- men

At the highest level the men's side of the sport is considerably more "dense" than at the local levels. Locally it is quite rare to have more than one or two capable gentlemen competing. At the top level of course you have full representation.

In stark contrast to the women's side of the sport, the top men skaters are obviously a severe counter-example to what most of the world culturally expects for a man in his mid-twenties.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing necessarily, just that the particular contrast imposes very tight strictures on both the execution and the presentation of the male side of the sport.

- audience rehearsal

While watching the skaters practice I realize that their efforts have aspects of a musician in a band or of a dancer rehearsing. At some point in the future they will be performing these exact moves in front of an audience, but the motion and the music are a front for something else: the spiritual work of entertaining the audience and diverting them from their pain and sorrows.

I suppose we tend to forget -- once we get caught up in the adult rat race for money -- that children are spiritual beings who are highly sensitive to feelings and matters of the soul. The good skaters, like artists, retain this childlike sensitivity. After watching the practice for a while you will see (amongst the artistic skaters) considerably more than just physical practice.

The rehearsal is the link to the on-stage performance: emotions flow back through time from the audience through the performance and then back into the practice. The skaters shatter the ether as they spin and fall to relieve the suffering future.

- in and out

You practice your footwork. You practice your spins. You jump, jump, jump. You blend it all together with choreography and nice hands and come up with a fairly consistent program. That is most of what competitive figure skating is all about.

Out here in the stands though I only really need to watch two of the smallest "tells" that reveal whether or not you are a polished pro. They are the most overlooked minute inflections and usually the last elements to receive any detailed attention: the entry into and the exit out from your jump.

Professional entry exhibits a smooth seamless trace of your center of gravity. The jump happens as part of a continually flowing procession; it is not punctuation.

And now you are mid-air, thinking of your impending landing and check back. A pro has already perfected and no longer thinks of this, but rather flourishes the landing with graceful arms and hands. The love of artistic expressions upon landing demonstrates that you are already confident in your jump.

Easy in, flourished out. Rather than watch you barely land a triple, I'd love to see easy in, flourished out on the double that you now already know intrinsically.

- the pep talk

My daughter was feeling frustrated because she couldn't get her spins to work correctly. She was weeping, thinking that her whole career had passed her by. I explained to her that she would need to relearn things again, that as she grew older, her body would be changing, so that skating was always about relearning and adjusting. I also explained that progress would constantly be a roller coaster up-and-down ride... don't expect that she would always improve straight uphill, increasingly better and more confident. I also explained to her that giving up certainly didn't accomplish anything.

I mentioned that there were days when I was running track when I didn't feel like doing anything, and yet I went out and ran anyway. This changed her perspective and allowed her to go back out onto the ice and practice some more.

I realized afterward that I had become the quintessential skatedad, providing emotional support and psychological guidance. They also serve who only stand and cheer.

- the practice life

It's a freestyle: I sit in the stands and concentrate on writing and staying "small" and inconspicuous. Freestyles are an intense combination of spunk and spiritual expression. These are the serious skaters, the ones who are working on a career. There is maybe a half dozen of them on the ice, and unlike a competition where they are careful, graceful, and showy, the freestyle is a lot of work and "pushing the envelope".

Every couple of minutes somebody falls on the ice; not seriously though, since they are all accustomed to falling. They attempt jumps that they are just working on, more spins than they would have done before, or an entrance move that they are just learning. They concentrate on their center-of-gravity and watch and control their body as gravity, forward velocity, and angular momentum pull at their limbs.

Learning is painful and is part of the process. A new attempt, the center of gravity behaving unexpectedly: a hip bounces on the ice. Up immediately again for another try with a slight shift in approach this time.

When you watch a competition you are seeing the moves that the skaters already know. When you are watching a freestyle though you are seeing the moves that they are just discovering. The difference is like that between ordering the steak tartare off of the restaurant menu versus visiting a friend for dinner where they just open the refrigerator to see what they have so they can "throw something together." In the first case you'll get a polished presentation of a tried-and-true creation, but the second case is quite a bit more interesting.

But there is more happening here -- it is that subtle act of creative destruction, the same that you might witness in an office of computer programmers or at the job site of construction workers. They are building something, they are struggling with their craft, they are moving through creative space and the rigors of the medium to reach the objective that they visualize. They are illuminating the path that leads to their own future.