- skate personality stew

Many of the young teen ladies at the rink get torn between their art and their desires to achieve certain technical aspects of their performance. This conflict seems to span four dimensions. On one axis you have the battle toward artistic expression, on another vector you get the strivings for technical accomplishments, on the third axis you have the whole issue of body shape, and finally you encounter the issue of fitting in with society's expectations for a young lady (at their age mostly their parents' expectations, but there can also be peer "drama" here as well). It is a rather complicated formula of flavors, and the most successful skaters have a lot on their plate.

How does the mixing and matching of forces create the personality of the skater? The big popular shows with hundreds and thousands of viewers -- the finals that you see on TV -- really don't do anything for the skaters. It is art of course, and it is a performance with all of the inherent issues of performance-art. But it is too big and noisy for the skaters to gain much critical value out of the process for themselves.

The small practice sessions though (the club events in front of the parents) are really where learning and social processes transpire. For one thing, the club events are small enough that the skaters can pay attention to the thoughts of the audience. They get immediate feedback about the impact of their performance. But more important is the peculiar characteristic of the audience itself: these observers see hours upon hours upon hours of skating. They know every move and they pay attention to the flexing of every muscle and the impact of every jump on each joint and bone. They are not easily impressed and they aren't distracted much by costuming flash... they comprehend the amount of effort and practice that goes into each and every move. And they all have the skaters' best interests at heart.

How the skater interacts with this smaller audience then influences her choices, which then determines her path. Each skater faces a choice of focus between art and technical merit. It isn't exactly a trade-off one-for-one; it is possible to advance both (and in fact the best skaters do advance both). At the middling stage though -- that point where a skater has reasonable control of her body, a fair number of moves and skills, and some experience performing on the ice -- you quickly see that a skater tends to drift toward one seasoning or another.

They can drift toward the flavor of being technically competitive, where they battle each other to see who can spin the fastest or do the most complicated laybacks or be the first to land a triple Axel consistently. Or they can drift to the aroma of showmanship, where they provide graceful entertainment to the audience.

Sometimes a gal is "pre-selected" for the competitive bent, either by her body build or by the influence of her parents. The more robust girls -- the large-boned -- have natural impediments to achieving much of the technical expectations. And yet they often are adequately compensated by being blessed with a certain amount of grace and artistic expression. Some of the more lankly gals don't have a lot of grace, but their physics allow them superior technical ease.

So all in all it’s a big complicated stew.

- adult sectionals

I encourage parents to drag their skate kid to watch an adult competition. Your kid may be bored that the adults don't do many fancy moves, but the competition will surprise you and is in your long term interests.

Adult competitions are very laid back. The technology is old school, with clipboard scoring and volunteer runners like a local competition. You'll spot the older members of the usual rink crowd. Compared to the real (non-adult) sectionals, the Adult sectionals is easily five times more relaxed. Despite the nonchalance the competitors themselves are pretty urbane about the whole thing, knowing everything involved to nab a ticket to Nationals. Still it's well past time for nervous excitement; it's like being in love for the sixth time.

More than any other skating group the Adults display an extremely wide variety of skating approaches. They show as much variance in their style as the juvenile division, plus everyone skates different elements to boot. Their music is completely all over the map.

There seems to be a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek emoting at Adults. They are well past the age of taking themselves seriously and can't hold a candle to the physical strengths of the younger athletes; the crowd is both well aware of this and is also in on the joke.

Most of the competition's psychic value is sublime -- since the skaters are adults they have full lives besides skating.  Real-life art hides somewhere between the adult skaters and the competitive youngsters. Or to put it differently, the art of life happened in that region in between, where it became impossible to skate. And some of this seeps through to the other side.

- non-elite

Although I link to a few "fan blogs" on this site, I certainly recognize how irrelevant they are to what you actually face day in and day out. Only the tiniest, most minuscule percentage of skaters have the financial resources, body type, dedicated time, and fortune of being in a locale that provides the training support to become national-level competitors. Hence watching the elites can be disheartening if you view them with jealousy. Like a twenty-foot pole-vault crossbar, the elites set the highest level goal for the maximum expectations you might achieve. What you can absorb from them most readily though is performance demeanor.

How do they address the audience? What are their entrance, exit, and off-ice routines? How do they spin the audience love? They have honed their presentation dynamics over hundreds of competitions, so pay close attention to their pre-ice routines. What you find, still somewhat typically, is that they are no better nor worse than your local competitors at managing their nerves and their "game face." View this as a relief: it validates that your stage-fright trepidations are entirely normal, even at the highest levels.

Although you won't learn how to jump a triple by watching the elites, you can still pick up many stylistic clues by viewing the international competitors. Jumps are jumps but spins and arm movements throughout the program (along with certain signature moves) vary substantially in style across the continents. I wouldn't suggest you try to directly "copy" a move you have seen at Worlds, but it's perfectly fine to incorporate ideas that you've seen into your own original manifestations of them.

I know that some skaters avoid watching the elites entirely as it makes them feel too frustrated to realize that many things are unattainable. Mainly though, it's better to be comfortable in your self and view those with more fortunate circumstances as sources and inspiration for your own creative ideas.

- at the top

Even at the highest levels much of the psychics and recourse to practice strategy remain the same. After all there are only a certain set of attitudes, spells, prayers, and thoughts that a person can entertain.

Of course at this level the skaters see each other all of the time. They also have a peculiarly warped sense of worldview, not so much from the daily practice routine (that is gruelingly ascetic) but rather from a hotel-and-tourist approach to the world... living half their life from rolling luggage and eating in restaurants with their moms, coaches, or skate friends.

To some extent this familiarity and shared worldview tends to swing the top-level skaters toward being a bit more courteous.

Fairly remarkably even at the top you see the same wide range of body types, although the variety spans a somewhat narrower band. Also rather oddly you can still fall short of reaching a more ebullient level of grace: the same top artisanal qualities exist at the local rinks as at the worlds (although of course few of the local skaters are landing triple axels).

- showcase

We had the luck and good fortune of hosting the USFSA National Showcase here in Burbank this past weekend; my daughter and I watched a few hours on Saturday. For those of you without a sanctioned Showcase event in your part of town, allow me to describe it.  Primarily it's geared more towards "entertainment" skating rather than the elite athletic end of the sport. Not to say that the participants don't skate well: many of them do just fine on single Axels and all the lesser jumps and spins. But the focus is more on the artistic ends of costume and expressiveness.  They consist of duets, interpretive (we used to call this extemporaneous), light, dramatic and sometimes team events. Most of the events are skated under spotlights in an otherwise dark rink. So like I said, it's more for the "show."

The classification of a couple of the events however leave me a bit confused. In their wisdom USFSA has chosen to specify Light Entertainment as one type of skate, and Dramatic Entertainment as another. What's the difference? A very good question, as in most cases the routines had such a wide range of stylistic overlap that they could go either way. Many of the Dramatic skates were rather Light and entertaining, whereas several of the Light skates seemed to be ahhh, rather quieter and musing. I think drawing a firmer line between the two flavors would benefit both the skaters and the sport, so herewith I gently suggest some guidelines for your humble consideration.

Costume:
A competition dress for Light Entertainment should be strikingly over the top. When you skate your entrance to center ice your dress should make me go Wow or bring me a smile. A couple of examples... on Saturday I had the pleasure of watching the one-eyed one-horned blind purple people eater, a full-body stretch suit with matching purple head hood, and yep... it looked exactly as described. Awesomeness. Also one gal skated in a patriotic red-white-and blue skirt with ruby red skate covers with sparklies that knocked my eyes out.

On the other hand a dress for Dramatic Entertainment should be as pretty as you can possibly imagine. It shouldn't have to be over the top sparkly, but should exhibit unique design with a pleasant blend of a particular shade, possibly with contrasting highlights. When you skate your entrance to center ice your dress should make me say Wow that's a pretty dress.

Makeup:
Light Entertainment has flashy accessories and showy makeup. On Saturday I saw a spitting image of Willie Wonka with the inventive hat, and a ghostly skeleton from Tim Burton's nightmare before Christmas.

Extensive makeup for Dramatic Entertainment however is probably unnecessary beyond what you would normally wear for your short program. I prefer pulled back hair (into a bun or braids) on your Dramatic.

Props:
Around half of the Light programs used a prop. I'm not sure that all props add value to their presentation, so think ahead as to whether you are using the prop just to "be in character" or whether it actually adds humor or spunk to your program. On Saturday a gal did the spoiled Veruca Salt from Wonka: at the end of her program she dropped into a metered box that switched its indicator from Good to Bad; both inventive and cool.

The only prop that should be allowed in Dramatic are chiffon dress sleeve extensions or Japanese hand-fans. Seriously.

Music:
I don't mind too much what you use for your Light Entertainment skate as long as it is well edited and mixed. Some skaters try to glue together different related pieces and the jog between the mix jars my attention. Please use an experienced editor from your rink rather than attempting this at home.

I'd prefer a classical music excerpt on a Dramatic skate. Please though avoid the common and hackneyed pieces that everybody skates too... plenty of other musical variety is out there if you search around a bit. Give me a pleasantly inventive choice.

Program:
Almost all of the Light Entertainment programs nowadays skate to popular or show music with lyrics. Generally I dislike watching the skater mouth the lyrics or sing along. One gal on Saturday not only sang but got into the full character of a performer, with arm and facial expressions to match her singing. And her performance was wonderful. So if you're going to sing, really /perform/ the song. The skate itself should be expressive and spot on the music. I like to see a nice jump or two just to prove that you can, but Light should be amusement, so do moves that entertain in appropriate concordance with your music and costume.

The program on Dramatic should highlight your particular strengths. Some gals have a unique spiral, some a fabulous spin or two, some a peerless aspect of how they can jump. I want your Dramatic program to be hypnotic. I don't expect the full athleticism of the elite skaters, but you'd best show me a variety of spins and jumps so that I know you take the sport seriously. And if you sing along with the lyrics I will cry, and not in the good sense.

- prop

So let's say that you're going  to skate something entertainment related, in a Showcase or some-such event, as a solo or a duet. You'll sport a novelty costume, perhaps a hand prop, and then comes the big question: are you going to slide a "stage" prop onto the ice?  I don't /think/ anything in the light entertainment rules requires a program to have a stage prop (readers please correct me otherwise). Still it seems like half the entertainment programs that I watch use a stage prop. I think that a lot of the impetus for this is seeing other kids use one, and so it's in your competitive spirit to do the same.

I have rather mixed feelings about this whole business: the tricky part is the assessment of whether or not a stage prop adds anything to the entertainment value of your skate. You do get the "ahhh how cute" factor when we first see you slide it out onto the ice. Maybe if it's a decorated bench or chair you can work some moves in to interact with it in your program. But otherwise once the visual originality wears off the prop isn't going to do any skating by itself: it just sits there in one place, yes?

I have seen some real cuties though. Most of my favorites are beach or toy related: large inflatables or big cuddly things.  The props that seem to work best show some aspect of exaggeration about them.

How much effort should you put into creating the prop (in terms of time and money)? How expressive should you make it? Clearly you must decorate it /somehow/ -- please don't just slide a bench you bought at Home Depot onto the ice! On the other hand if you get way too complicated and over the top then you'll run into a different complication.

The problem with props that are way over the top is that they actually detract from your skating. Instead of looking at you I'll keep glancing over at the computerized flashing lights (or whatever). I suppose since many coaches view the entertaining prop as a competition unto itself, they risk ever trickier contraptions.  I can't even begin to tell you though how many times I've seen way over the top props fall down during a skate, or how often I've watched the skater spend three minutes struggling to drag it out to the ice and set it up in the first place.

Unless you're with the ice theatre employing some professional prop guys, keep your stage prop simple and easy to drag out to its position on the ice. Parents: your kid's prop should either be light enough that your skater can easily lift it and carry it out to its place by herself, or if it is heavier it needs to be distinctly bottom heavy (so that it doesn't topple over). Your prop must easily slide so as to be rapidly pushed by one person. No bulky, boring, awkward props please. And please take your prop to a freestyle well before the event and test it out a couple of times to verify its maneuverability.

- accessorized

It's not unusual to bring along an accessory to enhance a dramatic skating program. A hat (top or beret), a scarf (or two), a cane (or a baton), an umbrella (or a parasol), a twirly ribbon, an Asian silk folding hand fan, a fake microphone (or a megaphone), I've seen all of these. Sometimes it seems that the skater brought the prop along just to support the mood already established with the theme of the music, but I've seen a couple of devices that when used actually do add a bit of glamour or some other interesting flavor to a skater's elements.

I can't say though that skating with an umbrella or parasol adds that much to the panache of your performance. Unless you can manage to spin it in the opposite direction over your head as you execute a fast spin (and good luck with that) a parasol just doesn't have much graceful glamor to it.  Plus skating with an open umbrella seems like a particularly difficult task, as the air pressure provides such uneven resistance depending on your direction and the umbrella's tilt.

Skating with a cane or baton is easy enough, and a good little trick is to attach a leather band to the handle to make it easier to twirl. If you're going to carry a cane about the rink then really use it though!  Tap it here and there, twirl it some, use it as a pivot in a move. Please though don't throw it into the air to catch it. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen the timing on a program royally screwed up by a dropped baton. And even if you can toss and catch it 90 percent of the time during freestyle, your chances are only about 30 percent during the competition. And if you set it down for some other elements just be sure that you don't lose it in the process -- back gliding over a dropped cane can result in a fairly serious injury!

Many times I've seen somebody skate with one or two small collapsible accordion silk hand fans. You know, the kinds with drawings of Asian bamboo or flowers or dragons. Fans add quite a bit of expressiveness but it takes a bit of practice to control expanding and collapsing them effectively, especially when you're on the move. They are also easy enough to tuck into an elastic band to secure them in place when you want them hidden (stage trick: Velcro).

Skating with hand-held scarves or gauzy trailing things can create some nice visual effects (you know what I mean, those ribbons of lightweight floaty fabric that you hold in your hands or tie to your wrists).  I'm not talking about the ribbon that gymnasts are fond of using for their routine, a long narrow tape on a stick. Although you can use one of those too if you'd like. The real issue with skating with a gymnasts ribbon is that to be effective you really need to keep it moving the entire time, as (aside from dropping it on the ice) there's no convenient way to get the thing out of the way. So that means if you use one, your entire routine is pretty much about the ribbon.

Most popular though seems to be ribbons or swaths of gauzy fabric, but these though aren't without their own problems.  Solid props are much better behaved as they go where you place them; anything with fabric though tends to have a mind of its own.  This is especially a problem on any kind of spin. I was at one event where a skater managed to unintentionally wrap a rather wide chiffon around her head during a spin, and then had to grapple it away before moving onward.  If you're going to skate with something gossamer you need to plan ahead for every spin and jump and decide how you're going to secure the thing, either with some attention to wrapping it around a body part, temporarily scrunching it, releasing it for later, or holding it far enough away that it doesn't become an issue.

Finally, one of the nicer effects I've seen is to attach a somewhat wider swath of chiffon to the tines of a fan.  That way you get a more controlled and sustained width of fabric fluttering about. Again though this makes stowing it away a bit of an issue.

Whatever prop you use, plan the trajectory of its use carefully across the length of your program, and be sure to use it in a way that really adds value to what you're trying to present.

- pair oddities

Pairs skating has some almost impossible demands upon modern men: throws require that the strength and size of the male partner be significantly greater than the female. But this causes severe stress during synchronized moves. It's one of the great mysteries of that particular event. Plus, more than any of the dance events, pairs end up with the greatest mismatches within the skill levels of the partners. Partly because of the rigorous demands on the male, but there is also a very subtle interplay in the mechanics of "partnering"... the hooking up, if you will.