- fingers

So what's the deal with the fingers? I realize when you are learning to skate that balance, legs, and feet are all that is on your mind, and shortly after that is what to do (and when) with your arms, but once you start competing it's time to think more about your presentation.

I have no problem if you watch old videos of the top skaters to see what they did with their fingers, but my general guide is to have graceful feathery fingers if you are a lady, and classy fingers if you are a guy.

Feathery fingers? Keep your middle two fingers together, and relax the other fingers. You don't have to remain frozen with those hands, but that is the general idea. Classy fingers? Fingers together with your thumb held back, like you're helping milady up into her carriage, or doing a bowing and sweeping introduction.

It's probably not in the top 5 important things about skating, but appropriate fingers do show your polish.

- 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.