Time to Re-Up that Membership

Every June 30, your year-long membership in US Figure Skating will expire. If you want to stay a member in good standing and compete in qualifying competitions, you must renew your membership, pay your dues and in most cases, declare your skating club (the skating club determines where you compete in qualifying comps). Without a USFS membership, you're like a skate without a blade out there.

Like the flawlessly responsible adult skater that I am not am, I took care of this weeks ago. There was a glitch in the USFS system though that gave me a bit of a heart attack in the process. They sent me (and probably a number of other skaters) erroneous emails that said I still had yet to renew after I renewed. They later sent a very nice email apologizing for the glitch and confirming that indeed, I had renewed and repaid. Phew!

I'm continuing to skate under the banner of the Skating Club of New York, where I found a welcoming home a few years back. It's one of the oldest skating clubs in the country (celebrated 150 years last year), has produced three Olympic champions (Carol Heiss Jenkins, Dorothy Hamill and Sarah Hughes) and continues to produce top talent in the figure skating world (Adam Rippon, Maia Shibutani, Samantha Cesario). I'm proud to be a member and hope I can make 'em look good when I compete this year!

I think it used to matter much more prior to IJS what skating club you belonged to, specifically in terms of how you were judged on the ice. Your skating club was your banner, your flag, your "country" within a country. And the more prestigious the club, the more favors may be directed your way by judges with loyalties. At least, that was the going theory.

Throughout my youth, I always heard whispers from coaches and parents about the need to join a "prestigious" skating club. There's at least one thusly perceived club in every state/region. For those of us growing up and skating in upstate New York, that meant joining SCNY or SC of Rockland. In Massachusetts, you'd join Skating Club of Boston. In California it was All Year FSC in LA. Dupage FSC in the Midwest, Philadelphia SC and Humane Society, Washington FSC. I could go on.

As a young skater, I chose to keep the now-defunct Achilles Figure Skating Club as my home club. It was a skating community I knew and loved, and it always made me feel satisfyingly rebellious in the competitive arena, winning despite bearing the mark of a smaller skating club maybe no one had ever heard of.

As an adult, I moved to New York. I hadn't skated for years, but I met an SCNY officer who went very much out of her way to inspire and help me get back into it. I had to join SCNY to compete with Gotham City Synchro, and while initially felt like I was betraying my upstate origins, I grew to feel confident with the change in club, meeting and making good friends within the SCNY community. And even though I've left the city since, I still feel very connected to the SCNY folks - thus the renewal of my membership.

A remarkable number of young skaters at the rinks I use upstate are members of "prestigious" clubs. But it's pretty clear they do it for the prestige rather than the community. That all makes me a little sad. They're missing out on a really cool and rewarding part of skating.