Flashback!

Sunday I was stroking around the rink when I suddenly heard my former Russian dance coach yelling in my ear, "Poosh! Pooosh! Poosh!"

I reflexively started scampering for power like an elderly, arthritic Brussels Griffon who has just heard the clickety-click of an angry Doberman's toenails on the red Spanish tile of a California sunroom. And it's headed his way!

My typical scampering for power

Then I realized,  WTF! Dance Coach hasn't been my coach for a year since I quit dance. I'm having a skating coach flashback!

I looked to my left and he was skating past with his student and gave me a wave...and for a moment there, a heart attack too boot!

The Very Cheap Freestyle

Like many rinks in the summer, mine has an evening public session. Ours is right after a freestyle, so when I step on the ice, it's filled with pretty much the same people that skate on freestyle.

Then I realize the rink is quiet. No music at all on the loud speakers.

It was like skating in the 50's

There's no pop, no rock, no hip hop, no rap, no punk, no Electropop, glitchpop, hip house, nu-disco, synthpop, New Wave, new rave, trance, house , Hi-NRG, dance-pop,electroclash, electro-industrial, drum and bass, dubstep, glitchstep, liquid funk, electro house, glitch house, progressive house, breakbeat, hardstyle,dubstyle, drumstep, technopop, hip hop, Baltimore club, trap, or moombahton. Instead the sounds of the Dutch Waltz and Cha Cha waft over the ice.

 Dance Coach is teaching students. And somehow, he has convinced the rink to give him control of the music on a public session!

And the without angry music playing, the annoying little hockey boys are pleasant and polite.

Heavenly

Good on ya Dance Coach!

Okay, maybe just high fiving 2 angels, Still it was a nice public session!

Ice Dancing: The Bad Kind

You're skating on public, and you hear a catchy song on the speakers. It shakes you; It bakes you; You want to slither on the ice like a snake on the make.

Well, maybe not that last one.

So, I skate and get the rhythm of the beat.

I  Shake

I Bake.

Memories of my youth are expressed as movement:

My old dance coach is in a lesson with an eight year old. He sees me and he looks like this:

Then he yells after me, "When you start ice dance again?"

Someday!

Just not anytime soon.

The Waltz 8

The Waltz 8 is a bastard child of a 3 turn and a Forward outside 8, with a dash of genetically engineered back mohawk (a step forward).

I broke my ankle doing a Watlz 8 in June of 2009. We didn't speak to each other for over 3 years, but we finally made up today.

A waltz 8 is supposed to look like this:

 

But three years later, starting again, I'm afraid my waltz 8's will look like this!

                       Left side                               Right side.

To my surprise, Mr. Frowny Face say's the ones I actually do are fixable. They aren't passable yet, but I can do them, and there's much yapping about checks, and legs, and arms. Typical.  (Okay, they don't look like the picture above; I actually have too much power in the push. They come out egg shaped! A Waltz egg-ate!)

He flips through the pre-Bronze and Bronze test material and agrees that except for Waltz 8, my mohawks at speed,  and back inside edges, everything is passable or near passable. Then he says, "What about the spiral?"

"I'll give it a try," I say, do a crossover to build up some speed and stick my right leg in the air. I can hear Dance Coach whoop from across the rink. Well, that's one down. The other one is a couple of practices away from passable.

So some time in early 2013, I test Moves.