Losing my Head

After years and years of college, a perfect 4.0 GPA in grad school, a professional career, it has come to this. I am standing before an audience of hundreds (actually, about 56 people) dressed up as a giant teddy bear. This is what skating does to you, my friends. For the sake of an ice show, you’ll readily sacrifice your dignity.

Adult figure skates participate in their club’s annual ice shows. Sometimes these are slick skating spectaculars, featuring beautifully choreographed numbers, exquisite  lighting, and elaborate costumes. An ice show has group numbers (and if the club is smart it’ll include lots of cute kids from Learn to Skate/Group Lessons), punctuated by solo numbers. It’s a lot of work to mount these productions. Sets and props need to be constructed; rehearsals go on for months; skaters and their families sell tickets; music is edited and cut; and everyone freaks out.

I love ice shows because I have a fine-tuned sense of camp and irony. It’s always fun to watch skating but amateur skating productions are just wonderfully goofy. I mean, how can you take yourself seriously if you’re dressed up as a giant banana? I don’t mean to detract from the serious work and effort that is invested in these shows. There are beautiful “serious” numbers that leave the crowd in awe.  However, what I really appreciate is the earnest awfulness of the “entertaining” numbers.

Since a lot of adult figure skaters don’t perform solo numbers, we’ll get roped into the costume roles. There is no need to do a double salchow if you’re dressed up Mrs. Claus. This year I play the coveted role of Teddy the Hip Hop Skating Bear.

I’m loving it! I can get away with total devotion to my part, since my costume disguises my identity. I’m the cute rebel—instead of skating to Christmas music like the rest of the pack, I pretend to mutiny and break out into a Hip Hop dance.  I’m supposed to dance for about a minute and then someone will forcibly remove me from the ice with a hook (in this case, a hockey stick).

Hilarity! I don’t even have to learn any moves, it’s all improvised. What could go wrong?

Sure, the costume is huge, hot, and the head weighs a ton. In fact, the head is so big that I can’t really see out the little mesh eye holes. When I dance it starts to bobble around and the uneven weight of the plush muzzle pushes the entire mask to the side. It can look like Teddy’s neck is broken.

I think I may suffocate.

With practice I learn to manipulate the arms and head like a puppeteer and by the time of the show I’m pretty adept at gyrating around, shaking my booties, and all the other smooth moves that go into fake Teddy Bear hip hopping.

When it’s finally my turn to do my number in the show, I’m adrenaline-addled. I start off with some Yo Yo punches and immediately start shaking and hip rolling to the music.

The crowd is eating it up! Pumped, I start doing some of those jumpy things while waving my arms. Naturally by this time my head is starting to roll around exorcist –like and consequently I’m completely blind. I spontaneously decide to drop to the ice and do some of those worm-wiggle things I see on Youtube. 

And then my head falls off.

The audience, who up to this point have been clapping and laughing, suddenly hush. I hear a collective “Aw!” It’s like discovering the true identity of the Wizard of Oz. Teddy isn’t a cool kid—he’s a middle-aged female adult skater. Oh no!

I replace my head and continue on. The hook comes out and I am appropriately dragged off. It is part of the show but I hope the crowd thinks it is because Teddy  screwed up and was temporarily decapitated.

There is lots of applause.

Three Hours of Practice

Yesterday I felt so virtuous, so morally superior, so Church-Lady strutting because I put in nearly three hours of practice. I skated for an hour in the morning. In the afternoon, I did patch, another freestyle, and power skating.

Except for Moves, the morning was a bit of a waste but in the afternoon, I had a terrific skate. I managed a great big Loop jump, lots of decent spins (making lots of progress on a true scratch spin—fast to blur), including a couple of competent change foot spins.

I worked on “enlarging” my salchow.  Coachie is making me really push off with the skating foot. During my lesson earlier this week, I took in her instructions, went for it and landed with both feet on the ice. She was at the boards and I sheepishly skated over to her expecting thee usual corrections. Instead she laughed at me and said, “I said a SINGLE salchow, not a double!!” Ha ha—I had really overrated the thing., rotating 1 and ¾ times.  No wonder I didn’t land it.

I kept busy, practicing parts of my program, dance moves, and flip jumps. A senior skater actually told she noticed how much better my Loops and Flips had gotten.

Oh man, I was flushed and full of myself. Oh, yeah!!! I rocked the house. Check me out! Three hours!!

By 7:00 pm I couldn’t move. I needed a walker, or so I whined to my husband. My body completely broke down. My bones, joints, and muscles screeched, popped, and rattled in pain. Husband admonished me for over-doing it. “But, I’m …a figure skater,” I mewed.

Lesson of the day: Need to buy a walker, or at least a quad cane, in order to continue to ambulate after a healthy round of figure skating.

Scary Mary and the Practice Test

One morning I show up for my lesson with Coachie and I find her chatting away with an impeccably dressed, well-coiffed stranger. Coachie introduces me the woman, who I will call Scary Mary. “This is your practice judge,” says Coachie. “Go out on the ice. You have ten minutes to warm up and then we’ll do a practice test.”

Oh crap.

If you’re a USFS adult figure skater, you probably will take a test at some point in your career. USFS designs its testing structure on a ladder system, whether you’re a kid or an adult. The adult non-dancing tests consist of two types: Moves in the Field (MITF) and Freeskates. You must pass the former in order to take the former at several levels. Beginning Adult tests are Pre-Bronze and Bronze. After that you move on to Silver and Gold.  Each test requires a specific required set of elements, performed in preformulated sequences or patterns.

I passed my Pre-Bronze MITF  and Freeskate a while ago and have been working on my Bronze MITF test. The test consists of: forward and backward perimeter stroking; power three-turns; alternating backward crossovers to edges; a Circle Eight consisting of Forward Outside edges and Forward Inside Edges; and a pattern of mohawks and dance steps called the Five-Step Mohawk sequence.

The judges are looking for flow, quality of edges, extension, power –basically that you can do the required elements reasonably well so that when you call yourself a figure skater you’ll have some kind of verifiable proof that you’re not completely delusional.

Like a number of skaters I like the Bronze moves. These particular elements are not complicated and most are about generating power and skating, really skating! Moreover, figure skating tests are incredibly motivating and only improve important basic skills, like edgework. For example, I’ve gotten away with a horrible LI Mohawk for most of my skating life.  But since I know I’m going to have to several of these turns well enough to pass a test, I’ve worked hard at improving them.

Unbeknownst to Coachie, I came to the rink today chock full of suck. I felt the suckiness in my bones when I got out of bed and had low expectations for my lesson. Yet here I am, about to perform a fake test for Scary Mary, whose puffy, feathered hair-do and neon blue bifocals distract me enormously.

We do the on-ice fake introductions and Scary Mary asks me if I know the order of test. No! I have no idea! Please let me go!  “Yes, I do,” I say and Scary Mary indicates that I may begin.

I skate out on the ice, repeating “bend kness bend kness bendknessbendkness” to myself like an incantation.

The first set of moves go pretty well.  I nearly hit the wall on my backward crossovers. Hopefully I get some bonus points for looking reckless. I do the first set of power threes. Agh. Toepick scratch!

Then I do the right-sided power threes. I can feel my legs freeze up and my torso begin to contort. This is always a difficult move for me and despite nine months of earnest practice, they still feel clunky and wrong.

I don’t like my crossovers to landing positions but the pattern is good and I’m starting not to care.

I move on to the Circle Eight. Nailed it! I usually hate the RFI Circle but today I manage to pull it off. It’s on to the Five-step Mohawk sequence and although my LI Mohawk continues exhibit its usual Frankenstein’s Monster clunk, I get through the element okay.

It’s a fake test and I know I fake failed it. I skate over to Scary Mary who is absorbed in writing comments. She asks me to reskate my power-threes and I dutifully try again.

Thank you Scary Mary for taking time to come and give me feedback on my test. I know I sound sarcastic but I really do appreciate the critique.

This is what she wrote:

“ Per. Str. F- body coming up, B. ok but sl. Scratch

3’s L- good pl. and edges, good threes

R-little flat and scratchy, good threes

Reskate better

Edges strong, good edges, good speed and power

8’s O- diagonal strike – little forces [I misread this comment as “little farces” ha ha]

I-OK

X’s rt. Mk OK

Lft jumped”

Coachie seemed pleased. She told me she wanted to put me through a practice test to boost my confidence for the real test. OMG—my confidence is so not boosted!

I spent the rest of the day agonizing over my “hopped” LI Mohawk, so that by the time I came off the ice I couldn’t do one at all.

Loop Jump

For those of you who don’t already know, a Loop Jump is a jump that takes off on a backward right outside edge (for CCW skaters), and lands on a right outside edge. Sounds simple, right? Not for me; this jump is the bane of my existence.

Actually, it’s a testament to Coachie’s skills that I can do the jump at all. My heart is willing—I think this jump is one of the most beautiful ever invented. My brain knows everything about how to make this jump possible. My body, by contrast, takes on a will of its own and refuses to take the steps necessary to make the jump happen.

Like most people, I learned the jump from a right inside three-turn. Beginners start the jump from this entrance because you already have your weight over your right side and your left foot is slightly raised from the ice, allowing for easier lift-off.

It took nine months before I could really do the jump from the LI three. In the meantime, I sprained my knee, bashed my right elbow, turned my hip into hash, and terrified my coach. Still, all the pain, effort, money invested in this entry paid off and I could do it relatively consistently, though not beautifully.

Then Coachie decided it was time to learn the “real” entry. That means you get on the backward right outside edge through crossovers or a Mohawk.  This is more challenging because you have to learn to keep your left foot on the ice, and slightly outside and ahead of your right/ skating foot, and lift it in a scissoring motion as you take off from the right foot.

The kids learn this skill in five minutes.  I, on the other hand, have made every mistake humanly possible. I feel sorry for Coachie as she tries to correct me. I can see the wheels churn in her head as she fights to say the same thing that she’s said 585 times in a new and convincing way.

Ironically, doing the jump itself is not the problem most of the time. I just need to learn to land it on ONE foot. I have the complete rotation, my weight is over my ride side, and still, I’ll two-foot the darned thing.

Worse, on the days I do land the jump, I have no clue how I did it. I usually land a few when taking lessons, so something Coachie says is working. When I practice on my own, I jump a few, land them fine and then lose the jump entirely.

I want to make a Loop Jump piñata and smash the crap out of the thing. Then I’m driving over it.  In the Zamboni.

Adults on Ice

Allow me to make some generalizations about Adult figure skaters.

Adults who figure skate tend to be interesting people outside of the rink—you have to be a special kind of person to take up this frustrating and challenging sport. Most are incredibly smart, witty, and kind. A great many have graduate degrees or post-grad professional training. This helps since skating is all about deferred gratification. Some come from other sports backgrounds and they know what it really takes to learn and master new skills.

A number of us have functional OCD, another great attribute that helps in the ten thousand repetitions (does that not sound like OCD?) it takes to learn ONE simple skill.

If adults last a few years, you can bet that you’re dealing with some pretty fierce characters. We haven’t been intimidated off the ice and we know how to survive the tough times.

Adult figure skaters know that they suck, but we keep skating. We’re self-reliant, self-motivated, and resilient.

(Yes, you snotty Novice-level girl, I’m talking to you. It was NOT nice to try to skate me into the boards…)

Best of all, adults have a prime directive to support other adults. Most genuinely buoy up and help their fellow skaters. I haven’t been to USFS Adult Nationals, but I’ve heard the stories about the amazing camaraderie the participants exhibit.

Before you cynically dismiss my observations by noting that adults also are competitive with one another, gossip, back bite, and act like children (even when not drunk), just let me point out that a little competition is good for you; and all the other bad behavior is evident at work or school or whatever. The rink is no different.

Upon occasion you may run into an adult figure skater who (wrongly) thinks he or she is Hot Poop, or is pretentious (um, that may be me), or is an idiot.  Just remember, they have the right to be on the ice too. Just don’t invite them to your parties.

My Pro, aka Coachie

Coachie deserves her own special introduction since she plays an instrumental part in this blog.

First and foremost, she would HATE the nickname “Coachie.” She does not in anyway resemble a cute fuzzy bunny or anything in remotely cute. In fact, she looks quite intimidating all dressed up in her coaching outfit (and you know most coaches have some kind of fashion statement), which at times includes a giant Russian fur hat, giant parkas, and giant earmuffs.  She only wears black or dark, earthy colors. She could get away with a Darth Vader cape and make it look fabulous to boot. She sports tan skates, which means she was once a professional. Her amateur competitive accomplishments leave me in awe. She has that understated cool, that implies, “Yes, I could be a Diva if I wanted to be, but I’m really too cool to bother.”

I often times feel that I am boring her.

Coachie is not Russian, though she sometimes pretends to be, such as when she says to me, “Yoo skayte like olt laydee!! Veeery olt laydee!”

Coachie takes one look at my bobbled spins or wonky jumps and makes immediate, insightful corrections.

Coachie has the ability to improve and effectively teach even the most hopeless skater; she turns caterpillars into butterflies.

Coachie’s skaters want to do well in competitions and tests because we can’t stand to let her down.

Coachie keeps a whip in her office. She doesn’t actually need to use it. We know it’s there.

Coachie never lies to you about how well or bad you’re skating. You can trust her observations.

When I passed my USFS Pre-Bronze MITF and freeskate tests,  Coachie gave me a congratulations card, which she had prepared BEFORE I took the test. Awwww. Coachie has a heart of gold.

Coachie scares me sometimes, but I love her.

Adults Are Special

In skating parlance, Adult Figure Skater (AFS) refers to someone who didn’t skate as a child and only took up the sport as a grown-up. However, there are also subtle shadings to the term. Adults, even those who are quite skilled and even talented, tend to skate more clunky, less gracefully, and more slowly than kids.  It takes us three times as long to learn new skills. We have reputations as scaredy cats who won’t push themselves past certain limitations because we’re too afraid to fall. We often look weird or strange and move in erratic ways. To say you “look like an adult skater” is a bit of an insult.

I skated as a kid and off and on for fun as an adult. But I really only pursued figure skating when I reached my 40s.  I had a few advantages in that I could skate backwards, knew some basic edges, and could stop. Otherwise I was hopeless at first. I took lessons for a couple of years. Quit for about a year and half. I came back and started working with a new and amazing coach (I will call her Coachie because that nickname would make her vomit). I’ve been taking private lessons with her for two years and have progressed remarkably.

But I still suck. Royally.

As of this date, here is a brief list of some things I can do consistently and reasonably well: upright spins, waltz jumps, salchows,  toe-loops (real ones, none of those toe-waltz things), Adult Bronze MITF, forward and backward spirals, forward crossrolls, and forward and backward power pulls on my left foot.

Some things that I can do occasionally, but am still working on: loop jump, flip jump, sit spin, backward cross rolls, right-sided power pulls, and a real live scratch spin (like, fast to blur spin).

I work very hard, skating about six hours a week, with two half hour lessons a week. My slow learning curve is relative; I’m learning much faster than most adults, but compared to the kids I’m stuck in the Pre-Cambrian Age.

In the figure skating world, most adults are perpetual beginners because the overwhelming  majority of us never learn an axel jump, the milestone that marks the difference between newbies and advanced levels. (My husband learned an axel as an adult.  That is an incredible accomplishment. I’m proud of him but I still want to strangle him when he lords it over me.)

I’m gonna write lots of entries about adults. That’s just how special and complicated we are.