Startling discovery in the desert

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 ...

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

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?

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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Splat

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

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

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

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

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

Learn to Ice Dance DVD

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

Inertia & other Physics 101 Concepts I had forgotten

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

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

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

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 ...

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

"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