Journal

September 29, 2008

Hi, Andrew here.

Just a quick note before we head out to Belarus.

First of all Mexico City was an awesome experience. To be at a competition where you are announced as representing the United States of America is a really thrilling experience for an athlete. Loved the country and our hosts were very hospitable. It was really cool to meet athletes from all over the world. Both the draw party and the final Banquet were a lot of fun, the Mexican delegation sure knows how to put on a great party! We also got a chance to do some sightseeing the last day we were there and visited a Mexican Pyramid, which was really awesome. During my down time I spent a lot of time at my laptop doing homework.

As far as the skating, we were obviously very disappointed in the way we skated our short program in Mexico. We both know that we can skate much better than that. We went into the free skate determined to put in a better showing and I think we did. We placed fifth overall in the free skate and moved up to seventh overall. While our overall placement was a disappointment I think we learned a lot from the experience and how to dig down deep to come from behind.

As soon as we got back from Mexico we rededicated ourselves and have worked really hard the last two weeks. We had taken out the throw triple loop before Mexico as we lost a week of training right before Mexico due to the accident. The throw triple loop is now back in both programs, at this point we feel we have nothing to lose and we may as well go for broke.

The past week has been crazy getting ready to leave, our Visas did not get here until Saturday morning, so we were all feeling a little panicked that they would not come in time. Before leaving on Sunday morning we competed our short program on Saturday at the Pikes Peak Classic. This is the first year for this competition and so there was only four Junior Teams there, hopefully it will continue to grow over the next few years. Anyways, our goal was to compete our short program before we left for Belarus to give us a chance to put out the throw triple loop again in one of our programs. Brittany landed the throw and the rest of the program was pretty good. We placed first in the short program and our Broadmoor Team mates Brittany Simpson and Nathan Miller placed second, skating a very strong program.

Now we are headed off to Belarus on a very long plane ride and then a three hour bus ride to our final destination. I have a back pack full of school books and my laptop. Hopefully I will be able to find some time to get some studying done while I am on the plane and during the week. I definitely have been bit by the travel bug and I now want to visit as many countries as I can. Hopefully we will turn in some good performances and gain some valuable experience.

Andrew

September 8, 2008

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick hello and goodbye as we head off to Mexico City this week.  As Brittany mentioned we have had a crazy couple of weeks.  Indy was a good learning experience for us as a team.  The scores among many of the teams at Indy were so close that even very little mistakes made a difference in a teams overall placement.  We are still very much in the early days of our partnership and while we have experienced some good success so far we still have a lot of work to do to get to where we want to be by the end of the season.  The feedback we got from the judges and our coach was a great help to us.  

The real reason I wanted to write this was to say how proud I am of Brittany.  The accident two weeks ago was very scary and resulted in Brittany getting over 20 stitches in her shoulder.  She took one week off and was back on the ice as soon as she was able. While it was touch and go for a couple of days on whether or not we would be able to compete in Mexico City, thanks to Brittany’s determination we will be there. 

Andrew    

September 1, 2008

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for visiting our site. I have things to tell you about the Indy Challenge, our relationship, practices and Mexico City.

The Indy Challenge competition went well, but we made several small mistakes that added up to lots of points being taken off. We attended the judge critiques, came home, and then viewed the videos with our coach. We learned what NOT to do. I know we won’t be making the same mistakes again!

Also, after we got home, Andrew and I had the opportunity to do some team building. This included listening games, personality charts and other fun activities. We discovered things about one another and ourselves. If you think about it, we were put together quickly and didn’t have a chance to personally bond as a team. We are and will continue to work on this.

Our practices were going great until this past Monday when we were doing side by side jumps and I fell. Instead of falling away from Andrew, I fell toward him. As he was checking out, his toe-pick went into my shoulder. The ambulance and fire department came to the rink. Andrew and Delilah took good care of me until they arrived. By the end of the day I got three layers of stitches and 9 staples. I do have to say that I didn’t enjoy only being able to use one hand, but everything is alright now and I am healing quite fast. It was just one more episode of drama in the lives of pair skaters.

I am looking forward to getting back on the ice and competing in Mexico City.

Take Care,

Brittany

August 5, 2008

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick update before we head off to Indy. We have been very busy this summer, lots of hard work both on and off the ice. We have been spending a great deal of time practicing our new long program which will make it's debut at Indy this week.

About an hour after the free skate at Broadmoor Open Dalilah met with Brittany and I and told us that she wanted to take the team in a new direction in terms of our look on the ice. She felt that we could pull off a much more mature and classical look which would emphasize our lines and extensions. That meant new music, choreography and costumes.

She said she already had music in mind so the very next day, Sunday, we met at the rink and spent two and a half hours creating a new long program. The music is Adagio in G minor. I have to say that Dalilah is an amazing choreographer, she was able to put this program together in just a couple of hours and we looked like a totally different team.

Needless to say we have been extremely busy since that time trying to get some miles in on this new program as well as continue working on our elements. I am really excited about going to Indy, especially for Brittany since she has not competed at this competition before.

Brittany will write more after the competition.

Andrew

June 30, 2008

Hi Everyone,

Just an update on our progress.

We just finished up Broadmoor Open and it went pretty well. Broadmoor Open is always a little more difficult for me because I am at home and still trying to cram in my life around the competition. I arranged my work schedule at the OTC around my competition and practice schedule for the week and I was pretty tired by the end of the week.

We won the short program and finished third in the long. More importantly we put out our throw triple loop for the first time in competition, I am proud to say that Brittany landed a beautiful one in the short. The rest of the short went very well for this early in the season. Now we just have to look for places we can add on to our levels and increase our overall points.

The long was pretty good, we put out the throw triple in the long as well and Brittany rotated it, but fell, it was still a great job on her part. Our other big mistake was on the Double Axel combo. We landed nice ones on the 20 minute warm-up and again in the 5 minute warm-up, however in the program I popped and Brittany fell. To top it all off because that was our combo and neither one of us did a combo we were also downgraded on our Lutz's for not adding a combo to the Lutz. Lesson learned on our part. The rest of the program went pretty well for this early in the season and for this being only our third competition together.

Our next goal is to put in our triple twist for our next competition in August. We know that we will be taking a risk this season by adding a throw triple, possibly two, harder jumps, and a triple twist, and sometimes the risk will pay off and sometimes it won't, however our ultimate goal is to be competitive internationally at the junior level and later senior level so we are taking the risk now so that we can grow as a team.

We learned a lot from this competition and hope to take the feedback we received from our critiques at this competition and will be back to the drawing board next week. We are both taking a little break over the 4th of July holiday for a couple of days, I am looking forward to some time off with my family up in the mountains and hope to get some riding in with my dad.

Have a great holiday.

Andrew

May 28, 2008

Hi everyone,

Welcome to our Web site!

Brittany and I have been skating together since the end of August 2007.

My former partner and I split up at the end of August and I was faced with sitting out the qualifying season. My coach Dalilah Sappenfield suggested that I try out with Brittany, who also skated at the World Arena.

The tryout went great and Brittany was able to pass Four Pairs skating tests in just one week so that we were able to get our qualifying competition paperwork in just in time for the September deadline. That was an amazing accomplishment for Brittany.

The next two months were filled with lots of hard work. Since Brittany had never skated pairs before she had to learn everything very fast. We managed to get the elements we needed and our programs put together just in time for Midwesterns, where we finished first in the short program and second overall to Brynn Carman and Christopher Knierim.

Another quick two months and we were at nationals where we again finished first in the short program and second overall to Brynn and Chris. Right after nationals, we received more exciting news when we were named as third alternates for Junior Worlds.

Since returning from nationals we have finally had the opportunity to spend some time working on new elements and developing our partnership. We have added a triple twist and we are working on perfecting it. We are continuing to work on our side-by-side jumps. We were landing both side-by-side double axels and triple toes from the beginning of our partnership and we are now just trying to decide with our coach which will be in our program for this year.

Lastly, we are working on throw triples. I am very proud to say that Brittany landed her first throw triple loop on the second day she attempted it and now we are just working on making it bigger and more consistent. Hopefully, we will soon start work on a second throw triple.

In addition to a lot of hard work over the past couple of months, we have also had the opportunity to participate in a couple of shows in both Colorado Springs and Denver and help out some very worthy causes. We also skated in a show in Chicago area in May.

We attended the U.S. Figure Skating pairs camp held in Colorado Springs in April. It is always a lot of fun to have so many pair teams together at one time, there is so much we can learn from each other, and everyone is very supportive of one another. The coaches were great and we received a lot of valuable feedback on what we need to focus our attention on going into our junior season.

Thanks again for visiting our Web site and we will continue to update you on our progress as the season continues.

Andrew Speroff