2019 Sherwood Invitational
I competed 3 figures at the 2019 Sherwood Invitational, the same 3 figures I did last year (FO8, FI8, and BO8). Here's the story.
The figures portion of the competition was all early Sunday morning. We had a total of 8 skaters and 19 starts, with 6 judges split into 2 panels.
Figures practice ice was at 5:40 a.m. (eeep), just 20 minutes. I actually got to the rink quite early (5:05) as I was taking a Lyft to the rink and was concerned about being late. Kelli met me there around 5:25 and I got my skates on and got ready.
Practice ice went pretty well. We spent about 8 minutes on the FO8, about 4 minutes on the FI8, and another 8 minutes or so on the BO8. The FO8 was more or less okay. I was a bit nervous but got over it. The FI8 was looking pretty good so we just did the one and moved on to the BO8 BO8 was mostly okay but I was not doing a good job on return to center and Kelli worked with me to get me to implement the things I'd worked on with Danette the last few weeks -- looking into the circle (esp. on LBO) and holding the free foot in front longer, moving free foot back from the knee and not the hip. I had been worried the last couple of weeks about my flow as I was having trouble getting around the circles on the FO8 in particular, but as I'd hoped, Sherwood's fast, hard ice meant I had great flow and no problems with getting around the circle. Whew!
After practice ice we had an hour to kill so I ate a banana, then helped with the freestyle practice ice and did some prep work for music for the rest of the day. Around 6:45 or so I put my skates back on and got myself ready.
I was 5th (last) to skate FO8, then there was a break, then 2nd of 2 to skate the FI8 and BO8.
Around 7:15 or so they called me out for warmup. Kelli was helping her other student who was skating before me. As I pushed for my first RFO, I felt an excruciating pain in my R foot. I tried to disregard it and keep practicing but after a couple of minutes it became clear I had to fix this, so I stepped off the ice, pulled my boot off and rearranged my sock and the tongue of my boot. Argh! I'd never had such an experience with these boots, generally they are very comfy. Got back on the ice and had just a little time to finish warming up the FO8.
Finally they called me over to skate, and I skated to patch 5, picked a spot (I was able to align my short axis with a hockey dot that was a few feet away), marked my center, took a deep breath and pushed off.
This FO8 was not my best -- in particular I think I was a bit wobbly on the first LFO -- but it was okay.
After that we had about a 15 minute break, then started the second half of the competition. I came out for warmup on my FI8 and it was pretty good. My nerves were somewhat all over the place, though. They called me out to patch 7 and I found an okay spot, marked my center, took several deep breaths and pushed off.
The first RFI was okay; the LFI.. I'm not sure what happened but I found myself on a flat and wound up having a really nasty skid, right in front of the judges (of course). I managed to recover and get around that circle okay. The remaining circles were fine.
After that I had to go start warming up my BO8. The warmup seemed okay although I was having a bit of trouble finding my center. Finally they called me over to skate, I think it was patch 8 or so.
I've had a hard time figuring out (pardon the pun) what happened here (I'll have to wait for the video). I think the first RBO was okay, but the LBO didn't come back to center and so the 2nd RBO was a bit wonky and then got out of control so much that I wound up doing a large oval around to the side where the LBO should have been and sort of came back to center in such a fashion that I'd basically switched sides. From there I did an LBO that was sort of better, and another RBO that was relatively okay; but then I was coming back to center and I think because of the direction I was going, I forgot that I was on my R foot and so I ended the figure there without doing the last LBO. At this point I was so disgusted with myself that I kind of didn't care, I wanted to just apologize to the judges for wasting their time (I did not actually do this) and run away!
Anyway, I hung around so we could take our usual group photo. The results were posted, and I got last in each event (5th in FO8, 2nd in FI8 and 2nd in BO8). I'm not surprised or discouraged, I just have a lot of work to do and in particular I need to find a way to get my nerves under better control. You'd think after competing these several years it would be better, but figures competition are IMHO worse than testing! Ugh. Still, I'm happy I did it and very grateful to coach Kelli for putting me on and dealing with me in these situations (not to mention getting her butt out of bed at crack of dawn on a Sunday!).
The figures portion of the competition was all early Sunday morning. We had a total of 8 skaters and 19 starts, with 6 judges split into 2 panels.
Figures practice ice was at 5:40 a.m. (eeep), just 20 minutes. I actually got to the rink quite early (5:05) as I was taking a Lyft to the rink and was concerned about being late. Kelli met me there around 5:25 and I got my skates on and got ready.
Practice ice went pretty well. We spent about 8 minutes on the FO8, about 4 minutes on the FI8, and another 8 minutes or so on the BO8. The FO8 was more or less okay. I was a bit nervous but got over it. The FI8 was looking pretty good so we just did the one and moved on to the BO8 BO8 was mostly okay but I was not doing a good job on return to center and Kelli worked with me to get me to implement the things I'd worked on with Danette the last few weeks -- looking into the circle (esp. on LBO) and holding the free foot in front longer, moving free foot back from the knee and not the hip. I had been worried the last couple of weeks about my flow as I was having trouble getting around the circles on the FO8 in particular, but as I'd hoped, Sherwood's fast, hard ice meant I had great flow and no problems with getting around the circle. Whew!
After practice ice we had an hour to kill so I ate a banana, then helped with the freestyle practice ice and did some prep work for music for the rest of the day. Around 6:45 or so I put my skates back on and got myself ready.
I was 5th (last) to skate FO8, then there was a break, then 2nd of 2 to skate the FI8 and BO8.
Around 7:15 or so they called me out for warmup. Kelli was helping her other student who was skating before me. As I pushed for my first RFO, I felt an excruciating pain in my R foot. I tried to disregard it and keep practicing but after a couple of minutes it became clear I had to fix this, so I stepped off the ice, pulled my boot off and rearranged my sock and the tongue of my boot. Argh! I'd never had such an experience with these boots, generally they are very comfy. Got back on the ice and had just a little time to finish warming up the FO8.
Finally they called me over to skate, and I skated to patch 5, picked a spot (I was able to align my short axis with a hockey dot that was a few feet away), marked my center, took a deep breath and pushed off.
This FO8 was not my best -- in particular I think I was a bit wobbly on the first LFO -- but it was okay.
After that we had about a 15 minute break, then started the second half of the competition. I came out for warmup on my FI8 and it was pretty good. My nerves were somewhat all over the place, though. They called me out to patch 7 and I found an okay spot, marked my center, took several deep breaths and pushed off.
The first RFI was okay; the LFI.. I'm not sure what happened but I found myself on a flat and wound up having a really nasty skid, right in front of the judges (of course). I managed to recover and get around that circle okay. The remaining circles were fine.
After that I had to go start warming up my BO8. The warmup seemed okay although I was having a bit of trouble finding my center. Finally they called me over to skate, I think it was patch 8 or so.
I've had a hard time figuring out (pardon the pun) what happened here (I'll have to wait for the video). I think the first RBO was okay, but the LBO didn't come back to center and so the 2nd RBO was a bit wonky and then got out of control so much that I wound up doing a large oval around to the side where the LBO should have been and sort of came back to center in such a fashion that I'd basically switched sides. From there I did an LBO that was sort of better, and another RBO that was relatively okay; but then I was coming back to center and I think because of the direction I was going, I forgot that I was on my R foot and so I ended the figure there without doing the last LBO. At this point I was so disgusted with myself that I kind of didn't care, I wanted to just apologize to the judges for wasting their time (I did not actually do this) and run away!
Anyway, I hung around so we could take our usual group photo. The results were posted, and I got last in each event (5th in FO8, 2nd in FI8 and 2nd in BO8). I'm not surprised or discouraged, I just have a lot of work to do and in particular I need to find a way to get my nerves under better control. You'd think after competing these several years it would be better, but figures competition are IMHO worse than testing! Ugh. Still, I'm happy I did it and very grateful to coach Kelli for putting me on and dealing with me in these situations (not to mention getting her butt out of bed at crack of dawn on a Sunday!).
Labels: Competitions, Kelli
posted by Gordon @ 11:52 PM
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