Wednesday Recap

Since this blog is primarily about my quest for adult gold, I feel that in order to continue holding myself accountable for that goal, I'll be posting a weekly recap of my training. Possibly with photos and video...although none today, sorry!

At the moment, I skate on Tuesday nights. It's literally the only time I have during the week to skate, while juggling work, parenting and allowing the husband his day to play hockey. For some reason, all the rinks around here are loathe to give evening ice to skating clubs, so there is very limited night ice. But I loathe dragging my butt out of bed for an early morning session--I've had to before for synchro and now I don't have to so I'm not and you can't make me!-- and I can't make the late afternoon sessions because of work, so Tuesday nights I'm on the ice. At the moment I'm training for a show at the end of May. My coach and I put together a jazzy program (to be revealed later) that I've been practicing.

This week my coach had a conflict so I was on my own. Warmed up with some of these newfangled moves in the field -- I breezed through all my MIF tests back before US Figure Skating instituted the changes that made them crazy hard (which they should be, but that's a rant for another time) -- so it's like starting over, and I found that it really helps other areas of my skating to perfect them.

Then I worked on some spins, namely my back camel with blade-grabbing flourish. It's looking better these days, more like an elegant skater than a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. And bonus, I didn't slice my finger open!

Tackled some jumps next: Axel, 2salchow, 2toeloop, 2loop, 2flip and 2lutz. All of 'em are pretty easy to knock off these days, though I'm working on getting the 2lutz to be purely on the outside edge, which is still a trouble spot. Single lutz is perfect, but for some reason when I try for the double, things get edgy (hahah). Attempted a few 2axels,  but I'm not feeling right in the air. Rotation feels way off, so I didn't have much success. I used to have a killer 2axel. Hoping to get it back to good.

Spent the last half of practice working on the new program. I huffed and I puffed and I made it through three run-throughs, though the end choreography is not set in stone. I have at least four more sessions to nail it down, and I'm feeling confident.

I Heart Jason Brown

U.S. Men's Silver Medalist Jason Brown is throwing out the first pitch at a Cubs game at Wrigley Field this week. And he has been practicing his fastball, based on this Instagram training "montage".

I still watch his Riverdance freeskate from 2014 Nationals on YouTube every few days. Not to get all Dick Button here, but he's just so joyful on the ice. You know he loves skating, and it doesn't make you feel awkward when he doesn't nail all the jumps. When you see a skater who looks like a deer in headlights out there on the competitive ice, you kind of want to cover your eyes....His performance is kind of like a pickmeup when I'm feeling unmotivated.

Anyway, good luck on the mound JBrown!

Adult Skating in the News

WSJ.com

Adult figure skating is finally making headlines, and I am glad. Like the recent feature on my friend in the NYTimes and this headline on WSJ.com from yesterday: Older Figure Skaters Put New Spin on Sequined Sport at Championships.

I take a little ish with the latter though, which is hooked to this month's U.S. Adult Figure Skating Championships in Hyannis.

My first issue with it is purely competitive and selfish. I get a little sad when I hear about adult competitions from this past year. I berate myself that I wasn't able to get my act together to compete this year. I'm in prime physical shape, why couldn't I pull it together? I was back at practice less than 8 weeks after a c-section for pete's sake. Then I have to remind myself that realistically it would have been impossible. The demands of caring for an infant while also fulfilling the responsibilities of a full-time job would have made it extremely difficult, and I don't think I would have achieved the satisfaction from it that I would have if I'd spent more time training.

At the same time, the adults featured in the story (and those I've had the honor of skating with in the last few years) have made it work with more grueling schedules and more debilitating injury-related setbacks, like hip replacements. So I'm going to quit whining...for now.

The second issue I have with this article is the way it cheekily references the sport by saying things like:

But many older adults are donning skates, spandex and sequins and going after golds of their own. They stick to jumps and spins that are easy on the joints rather than landing quads, but their obsession is Olympic-size. 

First of all, wearing sequins is not prerequisite for competitive skating. In fact, in some disciplines, namely synchro, skaters are not allowed to wear sequins or rhinestones or any other shiny appliques, because they pose a safety risk to all skaters if they pop off--and they do pop off. You don't have to wear sequins, and certainly don't have to don spandex to compete, or even be considered a skater.

And secondly, the implication that adult skaters "stick to jumps and spins that are easy on the joints" is frankly a little offensive. Yes, it's true that the slings and arrows of aging may limit the physical capacity to pop off quads (and mental blocks are more likely to inhibit) but it shouldn't be implied that we all take it easy. It's like saying, "Oh you like to skate? That's so cute." It seriously undermines the motivation of these hard-working skaters, and may subconsciously convince them that they can't do things when they really really can!

Marlie on DWTS

Disclaimer: I haaate DWTS. I think it's in the running for the dumbest show on TV. So I don't watch it. (I do however, love SYTYCD, so I suppose I won't take offense if maybe you take my hatred of the former with a grain of salt.)

But lately I've found myself watching clips of Olympic ice dance champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White killin' it on the show. Meryl's Argentine tango in particular. Holy wow.

I couldn't take my eyes off "Marlie" when they were on the ice, and the same is proving true on the dance floor. They're so freaking good. And I love them even more for the bold way that they have revolutionized the competitive sport of ice dancing and how they've made US dancing relevant. Prior to their generation of skaters, ice dancing was boring, unoriginal, Russian dominated and esoteric to a general audience. Ice dancing was just something you did on the side to help hone your artistry in freeskating. But thanks to Meryl and Charlie (and to a lesser extent, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto), young skaters are flocking to the sport, exponentially more of them making it their primary discipline. I think if I didn't approach skating like a giant, ungainly 18-wheeler truck, I might try to focus on it more as an adult.  

And putting Meryl and Charlie on DWTS was a stroke of genius. The perfect opportunity to capitalize on a surge in the popularity of ice dancing among the general public. I just hope the next generation of ice dancers follow Marlie's lead. Now that they're out of the game, at least for now, aspiring ice dancers have their work cut out for them.

Anyway, even if I don't watch DWTS, I love Meryl & Charlie. So, vote for them!

Off-Ice Training

It's easy to underestimate the importance of off-ice training. I certainly did. But it is really valuable to skaters of all ages, in all disciplines. As a young skater, I regret not taking off-ice more seriously. I think it would have done a lot to support my skating, and make it stronger than it was.

While I've learned from the error of my previous ways, my off-ice regimen these days still leaves much to be desired (the toddler's tiny tyrannical restrictions on my free time are to blame, but she's so cute I can't be mad). A little bit of Pilates, a little yoga, a little running - trying to train for the Freihofer's Run for Women - a little bit of strength training, and a little bit of...Easter egg-hunting.

Timesunion.com

I attended a "Grown Up Easter Egg Hunt" this past weekend and found myself throwing elbows and jockeying for position at a charity event. I'm a competitive person, what can I say? That's me leading the pack on the right, with the neon green, blue-spotted bag in the dark purple sweater and purple sneakers. I didn't get any of the prizes or booze, but I got a good workout.

Off-ice WIN!

Skating's Got Apps!

Rink Tank Freestyle App

Going through some old skating stuff the other day at my parents' house, I found some cassette tapes of my old program music. Maybe I'm dating myself, but when I first started skating, we still used cassette tapes at competitions. That was before ice rinks—which are perennially stuck in the 70s and 80s—finally upgraded to using CD players sometime in the mid 2000s.

The sad part is that I couldn't even listen to the tapes, because I don't have a tape player. I wouldn't even know where to find one these days.

Anyway, it reminded me that I wanted to explore more of the technological advances in the sport of figure skating. Namely, skating apps! A friend posted a link to the new Elite Sk8 app the other day and it was the first I'd ever heard of a skating "app." I must confess, in my head I didn't really understand how an app could be helpful, but after reading about it, it seems pretty awesome. And like something I could have used back in my amateur days.

Developers Rink Tank are behind the most popular ones, it seems. Legit skating greats like Michael Weiss lend their expertise to it, and the developers worked with US Figure Skating to develop a neat series of coaching apps.

Since I found myself checking my email on my smartphone at the boards during practice last week, I figure it won't be too much of a stretch to download some and try them out. I'll report back on how it goes!

Mind over Matter

Great article in the NYTimes today about adult athletics, featuring my friend and former GCS teammate, Renee!

From New York Times article "Mind Over Matter: Mastering Daunting Moves"

I found this graf particularly interesting:

Kevin Coppola, her instructor at City Ice Pavilion, in Long Island City, Queens, said there is usually an element of fear — even if it’s subconscious — with adults. “It’s easy for kids to throw themselves in the air, fall down and get back up,” he said. “When you’re older and you fall, you can’t get right back up and do it again.” Ms. Stonebraker has also injured her knee in the past, he said, which can create a mental block.

It's illustrative of something I too have come to notice as an adult skater--that there's a stark difference between adults who started their skating careers in adulthood, versus those who have come back to it after learning to skate as a child. In working with adult skaters, both as a teammate and as an instructor at Wollman Rink, I discovered that the aforementioned  are are two completely different types of skaters.

I know I take for granted things that I put into my muscle memory bank when I was 12. Because of the level of difficulty I mastered in my youth, I have little trouble learning new skills fairly quickly. And while I do fall (quite frequently, I might add), because of that muscle memory, I know how to fall without hurting myself.

The most horrendous falls I've seen are from adult skaters who started as adults. Lots of painful ear-splitting, session-halting falls on the head and knee that at times have resulted in trips to the ER. Learning how to fall--like learning a foreign language--is a lot easier and more effective when you're a kid. And I think, as coach Kevin Coppola said in the article, the fear of injuring oneself creates a mental block--that I've seen result in a lot of whining, a lot of refusing to try things, and a lot of un-fun on the ice.

Kids aren't completely fearless either though. And whether you're a child skater or an adult, the process for working through fear is the same.

To reassure her, Mr. Coppola breaks down the move, step by step, and reminds her that she’s capable. “I tell her she knows how to do it and that she has to trust herself,” he said.

And trust yourself you can. I don't want to hear any more people say to me, "oh I'd love to skate but I'm too old to learn now." Anyone can skate! You just have to GET ON THE ICE AND TRY IT.

Writing on Ice

Part of the reason I started this journal was the recent spate of writing I did about figure skating around the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Between the baby, work and skating practice, I hadn't had the time before now to aggregate the body of work.

So here ya go, everything I wrote about Sochi earlier this year in one neat little post. I'll spare you the hundreds of Tweets, which I was THRILLED to learn that people enjoyed. If you kept up with 'em, thank you so much for your support!

A Guide to Scoring Figure Skating at the Olympics - Mental Floss

Impossible Figure Skating Moves from the Movies - Mental Floss

9 Scandals that Rocked the Figure Skating World - Mental Floss

The Truth About Figure Skating Movies - Fandango

And a selection from my blogging for Guideposts.org during the 2010 Games in Vancouver:

Real Winners - Guideposts

A Pair of Champions - Guideposts

And if I get my way, there will be more clips to share in the future!

I'm Kicking Myself

Literally. With my skate blade. Not out of frustration, and not to punish myself. Simply because when I jump and spin and just generally flail my limbs about during practice sessions, I somehow end up getting sliced and stabbed, specifically in the hand.

The other day while on the ice at practice I looked down at my hand after itching my nose to find it bleeding profusely from a cut on my thumb. Apparently I'd sliced it trying to grab my blade during a back camel ( see an example of this maneuver here, though this is NOT me) like 10 minutes earlier, and bled all over the ice, my clothes, my skate laces and my program CD. It was a superficial cut, don't worry. But I think the constant centrifugal force of my spinning made it worse? I hope I didn't inadvertently bleed on anyone else on the session.

And I noticed two days ago that I have a toepick imprint on the outside of my hand. I don't even know how that happened. Maybe it was a high kick?

I remember sustaining some pretty gross-looking injuries (and remember witnessing the downright gruesome injuries of others, on which I shall mercifully not elaborate). I sported an elbow egg for two years, sustained by constant falling on my left elbow, which I suspect may have caused folks at my school to wonder about the stability of my home life.

Maybe this new spate of nicks is happening because I'm older and creakier? I don't think so. I think it's because nowadays--as opposed to when I was last competing--skaters are required to perfect more complex combination spins that involve grabbing and holding the skate blade in cray-cray positions in order to have a remote shot at winning. Take Olympic gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova, for example. Forward to the 3:20 mark to see what I'm talkin' about...

What the hell is that? And how does she pull it off? Is she missing a pelvic bone? A few vertebrae? I kinda dig it though, it's very...angular. Stay tuned for a post griping about all the painful muscle pulls I'm going to endure trying this at my next practice.

Weir & Lipinksi to Hit Churchill Downs - and I'm Hitting the Mint Juleps

Not really sure what big, floppy hats and mint juleps have to do with sequins and skate blades, but hey, I'll take Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski doing fashion commentary for NBC during the Kentucky Derby.

And I'll take a mint julep...because I can DO THAT NOW.

At first it weirded me out that I was hitting the hotel bar the night before Easterns 2012 with my teammates--after all, most times I'd stayed at hotels during competitions, I was with my mom, and I was like, 12. I could barely handle a swig of Powerade back then (flashback to me projectile vomiting blue Powerade in front of the judges at Empires 1999).

I don't recommend tossing back a few shots before getting on the ice. It's just refreshing to know that a little glass of wine to calm the pre-competition jitters--and bolster the post-competition celebrations--is acceptable.

But back to the JWeir and TLip news, I'm glad they're getting more opportunities. I just wish it were more opportunities to talk about skating. They were so good at that in Sochi.

And back to drinking and skating, here is one of my favorite performances, ever.

Foot Fetish

I read an article in the NYTimes Fashion & Style section today about a recent rise in cosmetic foot surgery. Specifically, cosmetic foot surgery designed to alleviate the pain caused by one's favorite fabulous heels. I love my heels. I've probably gone on record before saying that I would give my right arm for my feet to feel amazing in amazing shoes, but I'm drawing the line here. On the ice. With my blade.

Now, I admit that since my competitive skating career fell off a few years back I have developed something of an obsession with fashionable footwear that borders on an unhealthy. So much so, that I made a video about it.

I love shoes. I love how a cute shoe looks on my foot, despite the fact that it may cause me great pain, or that it would change my gait from normal to Frankenstein. But I wouldn't choose to undergo potentially painful elective surgery--that could potentially compromise my skating--just to look good in heels.

I'd rather look good in my $1100 Louboutains skates, thankyouverymuch.

Warming Up

I'm starting a blog (again). What, that's so ten years ago, you say? Well I don't care what you say. The only way I've ever been able to hold myself accountable for any goals I've set is to put it in writing—in a very public and comically self-deprecating way.

So here it is. You heard it right here, right now. One year from now, I am going to compete at Adult Nationals—or at least, try to qualify for them 11 months from now—and get myself back in fightin' shape. Why? I believe the more apt question in this case is, why not?

Let's just say it has been many, many years since I last flew solo on competitive ice. I had a brief stint in competing in adult synchro two years ago (Go Gotham!), but then I got knocked up, red-shirted and distracted by a tiny human for the ensuing year and a half. But I'm slightly older, wiser, and oddly in better shape than I ever was at the height of my competitive days. So I got that going for me. That and I have boobs now. Didn't have those before.

So this blog will be a record of my training, and anything else about the sport of figure skating that strikes my fancy. I can guarantee there will also be some very, very embarrassing video footage along the way. This should be fun.