- canadian champ

Shout out to Vladislav for a very nice interview with Kaetlyn, the 2013 Canadian national champion.

- judging questions

In an earlier post I spouted a bit over the dilemma I face about skating judges: bless them but for me personally, no thanks. My daughter stopped competing a decade ago, so I no longer have skin in the game. I do still though have a couple handfuls of questions I wish some figure skating judges would answer. Anonymous answers are just fine too.

My daughter felt assured that the judges paid attention to the warm up, and grant some slack to a skater if she muffed a jump in the program yet landed it in practice. True? How much traveling do judges do? How many competitions do they judge a month? What does it pay? How do you reconcile your aesthetic feelings against the rigid scoring methodology? Does USFSA have seminars where judges get to vent their concerns? Do they pay attention and make changes? Do judges have any influence over general rink conditions? Should they? Do clubs request certain judges (or related: how do judges get chosen for an event)? Can a judge refuse to work with another judge?

There, that should keep you going for a while (smile).

- special coach two

As I scrutinize my daughter skating her latest routine I appraise it for artistic merit. I weigh the style of the presentation, gauging the flow between the moves, watching the overall presentation of her spins, how she carries her center of gravity, and how she displays her arms in expressive embellishments.

Overall the routine looks pretty solid and only one thing concerns me: she came out of a back sit spin with her arms lackadaisical, devoid of any flair at all. The rest of the program was fine though. I motion her over to discuss this. Can you try it with one arm up? She does, and it looks better by a hundred percent. What about the other arm, should it be palm up? She tries it, but it looks worse. How about a bent elbow, I inquire. So she tries that... that was interesting.

And that is what makes a parent-skater relationship special. I fill that tiny piece between the actual coaching and the choreography; I'm the guy that handles the polishing and patching of the expressive holes. Then when my daughter -- in full competitive regalia -- does that special little thing with her arms or her hands on one particular spin, we smile to each other knowing that /that/ was Daddy's move.