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I passed my Silver moves! Well, passed by two judges, failed by a third, but that counts as a pass so I’ll take it.

Testing is still super nerve-wracking and I always find it difficult to test/compete with only that puny 5-minute warm-up. I do always try to find a rink to skate at earlier in the day, but based on available ice times that often means it’s 4-5 hours before. I felt very ready going into this session, because I’d been working on the moves for a while and felt like I was practicing at above testing standard (my moves coach thought so too and felt good about me testing). And that’s a good thing, because when the test came around, I skated a lot worse than I’ve been skating in practice, but still managed to hang on — I always feel like for testing and competition, I have to just assume I’ll be at 80% and make sure that 80% would still pass.

Anyway, here are the results:

(Passing average 2.7 on each move. Passing total 16.2.)

Eight-step mohawk sequence. Focus: quickness, continuous flow and strength. I felt okay on this. I’ve done it better (pushing harder, more into my edges), but it could have been worse. Felt in control and not too scratchy.

Judge 1: 2.7. Quickness ok. Flow ok.
Judge 2: 2.8. Quickness – v. good. Work on staying off the toe pick.
Judge 3: 2.8. Good quickness. Good flow.

Forward & backward cross strokes. Focus: continuous flow and strength. Forwards felt fine, and my focus was to get deep into the edges and hear the rip on each stroke. Backwards tend to get scratchy when I’m unsure, so my goal was to bend the ankles and minimize the scratching as much as possible.

Judge 1: 2.7. Flow good! Overall ok.
Judge 2: 2.8. Nice flow throughout.
Judge 3: 2.9. Good flow/power. Backwards = good outside edge.

FO-BI three-turns in the field. Focus: edge quality. Even when I feel in control of my 3’s, I worry that I’ll have a bad turn and set a foot down or trip or something. So all my 3’s were more tentative than usual, a little shaky in the knees. But I didn’t lose my balance or struggle to return to the axis, so I was relieved.

Judge 1: 2.7. Backwards 3-turns lack sureness. Overall edge quality very (??). OK turn execution.
Judge 2: 2.7. Turns ok. Work on coming into center a little more on a curve, less diagonally.
Judge 3: 2.7. Work on pushing & bending as to get back to axis. 3’s turned ok.

FI-BO three-turns in the field. Focus: Edge quality. Same as above. I don’t recall making mistakes or doing more poorly than the first set, but based on comments these must have been weaker. I’m a little surprised one judge failed me (maybe because they were more tentative than the first set?), and Coach was puzzled.

Judge 1: 2.7. Poor(? this looks like a cross between poor and your) turn quality. Edges lack depth generally.
Judge 2: 2.6. Edges a bit wobbly throughout. Need more security.
Judge 3: 2.7. Good control when turning 3’s. Really bend & push into back 3.

Consecutive outside & inside spirals. Focus: extension. Spirals are my strong element so I felt comfortable on this. Outsides are better than insides, but both felt pretty decent. I tend to be more careful with insides so they end up being slower, but seeing a judge call them “poor” surprised me. Urg!

Judge 1: 2.8. Good extension. Flow ok. Edge quality varied. FI spiral control poor.
Judge 2: 2.8. Very nice extension on both feet and both edges. Could use a bit more speed.
Judge 3: 2.8. Outside = good pos & control. Really bend & push into your elements.

Forward & backward power change of edge pulls. Focus: continuous strength and flow. Agh, I totally messed this one up and I knew it while I was doing it. I was hoping they would ask for a reskate because I got off to a bad start on my forward pulls, so I struggled to get into the groove and find the pull on the forward side. Backwards were better. They didn’t ask for a reskate so I thought maybe I squeaked through, but everyone had me well under passing so maybe they figured I didn’t have it in me to do them better. I’m just grateful I had enough leeway on the other elements to make up for them!

Judge 1: 2.4. Power ok. More strength on forward power pulls.
Judge 2: 2.5. Forward pulls need better flow. More “pull.” Back pulls need less scratch.
Judge 3: 2.6. Loss of speed & control on forward. Back = keep bending.

Overall:
Judge 1: 16.0 total, Retry.
Judge 2: 16.2 total, Pass.
Judge 3: 16.5 total, Pass.

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