- xmas

A Christmas skating show always has certain familiar components that make me cry (well tear up at any rate); it also always has some consistently weird strangeness. This year I visited a rink in the, uh, less prosperous part of town, Valley Ice, right up the street from Walmart in Panorama City. I arrived a little late -- the skaters and their families had already been there an hour to get costumed and warmed up. The parking lot is full. I walk in the front and a teen guy and gal are attending to the entry desk (white butcher paper and the ghost of former check in badges and CDs) and I say ah, general admission I guess. $5 please, and a rubber stamp on my hand. Ducking in through the hastily hung blackout curtains I see the rink is packed with the skaters' immediate families, and there's no place left to sit.

The place looks interesting: they've wrapped some Christmas lights around the structural columns and blackouts cover the side glass doors. Since the overhead lights are turned off the ice is illuminated instead with a couple banks of overhead l.e.d. panels, casting large blotches of blue and orange on the ice. Two technicians slide small spotlights into the corners awaiting the next skater.

The female rink announcer smoothly introduces the next skaters (it's a duet) and the spots swing to each side of a large hanging velvet-looking curtain as a young gal emerges from each side and poses. The program starts and it's. . . . wait for it. . . . Christmas music. Okay no surprise there. Shows like this are one of the few places you see skating duets, and naturally Christmas music isn't your usual skating fare. Also obviously these gals have been practicing this particular routine just for this show during the past month. You can see the struggling questioning on their faces as they partially remember the routine and improvise the rest. Still though the crowd applauds in appreciation.

Weirdness one: the holiday show is the only place you'll skate a new routine with 1 (or 7) other skaters, a simple program you barely know to music you never skate to, do a moderate job at it, and still get an ovation from a large audience.

Next up the eight senior skaters step out to the ice and skate (yeah to Christmas music) in a circle that shifts into two lines, everybody doing the same coordinated movements more or less at the same time. Weirdness two: I'm a solo skater; I never have to coordinate moves with anyone. Some take to it easily and others are clearly bothered at being faced with adjusting their natural timings. Big round of applause, mainly to see all the seniors skating together non-competitively.

Next up, a twelve year old takes to the ice and the announcer says ". . . she dedicates this piece to her aunt, who now skates with angels." Ahh first watery eye moment. A fair number of skaters naturally perform in silent tribute to someone; rarely though do we hear the announcer come right out and say it. So we send along our mental condolences as she's gliding along the ice.

Next up we have a little pause as the announcer indulges our patience while "we attend to a slight wardrobe malfunction." After a minute eight little tykes shuffle out to the ice, six girls and two boys, a couple of them with antlers. Also one larger skater, clearly one of the school instructors. The announcer queues a warm welcome for our pre-alpha skaters... teary moment two. Pre-alpha is cuteness incarnate anyhow, so to see eight of them all at once, and all of them their first time in front of a skating audience this size, is quite a pull on the heartstrings. They swizzle a bit and go forward and back half a rinks width, and that is that.

Next a number by the rink's sole ice dancers. Two skaters take to the ice, and run through a standard six or seven element routine around the rink a few times. This is very pleasant and relaxing to watch, as I rarely get the opportunity to see ice dance. They stroke smoothly in near perfect synchrony and I notice when they switch from forward to backward-facing travel how the lady carefully places the heel of the blade from her inner foot onto the other side of her partner. Yikes, I think to myself, how many new male ice dancers get the hard tapered back end of a blade stabbed into their shins that way? Suddenly my respect for ice dance jumps fourfold. They finish their cycle and pose at center ice, but their music continues onward. They have either undercounted their cycles or else miscut their music. It's rather embarassing and they don't know what to do. They skate across the ice and take another bow, then leave the ice with the music still going. Usual holiday show weirdness.

Rink announcer: now the surprise you've all been waiting for. . . he now competes nationally but he started here at this very rink (there's a big murmur and I miss his name) and then a clearly Accomplished Senior skater takes center ice to applause; he poses. We wait. And wait some more. The skater tilts his head slightly down to allow his peripheral vision to glance if the music booth needs some help. We wait some more. Finally a muddled CD starts and then stacato skips. He smiles, breaks his concentration while somebody fetches the backup CD. Finally back into his pose and the music starts (yes, Christmas music).

He does a couple moves around the rink and then preps back for a big Axel. A quad, slightly short but still impressive. A couple more moves across the rink. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the sight of twenty girl skaters' heads popping over the opposite dashers, eyes wide and slack-jawed. Accomplished Senior backs into the next big jump and completely totally nails a quad. Big applause, short program, smooth finish.

Yeah we had a couple other skaters interspersed there too, and now they join everybody else out on the ice for a finale; I duck out a bit early to avoid the traffic jam. Another year of skating, blogging, and joyful weirdness under my belt. Happy Holidays!

- choosing

Xan recently posted her thoughts on why you should allow your coach to choose your skating music. After a few weeks of subconscious digestion I recognized that ''music" is only a barometer for a wider issue: how your skater relates to both her coach and the sport.

Naturally the manner that your child uses to make choices gradually changes as she matures. When your kid is little they exhibit definite tastes and won't be shy to express what they *dislike*. At a young age they may not however be fully cognizant of what they actually like -- you can expose them to all sorts of musical styles and most will be "meh" but at any rate all of them will broaden your kid's receptivity to expressiveness. At this point in their education I would follow Xan's advice and let the coach suggest the music, within the bounds that your kid doesn't wrinkle their nose too vehemently upon hearing it.

Once your kid hits around ten or eleven and starts competing regularly they are also going to be exposed to the music from lots of other skaters (and from those skaters' coaches). They will quickly discover that many programs prove more "dynamic" (or fall flat) due to the music. Around the age of twelve you and your skater face a critical juncture with respect to choosing their music. This is not unlike (and perhaps coterminous) with a tad of pre-teen rebellion. Continue along and work with the coach in choosing the music? Or step up to the plate and call your own tune?

At this point I say encourage your kid to select her own music. If it helps at all rest assured you're not risking damage to the relationship with your coach (although she may give you some pushback). If she's seasoned your coach has already seen a wide variety of student personalities; a wizened coach will reserve her doubts.

When your daughter chooses her own music it will have two major impacts. First it will tighten her involvement with actually listening to the music and its feelings. She'll begin to evaluate what she hears outside of the rink against what she thinks might be nice to skate to. More importantly perhaps it will shift her focus slightly away from competing and more toward her artistic expression.

Where can she glean new ideas for music? Have her create a Pandora station with a couple songs that she's already skated and see where the new suggestions lead. Having your teen skater choose her own music will make her a more independently artistic performer.

- distressed parents

One of the moms (with a seven or eight year old skater) lugs her homework to the rink with her to study. She sits in the icebreaker lounge amidst five or six other moms, a couple flirtatious dads, the male ballet coach, and six or seven rambunctious kids playing video games, and she actually... studies.

I don't know how she does it. Somehow between buying a snack for her daughter, chatting up friends, and dealing with the clunks and bings of the video games, she manages to learn something: accounting at the moment, I believe. Partly I'm impressed and partly I'm depressed. I am impressed by her ability to concentrate and her drive to be successful -- her eschewing of fun for work. But I am equally depressed that she would feel so driven as to have to endure the distractions.

I sat down to chat with her one day; she set aside her book on Basic Accounting, smiled, and said Good, I needed a break. She told me that she was from Vietnam, that her father was an American G.I. in the war and her mother was Vietnamese. She never met her dad, and her mom died when she was five. She came to the States as a teen refugee, and had a child while unmarried in high school. She didn't know who her child's father was.

Just your typical skate mom.

- a shame

The empty SWP regionals a couple of weeks ago were rather saddening. The skaters, a member or two of their families, and the judges were there. But aside from me and the immediates, the film crew, some coaches and a couple of vendors, nobody else was present. Maybe 30 people were in the rink total, counting the skaters. Yeah I went on a Monday so that was part of it. Why do they schedule the interesting junior and senior events on a Monday and Tuesday anyway?

Back a dozen years or so ago my daughter and I went to an interclub event (at the same rink, Anaheim ice!) and the place was a zoo. Vendors squeezed in everywhere, hardly room to change into your skates, and maybe an audience of 150, with lots of friends and supporters from the home rinks.

What has happened, is it an "economy" thing? Has it become nearly impossible to justify the time and expense to groom a traveling skater? Or is it a general disenchantment with the competitive environment? Or something else entirely? I do realize of course that the folks in regionals are somewhat on a different "track" than those at a group competition: many drove up from San Diego and a couple were from Arizona. So it's not like I'm expecting all their fellow rink mice.

Maybe it's just that the USFSA has never really "advertised" the regional qualifying events to the general public. They do emplace dasher banners so they must be anticipating /some/ sort of audience, but I don't know how the average fan would be aware of such a thing. Your average fan doesn't go to USFSA's web site to search for nearby events: they just know about what's on television.

An empty rink is saddening for a couple of reasons. l guess for someone who knows skating the travesty is that these gals, the skaters, really deserve better. They have seriously worked their butts off to get here, so they deserve tons of applause for their efforts; an empty rink feels like a snub. But there seems to be a deeper sadness here, an existential sadness.

It feels like a big waste -- like a half vacated shopping mall it's an idea that at one time would have seemed to be popular but now no longer seems to make sense. Mostly the feeling I get is that It's a Shame. It's a shame in the sense that somebody backed into your parked new car. Or that you irrevocably wrecked your favorite suit. It's a shame in that it feels like a waste of time, a wasted thousand hours of practice. It's a shame in that it seems at this point, at Regionals, it should really be so much more.

- deeper art

In an earlier post I pointed out how along with being athletes, most figure skaters are also artists. They have heightened senses of perception, aesthetics, and sensitivities. And like any artist they struggle with certain challenges related to their creativity, their vision, and wrestling with the tools of their trade.

Boots and blades can be finicky. The ice is never the same one day to the next, and it's different after a resurface. Your own body goes through different moods and it seems your weight distribution gradually changes. Every time you step on the ice it's another relearning experience.

Since seriously pursuing figure skating takes such an inordinate commitment and persistent concentration, a skater is in touch with her craft most of the time. While on ice the repeated physical acts of practice practice practice and adjusting to current conditions can become zen-like in their small adjustments and introspections. After a warm up and a half hour of freestyle a skater easily sends herself into a semi-hypnotic "zone" much like a musician or a painter.

No doubt a skater establishes a certain meditative peace from concentrating on her art. At the same time however a specific mental framework scaffolds this construction: it's almost as if you have your art brain, and your social brain. Your awareness sinks into your art brain while you work; meanwhile your social brain subconsciously ferrets away its tasks for later.

It's not unusual for others to interpret this non-social artistic anti-focus as ''stubborness." And indeed if you're stubborn enough to be a skater, you're stubborn enough for anything. At the same time this obstinance is more or less a critical trait to withstand the long hours you must invest.

Although there is sometimes the perception that a skater's skills evolve from the careful mentoring of her coach, like all artists a skater works within the confines of her bodily and mechanical tools, perceptive abilities, and creative inner life to manipulate an ever changing fractal reality. Careful nurturing from a coach, a coreographer, and a parent are essential, yes, but nevertheless many times the link between a skater's work and her progress is only apparent to the skater herself.

What happens when I lift my heel this way? What happens when I put this arm here on this spin? It's all experimentation and interpreting reactions.

Naturally often the road is frustrating and progress seems elusive, but periods of plateau and quietude are standard fare for any creative person. A skater must keep working during these fallow times as an artistic refresher; often she makes important discoveries while working on the routine, even in hindsight.

Art is about trying to put together ideas, feelings, and techniques -- skaters can plan work up to a point but must always be open to change. A skater must stay attuned to what is truly their expressiveness in the moment, otherwise they risk entering automatic processes that appear hollow.

Finally no matter who you are very few tangible (monetary) benefits are likely to come from figure skating; there seems to be barely enough funds to even keep the sport going. And sure, money might make things easier for you, but it doesn't really do anything to enhance the art in your skating. As skating riches are not a motivation, your satisfaction has to come from the creative process itself.

Figure skaters are solo artists constantly working in a grouped artisinal environment. Persistence, sensitivity, and originality are what set each of them apart. When you finish your program and feel our applause, deep down you'll know what it is all about: we are applauding for the artist that is you.