- dressy

Does your performance dress do anything to help you skate? To say that competing extends to your costume is intuitively correct, but it happens somewhat indirectly from the way that you might think.

Costumes by and of themselves are not a contest. They might be judged as contributive to score in something like ice theater, where extravagant showmanship carries some weight (I am just speculating here; I've never actually seen how they score ice theater).

In competitive figure though your costume may make little direct difference, yet it probably makes a substantial emotional and psychic impact.

Your dress behaves similar to the way a policeman's uniform signifies authority, or a Caltrans-orange jumpsuit says Pay Attention, I'm out here working. Your competitive skate dress says I'm an Artistic Skilled Athlete that knows her stuff: Watch this.

But aside from what it signifies to the outside world your dress is also both a motivator and a reward for your self.

On the one hand you ask your parents to spend the money on something nice because you've worked hard for it and you've earned it. The flip side of this is that since they're paid for it already, you have an obligation to live up to the expectations set by what you're wearing.

Like wearing a nice suit for a job interview, the sequined dress sets up an internal mindset. A nice dress that is appropriate to your program opens up a portal to another dimension. Costume sets mood. Your competitive dress has to be different enough from your practice tights so that when you put it on, you get the feeling of This Means Business, or Showtime!

- addicted

It was my first meeting of the L.A. chapter of Sports Parents Anonymous. I was a little nervous, but as I had read about other Anonymous programs I sort of knew what to expect (okay so this is fiction, just go with it for a minute). When it came my turn I stood, cleared my throat, and said Hi my name is Jeff and I'm addicted to figure skating. A couple SPA patrons gasped mockingly and several folks sitting near me seemed uncomfortable, but an elderly gentlemen up front nodded slowly to show his understanding.

It started when my daughter was six: during one of my weekend visitations she said her mom had taken her skating and now she wanted to take a class. She handed me the school schedule: the Spring session had already started but she thought they would still let her in. We drove down to the rink where we signed her up for Pre-Alpha, rented her skates, and waited for the class to start. Kids trickled on to the ice and in a few minutes the rink hosted about four different sessions: one was a group of ten year olds doing half jumps, two classes were six or seven year olds learning to skate backwards, and my daughter was the eldest in a group of ten little angels, most of them just getting their bearings for how to shuffle around the ice.

Ah sure, old man calls out, they all start out as little angels. A lady across the room with a crazy floppy hat says Skating angels are always the gateway drug. I hang my head quietly for a moment. Well, I continue, they were a motley group of angels, some in jeans, about half in rental boots, a few with their hair all frizzled out. I realized I was digressing; I focused again on my addiction.

I think some of it was the novelty of the skate teachers and the, ahem, skate moms. I felt my face reddening. A young dad wearing a Yankees cap yelled: So are you addicted to skating, or to moms? The class tittered. I actually had to think about it a minute.

Well maybe both to start, but after a year of classes you grow to know the same people, so the novelty of their looks wears off. But an interesting thing happens: you also start to identify and sympathize with the struggles and personalities of each of the young skaters. They work so hard. And when they finally accomplish something they've been struggling with for months, when they finally get the balance or the rhythm of the weight shifting -- when it all "clicks" -- oh my god the look of joy on their faces.

Yes! exclaimed Yankees hat dude, raising a fist in the air and pumping his arm down. You're addicted to living vicariously through the success of others! I had to stop to think about that a minute. It was a bit odd being psychologically analyzed in public, but this revelation seemed to be striking a chord of truth. As my life at that time was generally falling apart it was nice to see success somewhere. But after more thought I recognized that my addiction continued much longer than that.

Okay I said, that was it for a short while, but some time around the third year of skating school that wasn't true any longer. By then I had seen enough little two foot sliding kids advance to gliding backwards, but I was still showing up every week enthralled. Something else had sunk a hook into me.

By the time she was approaching nine, my daughter was starting to stand out for her spirals and her scratch spins. We'd moved up to her second pair of real skates, and she wanted a personal coach. I guess I figured at that point that she had potential: she was showing some real skill and commitment. She wanted to compete, and frankly I was starting to get technically fascinated.

So, said the old guy up in front, are you saying you became addicted to the idea of your daughter becoming famous, or is it just that you're a thinker that gets addicted to complexity? Well, now I'm thinking it's a little bit of all that, combined. The room fell quiet as there was some general mental review and addictive recognition in us all. The facilitator asked What did this addiction do to your life?

Well like all addictions it soaked up all of my time and money, naturally. I'd spend twelve hours a week at the rink or in transit, sixty bucks a week on coaching fees, not to mention the costumes, competitions, and what not. But it was all for my daughter, really. Oh sure, said old guy, And when you're addicted to the big H it's all for the soul of art.

I countered, So you're saying I should have just ignored my daughter's wishes? No way. Why not, asked the facilitator. If she had instead asked for sixty dollars a week in toys and then wanted you to play with those toys with her for two hours every day would you have done it? It's the same thing.

No it's not, I replied, on the cusp of trying to explain why.

- nine

Being a parent makes you keenly aware of how your child progresses as they grow up through various ages. Without any hard or fast-cut transitions, a child gradually advances from one type of skating to another. A six year old is a considerably different skater than a four year old, but where that change happens chronologically is anybody's guess. But then you get to age 9.

9 is 9, and only a 9 year-old skates this way.

At 9 you are still a petite developing skater; unfortunately your lack of physical mass makes momentum and persistence difficult. Two strong strokes only get you about a third of the way down the ice. Holding a steady spiral is a real challenge. Skating when you are 9 requires tons, just enormous amounts of physical work.

Yet it's also really a special age; you are still normally proportioned, and you have enough grace and foot skills to accomplish most of what you desire. Your delicate physical mass won't interfere to cause inertial or balance issues: you look small, light, and clickety on your feet. You can almost exactly follow the music, you have a great imagination, and you are maturing past acting coy. You have a few favorite pop songs too. You are truly a princess on the ice.

Nine is the magical skating moment, but it doesn't last long.

- relief

A figure skating competition indulges many odd peripheral circuses that are only obliquely related to the competition itself. At the rink's entry you have the strangely dedicated volunteers attending to the entrance table, checking in competitors, gabbing about the inner club workings, or what they saw on TV last night. They are troopers.

Then you've got entryway vendors. It must be a peculiar lifestyle to travel around to various competitions selling gewgaw. There they sit or stand, in a borderland world all of their own making.

Then you have a handful of volunteer "runners" scheduled to shuffle the music and scores about the rink (well we did this a decade ago, but I see a lot less of this nowadays).

Once inside the rink you recognize the photo and film guys. Talk about a peculiar lifestyle (at least they get to view the events)! But they spend all of those hours upon weekend hours kneeling, bent, or leaning around in a cold rink.

Awards! The placement platform and award photographer! Standings and skating order sheets! Now step outside the rink again and notice the hospitality room for the coaches and judges.

Still the strangest place during a competition has to be the restrooms. Mind you it's not exactly a place where I "hang out" (and I speak only from the experience of stepping in for occasional relief). And of course I can only speak for the men's room.

What do you expect for a small place of semi-privacy and refuge in the midst of a milieu of anxious, harried competitors with complex costumes and extreme pressure? Contortioned costume changes, splashing the face with water, deep breathing, diarrhea, cursing, vomiting. I can only imagine what goes on over in the other female-half of the facility.

Now leave gently, sigh, put on your stage face, stretch, "relax," and go back to sit in the stands with the oblivious siblings and grandparents, or share a wide-eyed nod and acknowledgement of circumstances with the adjacent skate mom.

- ballet

Is ballet training a necessary ingredient to competitive figure skating? Perhaps. In an interesting post (from well over a couple of years ago!) Sheri says:

"For years skating coaches have been encouraging their skaters to take ballet classes to aid in the skater's on-ice performance. Ballet teachers spend hours teaching students correct ballet posture which is the same posture needed for skating. Ballet teaches the skater how to move the pelvis without losing balance or disconnecting the center in footwork sequences, including pirouette turns, jumps and leaps across the floor."

I think ballet augments your skating art in a few important areas. "Core" awareness (center of gravity control and fluidity), spine alignment, graceful movement, and "head attitude" are all valuable lessons that transfer well across the related disciplines. The actual physical application of these skills however when wearing skate boots is rather different than when wearing ballet slippers.

The trick therefore to successfully integrating your ballet lessons with your skating is to mentally grok the intent of the teaching but then to reapply and relearn those same lessons on the ice with your skates on. Ballet translates to the ice in theory, but not exactly in muscle memory. Too much ballet and you won't be able to skate, but if you fail to practice enough ballet you will look uncouth on the ice.