A Day in the Life
of a Figure Skater
Megan B
USFS Intermediate, Pacific Section
—by her mother Teri. Teri is a professional journalist and the author of a skatefic novel.
6:00 AM — Megan is so not a morning person and having her awake and on the ice by 7 AM is huge. Most of her friends are up at 5 AM. Because she isn't a morning person she has to shower every morning to help her wake up. Blow dries hair, hops in her skate clothes and checks to make sure she has everything she needs.
7:00 AM — Arrives at the rink. Jogs around the rink for about five minutes and stair steps on one of the benches while her mom spots her. Stretches out her legs and gets on her skates.
7:20 AM — Takes to the ice. her practice consists of about five laps, another stretch and then her moves in the field. She is currently working on her novice moves. Then she warms up her single jumps.
8:00 AM — She breaks for fifteen minutes while the Zamboni does an ice cut. She eats something light for breakfast like a bagel or an instant oatmeal.
8:15 AM — She warms up her double jumps. Three mornings a week she meets with her coach for a 25 minute lesson.
8:45 AM— She runs through both her long and short program three times each doing laps between each of them.
9:15 AM — Takes off her skates, stretches and heads home.
10:00 AM-2:00 PM Homeschool
2:30 PM — Heads back to the rink. Warms up like she did in the morning and hits the ice.
3:00 PM — After warming up with laps she works on whatever she wants to. Spins, jumps, spirals. Whatever she feels like.
4:15 PM — Twice a week she has exercises classes. Either pilates or an off ice jump class.
5:15 PM — Head home again unless its Wednesday or Friday. Wednesdays she assists the coaches with their Learn To Skate program and Fridays she stays for club ice at 6:30.
7 PM-10 PM— School work, TV and bed. Sometimes she does fifty jumpchecks before bed and other times she stretches. Most of the time she talks to her friends from the rink!
Wendy B
USFS Adult Bronze
—in her own words...
Note: this originally appeared on the SkateFans mailing list.
I know Adult Nationals were a long time ago, but when one of my digests this week contained nothing but posts about nearly-naked jugglers, I figure list members may be starved for reading matter about actual skating...for your reading pleasure, here are some excerpts from the write-up I did to preserve my memories of the event.
Note--I am a bronze level skater (the lowest test level that can go to Nationals) and usually place down near the bottom, but always have a huge amount of fun. My goal each year is to beat the me of the year before. I've been lucky the last few years and been injury-free and been able to do that.
If the Red Sox could win the World Series on a night with a total lunar eclipse, I figured I could at least skate clean on a day with a total solar eclipse! (Note--I teach astronomy in the Boston area)
I was disappointed with my draw for the qualifying round, first to skate after the warmup. I was in the middle of a cold, and had less wind than usual so I couldn't use the last minute of the warmup. They called that last minute when I had just completed a (clean!) run through of the whole program. I was way more out of breath than I wanted to be a minute before skating.
At least my tape had a long leader. I had two copies of the tape, one marked "practice", with a long enough leader for me to be able to push play on the tape deck at the boards and still get into my starting position before the music started. When I was packing to leave I realized that I might not have actually ever skated to the competition copy, so I played it on the home tape player to make sure it was OK. It sounded funny, kind of fuzzy, as if sound could be out of focus like a photograph can be out of focus. Was it the tape? Or the home tape player?
At least I knew for sure that my "practice" tape was OK, so I turned it in, long leader and all. For all I knew, the music people had discovered the long leader when they tested the tapes, and had cued the music to start right when I took my position. But when the music didn't start right away, I wasn't surprised and was grateful for the extra bit of recovery time that the long leader was providing. The music started right about when I expected it to, and I took my first couple of steps, but then the music stopped and the announcer told me to relax.
Oh, wow, what a gift!!
Enough time to *really* catch my breath and be able to give it my best shot! I'd been skating clean in practice; after my last three or four run-throughs I'd said I'd be thrilled to skate that well at Nationals. I'd been able to say that so many times in a row that I began to recognize that my odds for skating clean were pretty darn good, since I tend to skate in competition about the same as I skate in practice. And I did!
It was clean, though some spins were saved as opposed to my best, and some jumps were undoubtedly cheated, but it was clean! My hardest and newest element is the flip-loop (after Maureen and my daughter urged me to try it last June) and after I landed it I remember exploding into this huge happy smile. The judges had to have been able to figure out that that combination was iffy for me from the degree of ecstasy I displayed. And it was Maureen, the reason that flip-loop is in there, who told me I qualified for finals! How cool is that???
The six finalists from each qualifying group got "final round qualifier" medals at an awards ceremony at the podium. Ours was the second-to-last qualifying group, and they had run out of medals. There were six of us, and only five medals left. Plus there were six more people coming up from the other qualifying group. Fortunately, I knew that Erica was wearing her qualifying round medal and where she was so I could go get it, and she was of course kind enough to lend it out for our ceremony. So even though I didn't get my medal then, and have to wait for it to come in the mail, it was really special to have Erica's medal be the one given to me in the ceremony.
Another special link with another special lady. I think of us last summer when I was visiting her, and her goal was to make it to the silver *level*--we didn't dream we would be sharing a qualifying round medal! I really, really enjoyed the official practice for the final. (Note to SkateFans; this is a 20-minute practice session on the same rink you'll be competing on, usually a couple-three hours before the event). After the first 10 minutes of the official practice for the qualifying round, my elements were all warmed up and there for me and I just wanted to go out there and do it *right then*.
Because of this, I knew I could afford to spend the first two or three minutes of the official practice for the final round just stroking around and getting used to the ice and completely indulging in really, actually, being on the official practice for a final round! My elements were just as strong as they were in the practice for the qualifying round, so I knew that there was no reason other than my head that I couldn't skate clean. And I would be skating fifth after the warm-up, a great draw, giving me plenty of time to recover my breath after the warm-up.
My final round skate was lot like my qualifying round skate in that I hit all my elements clean but not especially strongly. My spins were more saved than nailed, but it is gratifying to be able to do a spin well enough to save it if necessary :-) I got through all the elements, including the final change-foot spin. I guess I let the focus go when I completed that spin because I completely missed my ending pose, a pivot out of the spin. (Remembers Bourne and Kraatz falling on their final pose at the Olympics). Then I even called out to my friends at rinkside that if you had to blow anything, at least it was the ending pose, only later realizing that the only people who could have heard me were the judges...
After the other qualifying group had their medal ceremony, all six of them gathered for a group hug. That was so cool! We decided that all 12 of us needed to do that after the final, and so we decided to all go to the awards ceremony together and get a picture with all of us together either before or after they gave out the medals. We had another reason to connect, though.
Last year's winner in our age class, (46-55, was III, now IV), Lorraine Rodgers, died of cancer the Monday before Nationals started. She was my rinkmate. When she won last year's final, I was volunteering in accounting. I remember the official USFSA types there being a little taken aback by the volunteer having friends in the event, but as I told them, if you want to use adult skaters as volunteers, they are going to have lots of friends in lots of events! They agreed that the numbers were the numbers and were double checked, and that I could stay. I got a feeling for the numbers as I entered them in to the computer. I remember saying, "I think my friend might win this!" as we were working. And she did! About a half hour later there was a knock on the accounting room door and it was Lorraine there shouting "I won!!" And a huge hug! I know it even warmed the hearts of the accounting types who were initially worried about having a competitor's friend helping with accounting, and it's just about got me to tears typing this.
It was the last time I saw her.
She knew, but wasn't telling, there were problematic test results, and that she might be facing cancer again, after a bout with kidney cancer about 5 years before. I didn't even have any idea about the previous cancer battle. When our coach told me about it the first thing I could think of to say was how glad I was that she had won.
Making it out of a qualifying round was an honest-to-God once-in-a-lifetime experience. Next year I age up to Class V (a.k.a. "56-to-death") where there aren't enough entries to have qualifying rounds. My rink buddy Suzy also ages up next year. She skates silver, having been urged by her coach to take the test back when it was closer to the level the bronze test is now. She's been down in the lower ranks of silver at competitions.
This year she felt like she'd improved a lot, and this was after a nasty battle with a foot/ankle injury, and felt she had a chance at the final. But her interpretive event was scheduled at the same time as her final round...Was she going to have to choose? She did achieve her goal and skated well enough to make the final round!! Fortunately the time conflict was resolved, and she got to skate both events. Both of us finished last in our respective finals, so we are the "Last-Chance, Last Place Kids" and have a special bond forever... It's actually been kind of fun, when people ask me how I did, to say "I placed last", watch their faces, and then say "In the *final*! That I never expected to make!"
I really like getting to see ordinals. I watched the whole flight, and felt that last place was a distinct possibility, but the I thought I should get a mix of the last three place ordinals. My last place (12th) was indeed a 4-3 split, and I had ordinals from 10-12. I hope that if COP gets implemented at this level that we will still get to see the individual judges' marks. I've placed last quite a few times at Nationals, but I've never had *all* last place ordinals. It makes you feel a lot better.
Before both the qualifying round and the final round, my dear friend Sharon did my hair and make-up. I never wear make-up and usually keep my hair in a simple braid. I've been following with interest a thread on the SkateFans list in which people have been commenting on Peggy Fleming's appearance during this year's World Championships. They've been talking about how her hair looked unkempt and her face looked unhealthy (while fervently hoping she is not ill again), and that's led into a discussion of "over-50 hair".
I fail all the acceptable norms for "over-50" hair. I'm letting the gray come in. I've kept it long. I was a tomboy who never liked to dress up and still doesn't, and who thought makeup was yucky, and still thinks it feels yucky to wear the stuff. You can't rub your eyes or you mess it up. Fortunately for me I can get away just fine without wearing it for work. But once in a while, like for my brother's wedding when I was a bridesmaid (bridesmatron?), I will permit someone who knows what they're doing to put the stuff on me, and Adult Nationals is one of the rare times to submit.
Sharon wouldn't let me look in a mirror after she put the final-round paint on, because she said it would just freak me out :-) Well, after the qualifying round, a coach I know because she coaches a number of my friends told me "it was the hair and make-up". I was kind of dismayed by this comment, would the judges really place me higher because of hair and make-up?? I thought I had made the final round because it was a small flight and 3/4 of the people in the flight were going to make the final round, and I skated clean on harder stuff than I had ever attempted before and some of my competitors made mistakes...not because of hair and makeup...I felt better when I realized that she told me "it was the hair and the makeup" before she knew how I placed--I guess she thought I *skated* better with fixed-up hair and make-up, like that stuff gave me self-confidence or something... My self-confidence comes from how well I can perform my elements, not from how dressed up or painted up I am. But I recognize that you're sort of "expected" to put on make-up and that I should put up with it and am grateful to my friends for taking care of me!
For my Interpretive Event (can be skated to songs with words and elaborate costumes are part of the fun), I skated to "Leader of the Pack". I'd wanted to do an ISI family spotlight program with my daughter, with me as the motorcycle hood and her as the teenybopper who falls for him. But she got too old to want to do that sort of stuff with Mom. I tried to get a rinkmate to do it with me, but she didn't like the music well enough.
So I ended up making a split costume, my left half with a miniskirt, ponytail and go-go boot, and my right half with old jeans, a t-shirt with a cigarette pack rolled up in the sleeve, and a tattoo with a heart surrounding "MOM" on a bicep built up from stuffed animal stuffing and leftover yarn. A real highlight for me was not long before I skated, when I was in costume at rinkside and Philip Duhlebon (the former U.S. pairs Champion and Olympic Team member who must have been there coaching) walked by. He definitely checked out my costume and complimented me on it!
Next year Adult Nationals will be in Chicago. SkateFans in the area should consider coming out to watch. There are few triple jumps, but there are a lot of people who put their hearts and souls into their performances, and there are many, many entertaining programs to see!
Wendy B
USFS Adult Bronze
—in her own words...
Note: this originally appeared on the SkateFans mailing list.
I know Adult Nationals were a long time ago, here are some excerpts from the write-up I did to preserve my memories of the event.
Note—I am a bronze level skater (the lowest test level that can go to Nationals) and usually place down near the bottom, but always have a huge amount of fun. My goal each year is to beat the me of the year before. I've been lucky the last few years and been injury-free and been able to do that.
If the Red Sox could win the World Series on a night with a total lunar eclipse, I figured I could at least skate clean on a day with a total solar eclipse! (Note—I teach astronomy in the Boston area)
I was disappointed with my draw for the qualifying round, first to skate after the warmup. I was in the middle of a cold, and had less wind than usual so I couldn't use the last minute of the warmup. They called that last minute when I had just completed a (clean!) run through of the whole program. I was way more out of breath than I wanted to be a minute before skating.
At least my tape had a long leader. I had two copies of the tape, one marked "practice", with a long enough leader for me to be able to push play on the tape deck at the boards and still get into my starting position before the music started. When I was packing to leave I realized that I might not have actually ever skated to the competition copy, so I played it on the home tape player to make sure it was OK. It sounded funny, kind of fuzzy, as if sound could be out of focus like a photograph can be out of focus. Was it the tape? Or the home tape player?
At least I knew for sure that my "practice" tape was OK, so I turned it in, long leader and all. For all I knew, the music people had discovered the long leader when they tested the tapes, and had cued the music to start right when I took my position. But when the music didn't start right away, I wasn't surprised and was grateful for the extra bit of recovery time that the long leader was providing. The music started right about when I expected it to, and I took my first couple of steps, but then the music stopped and the announcer told me to relax.
Oh, wow, what a gift!!
Enough time to *really* catch my breath and be able to give it my best shot! I'd been skating clean in practice; after my last three or four run-throughs I'd said I'd be thrilled to skate that well at Nationals. I'd been able to say that so many times in a row that I began to recognize that my odds for skating clean were pretty darn good, since I tend to skate in competition about the same as I skate in practice. And I did!
It was clean, though some spins were saved as opposed to my best, and some jumps were undoubtedly cheated, but it was clean! My hardest and newest element is the flip-loop (after Maureen and my daughter urged me to try it last June) and after I landed it I remember exploding into this huge happy smile. The judges had to have been able to figure out that that combination was iffy for me from the degree of ecstasy I displayed. And it was Maureen, the reason that flip-loop is in there, who told me I qualified for finals! How cool is that???
The six finalists from each qualifying group got "final round qualifier" medals at an awards ceremony at the podium. Ours was the second-to-last qualifying group, and they had run out of medals. There were six of us, and only five medals left. Plus there were six more people coming up from the other qualifying group. Fortunately, I knew that Erica was wearing her qualifying round medal and where she was so I could go get it, and she was of course kind enough to lend it out for our ceremony. So even though I didn't get my medal then, and have to wait for it to come in the mail, it was really special to have Erica's medal be the one given to me in the ceremony.
Another special link with another special lady. I think of us last summer when I was visiting her, and her goal was to make it to the silver *level*—we didn't dream we would be sharing a qualifying round medal! I really, really enjoyed the official practice for the final. (Note to SkateFans; this is a 20-minute practice session on the same rink you'll be competing on, usually a couple-three hours before the event). After the first 10 minutes of the official practice for the qualifying round, my elements were all warmed up and there for me and I just wanted to go out there and do it *right then*.
Because of this, I knew I could afford to spend the first two or three minutes of the official practice for the final round just stroking around and getting used to the ice and completely indulging in really, actually, being on the official practice for a final round! My elements were just as strong as they were in the practice for the qualifying round, so I knew that there was no reason other than my head that I couldn't skate clean. And I would be skating fifth after the warm-up, a great draw, giving me plenty of time to recover my breath after the warm-up.
My final round skate was lot like my qualifying round skate in that I hit all my elements clean but not especially strongly. My spins were more saved than nailed, but it is gratifying to be able to do a spin well enough to save it if necessary :-) I got through all the elements, including the final change-foot spin. I guess I let the focus go when I completed that spin because I completely missed my ending pose, a pivot out of the spin. (Remembers Bourne and Kraatz falling on their final pose at the Olympics). Then I even called out to my friends at rinkside that if you had to blow anything, at least it was the ending pose, only later realizing that the only people who could have heard me were the judges...
After the other qualifying group had their medal ceremony, all six of them gathered for a group hug. That was so cool! We decided that all 12 of us needed to do that after the final, and so we decided to all go to the awards ceremony together and get a picture with all of us together either before or after they gave out the medals. We had another reason to connect, though.
Last year's winner in our age class, (46-55, was III, now IV), Lorraine Rodgers, died of cancer the Monday before Nationals started. She was my rinkmate. When she won last year's final, I was volunteering in accounting. I remember the official USFSA types there being a little taken aback by the volunteer having friends in the event, but as I told them, if you want to use adult skaters as volunteers, they are going to have lots of friends in lots of events! They agreed that the numbers were the numbers and were double checked, and that I could stay. I got a feeling for the numbers as I entered them in to the computer. I remember saying, "I think my friend might win this!" as we were working. And she did! About a half hour later there was a knock on the accounting room door and it was Lorraine there shouting "I won!!" And a huge hug! I know it even warmed the hearts of the accounting types who were initially worried about having a competitor's friend helping with accounting, and it's just about got me to tears typing this.
It was the last time I saw her.
She knew, but wasn't telling, there were problematic test results, and that she might be facing cancer again, after a bout with kidney cancer about 5 years before. I didn't even have any idea about the previous cancer battle. When our coach told me about it the first thing I could think of to say was how glad I was that she had won.
Making it out of a qualifying round was an honest-to-God once-in-a-lifetime experience. Next year I age up to Class V (a.k.a. "56-to-death") where there aren't enough entries to have qualifying rounds. My rink buddy Suzy also ages up next year. She skates silver, having been urged by her coach to take the test back when it was closer to the level the bronze test is now. She's been down in the lower ranks of silver at competitions.
This year she felt like she'd improved a lot, and this was after a nasty battle with a foot/ankle injury, and felt she had a chance at the final. But her interpretive event was scheduled at the same time as her final round...Was she going to have to choose? She did achieve her goal and skated well enough to make the final round!! Fortunately the time conflict was resolved, and she got to skate both events. Both of us finished last in our respective finals, so we are the "Last-Chance, Last Place Kids" and have a special bond forever... It's actually been kind of fun, when people ask me how I did, to say "I placed last", watch their faces, and then say "In the *final*! That I never expected to make!"
I really like getting to see ordinals. I watched the whole flight, and felt that last place was a distinct possibility, but the I thought I should get a mix of the last three place ordinals. My last place (12th) was indeed a 4-3 split, and I had ordinals from 10-12. I hope that if COP gets implemented at this level that we will still get to see the individual judges' marks. I've placed last quite a few times at Nationals, but I've never had *all* last place ordinals. It makes you feel a lot better.
Before both the qualifying round and the final round, my dear friend Sharon did my hair and make-up. I never wear make-up and usually keep my hair in a simple braid. I've been following with interest a thread on the SkateFans list in which people have been commenting on Peggy Fleming's appearance during this year's World Championships. They've been talking about how her hair looked unkempt and her face looked unhealthy (while fervently hoping she is not ill again), and that's led into a discussion of "over-50 hair".
I fail all the acceptable norms for "over-50" hair. I'm letting the gray come in. I've kept it long. I was a tomboy who never liked to dress up and still doesn't, and who thought makeup was yucky, and still thinks it feels yucky to wear the stuff. You can't rub your eyes or you mess it up. Fortunately for me I can get away just fine without wearing it for work. But once in a while, like for my brother's wedding when I was a bridesmaid (bridesmatron?), I will permit someone who knows what they're doing to put the stuff on me, and Adult Nationals is one of the rare times to submit.
Sharon wouldn't let me look in a mirror after she put the final-round paint on, because she said it would just freak me out :-) Well, after the qualifying round, a coach I know because she coaches a number of my friends told me "it was the hair and make-up". I was kind of dismayed by this comment, would the judges really place me higher because of hair and make-up?? I thought I had made the final round because it was a small flight and 3/4 of the people in the flight were going to make the final round, and I skated clean on harder stuff than I had ever attempted before and some of my competitors made mistakes...not because of hair and makeup...I felt better when I realized that she told me "it was the hair and the makeup" before she knew how I placed—I guess she thought I *skated* better with fixed-up hair and make-up, like that stuff gave me self-confidence or something... My self-confidence comes from how well I can perform my elements, not from how dressed up or painted up I am. But I recognize that you're sort of "expected" to put on make-up and that I should put up with it and am grateful to my friends for taking care of me!
For my Interpretive Event (can be skated to songs with words and elaborate costumes are part of the fun), I skated to "Leader of the Pack". I'd wanted to do an ISI family spotlight program with my daughter, with me as the motorcycle hood and her as the teenybopper who falls for him. But she got too old to want to do that sort of stuff with Mom. I tried to get a rinkmate to do it with me, but she didn't like the music well enough.
So I ended up making a split costume, my left half with a miniskirt, ponytail and go-go boot, and my right half with old jeans, a t-shirt with a cigarette pack rolled up in the sleeve, and a tattoo with a heart surrounding "MOM" on a bicep built up from stuffed animal stuffing and leftover yarn. A real highlight for me was not long before I skated, when I was in costume at rinkside and Philip Duhlebon (the former U.S. pairs Champion and Olympic Team member who must have been there coaching) walked by. He definitely checked out my costume and complimented me on it!
Next year Adult Nationals will be in Chicago. SkateFans in the area should consider coming out to watch. There are few triple jumps, but there are a lot of people who put their hearts and souls into their performances, and there are many, many entertaining programs to see!
