- continuity

The top-level men skaters (much more than the women) exhibit a certain nonchalance in their practice sessions. A fair amount of this is due to the greater security in their relative positions, due to the general paucity of male skaters overall. They don't feel the pressure to always be "on" to impress people. Or to put it differently, their competitive bent is more driven by a desire to be kick-ass-best rather than a wish to "impress." They are more inwardly competitive than outwardly competitive.

Also their informality is partly a show of independence: a desire to break free from the artificial nature of imposed "show timings" and space allocations that can happen in the practice sessions.

A side effect of this is that men are much more focused on visualization and individual move skills, rather than program continuity. Mostly this is because -- having a man's brain -- they know without a doubt that they can assemble the pieces together under pressure when the time comes. It's an interesting psychological difference between the sexes that reflects directly in the practice of the sport.

After chatting about this a bit with my daughter we realized an unintended residual affect: in actual competition most men's programs tend to be weak at the end. This is due to the men failing to establish enough stamina, since they don't continually skate their programs all the way through during the practice sessions.

- the first Axel

My daughter did her first Axel for me today. Well, I presume she has landed this a couple of times before. This is the first time though that she has ever done it with me watching.

Now this requires a long and involved backstory. On the surface, no big deal, an Axel. But this is what separates the amateurs from the gals with potential: this is the quantum step up in figure skating. Landing your Axel means that you are now ready to seriously compete. And it takes pretty much the full several years of building skills to get to the point where this executes.

The whole point of the initial spins is to make sure that the gal has her "center" and has mastery over it while in motion. The whole point of the first jumps is to make sure that the gal has her spring, her leg muscles, her balance while in the air, and her confidence and ankle strength to land on one skate.

Finally, after years of practice, put the two together. Jump, spin, land. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing takes a more arcane set of muscle control, timing, and coordination.

My daughter is back on the ice, and I turn on the camera and start filming her back-scratch spins. She has a couple that are quite fast, quick revolutions, and then a couple of nice check-outs. Then she lines up on the center-ice line, arms extended in front of her in preparation for her standing Axel. I watch on the two-inch viewfinder as she tries and two-foots, tries and throws out early, tries and lands awkward. She seems though to be doing just slightly better than last week.

Then after seven or eight near misses, she jumps, full spin, one foot landing, check back. Yeah! I say audibly, the camera recording my cheer. She turns up from the ice, smiles at me, and raises her arms over her head. I blink back a tear from the corner of my eye. She's got it. Yep, she's got it!

When my coworkers ask me tomorrow how my weekend was, I'm going to have to reply "bittersweet. My daughter landed her Axel." They will look at me somewhat unknowingly of course, and I will have to explain: "this is what separates the skaters from the novices. Watching her land an Axel is like watching your kid graduate from college."

It represents a watershed, there is no going back. I know now either that she will break my heart if she fails or break my bank if she succeeds. Of course, I pray for the latter, but there is no turning back now -- she has crossed over, she landed her Axel. I feel happy and proud and like I have given up control all at once.

- repeat repetitively

One thing that stultifies the participants (and the spectators as well) is that the artform enforces itself through relentless repetition. More than anything the repetitive practice, demanding in its tedium, separates the pros from the pretenders.

To seriously critique the sport you have to spend entire days ... in a row ... watching. Mostly this is due to the unusual competitive dynamic that you don't find in any other sport: since the skaters compete one at a time over the couple minutes of each program, the whole competition stretches for days.

This tends to incur a "live, breath, and eat" mentality in both the participants, the skatemoms, and to some extent the fans.

One big side effect of the repetitive nature of the sport is that, for the serious fans, it induces a sublimely entranced pattern of imagination. It is almost as if the sensory deprivation of the enforced attention to music and whitebooted skating feet creates a meta framework for using your imagination to visually enhance the music.

Sit for a couple of hours with a hot coffee and your jacket and the sklish of white boots on ice, colors and patterns, swirling and sparkling to the music. Repeat repetitively.

- a pleasant surprise

I suppose a lot of the practice gets dedicated to the standard and expected competitive moves, but the more amazing things for a parent are the individually unique endeavors. I suppose a good deal of the creativity of the skaters happens under the radar, behind the scenes during practice.

Sometimes they see and get ideas from one another, and a lot of times they just experiment around, either individually or in small groups. Once in a while my daughter will practice a move that catches me completely off-guard. I'll see her go through a three turn, enter into a standard spin, and then gracefully catch her foot and move into a position that I've never seen before. Wow, where did she get that?

- sparkles

The competition today is in Anaheim at Disney Ice; it's one of the largest competitions in Southern California with five or six hundred skaters spread across five days. My daughter skates a short program in the morning and then her long program that afternoon. To avoid the locker room crazies she puts on her performance costume at home. As we get in the car before sunrise I ask the usual checks: do you have extra tights? Your music?

What with all of the preparation, coaching, skate sharpening, clothes, filming, practice tights, transportation, snacks, photos, music, ballet instruction, stretching, makeup, hair scrunchies, and performance costumes, it finally all comes together as we head down the I-5. As I drive she applies the final touches to her makeup in the passenger visor mirror. The clouds clear and the sun rises, reflecting off of the sparkles in her sequin dress, filling up the interior of the car with thousands of small moving rainbows. Deep breath.