Winter's Work: Gearing Up for March 11

In skating terms, December has clearly been the most wonderful time of the year.  For the fourth year in a row, I got to join my friends in a fun group number at Leddy Park Holiday skating show.  The first time, four years ago, I had just started taking group lessons. Our group searched high and low for the tackiest holiday sweaters we could find, and I struggled to keep upright through the number. This year we were Blues Brothers skating part of the Rhythm Blues ice dance as part of our performance.  Big fun, but alas, our unofficial videographer, Jon, had technical difficulties, so no video record of our performance.

The Blues Borthers (Patsy, Anya, Donna, Russ, Melody, me and Mary) take to the ice.

The other big December skating highlight was a week earlier on my birthday.  Blatantly stealing from my wonderful skating friend Patsy, I copied her idea from a few years ago and rented out the Leddy rink for a Birthday on Ice.  It was awesome.  Some of my skating friends were in the middle practicing fancy jumps and spins and others took to the ice for the first time since childhood, or for a few, the first time ever.

Jon's contribution to my skating goals are manifold: attending my(and my skating friends') tests and performances; taking pictures and videos of the same; and at least once a year getting on the ice. On my birthday he donned a magical no-falling hat and took to the ice.

Four of my skating friends (all of them light-years ahead of me): Jackye, Sharie, Melody (who is also one of my coaches), and Toria.

Siham got Best Sport award for trying skating for the first time ever.  Here, Crystal and Julia offer a helping hand.

Now as the year is coming to a close, my sights are on 2017, and the goals I've set for the year between December 10, 2016 and December 10, 2017.  I set a whole bunch of goals, but there are some obstacles in the way.  First, there is my right knee, which seems not to have gotten the message that it needs to be on its best behavior, and full range of motion right now.  I'v started seeing a physical therapist a week ago for that one; here's hoping that it works.  Then there is another major obstacle that will strike in late March.  Every year the Leddy Park Rink closes for about six weeks in May and June, and there is a scramble to find substitute ice.  But this year, the year I've committed to put such a focus on skating, it will be closed for April, May AND June.  Gonna need to do some serious planning to figure out ice time at other area rinks. And finally, there is one that is all my own -- my own fear.  I am way too afraid of falling, particularly when jumping.  It's just a reality that getting better involves a fair amount of falling, and I just need to get over it and take some falls.

So, keeping these obstacles in mind, my next big goal date is Saturday, March 11, 2017.  The way that many skaters progress is through a series of tests.  Since I'm an adult, I get to test in the easier Adult Series, rather than the Standard Track used for kids and teenagers. Right now I'm working on three tests: my Pre-Bronze Ice Dances (there are three of them, and the easiest of the three is the Cha Cha); my Pre-Bronze Free Skate; and my Silver Moves in the Field (this one I've only barely started and will be working on for a very long time, probably well past this year). The March 11 test is the only one set between now and June, or possibly July or August, so I hope to use it.  My hope is to test the Cha Cha Ice Dance and my Pre-Bronze Free Skate.  The Free Skate test includes the following elements: forwards and backwards crossovers; a spiral or lunge, two half or single jumps and two spins -- two footed and one-footed.  The big question is whether I will have two jumps and two spins ready in time, but my coach, Melody, is optimistic.  I'll have to make a decision in a few weeks on whether to apply to test, so will make the final decision then.  In the meantime, right now I'm writing from Virginia and having a one-week hiatus from skating.  Once I'm back in Vermont, I'll head back to the ice and see where I am skating-wise.

For anyone in Vermont looking to do some skating this winter, here are three invitations I'll throw out right now:

Skating is definitely a more-the-merrier pursuit.  Here's the crew that laced up for Birthday on Ice.  The winter has just begun, and skating opportunities abound now!

1. The outdoor rink outside the statehouse in Montpelier!  This is an awesome new initiative this year, and I can't wait to try it out.  If you want to as well, let me know.  Let's make a date and get a bunch of people together to go.
2. Nordic skating on Lake Morey.  Did this a couple years ago with some friends, and it was awesome. Nordic skating is very different than figure skating, but very fun, and the long blades that you put on cross country ski boots glide right over bumps and cracks in the ice.  Assuming the lake freezing this year, who wants to go.
3. Public skating sessions at Leddy and Cairns.  I do a lot of practice skating on early morning ice at Leddy, and Friday mornings in Waterbury.  But Leddy has public ice from 9-11 am M-Th, and 2:15-4 on Sundays, and Cairns has ice from 10-12:30 T-F, 2:40-4:10 on Saturdays and 1-2:30 on Sundays.  While I do unfortunately have a slight complication in the form of work on most of the weekdays (though Monday and Wednesdays are more workable), the weekends are a possibility. So, if people want to set up some skating plans, please let me know!

Fifty on Ice: Time for a New Challenge

I don't think I saw this one coming, but it's almost here.  In a couple of weeks, I'm going to turn 50. Since it's going to happen with or without my consent (the only other option being far less desirable), I think I'd like to make the best of it, and try to use the half-century year marker as an incentive to step it up on a hobby that's become a big part of my life: figure skating. While I was co-leading a hike this fall with the Saint Michael's College Adventure Sports Program, one of the participants told me about a man who decided to use each year of his life to see how far he could get on mastering a specific sport or skill.  That idea sounded great to me, so I'm borrowing it.

So here's my goal for the 50th year of my existence: to become a better figure skater. More specifically, from December 10, 2016 to December 10, 2017 I am going to commit to steadily and consistently working on my skating, and to weekly tracking of what happens when I do.

I should note at the onset two things: first, I am not a highly skilled figure skater and second, I have no illusions that I will become one.  I did a lot of pond skating as a kid and some more intermittently on rinks as an adult.  About three years ago I started taking adult lessons consistently and learned some humbling lessons:

• There are some skills that are way easier to learn as a kid.  Figure skating is one of them.
• Adults skaters (especially this one) are scared of falling.  Kids are like rubber bands when they fall.  Adults (like me anyway) are whatever analogy encompasses brittleness and easy bruising.
• To be an adult figure skating is to learn patience.  Tons and tons of patience. One of the classes I am taking is an old-school figures class, where we basically skate on one foot to trace figure eight patterns (or some variant of them).  It took me almost the entire year last year to learn to do the first outside and inside forward eight pattern.  This year, I'm working on doing it backwards, and I strongly doubt I'll get it before the year is over.
• On the plus side, the satisfaction of learning or mastering a skill is timeless. It may definitely be frustrating that it takes so long to learn skating skills, but it is simply great to be able to do something I couldn't do a year ago.

This is what "patch" figures class looks like -- tracing circles that are hard to see over and over to learn how to skate on the "edges" of the skating blade.  Here, I'm practicing a forward pattern and behind me from friend Jackye is doing a much more difficult backward one.

I have three different teachers (in the skating world they're coaches) who are helping me along this path.  Martha teaches two adult classes I am in, an advanced adult group class on Wednesday mornings and a figures adult group class on Tuesday morning.  Russ is my ice dance coach and we have a lesson in Waterbury (about half an hour away) on Friday mornings, and finally, Melody is my free skate and moves-in-the-field coach who I work with once a week around the other lessons. I usually skate at the Leddy Park Rink, in the New North End of Burlington, and have a group of fellow adult skaters -- some who had illustrious earlier skating careers, some like me, who chose to delve deeper later in life -- who I skate with in early morning lessons and practices.  Ice dancing is with Russ who teaches with his fellow coach and wife, Vera, at the Waterbury Rink. Occasionally I make use of two other nearby rinks, the Cairns Arena in South Burlington, and the Gutterson Rink at the University of Vermont.

Each year my home rink, Leddy Park, organizes a Holiday Ice Show and a late spring show.  For the last few years our adult skating group has participated with a number for the show.  This is from December 2015; this year's will be a take-off from the Blues Brothers.

And here's our Beauty School Dropout (from m the show Grease) spring 2016 number.  I'm sitting in the middle between two much better skaters, Jennifer and Jackye, and my coach Melody, was Frenchie, with Alan (who began ice skating after he retired)

Something I learned from the year 2010 when I resolved to try 52 new things in a year, is that keeping track of them regularly and publicly (via this blog) was a great way to keep me accountable, excited and feeling like I was making progress.  So, I'm trying it again.

Here are the specific goals I have for the time between my 50th and 51st birthdays:

• To pass the next  (Pre-Bronze Level) three ice dances in the US Figure Skating sequence: Swing Dance, Cha Cha and Fiesta Tango
• To pass my Pre-Bronze Free Skate test
• To be able to skate three of the six elements of the Silver Moves in the Field test
• To learn and perform my first solo freestyle program

A grainy pic from my first ice dance exam.  I've passed tests on the three easiest ice dances so far: Dutch Waltz, Canasta Tango and Rhythm Blues.  The next three are harder, and  incorporate skills like skating with a partner backwards and switching from backward to forward  (and back again) during the dance.

A couple years ago I would have had no idea what most of the words in the above list of goals even meant, which is kind of amusing to me. I probably also means that my boyfriend Jon is right and I am becoming ever more entangled in the little sub-culture that is adult figure skating.  But I think it might be interesting to explain it as I track it, for anyone who, like me, finds exploring the ins and outs of other subcultures interesting.

So, the plan is to post a weekly update, and do a quarterly check-in on how the four goals listed above are going. I try to go skating at least four days a week, and am hoping it increase that in the coming year, so if there are people who've been needing a nudge to get your skates out, or join an adult class, or try it for the very first time, this is your invitation.  I hope to see you at the rink (or help you get there). If you want to come skating let me know!