same; a huge box of things to cart over to the local crafts thrift store (imagine!  We have a crafts thrift store!  It tends to have a slew of acrylics and rug-hooking and the like, but still, it's a pretty cool thing to have locally.); etc.  Several boxes of toys have already gone to friends who are awaiting the adoption of a child from Kazakhstan.  At any rate, our garage is now full, as is our trash can (I found notebooks of college course notes - holy cow).  The desk has been unassembled, and there are a few more shelves of things to pack and the room will be ready to paint.

Toby is hankering after a Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Disney princess sparkly pink glitter theme.  Which is fine except for the fact that we're not gonna be wanting to repaint the room when his tastes presumably change in oh about 8 months.  So I'm thinking some more sedate color, and liberal use of princess fabric and or pictures or something more temporary.  (He literally was hoping for pink glitter sparkle walls and ceilings).  And I'm really trying to not let my hatred of carnation pink color this decision :)

Skate news.  The slightly-too-small right boot is being "adjusted" (not made from scratch), so I'll be heading to Toronto for the third time in as many months probably this next weekend (although maybe not for another week or two).  To pick up these - Jackson Proflex hinged boots - a bit of an avant-guard boot choice but what the hell.  I'm also trying to pick out some new blades - I want to go down a model from what I use currently, but these look intriguing (as long as we're talking about avant guard skate choices after all...).  I haven't seen these yet, but I can tell you right now I'm not doing that split in this lifetime...

My rink is closed down for the next three weeks, and then the fall/spring skate schedule starts.  I have had a good summer - my knee pretty much tolerates as much jumping as I want to do, although I try to stick to not jumping more than 2-3 days a week.  There is SO much to work on at the moment - I'm working hard on the Novice MIF test elements, affectionately known as a bit of a "decathelon" event - lots of elements to complete and not easy ones.  I'm not that coordinated at most of them yet.  I'm choreographing a new program - I forgot how clutzy that makes you feel - my brain is working overtime just trying to get from one thing to the next.  The new music is great though - a bunch of cuts and snippets from the Afro Celt Sount System - African/Celtic fusion music, with most of the "Riverdancey" stuff cut out.  I'm also honing in on a test date for a dance test or two - the Rocker Foxtrot and the American Waltz - both from the Silver test level.  And I'm keeping up with patching/school figures - the 4th test elements are making steady slow progress.

Terry's up from her nap so it's either back to cleaning out the room upstairs, or corraling the troops for a bikeride or something.  I vote on the latter :)

Homeward Bound

We're half-way home, somewhere in Ohio at a Holiday Inn. 

Photos (hundreds) from the Reuters guy John Gress are here:

http://johngress.com/gaygames/skating/

apparently I look very serious while practicing.  So does Debbie.  Clearly, we were still working on getting used to skating in each others' space (real pairs' hips would be about three feet closer together), but our jump landing timing wasn't always bad.  Our final spin was always a bit of a hail-mary kind of thing.  Jay and Bradley (also a bi-coastal couple), somehow they figured out how to spin and pair way better than we did - they were great (and their Brokeback routine was memorable).  Brigit and Betina (part of the German contingent) were *fabulous*.  Here they are heading towards the one in air being suspended like a pole upside down.  Breathtaking again.

In the tradition of saving the best for last, this is the one to see.  That's our camel spin side by side.  For a brief moment, apparently we were in sync with the revolutions.  And can you just see the glee when we're done ;)  I fell down just before hitting that pose in the exhibition the next night, so there was a different kind of smile happening.  What can I say, ice is slippery.

Amy and others in the production number (words can't bring us down...).

I'd do it all over again though - it was a blast working through a pairs thing with 3 days together on ice!  Simple and unpolished in parts, but a really fun process.

(Somday I'll figure out how to edit the fonts that keep swapping themselves around in typepad.)

Gay Games Second Report

Oh my, what a fabulous competition. I missed some performances I wanted to see today - but am getting the DVD so there will be re-runs galore.  Debbie and I did our couples program - and we did a great skate. We came in second to the other group from Germany - who honestly skated a beautiful program. (Their program was much more polished than ours.  Though they skate together on a Synchronized Skating team, and a bit more often than Debbie and I do - seeing as we live 3000 miles away and all and they do not LOL). There were no major flubs by either Debbie or I, and we were pretty together from my perspective. It would have been great to have more than a few days together to really polish it - but we did ok - and it was a blast.  We skated the way we wanted to skate - which given that you're doing so in front of a quantity of people is an achievement in itself.

Everyone who got a Gold medal gets to skate in the Exhibition tomorrow night (actually tonight - but I'm counting "tomorrow" as what comes after sleep).  Even though we "only" got the Silver with ours, they added in most couples programs - so we'll get to do it again -  with theatre lights and expensive admission tickets and all.  I'll also skate in a 14-step (dance) number, with three (? maybe 4) couples skating - a same-sex male couple, same-sex female couple, and a mixed couple (maybe two).

Memorable programs included Edward VanCampen's tribute to his brother who died from complications due to HIV - complete with a Names Project quilt square, Amy E's and Maria's (sorry, I'm blanking on her last name) couples program to West Side Story, Brigitt and Birgin from Germany's same-sex couples program (lifts and opposite-direction jumps and smooth as pie choreography), and a host of others.  A German mixed-pair skated the Argentine Tango together - and switched roles a few times (the "girl's" part and the "boy's" part). They both wore fairly androgenous costumes and it was just phenomenal to see them switch between the steps.  There were some awesome costume and choreographic routines playing with gender roles.

I also skated in a Production number that closed out the show - it was a powerful routine to You Are Beautiful, Words Can't Bring You Down (Christina Aguilera) and it was a tribute to everyone who has experienced verbal harrassment - we all wore t-shirts with names we have been called, there were three "I" solos, 2 "we" solos (a female couple and a male couple), and the "us" chorus. It was the perfect way to close out the competition days, and it'll close the Exhibtion too.

It has been an amazing experience to be here - I knew it would be, and it has been. Seeing folks skate with the freedom of crossing gender roles has been great. It's such an inclusive celebratory event.  There was a ton of press - it's wild.  Debbie and I were followed by a Reuters photo-journalist, he showed us some of his other pictures from the week - holy mole.  My favorite was of the dykes in the Physique event oiling each other up...'nuff said.

The next one will be in Cologne Germany in four years...