Tim & Terri

End of season

2009-01-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

Due to my upcoming hip surgeries, Tim and I will sit out the 2009 and 2010 seasons.

Don’t count us out though. We plan to be back in 2011.

Meanwhile you can keep up with my recovery from two periacetabular osteotomy (PAO) surgeries on hipsk8.blogspot.com.
Terri

Iced In

2008-12-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

I skated this morning solo, and it was pretty lousy after a few weeks off the ice and with dull blades to boot. Yeah yeah, excuses, excuses. Plus all of the off-ice training I'm doing (elliptical, weights, yoga) to help my hips has done a number on my body - it's in transition right now and frequently cries out in protest.

I think I'm developing some of the dormant muscles that have atrophied in recent years because of my hip issues, because I'm able to focus directly on my weak spots thanks to our new basement workout room. This is good in the long run, but right now it's pretty painful. I am also working on the upper body, the better to wrestle those crutches next summer.

Perry bought an elliptical trainer and "Inspire" weight machine for himself, but I've been using them quite a bit lately too. Plus I've been doing the Power Yoga with Rodney Yee DVD (I highly recommend it). I've been getting buff in anticipation of the debuffing that will occur when I have surgery in 6 months or so. The more buff I am before, the easier it will be to tolerate the debuffing and recover, or so the theory goes. And based on blogs I've read, the hip chicks who start off in better shape seem to recover faster once on the other side of the knife.

But back to skating ... today I was mostly sore from the extra off-ice workouts and out of practice from not being on the ice, so it was pretty much a lost cause on the ice. Tim is back from vacation Friday so I hope to get another session in before that on my own. Then we need to get busy on the final leg of this competition season. I am looking forward to it.

Iced Out

2008-12-21T18:04:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm running out of "Tim-approved" TnT pics, so here's a T pic!

I haven't written much here lately. Tim and I practiced on Tuesday (and a very nice practice it was, as we fixed a whole bunch of places in our free dance that had been bothering us). Meanwhile the weather has been getting worse and worse. Today Perry and I were iced in and spent the day going stir crazy in the house. Tomorrow, with everything iced over, we'll probably do the same. Who knows how this week will go weather-wise? Crappy weather is expected through the holidays. Since we live at 600 feet elevation, at the top of a hill, we always get the worst of the weather.

Somehow we're down to 4 months until adult nationals, work is light, and I can't get to the rink to practice. This would have been a great week to run through things and continue our momentum, but it looks like we won't be skating much, if at all. I am getting a bit antsy about this. Not much more to say!

Run through

2008-12-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

It was tough to get up this morning after a nice 4-day holiday spent doing a lot of nothing. No hip exercises, no stretching, and no skating. But up I got and went to practice where, miraculously, we did an entire free dance run through with lifts. All 5 elements were completed, we had no falls, we were skating fast (although in the small rink we can't really push it out), and we hit most of the musical highlights.

That's not to say it was perfect. We still have unison issues and moves that don't work right all the time, we aren't always skating to the music, and we are in the "hey this is new for us" stage and so not relating to each other very well yet. This is exactly where we should be at this point in the season.

I look back to the 2006/7 season when we had an earlier start but did our own choreography; our goal was to skate in the mid-December holiday shows, which we did. Even though we aren't skating the shows this year since I'll be in Lake Placid, I think if we had to, we could do a reasonable performance in two weeks. It would be rough, but it was rough two years ago when we did it. I think we're on track for the season with 4 and a half months to go.

Now we better kick ourselves in the butt and get working on our compulsory dances!

Back on the ice ...

2008-11-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

We had a nice practice today after a full 10 days off the ice due to my cold/virus/flu and trip to Scottsdale to judge. I'm still coughing but able to skate. We did a good free dance run through sans lifts and sans music (skating at a public session so couldn't play the music). We worked on the lifts outside the program and they worked nicely, although we're going to need a stopwatch to make sure we aren't heading for an overtime lift deduction.

I know if I say what I'm about to say I may jinx it, but my hips feel really good. Maybe it's because I've been off the ice for a while. Maybe it's that I've been lifting weights. I know better than to think I'm magically cured, but it's nice to feel like I can get through this season.

Yes, I did skate ...

2008-10-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

...yesterday. Since I was going to the hip specialist today, I figured what the hell, I am going to give it my all and then I can bitch and whine to him and he'll be able to observe how bad it is at its worst.

Tim is out of town so I went at lunchtime and put on my favorite music and just skated. And do you know what? It didn't hurt, not until I was done anyway. I skated really well. I just floated over the ice and felt the music and skated my little heart out. It was probably the best skate of my life, or at least the most memorable, just totally at one with the ice and the music in my own little world. I kind of figured the doctor might not have the best news for me, and this was sort of my answer to that -- right now, at this very moment, I can still get out there and move around some.

I'm sure the lunchtime crowd at Lloyd Center, who couldn't hear the music on my headphones, wondered why I was so emotional out there but really, it wasn't about them, it was about me and really about all of us who continue to do the things we love despite being told we shouldn't; those who persevere against all the odds; those who just won't take no for an answer. It's for all of you who know just what I mean by that.

Skate America

2008-10-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Tim is in Guatemala and my hips are recovering from Skate America, where I volunteered as an “ice monitor.” It sounded simple enough in concept … stand by the door and open it to let the skaters onto the ice, then close the door. As volunteer jobs go that is pretty darn simple. But 4 hours of standing in the cold each day did me in. It is only now, 3 days later, that I can walk without assistance, and I am glad that Tim doesn’t return until Monday because skating is going to be a non-event until then.

I was assigned to all the dance events, probably because they figured I actually know when to open the door after 3 patterns of the Viennese Waltz! The very first event of the competition was in fact compulsory dance, and my headphone was not working. Unbeknownst to me, the TV producer who controls all the cameras, the doors, and the timing of the event so that it is consistent with the TV commercials kept asking the Ice Monitor, me, for status, and since no sound was coming through, I stood there, apparently oblivious. The TV guy was going crazy, and finally asked, “who IS that moron down there?!” Of course, everyone on the headsets heard that including the announcers, USFSA bigwigs, all the camera guys, and most of the volunteers in the arena. Pretty comical considering I kept the event going just fine without his input, but after all, I am a referee and I've attended enough skating competitions that, moron or not, I do know when to open and shut the door all by myself.

The press corps was provided catered meals, while we volunteers had ... apples. And water. Occasionally power bars but those went fast. Trying to find a vegetarian meal in the arena was near impossible of course, so the apples were very welcome. One morning I snuck into the press area for a cup of coffee -- I figured I might be shot or escorted from the building, but as luck would have it there was nobody there. My credential allowed me in that part of the arena but my attire absolutely identified me as a "non-press person."

Speaking of attire ... more fun times! By the time I checked in at the volunteer desk the only sizes left for the mandatory volunteer outfit (black turtleneck and black vest) were “XXL.” For those who don’t know me, I’m about 5’4” and 120 lbs. I’m not tiny, but I’m also nowhere near an XXL! The turtleneck came down to my knees, and I could fit 3 of me and a small VW bus in there. The vest, which I wore over my fanny pack, the turtleneck, and a black jacket to keep me warm, was sized similarly. I wore the fanny pack in front, so the result of all this was that I looked like a very pregnant version of the Michelin Man.

It was bad enough that friends I passed in the mixed zone didn’t even recognize me, walking right on by when I waved and said hello. Paul Harvath covered this up later by saying, “did you do something with your hair? I didn’t recognize you!” Right Paul, what you REALLY wanted to say was, “when did you get so hugely fat and when is your due date?”

And on top of all this, we were advised to go see “hair and makeup” before going out there because of course, try as we might to avoid the TV cameras, we couldn’t always get out of the way. On top of my very stylish coiffure, I had to wear headphones, so that was pretty much a lost cause. However, my makeup looked damn good. So there I was looking lovely, but well padded, for all the world to see.

Of course it is not about me, but about the skaters, and my job as ice monitor is to be unobtrusive, but I was just too … well … bulky to totally fade into the background. So look for me on IceNetwork … stoically holding the door and ducking under camera cables while trying to look like part of the scenery!

P.S. - I hope my readers weren't expecting me to actually comment on the SKATING at Skate America. And please don't even mention the "Johnny vs. Evan" rabid maniac fans. You can read what they have to say on Ice Network's blogs. I can't help myself, I really do enjoy it when they talk about the "moron judges" and follow that up with comments indicating their utter lack of knowledge about skating. However, come to think of it ... moron judge ... moron ice monitor ... Hmmm, I guess I really am a total moron!

P.P.S. - In order to be PC, I must include the following disclaimer: Not all skating fans are rabid maniacs, and most know a lot about skating, it's just that some of them do not, and those seem to be the ones who blog the most, and bash judges the most, and truly have no idea what they are talking about. I find it all quite entertaining.

Run through

2008-10-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Today we did a free dance program run through with music.

Now that sounds pretty marvelous until I expand on the thought. We did 2 minutes of a 3 minute program (we do kind of know the rest of it, but not well enough to do it, with music, yet). We walked our first lift because my hip was acting up and I just could not support my weight with just my legs this morning. And I am sure we didn't really "perform" since we were more concerned with remembering what we were supposed to be doing, and where on the ice, and when in the music.

But we did get through it and that's what a run through is all about at this point in the season. Getting through it, not stopping even when we are totally running into each other or not exactly sure what goes where. I have to give us our props, we plowed on through and we did not stop. We hit some of the highlights. The moves we've struggled with were still a problem, but we did them, or tried.

Tim and I have very different opinions about how to learn and do a program. I need to know what edges we are supposed to be on, for example, although this information is something Tim doesn't require. Steps are good to know too ... is this supposed to be a counter or a choctaw? Doesn't matter to Tim, but it does to me.

So while choreographing we've had to really pin these down, so that I too can participate, because otherwise we just make stuff up and while that's fine, it doesn't work so well when you involve judges in the equation.

Six months until adult nationals ... and we have a run through in our back pocket. Now the real work begins.

2 years, 16 tests

2008-10-12T20:15:00.001-07:00

We breathed a big sigh of relief this morning.

I also screamed a bit and gave Tim a high five and jumped up and down going "woo hoo." This was after he passed his starlight waltz test, his first pregold. Test number 16. That's 16 tests in 2 years (we've skated for two and a half years but 6 months of those we weren't skating after his achilles surgery so they don't count). And now, we have finally qualified for the gold dance event, a journey which began in 2006.

The test itself --- all I can say is, Tim was amazing. When I stumbled on a mohawk he just kept going, and 3 steps later I caught up to him and he didn't miss a beat. The judges didn't even mention what could have been a deal breaker. It was more than just a "nice save." Disaster was averted because he just kept going ... and didn't even blink. I appreciate my skating partner so much at moments like these. He is truly awesome. Congratulations Tim!

No, this is not what I wore for the test!

Choreography

2008-09-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

Fuzzy pictures of the amazing choreography Tim made up ... captured from video

Friday is drill day

2008-09-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today Julia and Jordan joined us on the ice and we all worked together on the drills we learned at the high dance camp. We tried to synchronize the four of us as we skated the length of the ice doing twizzles, power pulls, and the rocker/counter sequence. I think we should compete as a team of “four” if we do this often enough and get synchronized well enough. There used to be an actual "Fours" event ...

They taught us a power pull drill we hadn’t learned which was a killer. We then worked a little on silver samba together, trading partners and advice.

This is what we all love about adult competition. We will be going head to head with them at adult nationals this year in gold dance, and yet we are all having fun skating together and helping each other improve. The more all of us improve, the better the level will be in the gold dance event.

Afterwards Tim and I worked on the opening to our free dance, which is a rhumba. Our coach has given us some ballroom dance steps to do on the ice, which is much harder than it sounds. The steps are challenging on the floor and near impossible on the ice. We did that for what seemed like hours and it started to improve. Now we need to put the music on and see what happens.

Portland is Dance Town

2008-09-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

We went to Mountain View today for our final lesson with Jon and Pam. We have had 3 hours of private lessons in addition to the High Dance Camp seminars and we feel like we have made significant improvement.

This morning from 6 to 8 AM there were 4 (FOUR!!!) dance teams on the ice, 3 of them adult teams. There were Julia and Jordan, Laura and Kiel, us, and Maddie and Nathan (Intermediate competitors). Wow, this is what it must be like to be in a dance training center. What an energizing morning! Mostly the 3 adult teams were working on similar things; all of us were working on silver samba, for example, so it was just a samba-fest out there when the music came on.

We are sore and tired. I stayed up late last night remaking a skating dress so I can wear it for Tim's starlight test, then got up at 4:30 AM for the lesson, so I am sleep deprived as well. I lost 5 lbs. over the weekend and I ate like a pig. That's how hard we worked. We thought about taking a rest day tomorrow but decided to skate, just make it an easy day on our training plan. We are psyched, we are making progress, and we are motivated once again.

Fun at the Dance Camp

2008-09-14T19:01:00.001-07:00

The Walking Wounded

2008-09-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

Today Tim and I had our private lesson with Jonathon O'Dougherty and Pam O'Connor, AKA "The O's" -- (2002 British Nationals Champions and guest coaches for the Adult High Dance Camp). We are truly the walking wounded, munching Advil as if it is candy and wearing ice bags as if they were high fashion, but we were there at the hotel promptly at 5:45 this morning to transport Jonathon and Pam to the rink.

So there's me, with sore hips from skating this week, limping through the parking lot. And here comes Tim, post auto accident, with back and neck hurting and his "good" achilles tendon acting up. Jonathon and Pam had no idea we were injured because we put on our happy faces and pushed through our hour long lesson and loved every minute. Our Samba is now so much better! We need to work on some things but if we do, well, our Samba will be even more better. And there's nothing better than more better.

We go back to the rink tonight to work on the Tango Romantica at the High Dance Camp clinic. We know one of the steps quite well, since we stole it for our OD in 2007, but the rest of the dance will be a challenge.

Can we make it through this weekend? My Costco-sized bottle of Ibuprofen is only half full. Or maybe it's half empty. Time will tell.

Feeding the Rumor Mill

2008-09-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

As an attempt to start a rumor about myself and create some "buzz," I am hereby reporting that this morning I skated two sessions with someone other than my partner; a handsome gentleman not seen very often around these parts. Who is he? What does this mean? Has Tim dumped me? So many questions.

We worked on (gasp) the gold competition dances for this season, Viennese and Samba. Send that through the grapevine all ye rumormongers!

As if that weren't shocking enough, we worked on the Quickstep, Argentine tango, and Westminster Waltz ... and even a pattern or two of the Blues and Kilian. Who WAS that masked man?

Now a serious thought on the anniversary of September 11th. I think most of us remember where we were and what we were doing on September 11th. I know I do. Today is a day of remembrance and mourning for most of us. It's also a good time to pause to tell our loved ones how much we care about them, and to reflect on ways to make the world a better place. My number one wish in this post-9/11 world is to reduce our dependency on foreign energy sources, something at which I personally have not been very successful. I drive a car to the rink, the rink uses a vast amount of energy to maintain an artificial frozen surface, and I frequently fly to destinations for skating events. It's a dilemma. Something to ponder.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

If it's not one thing, it's another

2008-09-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

We did not skate as planned yesterday as Tim was involved in a motor vehicle accident. Not his fault, and he walked away with no major injuries, but he is suffering from whiplash and hurting today. We are going to wait a couple of days to skate. I am extremely glad that he is OK.

Between injuries, family issues, and accidents, it has been a challenging week or two. I have not skated and thus I am able to walk. It's an interesting tradeoff. I feel like going to the rink but then I get anxious about what will happen on the pain scale if I do. In some ways I'm in denial because if I don't skate, I feel almost normal. But really, what good is feeling normal if I can't skate? It's a paradox. You know, the place where you keep two boats.

I hear all of you groaning. You've just been subjected to one of the two jokes that I have made up in my lifetime. The other one is, "It's a paradigm -- you know, 20 cents!" There you go, a pair o' jokes.

Obviously comedy is not my thing. Signing off now, for obvious reasons.

Back to work

2008-09-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

Tim and I have taken a week off to attend to family matters. A week off the ice has done wonders for my ability to walk. I was walking with a cane the first day, and as of today I am walking pretty normally and almost pain free with no assistance. So clearly the doctor was right - skating is bad for my hips.

However, this doesn't mean I am not going to skate. We plan to skate this afternoon, and every afternoon this week, preparing for a lesson with some outstanding coaches in Seattle on Monday. So I'm getting ready for the onslaught of pain, and hoping it doesn't happen. I'm ready to do a lot of stretching. I've been using a fit ball instead of a chair when I work at home. That helps. Work is another matter. It has been 4 weeks since I put in a request for a sit/stand work station. They obviously don't care if I'm in a lot of pain since they are taking their time. I have rigged up my own sit/stand using a cardboard box and a clipboard, but my chair is really awful and they need to get me a new one. I'm not allowed to sit on a fitball at work (!) as it's deemed "unsafe." Sometimes they pop and people fall down, I was told. So what? Like I'm not used to falling down??

I digress, and I promised to limit this type of talk to my hip related blog. But it is relevant right now. I am excited to skate again after time off and also apprehensive because my pain level is so low and I hope it stays that way. Tim and I will be working mostly on his starlight to test. I think I can handle that but we'll find out today.

A timely post from Mombo

2008-08-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Mombo strikes again with a lovely post which talks about why we (all of us) ice dance, why we compete in ice dance (especially as adults), and why we work so hard at it:

It's "just doing something that you truly love the best that you can do it."

Amen.

Hydromania

2008-08-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

I think we may have found our signature move.

This is despite Tim's insistence that "hydroblades have no place in ice dancing." I agree, except for the Bourne and Kraatz version, because they were just so good that it worked.

By the way, I also don't see how spins have any place in ice dancing, but we're working on those too. In typical "what the hell" spirit, we're doing all kinds of things we may not agree with in order to get points. I mean if we're going to compete, we would be wasting our time if we didn't try to rack up a few.

This is also why I'm taking yoga, the better to contort myself in lifts, to get more points. I give in - it's all about points now and we want a ton of 'em.

(Those who know me realize I have some strong views on this subject. I won't go into a discussion of IJS tonight, although I promise to do so in a future post.)

But back to that signature move. Today I tried a hydroblade for the first time in a long time. I used to do a back inside version but that now hurts my hip, so I tried a back outside version and had much more success. So much so that I was shocked I'd never tried one before. It was fun and easier than I thought it would be. Tim could almost do one too. So even though it's not really dancing, we had fun doing some hydroblades today and we may include one as a highlight this season.

What is up with falling down?

2008-08-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

This is the second time in as many practices that I've had a fall where I went straight down directly onto my hind parts. These were quick falls, as in "one moment I'm up, then boom, I'm sitting down." Both were from pretty much a standstill and had no "slide" to take away some of the impact.

Eskimos have many, many words for "snow." Likewise, skaters should have a full lexicon of terms for different types of falls in order to do justice to their differences. In skaterspeak, I would describe this type of fall as a sheer-drop-straight-down-no-slide-single-impact-booming-buttfall. That name doesn't really capture the moment though. It's something I'll have to think about. Stay tuned for future blogging brilliance on this topic.

Now my back hurts but that could also be from the lift we are teaching ourselves. It's a cantilever that we're trying to do without any support other than my legs, which are wrapped around Tim's leg while he's doing a spread eagle. Right now we are holding on with one arm each (for about 2 seconds, then I need his other arm or I start sliding down toward the ice).

Clearly I will need to hit the gym, and ask a personal trainer how to get more "leg squeeze strength." I hope I can say that with a straight face, especially when I have to demonstrate what it looks like. Right, I'll probably say, "I need to be able to support 100% of my own body weight with my legs by wrapping them around someone else's leg. Then I have to hang there parallel to the ice ... uh, ground ... while someone watching counts to 3, like this: 'one-one-thousand-two-one-thousand-three-one-thousand.'" (Then I have to use my abs to pull myself back upright so that I can go into a "skate-to-the-head" position, but I'll tell that to the yoga teacher so two people can make fun of me.)

Yeah, I really have nothing to lose, they already think skaters are freaks at the gym anyway ("yeah Joe, so this woman comes into the gym, wants to increase her "leg squeeze strength" ... needs to be able to contort herself, but only for 3 seconds ... and has some ginormous bruises on her butt. Should I call the cops?")

And to think that I had a problem with the rocker foxtrot!

The Ultimate Test

2008-08-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

The Rocker F#@$!trot: AKA the most difficult ice dance ever created.

I’d rather do the Midnight Blues, Finnstep, or Golden Waltz than the Rocker Foxtrot and any of those would no doubt be easier and less anxiety- producing for me. That’s because the Rocker Foxtrot contains the one step in ice dancing that I just have not been able to master: the FO Mohawk in foxtrot position.

I know, I know. An outside to outside Mohawk should be a piece of cake for someone who has passed gold dances. But the catch is “in foxtrot position.”

I can do the dance just fine solo, but attach me to a partner and I am “Stuck.” As in, “blocked,” or “physically prevented from turning.” Frustratingly so, since I do the turn just fine by myself. I start to turn, as does my partner, and then I can turn no farther and either fall or have to bail out.

(I did pass the test, many years ago, with a partner who was patient and skated very much like me, and for some reason the turn worked with him. But it has never worked with anyone else before or since.)

I’m not afraid of falling on the turn, as I’ve pointed out to the many coaches who’ve tried to help me fix it. It’s not a fear thing, although I do feel paralyzed as my body hangs there in mid-turn and goes no farther, while my partner drags me along, or I fall, and that can be a bit anxiety-producing. It’s more a frustration thing – why does my body all of a sudden stop in mid-turn? What can I do differently?, I would ask coach after coach. There has to be something going on with my body that can be fixed, some small technical detail that is the key to this turn.

“It’s all in your head,” I was told. “You just need to go for it!” “You need to bend your knees more.” “Just turn out your hips more” (give me a break, I have no turnout but can still do the turn myself, so that can’t be it). “Don’t look down.” “Track in front of your partner.” “Don’t break at the waist.” None of these worked.

After all of this advice, I finally “went for it” one day enough to fall harder than normal, sliding headfirst into the wall and getting a mild concussion. That’s when I said enough was enough and stopped doing the dance for many years. I joked that I was born without the Mohawk Gene, and always found a way to be in the ladies room when the Rocker Foxtrot was played at dance weekends.

Enough really WAS enough because I had no reason to do the damn thing until Tim came along, and had to test it in order for us to qualify for the Gold dance event. Which meant I had to either swallow my pride and ask him to test it with another partner, or swallow my fear of failure, bite the bullet, and conquer the RF once and for all.

While in Lake Placid recently, I studied the rocker foxtrots on practice. I saw that everyone could do this turn, even if they weren’t the greatest skater. I watched body positions, tracking, and edges into and out of the turn, and I tried to mimic what the best rocker foxtrotters were doing in my mind. I had an epiphany and thought I had figured it out, so when I got home I asked Tim to try the dance with me. We were both skeptical, but it turned out that my own observation and mimicry were able to do what years of advice from coaches had not: it wasn’t pretty, but I was finally able to do the turn without getting blocked.

I thought this must be a fluke, so we tried it again with more speed. No block. We did several patterns. No block. The mohawk seemed, dare I say it, easy.

That was Monday. This is Sunday. This morning, Tim passed his Rocker Foxtrot test by all three judges, as did the other 3 people testing it (a veritable Rocker Foxtrot Festival! ... And all 8 of us dressed in black, which was unnecessarily pessimistic as it turned out). Congratulations to Bill Cloran, Bill Fisher (Bill also passed his Foxtrot and European, completing the pre-silvers), and Annee Magee (Annee also passed her Tango and American for a silver sweep). Tim has now completed his Silver dances.

Of all those testing today, Tim's prop was definitely the most nervous. This was more a test for me than for him, as he is comfortable with the dance and skates it well and could have tested it a long time ago. I feel happier about this result than my own gold dance test. I can do the rocker foxtrot, that's right, yes I can! Today, dare I say it, the mohawk seemed easy.

That's Entertainment ...

2008-08-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

NOT!

I just read my last blog post and wow, it was just not entertaining as promised. An entire synopsis of our free dance elements, including imaginary GOEs and levels??? Wow, what was I thinking? Who would be interested in reading that other than a bunch of ...

skaters???

wait ---

OK.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging

2008-08-08T10:43:00.001-07:00

I will be starting a new blog for my hip related issues so that this blog can be used for its original purpose --- that’s right -- entertainment! TnTsk8 will focus on Tim and Terri’s preparation for Adult Nationals this season. (Don’t you love it when people refer to themselves in 3rd person? Terri does!) I will only mention my hip when it is directly relevant to our training. My strong hope is that it won’t be very relevant. We plan to compete this year unless I am in so much pain I have to stop. Cross your fingers.

Now, moving on to the entertainment as promised. Today we had a good practice which for me was almost pain free. We did our circular footwork and made some changes to it. We had one fall on a twizzle where Tim apparently kicked my feet out from under me and I went straight down on my butt (but missed my tail bone). It didn’t hurt much but I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow. We are trying to increase our speed in the footwork and so things like this are bound to happen. We like the changes overall. I am pretty sure we won’t get more than a Level 1, but if we skate to the music we should get decent GOEs.

We modified our curve lift to make it a serpentine lift, which is a 12-second lift as opposed to a 6-second lift. We need one more position change to make it Level 3, or else I need to be able to get my foot to my head. (Maxiflex, anyone?) I haven’t been stretching lately but I used to be able to do this, so it’s not an impossible goal. Stay tuned for more entertainment in this direction, perhaps even pictures of me stuck in unlikely positions.

Our balance/straight line lift is the same as always and very reliable. It’s Level 3 since we both have a difficult position (me upside down and cantilevered and Tim in a squat). Our twizzles are pretty consistent and if we both do them they are Level 4. We now need a spin. Our spin from last year is unique but won’t get a high level since we are both upright without a difficult position. I think dance spins should be abolished, actually, but since we need one, we may just stay with our old reliable this season because it’s pretty consistent.

The rest of the practice was spent on the Rocker Foxtrot. The Rocker Foxtrot is not meant to be entertaining, so I’ll sign off until next week.

Thank yous

2008-08-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who have written me privately. The response has been truly overwhelming. It upholds my belief that ice dancers (and adult skaters in general) are some of the friendliest, kindest and most caring people in the world.

I am over my shock, anger, depression and denial (I think there are 4 more steps but now is the time for action so I’m postponing those). Tim and I have been skating, albeit a bit cautiously. I’m walking slowly and sitting gingerly but I’m not out of commission yet.

There are some encouraging surgical options out there (possibly not covered by my insurance company as they are considered “experimental,” but I really need new hips more than I need a remodeled kitchen) and so I am not giving up. Many of you out there are skating on artificial hips and I have been so encouraged by your stories.

I need some time to process all of the information I’ve received. I’ll keep everyone posted. Terri

Possibly Cathartic, Probably Immature,

2008-08-05T19:07:00.001-07:00

...and Definitely Angry.

This is an addendum to my post from earlier today regarding my recent hip problems. If you haven't yet, please read that post first.

I realized today that my hip deformity has caused physical and emotional problems for a long time, even though I had no idea that I had this defect until today. This evening while feeling sorry for myself I recalled some of these problems; it is not much comfort now to know the reason behind them but I feel I should list them here for posterity.

I remember in Kindergarten when we were being read to, all of us kids were told we must sit "Indian Style" for 30 minutes (Not such a PC term now, but I'm sure you all know the position I mean.) At age 5 I could only sit that way for a few seconds before my legs started to shake and hurt. My femurs naturally rotate inward, not outward, and so I could then (and still now) more easily sit with my upper legs together with my lower legs turned out in "W" position.

I remember being told that we MUST sit for the half hour reading period INDIAN STYLE, and I was corrected by teachers, publicly, over and over again for being unwilling to sit that way. (Somebody explain the mindset of these Kindergarten Nazi Bitches to me ... I am at a loss.) Sometimes it hurt so much that I would cry. I remember the teachers scolding me for being "a baby" and "disruptive." Nobody thought it was a medical problem; who ever heard of a 5 year old who couldn't sit "Indian Style"? They never told my parents or sent me to a doctor, just strongly suggested to me that I was a bad child. Needless to say, children being the savages that they are, I was picked on mercilessly for being such a loser. Perhaps that's the starting point of some of my more interesting personality quirks.

Kindergarten teachers of mine, if you were here right now you'd be appalled at the highly disruptive and disobedient gesture I'm making in your direction with my middle finger. That's right, this is my blog, and I can do that if I want to. Nyah nyah nyah.

So I didn't see a doctor for the x-rays that would have made it obvious that I needed corrective surgery which, at that young age, would have prevented so many problems I've had since. Problems such as being unable to ride horses, something I love to do, because I can't walk for weeks afterwards due to my stiff and sore hips. Problems such as being yelled at as a teenager by skating coaches because I couldn't do an Ina Bauer (obviously not trying hard enough, probably lazy and bratty to boot). Problems such as difficulty in my late 30's riding a bicycle for more than a mile because my hips hurt (I chalked it up to being out of shape at the time and never rode a bike again). Problems walking over the last 3 years that I attributed to arthritis and old age which have caused me to groan like an old man as I get up and walk stiff-legged after getting up out of my chair at work, which co-workers have found amusing; I did too until it got so bad I realized that it wasn't normal.

{Addendum -- 8/8/08 -- my research reveals that periacetabular osteotomy, the surgical procedure used on children and young adults, was pioneered in 1984, so unfortunately it would not have helped me as a Kindergartner in the late '60's. However, I still wish I'd known about this problem earlier.}

Now it appears I may be too old for that type of surgery, leaving me again with the double hip replacement scenario as my only option, along with a lifetime of memories of things I could never do, or can no longer do, or stopped doing a long time ago.

Yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself, but this is my blog and I can say whatever I want to. Nyah nyah nyah.

Hip, Hip …

2008-08-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

You thought I was going to say “hooray,” didn't you! Fooled you.

I wasn’t going to post about this, but I’m hoping someone reading may have advice for me. My diagnosis today is acetabular dysplasia, a congenital hip deformity. (German Shepherds often have hip dysplasia, so let the dog comparisons begin.) In this abnormality, the socket of the hip does not surround the ball of the joint as it does in a normal hip; those with this condition inevitably have pain, which progressively worsens; they develop arthritis, and eventually need full hip replacement. The edge of the bone may more easily fracture since it is not stable.

Of all the sports to participate in, according to the doctor, skating is just about the worst. Running or other high-impact sports would be the only things that could be worse. The doctor, I must say, was pretty unsympathetic; even though I described how I participate in the sport of ice dancing and what that entails, he clearly thought that my skating was just any old activity because, let’s face it, I’m 45 years old and most people can’t picture us old farts skating any way other than round and round the rink for exercise. I described lifts, and ballroom dancing on ice, etc. but his answer was that I’d need to find a different activity, such as swimming, or no activity at all, which would be easier on my joints. He didn’t seem to understand that skating isn’t just going around in circles; skating is my one and only creative outlet. I've never found any other type of exercise I enjoy as much.

He gave me the name of a specialist and said good-bye.

I did some Internet research and it was then that I realized that for a skater, this was one of the worst possible diagnoses. There are many other career-ending diagnoses of course (knees, head trauma, backs) but this is right up there with the more commonly-seen injuries. The fact that I was born with this and skated for so many years without symptoms, all the while a ticking time bomb, makes this even more difficult to swallow. I will admit that I’ve shed some tears today in the bathroom at work and in my car.

The Internet says that once someone has pain from this condition, the arthritis sets in quickly, so surgery is indicated right away. As the condition worsens, the outcome of surgery is less and less likely to be positive. While there are many people who skate at a high level after hip replacement, I shudder to think of the many ways such a major surgery can go wrong, and that surgery won’t necessarily mean that I’ll be able to skate again at my current level – or walk for that matter. There are no guarantees.

I have always been healthy and never had surgery, so I’m also fearful of the process. Even giving blood is a trauma for me since I have rubbery veins, so the thought of being hospitalized for 5 days or more is truly frightening. I’d almost rather just let the arthritis take its toll, until I think of the true consequences of that. Doing nothing and continuing to skate until I can’t stand the pain any longer is an option, but then I may not be walking when I’m 50. Having surgery which isn’t successful seems like a worse option.

The internet shows that 17% of people having the surgery are able to function at the same level as before when it comes to “athletic activities”; another 37% are able to function well enough to “ambulate.” Those numbers seem particularly disturbing to me. Hip surgery is great when it allows an elderly person to continue functioning so they don’t have to be wheelchair bound. Hip surgery that means I won’t be able to skate any more does me no good at all, and seems like quite a trauma to put myself through.

An aside - this explains why I could never do a spread eagle or an Ina Bauer, despite being able to do Biellmans. Typically people with this type of dysplasia have very little hip turnout, and no amount of stretching can change that - it's just physically impossible for the hips to move that way. To think of all the time I wasted doing plies, pilates, and various other stretches to improve my turnout which never seemed to improve ... and to think of all the coaches who told me I was "just not trying hard enough" to do that Ina Bauer. Well, it's vindication all right, but somehow THAT doesn't feel very good right now.

I’m in a little bit of shock right now since this was not the diagnosis I was expecting (I was hoping more for "you pulled your groin, now rest and ice it for a month then you will be good as new"), but I need time to process this and figure out what I am going to do. Readers, I already know I have your empathy. If any of you have constructive advice, I could sure use some now.

Sleep Deprivation

2008-08-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

We’re back from Lake Placid, site of the world’s largest ice dance competition (“All Ice Dance, All The Time!”)

First, I have to brag and publish the link to ice-dance.com, where Perry’s photos are published. He had some great shots in various events, including the Finnstep seminar, many of the Open events, and various others. Look for the “Perry Levine” watermark on the photos.

I was busy judging which I can’t discuss here, other than to say that as promised in a previous post, I am cranky, tired, and in dire need of a vacation. Our plane got in late last night, and after four 12-hour days of judging, critiqueing and assisting referees (timing lifts, a necessary evil), and a couple of sleepless nights, I am exhausted.

So, what to blog about since I can’t really discuss the skating? (Other than to say, in general terms, that everyone should make the pilgrimage to Lake Placid at least once; nowhere else will you see that many ice dancers all in one place, including all levels and disciplines; the level of skating is very high even for this early in the season and it is inspiring to see that ice dancing is not by any means dead).

I have not skated in 3 weeks because of my hip injury. I see the doctor tomorrow (I can’t believe it takes 3 weeks to get in to see a doctor these days, and meanwhile I can’t do anything because I don’t know the extent of the seriousness of the injury). I hope I’ll be cleared to skate after that.

Today’s admittedly non-skating topic will be the state of manners in this country. Yes, that’s right, I said manners, as in “courtesy.” I won’t go into a long discussion of table manners, although I could (I am tired of looking across a crowded restaurant to see Neanderthals of every age and gender chewing loudly with their mouths open … do they know how disgusting they look? … and it’s not just kids, it’s also their parents, which is why the kids don’t know any better … but that’s not what I want to talk about today even though I just did).

I’m talking about the more destructive problems that come about in our society because people aren’t courteous and they are no longer brought up to take accountability for their actions. I’m sure I sound very old fashioned saying this, and I have no problem being perceived as an old fart.

The last 10 times I have traveled, mostly for judging- and skating-related events, I’d say that at least 5 times – that’s half, by the way, and it may be more – I have had to call the front desk to complain about NOISE. I’ve stayed in four-star hotels and “economy” motor inns, and all have the same problem.

Now, when I put my good money down for a hotel room, I expect only a few basics, really. I expect cleanliness, and I usually get it at a tolerable level. I expect hot water to come out of the shower when I turn it on. Finally, I expect enough quiet so that I can get a good night’s sleep. So on weekdays I expect that there will be no screaming, running in the halls, jumping on the bed over my head, throwing up in the hallways, or prank fire drills between 10 PM and 6 AM. On weekends I can go to 11 PM, but would extend the quiet zone to 7 AM because sometimes I like to sleep in when I can.

Many hotels have a posted “quiet policy,” but few enforce it. In some venues, it seems they’d have to hire a full-time staff of burly bouncers to keep the peace. During just the past year I’ve had to endure multiple episodes of children squealing and running up and down the halls for hours (while their parents do … what ??? … I’m not sure …), people who have loud conversations punctuated by hysterical laughter for hours, drunken screaming parties (no further explanation needed), alarms clocks in the empty room next door which go off at odd hours and don’t get turned off by the “night clerk” for 45 minutes, people in the room above me tap dancing in lead boots while dragging heavy cadavers and rearranging the hotel furniture (that’s what it sounded like, I actually have no idea what they were wearing or doing and I don't really want to know). All of this during my “quiet zone” hours. And of course this usually occurs when I have to be up at 6 AM to do 12 hours of judging the next day.

(Don’t get me started on hotels built in the “Embassy Suites” configuration, with an open “atrium” – AKA “echo chamber” – which channels all noise from the lobby - and bar - directly up to the guest rooms. One time while judging Regionals in Seattle I slept in my car when Embassy Suites in Lynnwood couldn’t find a way to quiet down the people pacing and yelling above my head at 2 AM, to the LOC’s chagrin. I now ask for a top floor at the end of the hall when I can get it, but there are never any guarantees and even those rooms can have problems.)

This past week in Lake Placid Perry and I stayed at the highly recommended Art Devlin’s Olympic Motor Inn. The reviews raved about Art Devlin’s, which has been run by the family for 40 years. The reviews touted the place as friendly (true, it was), close to the rink (also true), reasonably priced (for Lake Placid, yes), and quiet.

The first two nights were indeed fairly quiet, although we had to unplug the phone and alarm clock because they buzzed loudly any time they picked up a cell phone signal – which is disconcerting at 2 AM and woke us up enough times those first two nights for me to be cranky and tired by Friday. The next day was going to be a full one for judging and I needed my rest, so we retired early.

The party next door started around 1:30 AM, after we’d had about 3 hours of fairly restful sleep. It started with loud footsteps in the hallway, doors banging (how many times did they have to bang the doors? Just go in the friggin’ room and shut the door for crying out loud). Then they went out on the balcony and yelled across the parking lot to their friends for 10 minutes, and then the loud music, hysterical laughter and screaming conversations began.

After about 30 minutes we called the front desk, but there was no answer. We found later that Art Devlin’s doesn’t employ a night clerk, “to keep costs down.” So Perry got up, got dressed, and walked over to the office to knock on the door, since the proprietors live on site. (If they can’t afford a desk clerk, wouldn’t it be a smart idea to have the phones forward to their personal apartment after hours, in case there is a problem??? I don’t know, seems like a smart idea to me.)

The proprietor quieted the party down, but unless you were born yesterday you KNOW that parties don’t die a quick death. It was in full swing again about 15 minutes after he left, and we weren’t about to get up and walk over to the front desk again. We put the pillows over our heads and tried our best to sleep. Sometimes there would be a lull and we’d doze off, only to awaken with a start when someone screamed with laughter or the door banged.

When we complained the next day, the proprietor apologized but did not even offer to refund our money for that night’s stay, which would be the proper thing to do. He said he had tried to call us to give us his cell phone number in case the party got out of hand again, but “our room phone was off the hook.” I explained that this was so that we could sleep without being awakened every time someone used their cell phone in the town of Lake Placid. Hmmm, he said, nobody has ever reported that problem to me before. Hmmm, I said, very strange that you have so many deaf people staying here.

Interesting also that he said this was the first time in “two years” he’d had to break up a party. (Really? How interesting. It must only happen when I go to a hotel, and I guess this is true everywhere I stay, which leads me to believe that I should just stay home from now on for the good of society.)

I told Art that we would never stay there again, and that my only recourse was to bad mouth the motor inn to everyone I know since he had not done anything to make it right. But honestly, the same thing was likely to have happened in any hotel in town, even the most expensive grand resort. Based on my experience with travel lately, people leave their courtesy at the door when they travel, and if I want a relaxing vacation my best bet is to stay home and sleep in my own bed.

The calm before the Placid

2008-07-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

There's always a captive audience in a mall rink. Above, a rowdy group of fashion models supervises our practice.

The countdown to Lake Placid has begun. It is a frenzy of list-making, packing, wrapping things up at work so I can go on "vacation," and making sure the teenagers staying at home have enough food and money to get through the week on their own.

I am judging, not skating, so I won't be blogging any updates. As a judge I am not allowed, for obvious reasons, to comment publicly on any event which I have judged.

However, I can comment on packing for the event: glasses, power bars, stop watch, warm clothes. (There's more, but I don't think anyone except TSA wants to know what's in my luggage.)

I can also say that my dear husband Perry has volunteered to help ice-dance.com with photography. Perry learned a long time ago that if he wants to spend time with his wife, he may have to go inside a skating rink now and then. He did a whole bunch of announcing at the Fairbanks competition and did a great job. He can't announce at Lake Placid - not enough experience - but he can take some photos as a volunteer.

Last night we discussed everything he needs to know, such as the fact that yes, this is a very prestigious competition, it's ice dancing only, the skaters come from all over the US and Canada, and some get evaluated for grand prix assignments. Thus it's a bit less laid back than, say, the local non-qual.

Also we discussed that, when assigned to photograph the Open Fiesta Tango event, he will be hearing the same atrocious piece of music at least 200 times. We talked about taking potty breaks whenever possible because you won't have a chance later if you're volunteering. We discussed the best way to get a good photo (my amateur opinion is, "the opening pose is best and then you can doze through the rest of the dance").

We discussed the fact that the people on the east coast think of "Terri Levine" as the president of the Skating Club of New York, and I'm known as "The Other Terri Levine" when I go there. So he may have to answer questions about me, such as what level I judge (Perry had no idea until I told him) and what's really in my luggage. Hopefully the conversation won't be about me, but of course people are always curious, and even though I was there last year my hair is a different color now, rendering me unrecognizeable. (For proof of that, watch the "Learn to Ice Dance" DVD, made when I was at Lake Placid last year, featuring my very red, frizzy, mess of hair.)

That reminds me, I had better pack the anti-humidity hair spray.

Vacation Daze

2008-07-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

The judging assignments are out, and I am going to Pacific Coast Sectionals in Scottsdale, AZ in November. This is clearly a good excuse for Perry to get in some golfing while I freeze inside the rink. I am also assigned to judge dance at Junior Nationals in Lake Placid in December, meaning I will freeze both inside and outside the rink. (I am not going to Regionals in Jackson Hole this year - enough is enough already.)

It's always a kick to tell the people at work where I'm going on vacation. Yes, esteemed work colleagues, it's November, a dark and dreary time here in Oregon, and I will be spending an entire week out of the office in sunny, warm Scottsdale, Arizona! Aren't you jealous?! But don't expect me to come back with a tan or any golf stories because I'll be spending all of my time in a dark and dreary ice rink. I'll be packing my down coat and Ugg boots and mittens and a hat to take to sunny, warm Scottsdale. I'll be working hard at least 8 hours each day. (Ha! I'm a dual judge, who am I kidding? Make that TWELVE hours each day.) I'll spend my time off work concentrating on GOEs and PCs and other concepts that are even more taxing than what I do at work most days. I'll come back to work cranky, tired, and in dire need of a vacation.

In December I'll be leaving the office for a week again to go to beautiful snowy Lake Placid, where I won't have time to ski or go down the bobsled run because I'll be spending all of my time in a dark and dreary ice rink watching 500 patterns of the European Waltz. I'll come back to work cranky, tired, and in dire need of a vacation.

Of course my co-workers think I'm totally nuts when I explain that I'm not getting paid to do any of this.

Hmmm, what else can I do with my vacation time? How about judging the Lake Placid Dance Championships (Lake Placid in summer looks the same as Lake Placid in winter when you never leave the rink), trial judging at Nationals (January in Cleveland, a treat!), Adult Sectional in Las Vegas (OK, that one could be fun) and Adult Nationals in Grand Rapids, MI in April (sorry all you midwesterners, Grand Rapids just doesn't sound like a vacation to me).

But there is hope on the horizon. Perry and I are planning a trip to South America at the end of the competition season. Buenos Aires and Macchu Picchu, with no clipboard, no Uggs, no skates, no rinks. I plan to come back rested with lots of stories and photos to share and maybe even a tan. (OK, it's a year away but can you blame me for planning it now?)

Choreography

2008-07-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Today I limped to the rink with my pulled groin muscle for a choreography lesson. "Choreography" is a term which means "standing around talking about elements and where they go on the ice and in the music while said music blares repeatedly in the background, annoying other skaters." So, even an injured skater can stand around and take part in the fun.

Of course I'm incapable of not skating if I'm on the ice, so we did more than stand around, we "walked through." This is a pretty hilarious term too; it calls to mind tiptoeing around lightly in time to the music while pretending to do the elements. But that's not what we did either.

By the end of two hours we were actually skating the first minute or so of the program. We don't have our actual starting pose (which will no doubt be a highly stylized ballroom dance-like maneuver) or opening steps, but we do have all of our elements mapped out and some connecting steps. Our first element is our level 4 twizzles (callers, you can go ahead and write that number - 4 - down now in case you aren't paying attention in April). We then have some pretty neat footwork to get back together and into our first lift. Coming out of the lift we have a twizzle for me and some nifty steps for Tim. Then we aren't sure what comes next to get us to the middle of the ice, where we do our circular footwork (which is coming along nicely if I do say so myself, and going to the music well).

Our coach asked if we had any "tricks" - meaning signature moves that we "always" perform - to be included. (Always, haha, right, we've performed publicly all of 5 times together, so I think all we are "known for" is showing up.) But we did mention the drape from last year, which we hated. Then we tried to do it and could not remember at all how it went. Some signature move! I just watched the video from last year and I still can't figure out what we did. I guess we're going to need something new.

That's where we stopped today, desperately seeking a signature trick. We're making great progress and we'll continue with another choreography session on Sunday. We are aiming for full run-through ability by the end of September. We are very happy with our revised music choice, which is upbeat and fun, bringing out a new and previously unknown side of our personalities. All of this smiling, sigh, I'll need to get my teeth whitened before we compete this season.

So So ...

2008-07-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

For my birthday this year, Tim gave me a sewing machine. This may sound like an odd gift from a skating partner, but he had two of them and I have always wanted one. You know, to whip up a new set of curtains for the living room one weekend, for example, or to slipcover the sofa on a lazy Saturday afternoon. All of those decorating projects I would do in my copious spare time if I were not busy working, skating, judging, renovating, volunteering, traveling, etc., etc.

The best reason to have a sewing machine, of course, is to sew skating wear. We’re talking practice clothes (do you know how much Seku charges for those great foldover waist pants I have?) and competition costumes of course. I have tons of ideas for those and I know what looks good on me; how difficult could it be?

So based on the advice of our wonderful costumer Jim Kerber (who knows he is not going to lose our business because there is no way in hell that I can come up with the kind of gorgeous costumes he does), I started with a pair of simple practice pants.

It took me three weeks to find the time and courage to go to the fabric store and take the plunge. The pattern I chose was in stock and they had some fabric which had the required 4-way stretch. I bought elastic, thread, needles, and other “notions” (such an apropos name), and I was on my merry way.

As I sat in my “sewing room” aka my “office” with the fabric spread out in a huge expanse on the floor, all of my 7th grade home economics phobias came flooding back. My pin phobia (“careful, you are going to snag that fabric!”) was first. Pins are also sharp and they hurt when you stick them into your finger, which I am genetically predisposed to do because I carry the "klutz" gene.

My scissor phobia was less trivial. I am left handed and have many residual emotional scars from having to use the squishy green-handled “lefty” scissors in kindergarten. Of course there were never enough “lefty” scissors to go around, and I was a wimpy kid who didn’t fight for the scissors, so I was usually left to mangle the construction paper using right-handled scissors in my left hand. Just try this some time if you think I'm joking. My mother happily framed the resulting “art,” but I’m sure she must have wondered about my fine motor skills at the time. As I grew older and more dexterous I bit the bullet and learned to cut with my right hand, but I was never very good at it.

So here I was, faced with a sea of slippery, stretchy lycra and a brand new sharp pair of left-handed scissors which I had bought for the occasion. After cutting out the pattern itself (using another pair of scissors which weren’t earmarked for fabric), and pinning it to the material (only a bit of blood ensued), I was ready to cut. I felt like a medical student operating on her first cadaver as I hesitated before making the first incision.

Needless to say, the cutting didn’t go well. I soon learned that my left hand had forgotten how to cut and felt awkward, so I had to use my right hand, which meant using not-so-sharp scissors and, well, my non-dominant hand. Cutting two layers of fabric is challenging since they move and slide around each other. At the end I had all of the pieces but lots of ragged edges. Oh well, I thought, those will be inside the garment anyway.

Which is true. But the pieces still have to match up, and if they are not cut accurately, they don’t. But now, the good news … Lycra fabric stretches! It hides a multitude of sins because you can simply stretch the pieces to fit them together. Aha, I thought, perfect. I pinned the front to the back and started to sew. The seam was pretty straight, the machine was humming, I was starting to relax. Then, disaster struck. The fabric started getting sucked down, down, down into the nether regions of the machine … where the bobbin lives. I pulled on it, and it pulled back. I opened up the bobbin case to find a mess of fabric and what looked like a thread bomb which had gone off inside. Thread and fabric everywhere.

This required me to get out the sewing machine manual, and some patience (which I lack) while I took apart the bobbin case, removed the thread remnants, cut out the fabric which was stuck, and put it all back together again. Jim reassured me, saying that this “sometimes happens.”

The part of the pants which had been sucked in happened to be the crotch, and now they had a big rip in them. By this point I was tired, sweaty, and ready to have some new pants, dammit, so I cut the offending crotch part out and figured it would all come out in the wash. These pants might have a slightly funny looking crotch but who is going to be noticing that?

After sewing the front to the back and the other front to the other back, I tried to fit the two front and back leg pieces to each other at the waist. The notches were not lining up and no amount of stretching was going to save the day, because the notches were totally backwards and upside down. How could this have happened? The pieces had fit together so well when I was sewing them. After about 20 minutes of pondering this and staring at the pattern instructions, I realized that I had sewed the front to the other front and the back to the other back vs. vice versa. Oops. Out came the handy dandy seam ripper (the key tool that every sewer must have). I ripped out everything I had spent all morning doing and called it a day.

The next day I carefully pinned the front to the BACK and the OTHER FRONT to the OTHER BACK. The rest of my pants-sewing adventure was pretty nondescript. Several hours later I had a pair of pants which … amazingly … fit me PERFECTLY. I could not believe it. They were flattering and they fit. The misshapen crotch was undetectable. The seams were straight, at least on the outside. I had even taken some creative liberty by putting the waistband from “view A” on the legs from “view B” and added a slit on the side hem all by myself, and the world had not come to an end.

I'm happy with the pants, although they are a bit too loose to actually skate in, although I can envision myself wearing them with heels to a cocktail party. (A dark cocktail party where everyone is nearsighted would be best.) I chose fabric that is actually TOO stretchy and not form fitting enough for skating. Despite this, I'm very happy with how they turned out and I feel I've learned quite a bit about sewing.

I am now looking for fabric so I can sew the skating dress pattern I bought. It’s more difficult than pants, with about a hundred more pieces to cut out (I am buying a rotary cutter for that) and several pages of instructions that are on par with those for space shuttle landing gear. It’s a hot little Latin number complete with a ruffle and a flirty skirt. If all goes well I may have a dress to wear for my Samba and Cha Cha Congelado tests.

Um, that is, if I ever test them. Who has time with all of this sewing?

"F" Words

2008-07-09T10:13:00.001-07:00

It's true confession time. For the past week I have been skating FFFFFreestyle.

I hate to say it publicly in a forum read by my ice dancing peers, but I just have to. It is so much FFFFFun, and I am just so amazed I can still do some of this stuff after 30 years, give or take. They say that as you age you should do something every day which scares you (in order to keep your brain "young") and while Tango Romantica qualifies as scary, this pushes it just a bit past that point. If healthy FFFFFear keeps you young, I may just live forever.

Now for some reminiscing (skip this paragraph if you bore easily). My parents would not let me compete as a kid and as a non-competitor back in the '70's no coach really wanted to work with you very much. Add to that the fact that I sucked at figures (I was nearsighted and 90 lbs., and just couldn't see my tracings at all) and I was the kid who got a lesson if the coach had some free time. Maybe. So there were a lot of things that slipped through the cracks and didn't get taught, such as back spins, which would have been oh-so-helpful. I never learned one, although I did learn a flying camel and sit change sit. And as I recall, jump technique was taught by repeatedly yelling "jump UP and pull IN!!" It's a wonder I was able to do double jumps at all.

Last Tuesday I was warming up for my MITF lesson when I saw my coach (who is my age) doing loop jumps. Something clicked in my brain and I said whoa, why not. So when she came over to work on my Brackets and Rockers, I told her I wanted to work on JUMPS. She was a bit surprised, but even more surprised were the kids, parents and others who have until now only seen me do ice dancing. We ran through all of the single jumps and some combos, and then some spins (oh my, a layback in short blades is really quite a trip!) I was shocked that these things were all still in my muscle memory bank and while they weren't stellar, I could do them, sort of.

Nowadays I weigh a lot more than 90 lbs. and my jumping muscles are certainly not in any kind of shape. They scream at me each day after I work on freestyle, but it's a good kind of pain. And my coach actually cares about my skating even though I don't compete, and she gives me actual technique pointers (e.g., leave the left side back, get your weight over your skating side, put your free leg HERE) and exercises to work on. If I follow her advice, I see actual improvement. Her amazed comment during my second freestyle lesson last night - while warming up for axels -- was, "you have no fear, that's good."

(Well, if she only knew --- but I'm not going to tell her.)

Circular Footwork

2008-07-02T09:35:00.001-07:00

Shocking progress made today on the circular footwork despite me being in an utterly foul mood. No, you don’t understand what that means unless you are my partner who has to put up with me. Perry knows of course. I am sometimes not pleasant to be around. Oh yeah, and I know it, and I don’t like it either. But today a host of things including the bathroom remodel that never ends, a work situation, another work situation, and lack of sleep all conspired. So here is my public apology and now on to how the situation improved.

So after agreeing that all of our warmup exercises stink and will never get any better (this was me agreeing with myself and Tim just hoping it would all pass soon), we moved on to the circular footwork we learned on Monday. It is difficult, full of rockers and counters and twizzles and power pulls and Choctaws and strange dance holds and places where we are on one foot for so long it seems like a run-on sentence and we don’t even get to push.

At first my bad mood continued as we trudged along trying to remember it all. I kicked my own stupid self in the shin with my blade only once (hardly any blood, I found later). After two sessions worth of my bad mood getting a bit worse followed by a bit better, we put on the music and amazingly enough we got through it multiple times with (I’ll admit minimal) flow, mostly in time to the music and it even made a full circle. Wow. What a great day’s work. From hopeless to almost having fun in one morning. Another reason to love ice dancing.

(Drat, now I can’t even pretend that I’m still in a bad mood.)

Free Dance

2008-06-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

Our Balance Lift

Tim returned yesterday from his trip to Hong Kong and I returned from Fairbanks. It turns out that there was a skating rink in the lobby of the building where he was working in Hong Kong and he had quite a bit of free time, but hadn't taken his skates. Bummer!!

We worked on compulsories yesterday. Today we worked on free dance which for me is more fun. We did both of our lifts (we hadn't done them in quite some time). Tim finally explained what he wanted me to do to get into the balance lift and I finally understood what he meant, so the lift was much better from his perspective. Same thing on the spread eagle lift; Tim finally made me understand what he wanted me to do. Maybe after two years we are finally learning how to communicate.

Lifts are much harder for him because he has to lift 115 lbs. of dead weight while skating. I just have to hang there and try to look good. So I try to accommodate whatever he wants me to do to make the lifting process easier on him. Since my past experience with lifts is limited it's not always intuitive to me what works best. Today was a breakthrough in that he finally felt comfortable with where I was and how we got into the lifts. We've done the balance lift for two years and I'm just understanding it now. I guess I'm a little slow.

We tried a variation on last year's spin and we like it better. We worked on the footwork our coach gave us and actually saw improvement. All of this was really fun too. What more can I say?

The value of practice, part 2

2008-06-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

I decided to do the Tuesday evening MITF class at Lloyd Center last night just for some fun, and since Tim is in Hong Kong on business so really ... what else can I do? I skated a freestyle beforehand even though it was crowded with little jumping beans who frowned in my direction as I practiced my Midnight Blues and Ravensburger Waltz patterns in their lutz corner and axel setup path. Right before class, I saw the instructor looking at the Junior Moves Choctaw pattern and my mental cash register went, “KaChing!”

I have been working on the Junior Choctaws for some time now. In fact, whenever Tim isn’t looking I throw in a pattern. When Tim is out of town I spend a lot of time on them. They have gone from truly pathetic to basically acceptable after several long months … why? Well, because I practiced them of course.

I have utterly no aptitude for them since (1) my hips are so closed I actually walked pigeon-toed as a child (home movies confirm this fact) and (2) I had a lot of trouble getting the twisting action, knee bend, and re-bend all to happen in the correct sequence at first because I am not-so-limber at my age and (3) these were something I never learned as a child so I had to create new muscle memory in middle age, which is not an easy thing to do.

But I practiced, and practiced, and practiced them. I fell over while practicing, and tripped myself while practicing, and hit myself in the face while practicing (I really wish I had that one on video). Then they started improving, slowly and almost invisibly. Soon I gained confidence and bent my knees more (which of course is the key to doing them well in the first place) and they got better. They are not perfect or 100% consistent yet by any means, but they actually look like Choctaws on accurate if not super deep edges. (Let’s face it, I will never do them like Doug H., but not many people can!)

So when we got to work on them in class, I was ecstatic. Two adults, 3 kids, and nobody could do them except … me. And I’m not bragging (ok, a little bit, because I’ve earned it, because I practiced) but I have to say it was gratifying to have the instructor ask me to demonstrate them, and to do them well while demonstrating. Perhaps not “passing the Junior Moves test” well, but “well for someone who couldn’t do them at all a couple of months ago.” And then she asked us to add two quick twisting rockers on the end (THOSE are easy for us "closed hip" folk) and I could even demonstrate that. Followed by kudos from the instructor on my nice deep choctaw edges, yee haw. Especially nice to demonstrate them in front of the kids who, on the freestyle before the class, likely thought of me as the old lady doing solo ice dance who was perpetually in their way and why oh why was I on their freestyle instead of attending Coffee Club or sitting in a rocking chair knitting sweaters.

Wait, there’s more! Learning where to put all of my body parts on these Choctaws has addressed many of my weaknesses in other areas too. The hard work has made some other things easier and better, such as the FI edges at the end of the Samba and Cha Cha Congelado. My inside edges are just deeper and more flowing now as a result of having better control and alignment. Clearly practicing one thing can often help other things improve.

(Side note to those of you who skate with me -- now the cat's out of the bag, so every time you see me do these I'll probably trip, fall, or hit myself in the face and you'll say hmmm, she obviously didn't practice enough. Don't worry, it doesn't happen every time, only when you are watching. Keeps me humble.)

So there you have it, the many rewards of practice. Now I need to step it up even more by doing the first Choctaw from a FI edge (not from a BO edge). Starting forward is harder, but necessary for the Rumba which is a dance I really should be working on … so I guess it’s time to stop writing and get to the rink to practice that.

The value of practice

2008-06-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

I just read a great article on Practice from one of my favorite bloggers, skating coach Jocelyn Jane Cox. We all know that practice does not really make perfect. However, a coach once told me his philosophy: "Practice makes easy." This has stuck with me for a long, long time and I know from my own skating history that it's true. The more I practice something, the easier it gets. And, usually, it gets better too.

Jocelyn discusses "practice with thought" vs. mere repetition. You can't keep practicing the same thing over and over without change and expect it to improve if you are doing it wrong. The older I get, the wiser I get about practice. I have to; my body is aging and just isn't capable of doing stupid things repeatedly. If something isn't working I have to analyze why, sometimes seeking the advice of a coach, and change things until it does work.

I haven't done much solo dancing the past two years because I have a partner and skating together has been our focus. Before that, I solo'd pretty much everything all the time and was confident doing so. Since Tim is out of town on business I have spent the past week working on my international dance solos. The internationals aren't meant to be solo'd of course, and I can't do the Midnight Blues drape by myself. But forcing myself to do some very difficult turns and steps ON MY OWN has solidified some of the things I've been learning all year long.

I solo'd Samba, Cha Cha Congelado, Rumba, Ravensburger, Midnight Blues, and Tango Romantica Tuesday. It was a public session and the rink decided to play a medley of 1970's disco for about an hour. So, there I was, transported back to Junior High School, doing the Cha Cha Congelado to "Night Fever" by the Bee Gees. It was great fun, actually. There was a pretty big audience of shoppers and I noticed some watching. I'm sure they had no idea that this was a "boring" compulsory dance. (You know, too boring for prime time TV.)

Hmmmm.

Our new gig - pairs

2008-06-09T08:30:00.001-07:00

Here we are, breaking all the dance lift rules.

Two patterns of our Viennese Waltz, right on top of the other. Yee haw!

Lesson with Sandy.

Donny, Justin, Eileen. {The following is a public service announcement:} Justin is a great skater looking for a partner; ladies, feel free to contact me if you live in or near Colorado Springs and can skate/are willing to learn international dances.

Ravensburger Waltz Injury Log:
(Who says the Rave is more difficult for the lady?)
Tim - Kicked in the shin with toe pick during Terri's FI 3 turn
Tim - Hit in the face with elbow during Terri's RBO twizzle
Tim - Hit in the face with ponytail several times during Terri's RFI twizzle
Terri - Acquired hangnail while lacing skates

(Thanks to Bob Raemer for the great photos.)

Flooding in the heartland

2008-06-08T20:49:00.000-07:00

The waters are now receding in Indiana, but 10" of nonstop rain caused flooding and other misery across the midwest.

Here we are after getting caught in some of that rain:

We look a bit demonic. (Perhaps this is the true meaning of "redeye.") This was also after Tim lost his shoes. Although eventually we did find them.

By Saturday afternoon the weather was sunny and beautiful. In downtown Indianapolis, you'd never know that devastating rains had just ended.

More pictures to come soon, I promise. I just want every dancer at the silver level or above reading this blog to think about coming to Indy next year. This is always the best learning experience and the coaches are OUTSTANDING. By the end of the weekend we could get through the Ravensburger -- kind of --- slowly. But we know how to do it and can work on it. Our Samba and Viennese (the latter not covered at the clinic but due to our private lesson) are much improved. I had a blast doing the Cha Cha which I really love to solo. And, Tim changed his opinion of the Midnight Blues -- very difficult but fun.

The ratio of men to women who knew the Ravensburger was about 2:1, which was a nice surprise and meant that I, who really didn't know what I was doing, got to partner a whole bunch of unsuspecting men through the Ravensburger twizzles (while they worked on those tricky chasses). Somehow I managed to stay on my feet through all that, although I almost plowed into a group of young ladies by the boards while soloing the Cha Cha Congelado later on. Luckily it only looked dangerous and we all remained vertical.

When asked why I hadn't tested any internationals yet, I commented that I am waiting 4 more years so I can take them Masters. That didn't go over very well with Sandy. The real reason of course is because I'm incredibly lazy! But perhaps, if I can ever find any spare time at all, and if I can find someone willing to take me through, I'll test the Samba and Cha Cha one of these days as I keep promising. Somebody please make me do it this time.

Stay tuned for pictures.

Postcard from Indy

2008-06-07T07:51:00.001-07:00

Your intrepid Portland ice dancers (Tim, Terri and Bob) are reporting live from the 20th annual Indianapolis International Ice Dance Seminar. After an interesting redeye trip here (more on that later), we arrived to thunderstorms.

After a brief nap at the hotel we headed to the rink and skated for a couple of hours on beautiful ice with only a few other skaters around. We had a lesson with Master Rated Coach Sandy Lamb on the Viennese which fixed quite a few things. Then, after a tornado warning where we had to leave the ice to go to the basement (this was later found to NOT be a tornado warning so we returned quickly to the ice), we did the 2-hour Ravensburger Waltz clinic with Donny Adair (also Master Rated). Wow, did we learn a lot, and were we sore after 5 hours of skating!

When we finally got off the ice we found that someone had stolen Tim's (only pair of) shoes. Since he works for a shoe company that isn't really tragic, but we did have to trek late at night to the 24-hour drugstore to purchase some flip flops for him to wear.

After dinner, which we spent discussing all that we had learned, we headed back to the hotel. At least we thought we were headed toward the hotel ... but somehow we took a wrong turn. Then the rain started to pour down. We were carrying our skates, dressed in shorts and Tim's brand new wonderful shoes ... not a cab to be found.

Of course we are used to rain from home, but this rain (which was warm) included a sound and light show which was a bit scary. The lightning was spectacular. When we finally made it to our hotel, drenched, we were more than exhausted.

Since we had taken a redeye here we decided to sleep in today and skip the Midnight Blues clinic since we hadn't worked on it beforehand, saving our energy for the Cha Cha Congelado this afternoon. This morning we found out that the lakeside town where Sandy lives was flooded and the highway was closed so she couldn't get to the rink! I'm sitting in the hotel room now, watching the lightning storm. We'll go skate this afternoon as long as there is not a tornado.

Some interesting pictures, and more about our plane travels here, coming soon.
Terri

No Ice? No problem.

2008-06-01T11:52:00.001-07:00

I got to the rink early this morning to find a whole bunch of people: judges, parents, kids … it was an ISI competition. I’m sure I should have known about this as the rink has posted flyers for weeks (“rink closed June 1st”) but clearly I did not pay good attention. Shortly Tim showed up and we decide that if we can’t skate, we’ll go to the gym and work in front of a mirror. It’s something we did a bit of last year and we’ve been wanting to do it more this year, but just haven’t had the opportunity.

We were the only ones at the gym at 8:45 on a Sunday morning. We danced for an hour an 45 minutes. I’m sure the guy who let us in the door thought, “look at those middle-aged ‘Dancing With the Stars’ wannabes. Wow, that is the worst attempt at ballroom dancing I’ve ever seen.” Indeed, skating off the ice does look strange.

Of course, the Viennese Waltz loses a lot in translation from ice to floor. The music seems slow, and we trip over our own feet on the first try. It’s hard to hold the extensions which would be moving if we were on skates. Here on the floor we just stand in one spot, looking kind of silly. But our second try is better and we are actually starting to move around the floor. Without worrying about skating technique we concentrate on our frame, presentation, heads, extensions, and “skating” close together. By the 10th pattern we are looking pretty good.

We find it’s easy to forget the steps off the ice. There is no frame of reference such as where you are in relation to the rink. We have to really concentrate to get the steps consistent and on time.

(Wow, I can see why dancers are so skinny. Mirrors are helpful, but if I have to see myself coming and going every day at practice I surely won't be eating ice cream later. Yikes.)

It also feels like more of a workout when you are sweating profusely. I was dressed for skating so I had tights on, and leggings over those. I removed the tights and danced in my bare feet and leggings but shorts would have been apropos. Granted, we sweat on the ice too, but not like this. A thin layer of dust settles on the sweat and the heat seems stifling. Without a cool breeze in our face the air temperature just seems to keep increasing.

Our Samba opening, which we’ve struggled with on the ice, is a lot more fun in front of a mirror. Once we are done giggling at how silly we look we set about fixing it. By the 50th repetition it looks a whole lot better and we are actually in synch. Other parts of the samba are illuminating in front of mirrors, such as the samba steps in the second half of the dance. While watching ourselves step through them, we finally understand the concept of “hip lead.” We look like we are having fun, although some of the facial expressions I see in the mirror are hilarious (perplexed, amazed, deep in thought, transported).

Working on the floor shows us other fine details we don’t really notice on the ice. Our concept of the timing tends to be slightly different. We pay attention to this for awhile and find that Tim syncopates more on both dances. When I try to be not so literal about dancing on the beat, I am able to stay with him better. I like the syncopation for both dances, and it’s actually appropriate. We’ll keep it.

We work on our upper bodies in the Samba – rolling the shoulders, using my free arm for expression. We do our Viennese opening and realize after seeing it in the mirror that our arms are very ballet-like and we really like this, so we’ll play it up on the ice.

In a couple of ways ballroom dancing, or our version of it, is a lot easier than ice dancing. For one thing, we don’t have sharp objects on our feet with which to kick each other. We can’t get going very fast on the floor so it doesn’t seem as dangerous. Falling can’t possibly hurt on a floor going that slowly! Maybe we should switch to ballroom.

We do a swing roll in waltz position, and my toe connects with Tim’s leg. “Ouch!!” We both say, and then laugh. I guess you can get hurt on the floor, but it doesn’t seem as bad.

Overall I think we learned more today off the ice than we usually do on the ice. I think we’ll be doing more off-ice work. In fact, we didn’t have time to do lifts at all, so we’ll be back for those. Good practice!

Shameless Plug

2008-05-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

This post is a shameless plug for the Portland Adult High Dance Camp, coming in September. Since Tim and I are both on the steering committee I thought this would be a good place to "advertise." I think a large percentage of people who read this blog are also on the steering committee, but no matter.

I am excited about a training camp for adult dancers right in our home town. There are numerous dance weekends, including Portland's Sweetheart Ball, which bring dancers together and promote ice dancing as a fun and social event. With so many Portland-based adult dance teams competing and medaling at Adult Nationals in recent years, the organizers thought a high performance camp, which goes beyond the social dance weekend model, was warranted.

No doubt about it, the camp will be strenuous, with 8 hours of on-ice clinics, multiple off-ice clinics, and 3 hours of program dance time in one weekend. Our guest professionals are Jonathon O'Daugherty and Pam O'Connor, former British national champions. Meals are provided at the rink, and also include a Saturday night dinner at a local skater's home.

The camp's format allows campers to come away with new skills and exercises which will help teams and individuals take their skating to the next level. A lot can be accomplished in a weekend, although of course the skaters will have to practice what they've learned in order to see lasting results. Another bonus is to build comraderie among the adult dancers, especially competitive teams. There are so few of us that sometimes we practice in a void; having a venue to meet and get to know others who are as obsessed as we are will go a long way toward validating what we are doing.

I for one am looking forward to the on- and off-ice lift clinics (Tim may not be quite so happy about those) as well as learning exercises we can do to increase our skating skills.

If you are over 18 and comfortable dancing at the silver level or above, please consider joining us. The number of participants will be limited. For more information, including an application form, please go to www.pdxicedance.net. Click on "Events" and then "Adult Training Camp."

And now, a message from our sponsor

2008-05-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

Don't I wish we had one. You know, someone to pay the bills so we wouldn't have to. I'm talking about skating bills of course. Like many adult skaters, Tim and I work so that we can skate. And also to pay the mortgage and eat, but we work extra hard because skating is not cheap. Getting to the rink has also become more expensive as the price of gas flirts with $4 per gallon. For me, public transportation is not an option, since the earliest bus from near my house would get me to the rink by 7:15 (well, I'd have to walk 1/4 mile uphill, take the bus into town, and then change from bus to MAX train, and the entire trip would take about 45 minutes vs. the 12 minutes it takes by car). I'd be able to skate for about 20 minutes and then have to rush back to the MAX in order to make it to work on time. Why bother.

It's a fact of life that adult skaters usually have jobs, and this has been an issue for us as a team. Last year we were unable to attend Adult Nationals because Tim had to work. Now our travel for work schedule is going to prevent us from competing at Lake Placid in August. We've both scheduled 2009 Adult Nationals with the big bosses already so that we don't get preempted again, because quitting work is just not an option for either of us and we don't want to sit out again. However, the possibility exists that either one of us might not be able to go. We are really working way too hard for that to be palatable.

I am still going to Lake Placid to judge. I was looking forward to pulling double duty as both judge and skater. A recent blog by Mombo #9 talked about a pretend fundraising event in which skaters would pay to skate with their favorite (or perhaps least favorite) judge. The author was joking, and I'm not sure if she knows that there are some really good skaters among those she named. (She didn't name the two of us who are still actively competing as adults, but Mike and I have only been on the Lake Placid judging circuit for a couple of years.) This year I would have been the only person both judging and skating at Lake Placid, but I am not the first to do so.

In any case, I will only be judging this year, which makes packing a whole lot easier. I guess we'll have to look for another competition opportunity before we forget what that's like.

Today's injury log:
~Terri's ribs still hurt, toughing it out
~Tim's back hurts, going to doctor

Catch 22

2008-05-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

Startling news from the world of flying:

"If you plan on packing more than a carry-on and are flying AA, plan on paying $15 for your first checked bag as of June 15. ... United has already indicated they're considering making this move. What's next? Charging for using the in-flight bathroom?"

Those who know me are aware of my hate/hate relationship with the airlines (no offense to my friends who are pilots - you guys do a great job). But from the lousy customer service to the dismal on-time record to the ever-mounting fees, I just hate to fly. Now we have what appears to be the "figure skater surcharge." That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Since your skates are considered potentially lethal weapons, they are sometimes, but not always (it depends on the phase of the moon and the mood of the TSA screener that day), banned from your carry-on luggage. This means that unless you plan ahead by getting to the airport extra early to stand in the security line for 45 minutes only to be told to go back and check your skates, you might as well check them in the first place.

Checking skates poses its own problems because as we all know, airlines lose things. We also know skaters' law #1: skates aren't interchangeable. Skates aren't like tennis rackets or golf clubs! You can't buy a decent pair of skates at your local sporting goods store. Many of us have custom skates which have to be ordered months ahead of time. Even stock boots have a long lead time. And of course it takes weeks, sometimes months to break them in once we get them.

Just ask any competent ice dancer who has tried rental skates. There's no way I'd let go of the barrier if I had to wear those dull-bladed, floppy, ill-fitting brown skates with the red numbers on the back. Just ask world-class ice dancer Brent Bommentre, whose skates were lost for SEVERAL DAYS by the airlines en route to the world figure skating championships and who had to skate in brand new skates. (Kudos to Brent and Kim for skating so well under the circumstances with no whining - a true class act).

For the rest of us who may not have a brand new pair of skates just waiting to be broken in at home, arriving without our luggage to a competition would be a major disaster. Just think of it. An entire year of preparation. Giving up vacations and holidays. You and your partner spending a ton of money on lessons, ice time, and travel costs just to go to Adult Nationals. Then to arrive sans skates. It's not just the thought of all that time and money down the drain (although just thinking about THAT brings a tear to my eye). It's the heartbreak of not being able to do what you've trained so hard to do; it's the indifference of the airlines ("Ms. Levine, I'm sure that the pro shop can sell you a pair of skates and you'll be just fine!"); it's the agony of watching everyone else skate while you mope around Grand Rapids or Dallas with nothing to do but sit in the "curse and cry" area reserved for you and others in the same position.

And now, to add insult to injury, since we skaters are pretty much required to check our skates lest they be used, along with all that toothpaste and deoderant they are so worried about, to hijack the plane, the airlines are going to start charging us to do so, with no additional guarantee that they are not going to lose them en route. I'm no fool; I know that the airline is trying to incent me to carry on all of my luggage, hoping I'll bring less so they will save on fuel costs but also because they make more money selling the cargo space to commercial ventures. I hate hassling with checked luggage and I'd really like to be able to comply. Except I can't, because I am carrying skates. If I weren't going to a skating event I wouldn't be on the plane in the first place. And if the skates don't arrive when I do, the whole trip will be a really expensive waste of time. Soon, $15 more expensive. For those good at math, that's $30 round trip.

As someone will surely point out, lost skates are not a catastrophe on par with earthquakes and cyclones and other natural disasters. Lost skates are not as important as preventing terrorist attacks on airplanes. Please don't take me out of context, dear readers, as I can certainly assign lost skates to the appropriate category in the hierarchy of world problems. But lost skates are a problem with potential remedies.

Allowing skaters to gate check skates, for example, so they are securely on the plane and a potential terrorist can not access them. (I know, I know, the airlines are already understaffed and this sounds like another logistical nightmare, but I'm just proposing a possible solution.) Meanwhile, I've seen so many other items carried on that could be far more dangerous than skates ... Lighters? Glass bottles? Umbrellas? Why are those allowed?

Let's face it folks, if someone wants to hijack the plane, they aren't going to look through everyone's bag until they find the ice skates they just know are in there somewhere. That plastic fork in first class is much more obvious and easily accessible.

My advice -- start saving your pennies for those surcharges coming soon to an airport near you. And use your kicker check to invest in a backup pair of skates that can be overnighted to you whenever needed. If that doesn't stimulate the U.S. economy, I don't know what will.

P.S. - Happy anniversary to Perry, the best skating husband in the whole world. ILY!

Roller Derby on Ice

2008-05-21T14:27:00.001-07:00

This morning our friends and fellow dancers Julia and Jordan joined us on the ice for the first time since Nationals. All of us were working on the same compulsory dances for next year which really makes it more fun. You would think with just 2 dance teams plus 1 other person on the ice we would manage to stay out of each other's way, but no, within about 5 minutes we ran right into them - as we were doing our samba intro and they were doing the dance proper. Definitely our bad as we should have seen them coming but, too late, we smashed right into them. They were gracious about it even though they had the right to call us some choice names. This is not the right way to welcome your friends back to the rink folks.

Fair is fair, so not long after that we took a fall on the Viennese, all on our own. Later we saw the other team sitting on the ice (not sure what they had been working on, but they were laughing). Who says that dance is not athletic or difficult? Who says dancers aren't tough??? Watch out everyone, based on today's carnage I'd say that these two teams are off to a very good start.

(But as Jordan pointed out to us, we only have 11 months left until Nationals! The time, it flies.)

Lake Placid Countdown

2008-05-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Tim returned from vacation and hit the ice running today, with newly repaired boots and sharpened (no comment) (geez it's about time) (that wasn't a comment, it was me giving him a hard time) blades.

My ribs are still sore, but this is no time for whining. I read that it takes 6 weeks for bruised ribs to heal and the only thing that will help is "rest". So I will be sure to get 8 hours of sleep each night, but I am not going to stop skating just because of sore ribs.

(Special thanks to Carl who has given me a fantastic new nickname: "Rib Girl." Carl, I can always count on you.)

We had a great practice. We are concentrating on the compulsories for Lake Placid which is (pause while I consult calendar) 10.5 weeks away. I think if we had to compete these tomorrow we'd get through them, probably with some timing issues, but we'd be vertical at the end. In 10 weeks I think we'll not embarrass ourselves. Our goal is to stay on time, express the dances, and get some really brutal feedback from the judges which will drive us to work harder when we get home.

My biggest challenge now is figuring out what to wear since it will have to be appropriate for two dances -- Samba and Viennese! Could two dances be more different? We are probably going to be the only team in the event so we won't have time for a costume change. Samba calls for something neon and revealing. Viennese calls for something pastel and flowing. Anything in between would be just plain wrong for both. Any costume advice from the peanut gallery will be carefully considered and possibly ridiculed so fire away!

Come on baby, let's do the ...

2008-05-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

There are no good excuses in skating. "My ribs hurt" is no excuse not to practice. After all, I'm not getting any younger so none of this will ever get any easier. So today I went to the rink and found that I had very little pain as long as I didn't twist my upper body or breathe hard. So I reviewed my last lesson notes from Thursday with Coach R:

Jr Moves Rockers - Don't forget to twist
Jr Moves Choctaws - TWIST MORE!
Back Loops - Twist upper body as you sink into loop
Counters - Twwwwwwiiiiissssstttt

Etc., etc.

Stroking, I could do that. Standing by the rail, I could do that too. Talking to my friends would have been smashing but I was the only one on the ice. So after much warmup stroking I got bored and grit my teeth and worked on rockers, choctaws, back loops and counters, twisting a little bit but not a lot.

I ended the session doing twizzles - very little twisting required so these were the only decent thing I did all session. It was a good learning experience though. I realize just how right my coach is. Clearly twisting is the key to good skating, and I vow to work on it just as soon as I can do so without major pain killers.

Canasty Tango

2008-05-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'm through with social dancing, at least for now.

In the past, I've been labeled a bad ambassador of ice dancing when I've said how much I dislike social dancing. People think I'm the devil for saying this, that I'm cranky and not willing to promote the sport. Perhaps it's time to admit they are right.

This is not to say that I don't sometimes enjoy social dancing. It's just that I'm very picky about with whom I'd like to dance, and which dances I care to do. Social dancing purists insist that a "real" ice dancer should be able to do any dance with anyone, and this makes you a better partner, blah blah blah.

Hogwash I say, as I sit here in pain with every breath I take. On Saturday I was doing the Canasta Tango -- yes, as in the easiest ice dance of all, all forward edges, no turns -- and took the nastiest fall of my life. And believe me, I've taken some nasty falls. I've gotten a concussion doing the rocker foxtrot. I've fallen out of lifts. I've been kicked, elbowed in the face, and stepped on. Tim has fallen on me and vice versa. One time we fell on a lift and I couldn't walk for several days. I consider myself a pretty tough broad, and I usually get right back up and keep on going. But this was worse, because it happened on the Canasta Tango. I couldn't get back up, and I couldn't keep on going.

The person with whom I was dancing took an edge too deep for his abilities, and started to slide. I heard it, and held my breath because I knew we were going down. At that point people usually let go but he held on, tighter. He's a lot bigger than me so there wasn't much I could do. And down he went, hard to the right, with me falling harder than usual a milli-second later directly on my rib cage, with my arm still across his body so I couldn't even use it to break the fall. For a minute I couldn't breathe as the wind had been knocked out of me.

I have a lot of padding on much of my body; for example, I can fall on my butt 20 times and not feel a thing. But land me on my rib cage and there is no fat there. My ribs are bruised and it hurts whenever I breathe in. My shoulder feels wrenched, and my neck hurts so much I can't turn my head. And I don't even have bragging rights because I fell on the CANASTA TANGO. Not the Cha Cha Congelado or the Golden Waltz ... but a preliminary dance that I can do in my sleep.

Somebody helped me get up, and I sat out the next dance, then solo'd the Viennese Waltz. I just didn't want to admit that I couldn't get through the rest of the session, but I couldn't. I felt sore and dizzy on the Viennese and so after two patterns I got off the ice, put on a couple of ice packs, and took off my skates.

This is the last week before Tim gets back from his vacation and I had been looking forward to working on my own skating with my MITF coach as I have made a lot of progress the past two weeks. I probably won't get that opportunity. I feel beat up and battered and will probably not skate this week. I know this is one of the hazards of social dancing. But in the future I'd rather take my knocks working on our competition dances or a free dance which I KNOW is dangerous, and not social dancing.

I'll leave social dancing to those seeking a "fun and low impact activity where the likelihood of injury is low." As a small person dancing with men who are usually taller and heavier than I am, and to be honest, usually less stable on their skates, I am the one putting myself at risk of injury more than they are. And some people (not all of you of course, and that's why I do enjoy skating with some of you, even when I forget the steps) take too many risks by skating outside of their own ability level - going too fast or skating on lobes that are too deep. It goes both ways of course ... I know there are guys who feel I am dangerous to skate with, and they never ask me to dance. That's OK by me.

It's not always just a case of turning down dubious partners to begin with. Sometimes even a good skater can turn into the partner from hell. As was the case on Saturday, I was skating with someone who is a competent skater, but who in the middle of the dance started taking extremely deep edges, perhaps out of boredom, and as the hapless partner I was "led" into positions I didn't want to be in. I felt him skid on the first pattern but figured "it's only a Canasta Tango, we can get through this."

Lesson learned. In the future I won't put up with risk-taking unless I'm comfortable with the person's abilities. I am no longer willing to be put in dangerous situations outside of my control, and I'll stop mid-dance if I feel I'm in jeopardy. If that sounds one-sided and petty then I apologize for my bad attitude, but you probably wouldn't enjoy dancing with me anyway.

Lake Placid Squared

2008-05-09T19:26:00.001-07:00

Tim and I missed going to Lake Placid for Adult Nationals, but that won't stop me from going there this year --- twice. We are skating in the Dance Championships in August when it is warm and lovely, and I am also judging Junior Nationals in December, when it is cold and snowy. So I will get to see two different seasons worth of the best upstate New York has to offer.

Lake Placid is famously difficult to get to. In August we are flying into Burlington, VT, renting a car, and taking the ferry across Lake Champlain. In December I will fly wherever they tell me to, probably Albany, since the local organizing committee will be making the arrangements and picking me up and shuttling me wherever I need to go, which is basically the rink, the hotel, and the other rink. Oh yeah, and the bar.

I guess I will accrue some frequent flyer miles which should come in handy if I ever get to travel somewhere non-skating related. (Hahahahahahahaha. That's the sound of Perry laughing.) But enough travel talk. I'm boring even myself.

Skate Blogs

2008-05-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

They are everywhere, and many are really good - well written, funny, informative, and appealing to the eye. I have friends who skate 'n blog (Lisa, Gordon, Angela, Julia). Lately I've been reading a few others, blogged by folks I don't even know.

People evidently spend a lot of time on these blogs. They are very professional looking and the posts are sometimes more like articles, well researched and containing links and graphics. They also seem to have a large and loyal reader base, as shown by the number of comments posted. My readership is much smaller; my dance partner doesn't even read this blog. Of course, he gets enough of my witty repartee on the ice.

Obviously I'm not in the "big league" blog world, as my blog is admittedly kind of ugly. Really, it could have been designed by a 4-year-old, although I am proud of the "Dynamite" logo. (You know, Tim & Terri, T 'n' T, Dynamite ... OK, it seemed like a good idea at the time.) I dash off my posts during the lull between skating and showering most days, and I don't really post about anything important. For crying out loud, I can't even get the "upload video" feature to work correctly, meaning that I've e-mailed the video clip of Tim's Tango Test to a couple of you who were nice enough to ask about it. Now that's technology at its finest.

Perhaps I'll get more blog savvy as time goes by. Meanwhile, I hope that you, my loyal readers (both of you), will enjoy these uber blogs via the "links" section.

A funny thing happened in Cyperspace

2008-05-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

I was learning the Tango Romantica, and so I decided to do a Google search on it. By the way, for those of you trying to learn a new ice dance, Google searching is far superior to (1) lessons and (2) practicing. There is no muscle fatigue or sweat involved, although carpal tunnel can become an issue. You get better at the dance, vicariously, just by surfing the Internet. This cyber-learning involves the phenomenon of “muscle memory,” or perhaps it’s “random access memory” or some other kind of memory, I can’t remember. It’s all very scientific and complicated so please just take my word for it.

Add YouTube on top of Google and you can watch pretty much any dance you want, for free, in the comfort of your own living room. A true learning bonanza.

So anyway, I was Googling “Tango Romantica” but accidentally typed “Tango Romantic,” and after following a series of links I found the website of Carole Bellacera, an author who had written a romance novel featuring … are you sitting down??? … ice dancers. The book is called “Tango’s Edge.”

I read the trailer which was steamy and featured some skating, then I e-mailed Carole and found out that she loves ice dancing. I encouraged her to give skating a try through Learn-to-Skate lessons at her local rink, but she is a skier and didn’t want to jeopardize her skiing with a skating injury. (I can understand this because during the competitive season I don’t ski, bike, or run with scissors just to avoid injuring myself.)

Here is a link to Carole’s website. I can’t wait to read “Tango’s Edge” at the beach this summer!

Tim's Tango Test

2008-05-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm risking my life by posting this without Tim's prior approval. However, considering he only reads the blog once a year whether he needs to or not, I may be relatively safe. While this video isn't the best example of our skating, I am pretty happy with this test. We had only one lesson on this dance although we did spend quite a bit of time practicing it ourselves. A few more lessons would have helped catch the things we couldn't see. But really, not too bad considering.

It was cold in that rink as you can see; Tim kept his jacket on and his hat had just come off. We had a timing issue which is pretty obvious on the second pattern and we definitely could have skated closer together, but for the amount of time spent on this dance I am happy with it. All three judges liked it too. So with that said, I'm posting the video for posterity. Thanks to videographer (and national dance silver medalist) Anna Li.

NOTE: Video removed after Tim gave me a huge guilt trip!

Flying Solo

2008-04-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

What am I going to do with myself for 3 weeks?

That's how long Tim will be on vacation. It makes for not very interesting blog fodder. For example, the dialog goes like this:

Me to Self: OK, we're going to work on solo samba now, and I want to see some power this time!
Self to Me: Whatever you say!
Me to Self: OK! Let's go!
Body to Me and Self: The joke's on you both, these legs are in their mid-forties and we can only do so much ... not a lot to work with here.
Me and Self to Body: You're absolutely right. Let's go and get a latte.

This is not a very pretty picture. Clearly there isn't much impetus to work very hard on solo dance when one's partner decides to abandon ... uh, go on vacation. I just can't seem to get motivated. It's sort of like writer's block, and we all know how that turns out -- blogs about chewing gum and my wood obsession and such. Skater's block means that I have a lot I could work on but not much I really want to work on by myself. Worse, when I'm alone on the ice my mind often wanders to the dreaded F word ...

That's right ...

FREESTYLE.

I tried some axels the other day, yes, in dance blades. Did a few spins too. I have to stop this because I know how easily I could get sucked in:

Me to Self: I'll just try one double flip. It used to be my best jump.
Self to Me: Well you know, that was about 30 years ago.
Body to Me and Self: Remember, if Tim comes home and we're in a cast you'll have to make up some lie about being hit by a car.
Me and Self to Body: Right you are. I think it's time to go and get a latte.

So maybe I'll just take up golf for 3 weeks. The sun is shining, it smells like spring, and I really love hitting small objects with sticks. I think it's just what I need -- another expensive and time-consuming hobby that I'm not good at. The grass is always greener.

Wooden it be n' ice

2008-04-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

It's Monday, so it must be time for the weekly update. We are using the remaining time we have before Tim goes on vacation for several weeks to make last minute improvements. While he's gone the things we've learned will "gel" from non-use and when he gets back we'll see a quantum leap forward. At least this is what we are hoping for. We've been without a coach for a couple of weeks also, and so we are hoping that all of the gel is still going in the right direction. (We all know that left to its own devices gel flows downhill.)

It's tough to have made so much improvement and then have Tim leave, but there are definite benefits to this. It will allow him to ship his boots to Klingbeil to have them rebuilt (they are totally falling apart inside) and also get his blades sharpened. That sharpening thing is key - it has been a full year since he sharpened them. Yes, I said a full year; he last got them sharpened right after the "rust fiasco" when we got home from Nationals last year. Remember that I am the sharpening queen and can't stand any hint of dullness, so this just drives me crazy. He claims dull blades make him a better skater, so I asked him this morning why not just skate on blocks of wood? That would also make him a better skater if he could pull it off. He could be the world's best "block of wood" skater, although not so hot an ice dancer, but perhaps edges are overrated.

But I digress. This is supposed to be the weekly update and not the weekly nagging. Our compulsory dance intros are getting pretty good now that we've practiced them a lot, and we usually start the dances on the first beat of measure 9, which is the goal. Occasionally we don't, for which we place the following blame: "the hip shake thing" when practicing the Samba and "the CD player must have skipped a few beats" when practicing the Viennese.

Speaking of wood, I am having the wood floors refinished at my house. This is a dusty, smelly and overly long process. We've been renovating our master bedroom/bathroom and office for what seems like about 6 years, but really since February. If all goes well Perry and I may actually be moving our furniture back into the bedroom early next week. But enough about wood.

Our expression on both dances has improved. Our timing has definitely improved. We're skating closer together and our tracking is better. We are learning to bend our knees at the same time and in the same way more often so that we are synchronized in our pushes, meaning more power. It's sometimes hard to keep these dances inside the barriers of the mini-rink at Lloyd Center. (This doesn't mean we're such powerful skaters but that we need to get on deeper edges. This might prove difficult for those who choose to skate on blocks of ... OK, I won't say it again.)

Best of all, today we tried some Blues choctaws - always the measure of how well or poorly we're doing. Once we applied the new things we've learned, they were effortless. An effortless Blues choctaw at 6 AM on a Monday morning really makes my entire week. I can only hope the choctaws gel permanently while Tim is on the slow boat to Barcelona. Wouldn't that be n' ice.

Dream Off

2008-04-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

There's always a captive audience in a mall rink. Above, a rowdy group of fashion models supervises our practice.

This announcement should not come as a shock to any of you who are competitive ice dancers: We have changed our free dance music.

This early in the season I guess the correct response is "who cares??" I did make kind of a big deal about our choice of music with the "guess our music" contest, but that was just because I couldn't think of anything else to write about that week.

We still really like "Dream On," the music, but we don't like "Dream On," the free dance. We saw the first 45 seconds or so on video and went "bleah." That's how we felt when we were actually doing it on the ice too. Granted this is new choreography and we haven't given it much time to gel yet, but I think we can already tell that this won't be the best music choice for us. We felt the music just fine, but we were portraying it internally, which is the kiss of death when judges expect to be hit in the face with expression. And believe me, I LOVE hitting judges in the face!

They may say "oh, isn't that pretty," but they will have no idea what we are feeling out there, and the audience will be similarly bewildered, and they certainly won't join us in feeling the feeling. And that would be a "Dream On" nightmare.

Being hams, we are capable of over-the-top expression. So we think it's a better idea to do something that showcases that strength. We have some ideas but until we know for sure there will be no "guess our new music" contests. Looks like I'll have to find something else interesting to write about. (I've already sunk to a new low and written about GUM, so this could be quite a challenge.)

Why I can't skate and chew gum at the same time

2008-04-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

My partner Tim chews gum on the ice. I am sure he does this out of courtesy since we are in close proximity, breathing hard, spewing sweat and snot and sometimes blood at each other. Bad breath would just be uncivilized on top of all that.

Me, on the other hand - I figure what the hell. I try to avoid garlic and onions most of the time and hope for the best. This is because when I was growing up my coach used to make us spit out our gum before getting on the ice, citing numerous cases of kids who fell while skating and choked to death on their gum, or gum that fell on the ice causing someone else to trip and break their neck. Years of hearing and believing these stories as an impressionable youth made it inconceivable for me to chew gum while skating.

I told Tim that he shouldn't chew gum on the ice because I feared for his safety, so he looked it up on the INTERNET and told me that it's impossible to choke to death on gum, and that these stories are all just urban legend. He said this with a lot of authority and a mouthful of sugar-free Trident, so of course I believed him. Based on his extensive research I'm OK with him chewing gum now, even though I don't chew it myself on the ice.

So yesterday when something gray-green and minty fresh went flying out of his mouth, and he caught it in his hand before it hit the ice without missing a beat, I had to stop and laugh. And since it's a slow news day here in skate land I guess I am blogging about gum today. Chew on!

Finding the Reality in Reality TV

2008-04-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

I hate reality TV shows. In fact, I dislike most TV other than HGTV, which tantalizes me with all of the projects I could do to my own house if I had an infinite amount of time and money and owned power tools.

I do make one exception to the no reality show ban, because I am addicted to "Dancing With the Stars." The show is extremely popular so I am clearly not the only person addicted. More than the actual performances, I love when they show the hapless celebrities sweating it out, cursing and falling over in their high heels and short skirts in the studio as they learn their new routines in only 4 days. As we were doing our Samba intro over and over and over again this morning, running into each other and trying desperately to do that "hip shake thing" without looking like morons (oh yeah, it's a little harder on skates) -- I was comforted knowing that the celebrities on TV struggled with the same issues.

I may also be one of the few fans who uses the show to garner clever and inexpensive costume ideas for next season. If all goes as planned I'll be buying fake eyelashes and wearing two dayglo orange postage stamps on a string with a spray-on tan for our Samba and call it good. Bring on the body glue!

Bittersweet thoughts on the eve of final rounds

2008-04-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the day for final rounds for the Gold and Championship events at Adult Nationals. And even though Tim and I have been going about our business this week, practicing as usual, pretending not to notice, I have to confess: we really do wish we could be there competing in one or both of those final rounds tomorrow. It sucks to sit at home and watch the action on IceNetwork and hear about it from phone calls and text messages coming from the lucky skaters who are actually there.

For the last couple of weeks people at the rink have been wishing us good luck, and we've had to say "we aren't going." Yes, we've been working hard, but not for this. People seem surprised that we are sitting out this year because we've been working so hard.

Really, even without Tim's injury and our 6 month hiatus, we could not have gone to Lake Placid. He absolutely positively has to be physically present in Portland tomorrow, Saturday, final round day, because of a software installation at work. He must be available in case anything goes wrong and he has known that since shortly after he got back on the ice. So we knew all along there was no possible way we could compete this year.

We didn't mention this to anybody until now, but for some reason I feel like it's "true confession" time tonight, the night before final rounds. For adults, work and family often take priority over skating. There's nothing we can do about that.

Tomorrow our practice will probably be a good one because we are excited to skate on the big ice at "Shiny Rink." Tomorrow we are going to do our best to forget what is going on a continent away, because if we thought about it we'd probably feel like taking the day off, because being in an ice rink might be depressing. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be sunny and beautiful, a perfect spring day. Tomorrow the 2009 season can finally, officially, begin for us.

Congratulations Chris B!

2008-04-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

Terri & Chris, Adult Sectionals 2007

A loud CONGRATULATIONS to our friend Chris Borton who won the Silver Men III event at his first Adult Nationals today. And by an almost unanimous panel with tough competition!

Tim and I met Chris in Sun Valley at the adult weekend in 2006 and "adopted" him, even though he is a freestyle skater. We let that slide! In addition to being an extremely nice person, he is a wonderful role model for all adult skaters. Chris lives in Montana, 100 miles from the nearest rink, and drives several hours to skate in a freezing cold rink. The rink closes for several months in the summer, leaving him without ice. Despite this, Chris has persevered and has really become an awesome skater. I had the privilege of putting him on the ice at adult sectionals here in Portland and was so proud of his wonderful skate. I am sure he just blew everyone away today in Lake Placid.

Chris, we wish we could have been there to see you win that gold medal! We're so proud of you!!!

So, what's on your turntable? Uh, iPod?

2008-04-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

I hear many freestyle skaters and even non-skaters say that they might be interested in ice dancing, but they are turned off "by the music." The music, they say, "it sucks."

I really can't relate to this. I'm not sure what they are complaining about. In my car I have our compulsory dances, the Silver Samba and Viennese Waltz, on permaplay/infinite repeat. I rock out to these on the way to work each day. Also on the way to the rink. And the grocery store. Pretty much everywhere.
When the weather is balmy I roll down my windows in order to share this lovely music with everyone else. It's one of the few ways I actively promote ice dancing. Frequently I sing along. That's right, I said sing; the lyrics vary based on time of day, the state of traffic on the interstate and my current mood. Most are not suitable for publishing here.

Last year the Blues and Starlight Waltz made up the soundtrack for most of my activities of daily living. The kids groaned every time they got in the car and immediately put on their headphones. Which leads me to wonder what kind of garbage THEY are listening to.

The ringtone on my phone is "Once in Love With Amy." Before that, it was "Get Me To The Church On Time." I'm thinking of changing it to "Tie Me Kangaroo Down."

Wait a minute ... "Tie Me Kangaroo Down"? Is that really supposed to be a Rhumba? What were they thinking??? That sucks!

(No offense Marilu and Bob, it makes a great OD ... but a rhumba? Come on!!)

That reminds me - good luck to Marilu and Bob who are skating the Pre-Gold Dance Initial Round in Lake Placid tomorrow ... hey, text me those results ASAP, OK?

Weekly update

2008-04-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

We haven't had a weekly update in a couple of weeks now, so I think it's about time. First off, Tim actually read this blog for the first time -- ever? Well no, but I think the first time since we returned from adult nationals a year ago. He described it as "quite comical" which I think is a good thing.

Next, we are making progress on choreography. That doesn't mean we can DO the choreography, but that we know what it is SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE, for about the first minute of our program. There is a big huge major difference between the two. The good news though is that we can do the first part of it and the rest is do-able; we are able to try to do it, which we do, over and over. It improves in some small way each time.

We had a lesson today on the big ice and worked on Silver Samba with a bit of Viennese Waltz too. Our coach made corrections and improvements which caused us to say things like "OMG, this is so much easier when we do it this way" and "wow, why didn't we think of doing this before?" Every time we do them they get better so that's a big plus. I guess that's why I'm willing to get up at 4:30 in the morning for this.

Portland Rocks

2008-04-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

Our Home Ice circa 1969

I can't believe another Adult Nationals is almost upon us. Good luck to the Portland dance teams competing at Adult Nationals next week: Lauren & Mike (Centennial and Championship), Laura & Kiel (Championship), Julia & Jordan (Gold and Championship) and Marilu & Bob (Pre-gold). I also have to mention our friends Anna & Will (Championship) from Seattle, also representing the great Pacific Northwest.

We wish we could be there too. Have a rocking good time!

Startling discovery in the desert

2008-03-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

So last month I went to Palm Springs for a vacation with my parents and Perry. I did not take my skates as I was there for some fun and adventure sans ice. However, as we were driving through Cathedral City in the 80+ degree heat, a mirage appeared before us. There, right there on Highway 10, was the mythical and oft-doubted Ice Garden. The car screeched to a halt as I pointed in hysterics -- "it exists, it exists!" Somebody spilled their date shake in the back seat as I frantically grabbed my camera.

Here, in two never-before-seen photographs, is proof that smack dab in the middle of the desert you can find skating on ice the size of my living room. I had to somehow document the ice-rink-in-converted-furniture-warehouse before the mirage faded away into the desert sun.

Some people don't believe the Ice Garden exists, and perhaps it was all just a dream. But I'm adding it to the list of "interesting places I haven't skated ... yet."

Who knew?!

We have a winner ...

2008-03-30T07:47:00.001-07:00

Marilu Campbell, come on down ...

Marilu guessed our music in an e-mail to me. We have a prize for her of course -- because she won, she gets to take Tim through his Rocker Foxtrot test at the test session of her choice. Congratulations Marilu!

And I'm sure many of you have guessed too, since my hints were so illuminating. Of course, this music choice is subject to change, but yes, we are skating to Dream On. Thanks to Eric Hampton for giving me the idea.

Field Trip

2008-03-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today we skated at a new rink - "Shiny Rink" per Gordon, which is true, since it's the newest rink in town and quite well maintained. It was not very crowded and the ice was fast. A very nice young lady showed us how to use the CD player (we adults are kinda slow). There were several adult skaters, one doing figures even, but no other dancers. They even made ice in between sessions. It was colder than we are used to though. This is the first time in a long time that I've skated in 4 layers, and never got down below 3!

Good to get out on bigger ice as we realize we will be skating in Oly-sized rinks in Lake Placid. We'll probably take a field trip to Shiny Rink weekly going forward.

A rounding error?

2008-03-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

My math skills were recently called into question when I exclaimed publicly that we only had 9.5 weeks until Lake Placid. Now, any fool with a calendar can tell you that it's more than that since LP doesn't occur until the very end of July and it's still March. I blamed this calculation error on the IJS rounding algorithm, of course.

But please, nobody tell Tim. He was so freaked out by my announcement that he started working harder than ever so that we'd be "ready in time" (not that he doesn't already work hard, geez). Believe me, I wasn't plotting for this to happen or anything, I simply had a senior moment. But if it kicks us in the butt and makes us work harder, I'm all for it. Who knows, with all of this extra time we might actually have something that looks like a free dance ready for public humiliation -- I mean, critique -- by July.

Happy Birthday ...

2008-03-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

Perry sez ... Steven Tyler turns 60 today. (Yes, that was a music hint.)

Since Tim is out of town the next couple of days we can do the weekly recap now. We discussed how much we've accomplished this past week - we now have intros to both of our compulsory dances, we've made some fixes on the Viennese end pattern and significant fixes to the Samba.

I cut out the pattern for my samba dress (but still don't have fabric - sewing is coming along slower than skating).

Tim and I are each taking MITF lessons with Ruth separately to work on our individual skating skills. This is invaluable for us as a team.

We've enjoyed having our friends Julia and Jordan training with us - it's motivating and inspirational to have another adult dance team on the ice. They've made great progress in a very short period time. We've also seen Marilu in the morning working on her Argentine Tango for test. She'll have her gold medal in no time.

All in all, a good week for ice dancing in PDX and we're happy with what we've accomplished.

Lake Placid Countdown

2008-03-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

We have 9.5 weeks until Lake Placid. Three of those weeks are "Tim's on vacation, Terri tests an international dance" weeks. That leaves 6.5 weeks until Lake Placid. We have 18 seconds of our free dance choreographed. We need 3 minutes, 10 seconds. You do the math!

Still another music hint

2008-03-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

The song's title appears in the lyrics 15 times.

Today's post-wisdom-tooth-removal/birthday-wine-drinking practice was surprisingly good. We worked on the new choreography and of course since our coach was not there we decided to change it all around.

We realized quickly that it's probably not a swell idea to tell him "we just couldn't do the hard stuff you gave us so we decided to do this easier stuff instead." So then we worked on the hard stuff and it got somewhat better. I think we'll go with his choreography since after all, he is a professional, and we are paying him for this. Plus it's going to be good, if only we can do it without tripping each other!

Two year skateiversary

2008-03-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today is the two-year anniversary of when we first had our partner tryout. To mark this momentous occasion, Tim is having a pesky wisdom tooth pulled and so he will miss practice. As today is my birthday I was happy to oblige his dental needs by sleeping in.

Nobody has yet guessed our music, probably because nobody ever reads this blog. However, just in case, here is today's music hint: Our music was the first single ever released by this band, in 1973.

More music hints

2008-03-17T18:04:00.000-07:00

And, we have a guess! ... sorry Gordon, your guess was NOT correct, although you are certainly going in the right direction. I know the rest of you are all waiting to chime in, so it's time for another hint ...

Before being famously known as "Tim and Terri's free dance music" in 2009, this song was used in a Buick commercial in 2004.

"Guess Our Music" Contest

2008-03-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

Today we started our choreography for 2009. We have about 18 seconds done by my stopwatch. Yay! Considering that we know by the time we compete this it will have morphed into something else, the term "getting started" is really all relative.

Coach K seemed to really capture our style from the very beginning and I am very happy with our coach/choreographer choice. He talked about the key to the music being speed and flow across the ice, and that we need flowing arms and that my fingers have to look nice. Um, OK, I guess it's back to ballet then so that I avoid "the claw."

I really like the first 18 seconds. I won't describe them in detail, but there's quite a lot going on, mostly to gain speed. It is different not to do our own choreography but I know we'll put our own stamp on whatever we end up with.

I doubt anyone would guess that we would actually pick this music, but when I brought it up with trepidation to Tim he practically screamed "I love that song" and we knew that it was meant to be. In a bizarre and amazing twist, our coach actually liked it too. Perry is starting to hate it though since he's heard it over and over and over and ... over.

No fair cheating by coming to the rink to see what we're up to! Those who skate with us are of course prohibited from guessing.

Today's music hint: Our costumes may include lighters held aloft at the end of the program.

T is for Tango

2008-03-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

I feel as if our 2009 season has now officially begun. I know what you are saying ... the 2008 season is still in progress ... but for us it's all about 2009. Tim passed his silver tango yesterday in Seattle - all three judges passed him, two of them giving him marks above the passing average. This means we are on our way to qualifying for the gold event in 2009. Now he just needs to test his rocker and starlight. Fourteen tests down, two to go. Sometimes I wish I had not finished my gold dances so we could just skate silver, but then again, who am I kidding?

We realized how spoiled we are to skate in a warm mall rink. I am always in a tank top or short sleeves within 5 minutes of getting on the ice at our home ice. In Seattle, Tim tested in his heavy fleece jacket and I almost did too, but took it off at the last minute. He had a hat on until the last minute! It was freezing, or maybe we've become wimps. The ice was fast and the people friendly so that almost made up for the chill.

In other news, we listened to our proposed music on the better sound system in Seattle and liked it much better than we do at home. We realized that the LC sound system muffles the bass line of the music (which is where the beat is). With a good system it sounded great. So assuming our coach agrees, we have music.

(However, if I tell you what it is I'd have to kill you.)

T is for Twizzle

2008-02-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

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!

Learn to Ice Dance DVD

2007-12-04T06:34:00.001-08:00

My 15 minutes of fame ... available at http://www.icedancers.com/

Inertia & other Physics 101 Concepts I had forgotten

2007-11-12T11:03:00.001-08:00

It's amazing how much progress we've made in 2 weeks. We've had to be very disciplined about doing all of our exercises each day - and the list is growing so it can take an hour or more if we really get into it.

We've focused on controlling rotation, adding power, getting down into the ice, extending our extensions and matching the level of our arms and head positions. In short, adding speed and the finer details which will make us look so much more polished, we hope.

Right now I don't feel badly at all that we will miss the competitions this season. The rush to get dances into competition shape would be exhilarating but at the end of the season we wouldn't be better skaters, and after last year that's got to be our focus.

Back to Basics

2007-11-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

We have spent the past week working on exercises to develop unison, power, and edge quality. It has been an enlightening experience, pointing out our various weaknesses. On the flip side, we have already seen vast improvement. If we can master these exercises and then add more difficult exercises we feel the compulsories will be much easier for us. We already went back and tried things that were hard for us last year and they were much improved.

We realize that we need to invest some time in this endeavor. We never really had the chance last year, with 13 tests to pass, two CDs to learn, an OD to choreograph, etc. This year is a good one to focus on what we ignored in the past. We'll also test Tim's remaining silver dances. Compared to last year this may seem boring, but we are really feeling happy with our progress and can see so much potential.

We certainly don't regret last season, despite struggling against our lack of experience skating together. I believe that if we could do everything we did last year without having these basics in our vocabulary, we will be so much better equipped when we do. This foundation will allow the freedom to do the things we want to do in our choreography and more easily skate the higher-level compulsory dances.

Back from Regionals

2007-10-22T14:48:00.001-07:00

Just back from judging NWP Regionals and exhausted, so took the day off. I think I was on the panel for every final qualifying event, Juvenile through Senior, as well as some non-qualifying events. Yikes. Add to that Thursday's power outage and overseeing 4 trial and 2 practice judges and it was a long four days.

Tim is out of town anyway so I don't feel guilty for sleeping in today. We'll be back on the ice Wednesday. I am not judging Sectionals so now that my judging commitments are over until January I feel like it's time to dive in to our choreography.

TBD

2007-10-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

So after 22 weeks, give or take a few days and seconds, we are back on the ice.

We aren't doing any lifts or spins yet and probably won't for some time. Tim's left leg is definitely weaker than it was and it will take some time to build it back up. He is not letting anything stop him though; he is pushing himself to skate as well as he can. There are times when I don't notice any difference at all; other times a momentary lapse reminds me he's not 100% yet.

Other than stamina which we are both lacking, we didn't lose many of the qualities we worked so hard for last year. Parts of our Starlight actually seem better than they were. The Paso seems like a much better dance for us than the Blues. We are able to work things out and fix them more quickly already this year than we did last year.

However, the momentum and enthusiasm aren't the same. We don't joke around on the ice much or talk about anything other than skating. It's all business as we try to get back into training, adjust to getting up early again, try to work out choregraphy and learn a new compulsory dance. We didn't have a week in Sun Valley or the summer working on dances just for fun to ease us in to the new season with enjoyment. We have some new scheduling and coaching challenges. Neither of us want skating to be our entire life this year and that changes the atmosphere.

Honestly, I don't yet know what to think of this season although I am very happy that it has started.

What I did on my summer vacation ...

2007-09-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Cheryl (the producer) sent me proofs of the DVD case and a poster she will take to dance weekends (above). I suggested some changes - we're not "pros," and we are not "National Competitors" in the strict sense. I've asked Cheryl to update this. I have not yet seen the footage as they are still editing. The photo doesn't look too bad considering it was taken after we shot the video - after two hours of non-stop skating, my god, I don't think I even combed my hair! That's right, my hair; thanks to the high humidity in upstate New York in August it was a curly frizzy red mess. I was having a very bad hair day but I don't think it affected my skating.

(By the way, that's not Tim but six-time National Adult Dance Champion Mike Ricigliano, who asked me to do this video because we were both going to be in Lake Placid and his lovely partner Julie could not be there. Cheryl wanted to use adult ice dancers who had tested their gold dances and originally wanted Mike and Julie since they are the reigning national champions. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time and was invited to be the stand-in for Julie.)

Cheryl said that the footage came out really well despite our tight shooting schedule and early-morning start. Mike and I donated our time to the project because it's something we both believe is important and we wanted to share our love of ice dancing with beginning dancers of all ages. Once it's complete the video will be available at http://www.icedancers.com/; the website is still under construction.

Some day I will tell the "behind-the-scenes" story and show outtakes!

Ode to My Spirals

2007-08-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

"A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well."
-- G. K. Chesterton

Cha Cha Stumblado

2007-08-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

The post title is really for comedic effect because I thought today's lesson with the new dance coach went really well and I didn't stumble a lotto, or at all really. There is a lot to work on with this dance (Cha Cha Congelado) but the steps overall aren't hard (pattern, timing and tracking are hard).

We also worked on Rhumba and after the lesson I worked on it quite a bit solo and feel like I made some progress. I wanted to work on Austrian but I think these two international dances along with novice moves are enough for now. Maybe we'll walk through the Austrian at some point. These two dances are actually do-able and even test-able some day whereas Austrian probably would not be testable without a lotto work.

I am very pleased with myself for trying something new - two new coaches in 3 days and all new things to work on - it feels good.

When Tim gets back I hope that all of this makes me a much stronger and easier-to-skate-with partner. The stronger and more stable I can be for him the easier his comeback to the ice will be.

Moves and More

2007-08-15T08:06:00.001-07:00

I have been doing the Tuesday night Lloyd Center group MITF class taught by Coach R. Last night was all twizzles - strangely similar to the twizzles I need for the Austrian Waltz. Perhaps this is a harmonic convergence? Most of the other skaters in the class are not ice dancers. There is a nice range of ability in the class, mostly adults, some beginners but mostly advanced beginners, then me (I don't know how to categorize myself). Coach R does a great job giving everyone something challenging for their level. I love the class because I don't have to worry about kids in the way or moving for kids who are jumping while practicing moves.

So I am going to get up early on Friday and have a private MITF lesson with Coach R. I'm not sure if I should just work on skills I may need for dance (mostly Junior MITF) or work on Novice so that I can test it some day. I guess we'll see. I am looking forward to a lesson from a non-dance coach.

It is now 16 weeks sans partner (not that I'm keeping track or anything). Hard to watch other teams picking music and working on choreography. I shouldn't complain, at least I'm able to skate. This has recently become a blog about me and my own skating vs. the team of Tim and Terri, but it does help keep me motivated when I write about it.

It's not the heat, it's the humidity ...

2007-08-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships. I guess this could be considered a "scouting" trip since Adult Nationals will be at Lake Placid in April. I had to check out the venue, restaurants, party scene, etc. It was a good plan, but since I barely got to leave the rink I didn't get to do much scouting. I did verify that the rink contains ice, which is comforting; we should be all set for Adult Nationals.

After spending 14-hour days in the rink Thursday and Friday, I finally had some time off Saturday morning to stroll downtown and actually see the lake, although I found out later the lake I saw was NOT Lake Placid but merely Mirror Lake, which is smaller and not famous. Anyway it was a body of water adjacent to a nice park where I sat in an Adirondack chair (NOT comfortable I might add) and pondered the scene for some time before returning to the rink.

We did scratch from our open events since Tim is still not able to put on a boot due to swelling and he decided not to come to Placid. I kept myself busy judging and encouraging the 7 teams who did enter adult events here. I stayed at a bed and breakfast which was affordable and quiet but lacked air conditioning which I realized a bit too late would have been nice to have. It really is the humidity.

Sunday consisted of getting up at 4:30 AM and driving with Mike R. to Lake George, where we skated and were filmed for an introduction to ice dancing DVD for adults. After sitting for long periods and eating the very delicious catered food for several days it was nice to get out and skate for 2 hours. Of course my outbound flight was delayed out of JFK for several hours and contained a baby who screamed non-stop for 5 and a half hours along with the obligatory seat kicker/grabber behind me, so real sleep eluded me until I got home exhausted at 2 AM. I caught a cold the very next day thanks to the kindness of strangers sneezing and coughing on the airplane without bothering to cover their mouths and noses.

Despite all this I hope we make it back to Lake Placid in April somehow this season. There is something magical about the place, and I am sure that skating on olympic ice must be inspiring. After judging the Open Austrian Waltzes I think that's the international I want to work on if only I can find a coach to help me out until Tim gets back on the ice. Sounds like a good plan for now.

My Gold Dance Test

2007-07-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Will Eastler for propping me through the Quickstep - this completes the standard gold dance test for me. I have to admit I didn't work very hard on it - I thought the other 3 gold dances were the "difficult ones" - and I tested it on the spur of the moment with only a couple of weeks to prepare and a couple of hours skating with Will - so I am a bit underwhelmed at this achievement. The other 3 dance tests felt like more. However, I am really glad I went for it.

I will post my "Academy Award" speech here at some point. Terri

6 weeks

2007-06-05T10:27:00.001-07:00

It has now been 6 weeks since Tim's injury but it feels like 6 months. He had surgery to repair a totally ruptured achilles tendon on April 30th - a very painful and difficult undertaking with prognosis of a slow recovery. While he's now off crutches, walking, doing PT and making progress, it is still going to be a long time before he's back on the ice.

"Long time" is still undefined. It could be end of summer or it could be November before he's back on the ice. Or it could be longer, in which case we may not compete this year. It seems like a very long time to me no matter what.

Meanwhile I am trying to stay motivated and skate once in a while. Motivation includes listening to possible OD music and trying to skate to it, working on twizzles in my bad direction (Tim's good direction), and trying to work out some lessons with a coach so I can work on some international dances just for fun. But really none of this motivates me greatly.

We are both doing other things in our lives right now - traveling, working, doing things around the house and getting caught up with non-skating friends and family. It's been a change from spending 10+ hours a week with one another for a whole year and then all of a sudden not seeing each other at all - but I think it's good for both of us to reconnect with other aspects of our lives. This should help so that when we are back on the ice we are better able to balance skating with other things in life - a goal we had for the coming season even before the injury.

As we wrapped up last season we started planning for this new season, using the momentum of skating so well at nationals, and now it feels like that momentum is gone. That doesn't mean we won't get it back, and we do work well under pressure, so I am not writing off the season by any means. We want nothing more than to skate this year - with Sectionals in our home town and Nationals in Lake Placid - but we can't compromise Tim's healing to get there.

Nothing is impossible

2007-04-26T15:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I realized that I had a text message written at 9:30 last night which read, "I think I just tore my Achilles, at the hospital now."

Indeed, Tim did tear his achilles 95% in ballet class last night and will need surgery, which can't be performed until the swelling subsides. It looks like he will be out at least a few months. He is upset and in a lot of pain despite painkillers. We will need to cancel our performance May 5th at the Carousel ice show and also the Lake Placid competition in August.

We are thankful this happened now and not a few weeks ago before Chicago ... but it seems we are due for a string of good luck at some point to counteract the bad. Our plan was for Tim to test 3 more dances this summer so we could move up to Gold next year but it doesn't seem likely we can do that with a shortened season. We could stay in Pre-Gold another year and/or do Championship. But really it's too soon to even strategize.

I am trying "positive thinking." After the past season I know that nothing is impossible.
Terri

...

2007-04-13T15:47:00.001-07:00

New skates ... $1,800
Coaching ... $8,000
Ice Time ... $10,000

Skating our best and winning a silver medal at Nationals ... Priceless

Final Round

2007-04-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

All things considered, we skated well in the final round. The Portland group shouted "TNT are Dynamite" as we took the ice. We did two nice lifts, didn't fall down while spinning, and did the twizzles in the midline step sequence (and the rest of the sequence too). We felt the program was expressive and connected. From the crowd reaction I know that they felt it too.

We are happy with how we performed, and placing so well against so many really good and experienced teams is a bonus considering we might have withdrawn only a couple of days ago. I really enjoyed performing today and look forward to relaxing and watching the other Portland teams rock.

Some day we'll remember this and laugh ...

2007-04-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

Laughing with Paul Harvath (above)

We had only one 20 minute practice today in the evening, so we spent the day coming off last night's high, resting, hydrating, stretching, etc. We got to the rink and were horrified to find that Tim had left his hard guards on, and that his blades had rusted! In last night's excitement he simply forgot to wipe them off and put on the soft guards.

We panicked a little but he tried them on the ice and didn't feel anything. Our practice was a bit shaky but I think we were just reacting to the stress of the rust. Tim said he felt a bit of pain in his hip as well. I was coughing at the end of the program due to the residual effects of the cold, but we did make it through a decent run-through. We just need to get through tomorrow, please please please.

Coach Anthony gave us kudos tonight regarding how far we'd come, saying I should be happy to have a partner who just keeps going through all kinds of adversity (I am) and that Tim should appreciate that I've been his anchor through the entire season.

Now it's time to get some sleep.

A very, very long day

2007-04-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

So first, the important part. The initial round is over and we are in second place (!)

We won the starlight waltz, but more important than that, we got 2 first place ordinals on our blues (and ended up third in the dance, although second and third were very close). After struggling all season with the dance and skating it poorly at sectionals, we skated it the best we possibly could. I was so happy with how we skated it that it was easy to smile during the starlight. During the starligh we almost ran into the wall on the first pattern 3 turns - (adrenaline, I think). Other than that it was a great dance. I felt we danced both dances, and that was our goal.

John Dowding told us the difference between Sectionals and now was amazing - we look like a different team. I am so glad we worked with him at Sectionals; without his help I don't think our blues would ever have evolved to this.

Trivia - I did have to borrow Molly's bra due to leaving mine in the hotel room. OK, that was unnecessary information, but why not? It was such a long day I'm surprised we didn't have anything else go wrong. We woke up to snow on the ground, had a practice in the morning, ate lunch, rested at the hotel, had our official warmup, watched the gold dance event, then finally skated our event at 8:45 PM. All in all, a very long day.

The pre-gold dance group is very competitive; the other 5 teams are all very good skaters and all have prior competition experience, so we are thrilled to be sitting in second place going into the final round.

After our event we had trouble finding the Portland group for dinner, mainly because we didn't have GPS (we didn't have the address, just directions). See my blog from yesterday, I am lost without GPS! By the time we got there close to 11 PM Tim was starving and I just wanted dessert.

Tim is happy he never has to do the blues again. Little does he know that it is now my favorite dance and I want to compete it in the Lake Placid open event this summer - NOT!

I am now in the hotel's business center typing this. Kiyomi and Neil (who are in first place in our event) just walked by and burst into laughter. They always see me in here when they walk by. I think they believe I don't have a hotel room but that I'm actually living in the business center! I guess it's time for bed ...

Lost in Oak Brook

2007-04-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

Finally, here we are in the Chicago 'burbs. Without the GPS system I think I might get lost, even though I've driven to the rink and back to the hotel several times now.

We arrived yesterday and practiced, then practiced again at noon or so today. After a half hour Tim did not look well. He has been fighting the flu. The good news - his hip is not bothering him. The cortisone shot seems to have worked. The bad news - he is really tired and sick. He is drinking pedialyte because he is so dehydrated. We just barely made it through the second practice. I skated a practice tonight by myself just to check out the other rink while Tim slept.

I am starting to cough but I'm ignoring it. I must get through the end of the week without being sick because really we need at least one of us healthy.

I think we will both be happy just to stay vertical during our dances now. This has become an endurance test and not a skating competition for us.

Murphy's Law

2007-04-08T11:09:00.000-07:00

Cortisone shot over ... Tim now feels like he has the flu. The hip is sore from the shot. I hope the flu symptoms are just from the shot and anxiety and not really the flu.

I've been packing. Let's get this show on the road before something else goes wrong.

(Oh no, I just realized we skate our final round on Friday the 13th. )

Last practice

2007-04-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

We practiced today for only one session. Actually it all went well despite our lack of recent practice and Tim's injury. Plus Tim's cold. Oh yeah, and the end of my cold. He is getting the cortisone shot today ... I hope it isn't too awful. Talk about taking one for the team. Yikes.

So after a year of preparation it's down to the wire this season. We discussed not even going to Chicago this morning because of the injury, but unless Tim has a bad reaction to the shot it looks like we will be leaving Monday for Adult Nationals. We are looking forward to getting out of practice mode and competing - it feels like we've been prepared for a long time. I'm also looking forward to a nice long rest afterwards and having time to spend with Perry and finish up some house projects.

Injury Report

2007-04-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

So here it is Adult Nationals Eve, and not a creature is skating because we have tendonitis. Crap. Or as Kianoosh says, "crappier than crap." Tim is getting a cortisone shot which makes me nervous. I mean really, we aren't going to the Olympics here.

We haven't skated since Tuesday and cancelled our Carousel exhibition last night. We'll skate tomorrow and see how it goes.

Let us eat cake

2007-04-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you Carousel Figure Skating Club ...

Year One ...

2007-03-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

We’ve survived our first year as an ice dance team. Looking back, the past year has been difficult yet wonderful. We’ve worked so hard and we are very proud of our accomplishments. Here are some highlights:

We had our initial tryout 3/18/06 and found we had similar skating styles, compatible personalities, and the same work ethic. Despite the obstacles – we knew that Tim had 13 tests to pass - we decided to become a dance team.

Tim first stepped on the ice in January of 2006 and he is now competing at the pre-gold level. We are competing the Blues and Starlight this year, along with our Original Dance.

Tim did pass his 13 dance tests between 3/18/06 and 11/9/06. Here’s the math – that’s fewer than 8 months. Pretty awesome. He passed his preliminary and pre-bronze tests in just over a month, and learned the steps to his bronze dances on an airplane – then tested them the following week.

When we first starting skating Tim was still tripping over his toe picks and Terri was more comfortable skating solo than with a partner. We’ve come a long way!

Tim has gone through 3 pairs of boots and 2 different sets of blades since we started skating. He has scars on his ankles from breaking in boots.

Terri has had to rid her wardrobe of anything made by those "other" athletic clothing manufacturers and purchase new Adidas practicewear.

We choreographed most of our Tango Original Dance ourselves, and also did the music editing. Choreography is something we really enjoy, and we are looking forward to creating something unique for next year.

Our goal was to complete our choreography in time to do the Carousel FSC holiday show in mid-December. We did, and also performed at the Skating Club of Oregon holiday show.

We also had a great time at the Star of Texas competition in Houston in January, where Tim’s family got to see us skate. We performed our OD as well as we ever had and got great feedback from the judges – even though we didn’t have anyone to compete against.

We’ve taken pilates and ballet to help our “look” on the ice.

We have had falls, bumps and bruises, kicked each other numerous times, battled knee pain and tendonitis (Terri’s ankle, Tim’s hip). We both got sick right before Sectionals. We are currently trying to prepare for Adult Nationals while Tim battles a very inflamed hip tendon; after Nationals we plan to rest and recuperate.

We continue to have breakthroughs on our compulsory dances but it has taken a year of very hard work to understand what works and what doesn’t. Often it’s trial and error to find the solution.

We’ve had exceptional support from our friends and families. My husband Perry is the greatest skate spouse ever! It has been a great year and we feel like we have made tremendous progress. We can’t wait to see what the next year will bring!