Music & Lyrics

New York Times

I don't know how I missed this during the Olympics, seems like it got completely buried in the sports news cycle, but apparently starting in this competitive year, singles and pairs skaters will be able to use music with vocals in competition.

Allow me one small moment to wig out.

This is a huge deal! Music with lyrics??? That opens up a whole new world of near endless possibilities! No more having to hunt for a lame instrumental version of a pop song! No more having to stick to traditional stuff that doesn't necessarily suit your personality or skating style! You can really express yourself!

End wigging out.

Skaters in the dance and synchro disciplines can already use music with vocals, but the rules for the other disciplines have remained rigid, until now. Not to be confused with exhibition skating of course, where anything goes.

I think it's a good move for the sport's publicity, and will probably make the sport a little more interesting to the casual observer and possibly attract more of the rising generation of both fans and skaters.

An argument that folks have made against it is that it will cheapen the sport. I don't necessarily think so. Competitive skaters are always very conscientious about the music they choose in any discipline, and I doubt that will change. Just because they have the freedom now to choose something with lyrics doesn't mean they'll choose something off-color, laden with cuss words or worst case, Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball." (JK I kind of enjoy that song, dumb as it is.)

And I also wonder how the judges are going to handle it. They seem to have handled the transition with synchro and dance well, so here's hoping.

But I swear, if I so much as hear one skater choose "Call Me Maybe" as their program music...

Happy Birthday to Me, Part 3

Growing up, I was almost always at the rink on my birthday. We'd be in the throes of summer session, during which we'd have two-three freestyles a day plus a power stroking class. My mom would usually send me with cupcakes on that day to share with my fellow skaters, many of whom also had birthdays around mine. 

And I would always get a special present from my fellow skaters. 

It was tradition, I was told, but I haven't been able to confirm where it started or who started it. It was a fact, that on your birthday, at the end of a skating session, you were mobbed by fellow skaters and coaches at one end of the ice. They made you sit down on the ice and dragged you by your skate blades across the rink to the other side. Then, they took your skates off, and made you walk all the way back to the rink door barefoot.

It would seem like a cruel tradition to outsiders, but to us skaters, it was a badge of honor. I wish I had a photo, but I don't think anyone ever took one. I was not at the rink on my birthday this year, but I think of the tradition every year. 

National Dance Day...on Ice!

The last Saturday in July has been coined National Dance Day. The Dizzy Feet Foundation and SYTYCD's Nigel Lythgoe (Oh, Nigel!) started it to encourage people to embrace dance as a healthful and fun activity.

In honor of National Dance Day, here are some skaters who are doing their part.

Happy Birthday to Me, Part 2

My second present this year was a trip to the Flight Trampoline Park. One hour of bouncing off the walls at a warehouse full of trampolines! So. Much. Fun.

Trampolining is not just a fun thing to do though, it's both a great workout, and a great supplement for figure skating training. When I did my summers in Lake Placid, I took several trampoline classes down at the ski jumping complex, learning proper trampoline technique and safety. And I think they really helped me on the ice.

Jumping on trampolines forces you to build resistance to momentum, which can come in very handy on the ice with jumps and spins. It also takes away that fear of falling on the hard ice (or ground), so you can just fly--and learn that your body is capable of doing things you never imagined.

Like back flips!

Happy Birthday to Me! Part 1

I am so excited to have gotten my very first "Kiss n' Cry" bag for my birthday! These seem to be all the rage among the skating set these days, and they really are quite useful for adult skaters, who are usually toting car keys, smatlrtphones and wallets, along with their program music CDs, tissues and water bottles.

My mother bought it for me. It is super blingtastic, which is so me. I can't wait to bring this to my next practice!

Srsly?

This news story about US officials allegedly asking Evgeni Plushenko to abandon Russia and skate for America after the Sochi Olympics...I can't even.

As Amy Poehler and Seth  Myers would say...Really?

You Go, Brian Joubert!

I love Brian Joubert's skating. I think he's one of the most underrated skaters in the sport, and despite a solid short program in Sochi, the former World Champ ended up a dismal and somewhat undeserved 13th place. All signs pointed to retirement for the eldest competitor in the men's field at the Olympics (minus Plushenko, of course).

But no! He's going to give pairs a try, with another former singles skater, Russian Katarina Gerboldt. Why the heck not? You go, BJ, keep the flame alive!

And how can you go wrong when actor and fellow (former) countryman Gerard Depardieu is your advisor in all matters related to gaining Russian citizenship?

Defying Gravity

Gravity is not a figure skater's friend. Especially as they age. (Falling hurts waaay more now than it used to!) Sometimes I think it would be easier and more fun to skate on the moon than here on earth...alas, gravity is our reality.

But I didn't know how bad we had it until I read this piece on Gizmodo, detailing a study researchers at Brigham Young did by strapping a sensor to a figure skater's boot to see how much pressure a skater absorbs as they land a jump. The answer? Eight times their own body weight. We're talking 800-900 pounds at the very least for many of us. That's heavy. (And also kind of makes us seem way more badass than we really are...)

For very young skaters, this is kind of terrible news. Imagine a 10-year-old popping off doubles (and maybe even triples!) who weighs 70 pounds. Each time he or she lands a jump, there is 560 lbs of weight crashing down on their tiny little foot. I guess the rising rate of serious hip, foot and ankle injury among those very young skaters shouldn't be surprising, given this study's results. Tara Lipinski, who peaked at age 15 at the Olympics (still the youngest ever gold medalist), had to have surgery to repair torn cartilage in her hip at age 17.  She wasn't even old enough to drink or vote!

Until we can figure out a way to defy gravity, I'll just listen to this song on loop, and maybe try to skate to it...

 

Who Wants to Host the Winter Olympics?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

The IOC recently announced the finalists for the 2022 Games: Oslo, Beijing and Almaty...Kazakhstan, that is (in case like me you were like, where?). Part of me is kind of pleased the IOC would consider a country like Kazakhstan that has never before had the money nor infrastructure to host a Games.

But another part of me agrees completely with this really great point Slate made about the whole thing...the pickins for the site of the 2022 Games are slim. Oslo might withdraw, and Kazakhstan is "not ready for primetime," leaving only Beijing, which hosted the 2008 Summer Games oh so few years ago. No one is really clamoring for the honor because it has proven in the last decade to be more of a headache for the host country than it is an actual honor.

I'm sure in the past one could make arguments that the countries and cities that ended up hosting the Games (both summer and winter) may have curried a little favor here or there, maybe slipped some money in certain pockets to win the bid, but this time around, it doesn't smell that way to me.

One of my bucket list items is to attend an Olympic Games I was still a twinkle in someone's eye back in 1980 when the Games were in Lake Placid, otherwise an army could not have held me back from going up there. Maybe by 2022 I'll have a chance?

Dreaming of the Cold

Oh my, has it been hot here in New York during the last few weeks! My sweat stains and I have been hardcore daydreaming about gliding through the crisp, cool air on Wollman Rink in wintertime.

And a recent story in the Baltimore Sun about how the city of Baltimore is going to erect an outdoor ice rink kept the daydream alive.

I never skated outdoors as a kid. Literally not once, until I hit the ice at Wollman in 2010. There was exactly one outdoor rink where I grew up, and I just never went there. It wasn't a full-sized rink, it was only open for a month or so and freestyle wasn't allowed. It was more a place for tourists and families to go during the holiday season.

I feel that what could have been an important and iconic part of my youth is missing, but thank goodness I finally discovered it as an adult. Skating outdoors is marvelous. The feeling of that fresh air hitting your face and the big sky above you--it creates a freeing feeling of flying that attracted me (and I'm sure many others) to the sport in the first place.

New life goal: skate on an outdoor skating rink in as many places as possible, especially these places. Banff Lake Louise in Canada, holy wow!

Hope this little post served to cool you off a little! Funnily enough, you have to remember to wear sunscreen while skating outdoors just as much as you do if you hit the beach this summer...

Fashion Friday: Happy Independence Day!

Today's #FashionFriday post is brought to you by America. 

My artistic program in ISI Freestyle 4, Lake Placid, to--you guessed it--the tune of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."

Plushie in Pyeongchang

Evgeni Plushenko officially announced he's going to try for 2018 in South Korea, according to the Moscow Times. That would make it his fifth Olympics, which has to be some kind of modern skating record. He'd be beating his own record, actually...

At his press conference today, he said: "Everything that was broken, has been fixed, and there is nothing left to break. I will try to participate in my fifth [Olympic Games] and give a dignified performance."

Given his past and what went down in Sochi, I'm dubious. But he's already got four medals in four Olympics and he'll be 35 in 2018. I can't help but root for him...