T is for Twizzle

Tim and I were talking today about how lucky he is that twizzles came easy for him on the ice. Right now I love doing our mirror synchronized twizzles more than anything else. They really are 5 revolutions with one arm over our heads, and we do them pretty consistently. As a team we do about 4 tries out of 5 that are good. If we mess up it's usually one of us putting our foot down but we're trying to keep going no matter what. My goal is to get more than a level 1 on these twizzles along with (I hope) a positive GOE.

Other free dance elements are coming along. Our spread eagle lift has become easy and now we just need to add speed. Our spin is so much better than last year since we have a good entry method - we have speed and revolutions, now just need a good-looking position. We have played with several other lifts for our second lift and we'll see what comes out of that.

Footwork? That will probably be the most difficult element since we have never done a footwork sequence in a dance hold. Last year we did midline no touch which probably won't be allowed in the future for adults. We're working on rockers and counters so that we can have clean recognizable turns in our footwork sequence. I wish that were as easy as synchronized twizzles~!

Now if only we had some music. The search continues.

Splat

The first thing I did after I got up this morning was fall down. Well, that was after driving to the rink, putting on my skates, etc. But the first memorable thing I did today was fall down, before I'd even showered or had a cup of coffee. Actually WE fell down. Tim and I have come up with two new lifts. Yesterday we spent a couple of hours skating and working on lifts and a shoot-the-duck move which meant this morning we were both sore all over. The first thing we tried was our curve lift and the setup was too far apart ... so down we went in pseudo slow motion.

Tim hit his knee and I somehow hit my right thigh. This is the second time I've hit that same spot falling out of a lift - I have no idea how I can land there. It's what hits the ice first, evidently, even though I then bounced onto my butt. So now I'm limping around work pathetically. I think my co-workers find me amusing since I'm often limping and almost always stiff, sore or injured - and allegedly I'm an athlete. They all walk just fine without the benefit of "working out."

I wonder if "sitting on the ice" is considered a difficult position for both lifter and liftee? The level should go up if the fall is both unique and gracefully done, IMO, even if the GOE does have to be -3.

The rest of the practice was OK. We do have a nicely synchronized mirror FI twizzle with arm over the head and 5 turns, which comes out on a running edge. Not sure what the adult calling specs will be, but I'd say they must be at least a level 6!

We thought we had music but now that we've cut it and brought it on the ice we are finding it not so good. The search continues. We've rejected pretty much everything I always wanted to skate to and now I'm searching through the list of everything new that I never bothered to consider. Once we find something we both adore I'm sure our coach/choreographer will reject it. Sigh. Maybe we should just choose something overused like Zorro and be done with it!