I did go to the Scottsdale clinic on September 28. It was a blast. My mom and I drove 500 miles to get there from California and spent two nights in a hotel. When we arrived that morning Todd was just milling around talking to people and after I signed in my mom got a picture of us. Later when I found some back issues of Blades I got his autograph on a full page photo they had of him. Being the moron that I was though all I could say was "Please" and "Thank you". I'm horribly shy but can usually get out more than three syllables.

When the skating started they divided us into groups and I was in the B group, meaning I can skate forward, stop, and a bit of backwards. I was the lowest of the B groups mainly because they don't give sufficient warm up time on the ice, the fact that the rink in our town closed four years ago, and the fact that I've actually skated about five times in my life. Todd came to our group first and lucky me, I did get a bit of one on one as he showed me how to wiggle my hips back and forth to go backwards. He spent about ten minutes with our group and then moved on. The Richard came over and helped us more with backwards crossovers. That was really a joke for me, but he told me that my main problem was that I just got going way to fast to control myself at my current skill level. A compliment of sorts I guess. I actually got a fair amount of one on one with Richard and the other guest instructor Grant because I needed my hand held a lot to try many of the skills since I was the lowest in the group.

After my lesson Todd signed some more autographs and shortly after we left despite the pleasant say it was. I'm really glad it wasn't too hot. I'm sure I saw some of the other list members there and would like to know who else went. If your wondering I was the girl in the green sweater and jeans on the ice and after I had on a pink tank top. I will try to post my pictures after I get them developed. There aren't too many because my mom mainly took video, I'd love to put that up too but don't have the sufficient tech knowledge to do so. Anyways, it was quite fun and would love to hear more feedback on the clinic.

Kristin