- bouncy

Yesterday I floated by the public session at the Westfield UTC rink in San Diego (yeah a rink mezzanined below a mall's food court) and sure enough amongst the weekend noobs hugging the boards an actual nine year old Skater with a Coach on ice was polishing her double Axel. Although still somewhat inconsistent her talents were immediately obvious: she had that magical combination of bubbly personality with tight center of gravity control. After ten minutes of Axel she switched to practicing her flying camel.

I smiled to myself while thinking Ah someday a national competitor. Yet as I watched her skate her set-ups and non jumps with their implied stylistic flourishes I also recognized her largest challenge. And it's not just hers. . . this seems to be the toughest sub-component for nearly all competing skaters. Managing the vertical bounce.

Grace derives from many components, most of them inherited traits of demeanor and personality. Yet a good solid thirty percent or so of gracefulness is actually a physical spoof -- how you manifest your awareness of carriage. I recall a certain children's story where the aspiring princess walks about balancing a book on her head; it's sort of like this. In skating however the dynamics of movement require a more complicated management of "flow."

Novice skaters manage this in one physical dimension: sideways. They work on consistent shudder control. More advanced skaters add the second physical dimension, accelerative smoothness: they strive for "seamlessness." Since a sheet of ice is only two dimensional one would think that handling velocity and shimmy should be sufficient. Counterintuitively though the flatness of the ice tends to enhance the contrast to the third dimension you travel, your vertical movements.

I've seen skaters manage this vertical 3rd dimension to various ends. Some treat it as irrelevant, as they randomly bounce around the rink. Others track it on the small scale, thinking in terms of softness and transitions. Some handle it dogmatically, keeping their center exactly at a fixed height while somewhat boringly executing a flattened pattern.

The third dimension should have a studied dynamism, a path that is purposeful and yet sublime. It should be like the movements of a swans neck. The third dimension should be gently managed as its own story.

This is how you separate the competitors from the pros.

- blue and gold

When you spend a lot of time at the rink with your kid, you also get to spend loads of time with both her peers and the skating coaches. While sitting quietly and watching the interaction of brains, the flow of love, you will find that the coaches have quite a different dynamic from the skaters.

The skaters feel exciting: they are exploring the new moves, emotions, and feelings attached at the edge of their envelope. They are observing, absorbing, and showing off a bit. They are learning both physical and social skills. They can see and imagine a future path to some glory and critical attention.

The coaches on the other hand watch the skaters with the quiet reserve of a teacher's eye, also with both some nostalgia and some pathos. For many of them watching a student brings back memories of a heartbreak. Or you may see a half smile fleetingly cross her face as a flashy student maneuver reminds the coach of one of the high points of her previous skating career.

Many times a coach will fall into a quiet glumness, realizing that she is "stuck" coaching, that her students' glamour is ahead of them but that her own is behind, that as a coach she is a cog in the process of growing teens. Coaches recognize the actual future of their students and how different it will turn out from their students' dreams.

If not for the love from their students, a coach would mostly prevail through a melancholy life.

(repost)

- a ghost of continuity

One component to any sport that seems sublimely lurking to the new initiate is its sense of history. Naturally when you start out you know of people who have gone before and made certain achievements. Arguably this is one of the draws: you wish to emulate somebody whom you admire. As you start out you may know about some currently famous skaters, for example those you've seen on TV.

Visiting Pickwick for their annual Showcase reminds me that rinks and skating clubs have their own histories as well. This is Pickwick's 40th year of Showcase, and it's quite a production with four spotlights, dimmed rink overheads, dasher thread LED's, an on ice walled-off warm up area, and a show by one of the premier ice theatres in the nation. LAFSC is strong on tradition; it has its regular cycle of annual competitions and shows and a certain pattern of how they raise their skaters.

After several years you recognize that the coaches are in touch with this longer and broader history: they seem to have connections to how the sport "runs." The ghost of figure skating whispers through their unseen chats and backroom staff meetings.

After long enough you sense the slide and the gradual shift in how a tradition expands and its flavor changes. New instructors lend their personality, people move on, skate clubs change their shape or perhaps even switch home rinks altogether. Rinks flip ownership or modify their focus and occasionally even a new rink pops up out of nowhere.

Something vaguely more historical however still lingers. A sport has a past containing venues and skaters yet also has something independent of its places and participants. Maybe this is what it means to soak up the "culture" of a sport: you begin to attach to its history, you merge your flow with a larger continuity.

- personality

When you saunter into any rink right off the bat you field the sliding scale of personalities. Some gals are clearly here for socializing and team spirit. They hang out by the boards, frequently skate adjacent to their friends, and even when skating alone seem to always have an eye on what somebody else is doing. They are the gals that are here to "perform," glittered up and in costume. They grab your love. These are the skaters that attend all the weekend show scrimmages, the group practice sessions. If they get really good they may end up in a traveling ice show and even make a little money in the process. They are the ice entertainers.

On the other end of the spectrum you'll catch the gals that skate alone. They occasionally chat at the dashers but mostly they focus on personal achievement. Instead of weekend group scrimmages, they spend the early part of every weekday morning at a freestyle session with half a dozen of their peers in shared isolation. They gladly accept your love and adore you for it. These are the athletes. If they get really good they may travel with a parent to distant competitions, but aside from the very top one or two national skaters, nobody makes any money at competitive skating. These are the soul inspirers.

- begin

I went to the LA FSC open today; it's been about a decade since I last went. And you know, outside of the judging technology not much has changed in ten years. Perhaps a paucity of vendors, but that may just be an economy thing.

While perched up high behind the judges jungle, my critical aesthetic eye was drawn to that initial schmooz of impression, that initial flash of professionalism that each skater exhibits as they take the ice. You know the routine.

The next event will be the ladies intermediate short program. Skaters you make take the ice for your warm up. Skating in the intermediates is...

and as the announcer reads your names your heart jumps a little as you step on the ice behind a couple of the skaters, make a few nice long strokes, and then a waltz jump. So here then comes the first bit of amateurism: as they all break apart into their own warm up routines, I watch with dismay as a couple of skaters press themselves to see if they are ready for their double, triple, or whatever the most challenging part of their program will be...

...and, nope, they are not ready, and they clunk on the ice. So what did that accomplish? Professional rule number 1, use the warmup for warming up, not for testing yourself.

Skaters you have one minute left in the warm up.

This is where you should begin to seat your soul into the feeling of the rink, smile at the judges, and relax.

Skaters this concludes the warm up, please leave the ice. Now skating representing the L.A. Figure Skating club, and they announce a name.

A professional gracefully skates out to center ice with her arms up, perhaps passing to acknowledge one side of the rink and then the other, and then she gracefully takes her position. Second bit of amateurism: now, with all eyes on you, is not the right time to adjust your costume. Don't pull down your skirt or adjust your shoulder straps.

Put on your game face, get into character, pose. Let the show begin!