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Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Coaching Seminar with Mark Cockerell

Former Olympian, Mark Cockerell, was in Singapore the past week for seminars and coaching sessions.


Mark conducted a coach's seminar, which was informative and interesting! We had some skaters just out of our SkateStar programs doing jumps they had never learned before... Salchow, toe loop, and even the loop jump!

Monday, October 28, 2013

TBISC Ice Time at The Rink!


Tropical Blades Ice Skating Club has booked ice time at The Rink (Jcube).

Date: Thursday 7 November 2013
Time: 7.30pm - 9.30pm
Program for the evening -
7.30 - 8.15 pm:  Practise Session 1 (45-min)
8.15 - 8.45 pm:  Stroking Class (30-min)
8.45 - 9.30 pm:  Practise Session 2 (45-min)

* To join the stroking class, skaters must book at least one practise session 
** Skaters may have lessons during the practise sessions. Contact your coach, or let us know if you need a coach.

Fees:
Each practise session: member $35/ non-member $50
One practise session + stroking class: member $50/ non-member $75
Two practise sessions + stroking class: members $80/ non-members $105

Register by 4 Nov 2013, on TBISC website: 
http://www.tropicalblades.com/home/ice-time

Availability is on first-come-first-served basis. 

See you all soon!

Sunday, October 27, 2013

New beauties

New skates, freshly mounted, stand on their own.


I spent an hour in them today, coaching LTS, and they were absolutely comfortable! Managed to steal a spin after class - yes can do a backspin ^_^

~* Riedell HLS1500 with Gold Star blades *~

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Groupon for Skating at The Rink in Singapore


There is a Groupon (in Singapore) for skating at The Rink! Click on the image below to go to the Groupon site.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Swimsuit with bling

And we thought only figure skaters go all out with those Swarovski crystals? Now even beachwear is catching on! By the way, do those synchronized swimmers put crystals on their swimsuit too?

Monday, July 01, 2013

Returning to Ice - videos


I returned to skating again about 2 months after having my second child. Here is a summary of some of my practice sessions & progress in a video playlist:

28 Jan 2013: attempts at spins and some jumps
25 Feb 2013: mostly spins
8 Mar 2013: Lutz
8 Apr 2013: Axel
14 Jun 2013: double toe loop
28 Jun 2013: double Salchow

Monday, April 08, 2013

Family Evening at The Rink

The Singapore Ice Skating Association is organizing

Family Evening at The Rink with the Penguin
at
The Rink at JCube
on
12 April 2013, 7 - 9pm

Parents are invited to bring their child/children to The Rink at JCube to spend some quality family time on a Friday evening. Admissions are free for accompanying parent with a child under 12 years old.

If you are game for a mini race, let us know. Come, join us for an evening of fun and family bonding!

Sign up here!

Friday, March 29, 2013

Good luck for Nationals!


The Singapore National figure skating competition will be held this weekend.

To all competitors,

Good luck, and
skate your heart out!

Last year, I had put up twelve competition tips in my blog. The full posts for all of them can be found at http://chowskates.blogspot.com/search/label/CompTip.

I list them again here for your reference:

#1 Confidence - be confident in your ability

#2 Familiarity - be intimately familiar with your program

#3 Focus - focus on yourself & your training

#4 Warm-up - have in place a warm-up routine

#5 Responsibility - take on your role as an athlete and take care of yourself physically and mentally

#6 Visualize - visualize your performance

#7 Positivity - adopt a positive attitude

#8 Adversity - be prepared for adversity

#9 Process - focus on the process and execution

#10 Mental preparation - prepare yourself mentally

#11 Rest - allow yourself enough rest

#12 Good luck and skate well!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Back On Ice ~ Practice 11 Mar

Another practice... this time I worked on the Lutz.

The first few were "flutzed" but I realised I have to take off quicker!

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Back On Ice ~ Practice 25 Feb


My practice session on 25 Feb 2013

Still working on getting back into skating. This was quite a "spins day" because I woke up with a sore back. Felt better after stretching, but didn't feel like taking the impact of jumps.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Events at The Rink (Feb - Apr 2013)


The Rink @ JCube will be closed some days for various events these few months ~ Ice Hockey Tournament, Figure Skating National Championships and Speed Skating Junior Development Camp.


~ Picture shared from The Rink's Facebook page

Friday, February 08, 2013

Learn to Skate with Singapore's Ice Princess

The February issue of "The Play Times" (an online publication by the Singapore Sports Council) features an article titled "Learn to Skate with Singapore's Ice Princess".

Two videos show the basics of skating, as well as some simple figure skating moves. Here is the first video, "Ice Skating Basics with Lea Ong":

Read the full article on singaporesports.sg

Cute, but in her demonstrations, she also displays an example of what NOT to do - toe pushing. For those of you who don't know what "toe pushing" is, just take note of how she pushes off with her toe when she starts to move for the two foot glide, swizzles and snowplow stop. Pushes on stroking must be from the side of the blade, not the toe.

That said, her skating in the second video, "Figure Skating for Beginners" (below) is just fine. So, my point is, always skate properly whether you are doing "basic" or "advanced" elements.

References:
Original Article: Learn to Skate with Singapore's Ice Princess
Videos from Youtube user SingaporeSports.sg

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Curling


The Equatorial Curling Club is a local curling club which was very active during the days when Fuji Ice Palace was in operation. After a couple of years' hiatus, they have now started curling at The Rink @ Jcube. Join them to learn about this interesting sport!

Their next session will be on 10th Feb, 1730-1900. The cost will be $50 and goes entirely towards covering the hire of the rink. Follow Equatorial Curling on Facebook to learn more about the sport and their activities!

In the meantime, here is Team Switzerland vs Team China (mens) in the 2010 Winter Olympics:

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Back on Ice ~ practice 28 Jan 2013


My practice session on 28 Jan 2013

Ten weeks after having my baby, there's still a lot that feels "off", especially in terms of balance and strength. Even when trying the Axel off-ice I was totally off-center! (needless to say, I'm not trying that on ice as yet)

Sit spin is not bad, but there's still the "cannot get up" feeling. Back spin is getting better ~ this is not in the video, but here's a tracing on the right. Its a bit hard to see, but it is there!

The layback was rather lame, but well, it was the first I dared to try, and I didn't dare to really lay back. Back camel could be better.

I did not take videos of the single jumps. Jump landings are much better now compared to 4 weeks ago when I couldn't seem to hold a landing on a waltz jump! I got the courage to try some double toes (in video above), but none of them were anywhere near spectacular...

Friday, January 04, 2013

Six weeks... for a second time


My second little one is now six weeks old. Déjà vu? I seem to have said something similar over 4 years ago: Six Weeks...

On New Year's day, I went skating for the first time this year (duh!). Ok, I mean I skated for real for the first time since April last year. I had gone back on the ice last week, but didn't do much beyond skate round the rink and play with my first little one. Yes, my boots fit, I can skate and will start coaching again this weekend.

So, as with usual training sessions, I started off with stroking, turns, etc. I had gotten my blades sharpened a few weeks ago, so for some reason my right blade felt too sharp while my left blade felt like it was slipping. Wonder if there's something wrong with my left foot, for I seem to frequently have problems with my left blade, though I almost always get used to it.

Moved on to backspins, and though they were mostly ok, my weight seemed to always be too far to the right. Gotta fix that! The picture on the right is the tracing of one of the backspins, can see how scratchy (and travelling) it is! Forward spins, sit spins were ok, though I had trouble getting up from the sit position on one foot...

When I got to jumping, started with a waltz jump - oh how small that was, and the landing was a bit shaky (again, leaning too far to the right). The next few got slightly better. Salchow, toe loop and loop were again "small". *sigh* why can't I lift properly on the take-off? That was when I suddenly realized that I still have about 6kg of baby weight to lose! ACK!

Well, this is going to take some time to get back to "normal". Just gotta work at it! AS for coaching, I will be back to coaching SkateStar this weekend... see y'all on the ice! :-)