sit ups pull ups

Any skater who is serious enough to retain a coach to train for competitions quickly recognizes the importance of off-ice training.  Besides ballet, USFSA also recommends strength training; see their general guidelines for strength training here.

Boring as heck, three strength exercises are essential to getting to the next level: sit ups, pull ups, and shoulder presses. Sit ups provide the strength to keep a straight core and properly aligned spine while you spin. Shoulder presses allow you to maintain control over your arm movements.

Everyone though seems to overlook pull ups. The back muscles strengthened by pull ups do more for your posture than any other muscle group.

Once you move up to elite you likely need a more serious and educated personal trainer.  See  for example this article by Charles Poliquin of how he has trained world-class Canadian skaters.

Some basic strength training at the rink or at the gym is infinitely helpful to your competitive skating, but once you get committed at a national level be sure to kick your off-ice training up to the next level.

- freestyle

When you are a young kid starting to skate you begin with classes at your local rink. Then once you've got your balance and a slow scratch spin (and decide that you'd like to try something more serious) you get the idea that perhaps you can get a coach. Then after you've had some coaching at public sessions for around a year, and you've got a couple spins and a simple jump or two, your coach will want you to attend some freestyles.

Away from the classroom setting, the freestyle is where you really get your eyes opened to what skating is all about. Most freestyles have a few up to around a dozen skaters. Here you get to pay detailed attention to how the other skaters "carry themselves" and present their showmanship.

Once you reach the stage of skating freestyles regularly, it's an excellent idea to attend freestyle sessions at nearby rinks (other than your own home rink) even if you go it alone without your coach. Rinks vary so much in the culture and style of their skaters that you will gain a broader sense of methods and embellishments by traveling around and observing.

Yes it can be a little intimidating to walk into a new rink to spend an hour on the ice with gals you've never seen before. But at heart they aren't that much different from you; be assured that the sisterhood of skaters have way more in common amongst themselves than differences. Go, introduce yourself, relax, make new friends, and expand your horizons. The benefits are well worth the wee bit of initial embarrassment.

- 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.

- fast and slow

In many sports speed and quickness are assets. In fact they are the entire defining elements of the competitive aspect of some sport. I'm sure you can think of several: running, auto racing, and swimming, just to name a few. In other sports speed plays an underlying dynamic role (in all of the major team sports the fastest players enjoy a competitive advantage).

As figure skating is a hybrid between sport and art, speed figures into the mix within the "sporting" components. Speed on the ice is helpful for establishing momentum for your jumps and angular momentum for your spins. And clean footwork requires quickness. On the other hand both grace and class (elements of the artistic dimension of skating) require demonstratively slower controlled movements.

Skaters who fail to appropriately match the fast and the slow look ridiculous however. It's very difficult to watch an accomplished "fast" skater ruin what might otherwise be a terrific program by the herky jerkiness of her small movements and transitions. It's equally saddening when a beautifully graceful skater can't otherwise keep enough velocity to maintain her spiral the length of the rink.

Be fast of feet and reactivity, but slow with expressive movements. The athletic part of skating is fast, the artistic part is slow. I think ballet (for slow graceful strength) and stroking lessons (for speed) are both helpful here, but it's also about holding the proper "split" mindset. The ideation here is graceful speed.

- sequins

Glittery sparkle compliments and enhances your competitive skate (even more so if you're skating in a Showcase with spotlights). As in most performance art however, only a narrow range of use achieves the desired effect without appearing overdone. You should strive for an objective of "highlighting" -- rather than always being apparent, your sparkles should accentuate about a third of your moves.

I've seen three sorts of reflective devices: two types are sequins; the last is rhinestones. Rhinestones are small hard cut-glass crystal reflectors, faceted like a diamond with a metal backing. These glue onto your costume and if your dress doesn't already have enough you can purchase them at many craft and bead stores (or online even, see here and here).

The other two types of sparklies are small flat round pieces of plastic sequins with a tiny hole in the middle (to facilitate sewing onto the costume). One type is metallic and the other is semi-transparent plastic. You can buy these at most fabric stores (and some craft stores too).

Unless they're sparingly used and interspersed with the other two types, the reflective metallic sequins look cheap. I am sorry, they just remind me of store-bought Halloween costumes. The semi-transparent tonal plastic sequins are fine to use on a skating dress though.

Although rhinestones and tonal plastic sequins are both fashionable, they provide quite different visual effects. Crystal glass sparkles intensely as pinpoints of light at multiple angles. Xan tells me that a high-end dress for an elite skater can have 1500 rhinestones, which seems a bit excessive to me but okay, if you're going to be on TV then I say go for it (smile).

Otherwise a third of this quantity in strategic visual swaths is sufficient. Again artistic placement is paramount: if you evenly cover your dress with random crystals you won't get the same effect as if you lay them out visualizing how the eye catches your dress as it spins and angles.

Relative to rhinestones the plastic sequins are very inexpensive, and are usually sewn on by the thousands across large areas. The tonal flat sequins give one uniform sublimely gentle flash when hit at their reflective angle, but are otherwise nice as a gradual contrast shifter. As they have a different reflectivity from fabric they tend to make the covered swatch appear to vary in hue at different angles.

Although I have seen a couple nice dresses that made judicious use of both (in moderation) please avoid combining glass rhinestones and plastic sequins unless you're already an accomplished dress designer.

It's not particularly appropriate to use glass rhinestones on a man's costume (okay, maybe just a handful). Plastic tonal sequins are okay in understated moderation. Just my opinion again.

Skaters will try other modes of flashiness: glitter blush or eyeliner, sparkly hair pieces and hair gel. These may be fine if you're hoping for a camera close-up, but when you're on the ice we don't notice these from out here in the audience dear.

Finally although a sparkly dress is a nice highlight to your program, it shouldn't be the main draw. After all we really came here to watch how you skate.