Skating Fridays

Competition Recap – Part 2

I’m back to recap my freestyle event and give some thoughts on how everything went.

Last week, I skated the best program of my career (so far) and earned a personal best score. Here’s how it went down:

Practice ice

• I ran my choreography multiple times and made sure to exit my spins facing the correct direction. In previous years, the judges were on the other side of the rink so my mental practices were facing the wrong way. I had to re-learn the rink layout and get my bearings. Otherwise, jumps and spins went well.

Event warmup

• Because there were 7 of us in my age group event, they split us up into two warmup groups. I was the 4th skater out of 7 so I was placed in the second warmup group (and the first to skate in that group). Because I was the first to skate in my group, I took it easy. I did not jump or spin, but reacquainted myself with the rink layout to familiarize myself with what direction to go after each element.

Program

• Axel: I finally landed this cleanly! Some of the judges gave me negative grades of execution (GOE), but I am THRILLED to have gotten credit for this element!
• Flip-toe loop: No problems here – I got full credit for this. In my last competition, I got dashes (0 points) for the toe loops so I made sure to execute these correctly
• Change foot combination spin: I earned a level 3 spin and got positive GOE! This is the highest spin value I’ve ever received!
• Salchow: In the last competition, this element got called a waltz jump. Thankfully, the tech specialist called it a salchow. No issues here.
• Camel spin: My spin coach had me do a single variation (layover), but I guess it didn’t get called as such. They gave me a base value and negative GOE. We need a new plan for this spin because what I am doing is not working.
• Flip-loop-loop: No problems here.
• Choreographic step sequence: I had a bobble on one of the rockers so I two footed it. I still had positive GOE but as many points for the sequence as the last competition.
• Axel-toe loop: I landed the axel and it didn’t feel too underrotated. It got an under rotation call (not a downgrade) and the video does show that I was slightly under.
• Change foot sit spin: The spin was going SO WELL until I had to change feet. My foot got stuck underneath me and I lost my balance. Thankfully I didn’t fall, but I did not execute the back sit spin and got a “V” for this element. I need to work on this spin or eliminate the change foot part altogether.

All in all, I made some huge improvements. This is also the highest technical score I’ve received to date, so I am really proud of that. The PCS part was a bit disappointing, but it appears that the judges were underscoring all skaters across the board. If I had the same judging panel as the last competition, I would have scored over 30 points. This time around, I came just shy at 28.87 points.

Here is the video from my performance:

I’m competing again tomorrow so I hope to finally break the 30 point barrier!

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