Have you ever tried to cover your skating mistake in competition?

Question

Ok - to everyone who answered my last skating question, I made a mistake and didn't pick a best answer in time, so now it's in voting. Sorry about that!

ANYWAY . . .

In one competition, I totally screwed up my camel spin which was supposed to be the beginning of a long combo spin. There's no way I could have saved it . . . and redoing the spin would have made me late in the music and make the mistake look even more obvious. So I quickly did a series of silly 3 turns with armwork. ????????! My coach laughed her head off saying she'd never seen THAT segment in my program before!!!

Anyone else do some ad-libbing?

Answer 1

Well, when I was in fourth grade, I had just re did my program and was still a little confused on my footwork but I had to compete it.  When I got to my footwork I totally went mind blank and started to my out footwork(keep in mind that my old program was ballet music and this was rock and roll).  So I was doing all of this graceful things with rock and roll music. Haha!  But, I still did very well and got 1st!!!  To this day, my coach still calls me graceful rock and roll babe :].

Answer 2

I once reversed the entire second half of my program.  In other words, jumps that should have been on the left side of the ice ended up on the right side and I finished facing the judges rather than the audience.  I don't think it was noticible except to me and my coach, but it was sure confusing.

Answer 3

I went over to a competition over in Australia recently and id been on holiday nowhere near an ice rink- in Switzerland, when i got back i had a week to learn my new free program. I have never been that good at learning a programme. On the day of my free i had still never skated the whole programme to the music non-stop. I started skating it, i got almost 30 seconds through my programme before i forgot it... ALL. I basically had to make up my own free programme on the spot it sucked, it was awful, horrifically embarassing.

Once at a competiton i had a routine where my first move was a flying camel, i fell on that- i dont just fall i fly across the ice. I got up and just stood around until i was supposed to exit where i continued onto my 2loop, well i did the loop clean and i was like WOW AWESOME yay maybe we can turn this around until i fell on the exit because i tripped over my boot. I then freaked out and it made me kinda forget my programme i just wanted to get off the ice but i didn't. Lets just say that programme continued as it began.

Answer 4

I've done this type of thing quite a bit. One time I fell in my program and I ended up getting a little behind in my music so as I sped up and started going faster so I'd end on time I ended up getting ahead in the music. As I was doing some footwork to the center where my ending spin would be I added a few extra steps, and I looped around the the point where I was going to be ending a little bit with some more footwork, and then I finished with my spin, thankfully everything worked out, and I finished on time. I've had a few other things happen like that, but this one was the largest mistake that I've made and fixed :)

Answer 5

At the Keystone Games competition I completely and accidentally left out half my footwork and the jump combination that followed it. My coach had always told me that no matter what goes wrong, NEVER deviate from your program. So i kept going and at the end, of course my music kept playing and i was ending my program with a sit spin. I stayed in that sitspin for about 10 seconds waiting for my music to end. My coach was proud of me for trying to cover it up but also mad at me for skipping so much of my program!

Answer 6

I've improvised here and there when a program went wrong. Personally, I think it's good to have a plan for what to do when you mess up an item. Your coach may not agree...

Answer 7

I'm sure I have at some time.  A little improvising never hurts.  :)  Have you ever come out of a spin or something and been so discombobulated that you forget what you're suppose to do next?  I've done that.  In your head, you're thinking, "I've done this more times than I care to count, and NOW I can't remember???"  Then you hope for a part in the music to get you back on track.  Or do you laugh at yourself during your program?  Mess up a move and laugh, "Oh yeah, that was grrreeeat!"   It's all you can really do -- laugh and keep going.  It's the ones who fall or make an obvious mistake and then skate the rest of their program on the brink of tears that have trouble.  I remember one program, I blew pretty near everything, but I was so proud that I landed a cheated double loop....that was all that mattered.  The entire program was a total disaster, but I thought the loop put a nice bow on top of the mess I made.  hahahaha

Answer 8

omg i have done that b-for except mine went like this

i was at a skate dallas okay , and i pop my lutz combo i mean i got too close to the boards and wigged out! i was like c**p!

so then on my flip combo i added on another loop then at the end in the middle i put in another lutz and did a combo haha

then a salcow then my combo spin wow my coach was like

what happened

i was like the boards were coming too fast!

Answer 9

I don't compete but my daughter does.  So her very first competition she was in - gosh, Delta I think? - and the end of her program she was supposed to do a lunge, then step up into a t-stop.  But because she was nervous she kind of rushed the whole program and you could see she realized it right at the end.  So she heeeeelllllld that lunge waiting for her music to catch up to her.  Instead of ending halfway across the ice she went 15 or 20 feet farther and completely ran out of speed until she just sort of collapsed in a near-splits.  Then she stood up and did a big ta-da with her arms.  It cracked me up and almost looked planned - you know how some girls do a splits at the end?  Except she can't quite do the splits so her coach would never put that in her program.  It still makes me chuckle to think about it because did that big flourish at the end with a big smile on her face.