Swine Flu is a serious issue, one we all need to be thinking about right now, especially those of us who spend lots of time in ice arenas, in close proximity to germ-carrying kids with runny noses. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has provided several recommendations for prevention. These include information on “hand hygiene” (i.e. wash hands often and also apply alcohol-based hand gel such as Purell) and “respiratory etiquette” (cover nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze then throw that tissue away.)

On one hand, it’s just the flu and most people who get it are fine. On the other (recently washed) hand, it is spreading quickly and potentially fatal. So it’s difficult to figure out just how frightened we should be and just how obsessively we should try to protect ourselves at the rink.

I, for one, have stopped giving high fives. It used to be a regular and favorite coaching practice of mine but I don’t trust those mittens anymore (theirs or mine). Instead, I’m trying out the “air high five.” In this, the high five action can be replicated from afar or with a near miss, as if one or more participants has wonky depth perception. Though both techniques are significantly less satisfying than the real thing, it’s still more interactive than the simple thumbs-up.

The CDC suggests that you maintain six feet of distance between you and other possibly-infected people. This is why I have decided to stay on the exact opposite side of the rink from my students at all times. This method requires that I move whenever my skaters move so that I am essentially mirroring them. This means I am in constant motion and also means I must teach my lessons through a bullhorn (sorry, other coaches). The tricky thing here is that while I am staying far away from my current student on a crowded freestyle session, I am in danger of coming within 6 feet of other skaters. This has resulted in a lot of paranoid, skittish, darting actions on my part. On the upside, my footwork has therefore improved considerably.

Partnering my students for ice dances has become a challenge. Instead of holding on, we are now shadow-dancing. Preferably, when a facility offers two ice surfaces, I skate in one rink and my partner skates in the other. I am slightly concerned that the judges are going to make comments about our partner positioning at the next test session and say that we are skating too far apart. Frankly, I prefer this consequence to the swine flu. Along the same lines, I recommend that synchronized teams adopt a similar methodology, thereby rendering their entire programs “no-hold.” For run-throughs, they should ideally spread themselves out at rinks across the county.

At first, I started washing my hands after every session. Now, I take a shower after every lesson.

I have contracted a team of doctors, physicists and biologists to construct a Purell force field for me. This I will wear as another layer, outside my coat. I have requested this force field in a pretty lavender shade with a slimming silhouette.

I have contacted an NBA basketball coach to coach my skaters on the finer points of freethrows, so that their used tissues actually make it into the garbage instead of near the garbage. The sea of tissues surrounding the garbage can is not only disturbing from a germ perspective, but is also harmful when one of those tissues gets stuck under my blade when I’m about to step out onto the ice to demonstrate something fabulous.

For a while there, I assumed a “duck and cover” position whenever anyone did a spin. (We all know the little-mentioned side effect of centrifugal force, especially when combined with cold air.) I have now decided to leave the premises, screaming like a crazy person, whenever anyone attempts a spin.

I am going to stop coaching pigs. (For real! This is absolutely not a commentary on the weight of any of my current or past students.) The CDC reports that people who work with pigs are at a considerably higher risk. Truthfully, this isn’t that “big” of a loss. Though I have found most pigs to be extremely intelligent, not to mention very respectful, those bodies weren’t really built for rotation. And their leg extension is never what it should be.

Finally, I am considering teaching my lessons via video stream from a bubble in my living room. Actually, I’ve been wanting to do this for years in order to avoid something else I find disturbing: frost bite.

Oops, it’s been over five minutes – I better go wash my hands. Or maybe I should just go get my hands on some of that vaccine I’ve been hearing about. That is, a few cases of it…

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Seriously, everyone be careful and aware! If you don’t feel like your rink is clean enough, talk to the management. And I urge you, don’t go anywhere near those hockey players. (Kidding, of course.) If you have any of your own recommendations or suggestions, please leave a comment, below.

Yes, I’ve been on a honeymoon-ish hiatus from Current Skate of Mind, but I have some new pieces lined up, including an old-school review of the original Ice Castles and a hard-hitting analysis of Brian Boitano’s cooking show.

In the mean time, I have been writing some other stuff:

To read about my pitiful finger situation, the sweetest pineapple you could ever imagine, and the real reason everyone should get their nails done, visit the Upper East Side Informer by clicking here.

To read my  sarcastic humor piece about plastic surgery, (come on, Hollywood, moderation!) visit Yankee Potroast by clicking, here.

Thanks for reading.

Focus: Preparing for the big event will require boatloads of planning, some obsessing and lots of mental visualization. You may find that you therefore have less time for other pursuits, such as blogging about your sport.

The Dress: Sure, the skating is important (i.e. an entire year’s worth of training culminating in one performance) and so is the fact that you’re getting married (i.e. committing to someone very very special for the rest of your life) but these are such minor details compared to How You Look. Whole hours, days, weeks and months can be consumed while considering the silhouette, decorative elements, and shade of the costume. For example, there are evidently 1 million different versions of white. And the fittings! These can comprise a second job.

Sportsmanship: Due to thousands of different variables (rain, acne, stomach flu, dull blades, sore ankle, ruts in the ice), things don’t always work out as planned. But nobody wants to root for a brat and nobody really wants to catch Bridezilla’s bouquet.

Balance and Coordination: In both realms, it is ideal to not trip, fall, or injure yourself or your partner. Then again, this could increase entertainment value.

Entering and Exiting with Style: Locker room equals Dressing Room. Ice equals Aisle. Kiss and Cry equals Receiving Line.

Nerves: Sure, beauty sleep is nice and it results in optimal energy levels for training, but it’s not completely necessary. Is it?

Flowers: In both cases, this element is fleeting. If you skate well, they might be thrown on the ice, handed to you over the barriers, or awarded to you after climbing the podium. If they make it back to your hotel room, you can try to balance them in one of the water glasses or maybe even the ice bucket in order to enjoy them for the few waking hours before your flight leaves in the morning. When planning a wedding, you will somehow get caught up in the wild misperception that the success of the entire event hinges on the exact mathematical ratio of calla lilies to dahlias to chrysanthemums. Or will it be gerber daisies to roses to poppies? Or maybe zinnias, to alliums to…    

Music: The better the music, the better the party, the louder the ovation, the bigger the smiles, the higher the scores, the funkier the boogie-ing. In other words, there probably shouldn’t be any ice dance music played during the reception, despite any and all threats or promises to do so. (Brace yourself for the Dutch Waltz!)  

Getting in shape: Hours of cross-training and conscientious dieting will result in exhaustion, malnutrition, irritability and very little perceptible change in your physical dimensions.  

Choreography: In skating, a program should tell a story filled with drama, emotion, and excitement. A bride and groom’s first dance should bring the audience to tears…of laughter? Perhaps lifts should be avoided if the dress is poofy, the shoes are slippery and/or if the lifter has never participated in this activity? Nah, might as well go for it!

Vacation: That week off after Nationals was always such a beautiful thing. This time? Honeymoon: palm trees, waterfalls…and no homework or exams to make-up. 

Cake: Okay, well I suppose this is more of a difference between a wedding and a competition rather than a similarity. But really, there should be more cake in skating, don’t you think? Judges, skaters, coaches, parents: let them eat cake! Or maybe smoosh it in each others’ faces…?

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Thanks for reading!

I’ll be back in the fall…that is unless I decide to stay in Hawaii and teach skating lessons on ice rinks composed of daiquiris.

In the mean time, here is some other stuff I’ve been up to:

 ”Bridezilla Phobia” for DIY Bride. Click here, then click on the article title to read it…

“Downturn Trends in Decorative Throw Pillows” for Yankee Potroast. Click here.

More adventures from the Upper East Side Informer. Click here.

In last April’s installment, The Traffic Issue (click here), I wrote about an ever-present and perilous issue in Figure Skating Town: crowded freestyle sessions. For those of you who have witnessed or experienced everyday practice sessions in one of the thousands of ice rinks across the country, you know that chaos is the name of the game and that skaters collide often. It’s a challenging situation since every skater out there is practicing something different, and therefore carving out a unique path. There is rhyme and reason to what each skater is doing, but no guarantee it won’t crash them into someone else.  

Well, at the encouragement of many of you, I contacted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to see if they could help us develop new ways of controlling freestyle traffic. Their report, which I was hoping to present at U.S. Figure Skating’s Annual Governing Council meeting in May, is finally finished. The problem is that I don’t think it’s actually very helpful at all. It proves what most of us already know: that this skating thing is completely unique…and, scary as it may be sometimes, we already have a pretty good thing going. 

Here are just a few of their wayward recommendations:

• Paint two solid yellow lines down the middle of the ice surface. This will separate traffic traveling in opposite directions and prohibit passing. 
• Install beeping devises in each skater, so that when they are backing up, others will know.
• Have all skaters wear hats with rearview mirrors so they can see behind them.
• Outfit each skater with GPS wristwatches, so that they can identify the best route to their next element.    
• Install stoplights at the blue lines.
• Hire local policemen to enforce rink traffic laws.
• Open a skating traffic school and require each skater to obtain a permit before skating on a freestyle session. This would include obstacle courses, methods of parallel parking along the barriers, and learning which skaters have the right of way.
• Provide each skater with gloves featuring turn signals. These blinking lights will let other skaters know which way they are planning to turn.
• Give every skater a horn they can honk incessantly when traffic is not moving to their satisfaction. This will save their vocal chords.

Okay, so here are the only recommendations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that I can really endorse:

• Outfit every skater with a full suit of foam rubber to serve as bumpers if they crash into one another or the barriers.
• Have the brakes checked regularly.
• Coaches should wear neon orange construction suits so they can be better seen by oncoming traffic. (After all, coaching is a construction project of sorts…)  

Finally, here are a few of my recommendations, based on my own studies of rink traffic:

• Open your eyes.
• Look around.
• Pay attention.
• Be polite. 

These may sound pretty obvious, but we all know these skills are not always, eh hem… fully utilized. Hey, forget those fancy, US government traffic scientists – maybe I will present my own concepts at Governing Council after all…

Anyway, happy rink travels.

The staff of Current Skate of Mind has noticed that a particularly entertaining skating video is currently in hot circulation around the internet. (The nature, tenor and texture of this video fits the CSOM credo perfectly i.e. ”laughter is the best sports medicine.”) Perhaps you have not seen it yet? Of course you are busy watching as much Nationals footage on icenetwork as humanly possible, but we highly recommend you tear yourself away for a few moments to see some extremely impressive skills. We are not Technical Specialists, but it’s pretty obvious that these skaters would do very well under the IJS system (press on the black arrow in left bottom corner to play):  

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For those of you noticing this week’s lack of punctuality (i.e. it’s not Tuesday, scandalous indeed), we must inform you that due to several thousand other projects on deck, new installments will now be posted on a completely random basis. Just keeping you on your toe…picks.    

I’m not saying I don’t love the skating students I currently have. In fact, I already work with a lot of talented, nice, and interesting characters. But, in life, you must dare to dream. So, as part of my New Years resolution, I vowed to take my coaching career to the next level. I’m going to reach for the stars. I want athletes who can go the distance, who climb podiums around the world and win medals. I want to hug them in the kiss and cry. I want to get interviewed about my prodigies after they perform. I want to conduct press conferences while wearing a mink coat!

In order for all of this to happen, I am going to have to identify potential and talent then go after it. This is why I have put together a list of dream skaters. Of course, it’s un-cool and unethical to solicit students from other coaches, but I’m pretty sure no one on this list has a coach yet (otherwise, please let me know). With one exception, I’m not even sure if they’ve ever been on the ice. No matter, I’m going to start them off right and help them skyrocket straight to the top.

It’s a new year and time to shine. So without further delay, I present my list of dream students. (And don’t you dare get any ideas of trying to recruit them for your own.)

Kermit the Frog: Granted, I’ve never actually seen him hop, but I gotta believe he has some good spring in those little legs. Come to think of it…I’m pretty sure I saw him run once, in his role as a journalist. Maybe he seems somewhat uncoordinated and awkward, yet he has such a positive attitude. And what about those puppet strings? They’re barely visible, but they’d serve as a constant harness! If we can figure out how to keep those strings untangled, I predict triples within a few months. Maybe even a few minutes.

Lisa Simpson: Due to her dedication to the saxophone, she already has a great feel for music. If she could apply this same focus to skating, I have no doubt she could scale the ranks very quickly. Can’t you just imagine her lining up by the rink door at Regionals? She should probably get a sweater to wear over that strapless dress of hers, maybe a wraparound or a sparkly fleece. Of course, Homer would be clueless, but most dads are, right? And Marge would help her get the job done.

Charlie Brown: According to his Christmas Special, we know he can pond skate. Of course, he took a pretty nasty fall,  including a belly flop, a spin-out and an unfortunate crash into a tree, but that was only because Snoopy flung him into the air. Let’s look on the bright side: thanks to this, and all those times he’s fallen attempting to kick the football when Lucy pulled it out from under him, we know he’s prepared for all the spills an aspiring skater takes on the ice. We’re probably going to have to enlist a sports psychologist for this one, though. The fact that he’s an analytical type means he’s capable of thinking through every aspect of the sport, yet I suspect, for this same reason that he might be an over-thinker…Really, something’s got to give for this guy! I believe that, under the right tutelage, skating could be a huge boon to his confidence. And even though I don’t usually condone this, I’d recommend that he quit school, since nobody can understand what his teachers are saying, anyway. Furthermore, I’m thinking we could snazzy up the zigzag on his yellow shirt with some black sequins…and commission Shroeder to compose some perfect music.

Big Bird: Well, his limbs are a little long and his middle a bit thick, but height is good for ice dance and we’re always in need of new male partners. You know how people are always saying that the constant movement of skating skirts makes skaters look like they’re moving faster? Just imagine how all his feathers would fly!

The Tazmanian Devil: This guy is a natural spinner and he’s already a master of twizzles. For jumps, we’d just have to focus on his lift-off. And we might have to work on getting him a little lighter on his feet, so he doesn’t tear up the ice. In competitions, he’d have to skate last or the zamboni would have to come out and clean up after him (or perhaps they’d have to rebuild the rink…)

Betty Boop: She’s cute, she’s sexy, and she has already demonstrated a great deal of balance in those stilettos. I’m thinking she and Big Bird would make a stellar ice dance couple.

Papa Smurf: Two words…Adult Nationals. Another two words…Club President. Enough said.

I’m intrigued by both Dora and SpongeBob – they might have potential, I’m just not as familiar with them. I do hear that Dora already has a pretty lucrative career as an explorer. And I’m not sure about Spongebob’s rather square-ish body type. He’d certainly come in handy when the ice is wet, though.

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Who did I miss? Who are you gunning for? Click on comments below.

Do you think those Smart Cars are ridiculously cute? So does The Informer.  Click here.

Once an athlete, always an athlete, right? Hmm…unfortunately, this isn’t really the case.

Oh, those muscles, the flexibility, and that cardiovascular strength I took for granted, until they were long gone.

One of the crazy things about growing up as a skater, or perhaps as an athlete of any kind, is that “working out” and being “in shape” were basically byproducts of the larger pursuit. We trained for all those hours and of course did all that off-ice cross-training – weights, stretching, and dance classes – but this focus had very little to do with appearance or even health. It was about getting stronger, faster, better, improving skills in order to maximize our programs (and scores).

When all that is over and done, it’s strange to exercise for exercise’s sake. You want to maintain some semblance of that former shape, yet how to muster the motivation?

Many non-skaters and non-coaches in my life often proclaim, “You’re so lucky to be on the ice, working-out all day!” Granted, it’s true that we coaches probably expend more physical energy than those who are hunched over their computers 40 or more hours per week (exactly what I’m doing at this minute, by the way). Really, though, aside from an occasional (and highly risky) demonstration and some gliding around with students, we’re not “working out” at all. It’s kind of like the jobs I’ve had in retail: you’re on your feet just enough to exhaust you but not quite enough to qualify as exercise.

So, over the years, I’ve dabbled with yoga, pilates, power walking, and ice hockey (more on the latter some other time – the tales on that topic are numerous and entertaining, indeed.) For the last few years, I’ve belonged to that dreaded thing called a GYM: the local YMCA. I visit this gym exactly once per week, no more, no less – once is all I can tolerate.

It’s pretty much drudgery. While there, I lift some barbells so tiny you need a microscope to see them; I fold myself in half on the crunch machine certain I’m contracting lice even through the towel I put under my head; I stretch on the mats trying not to think about germs; I ride o’er hill and vale on the stationery bike; and then I force myself to…drumroll, please… run on the treadmill.

I detest the treadmill. The only way I get through it is thanks to the distracting power of People Magazine. If there isn’t a new edition on the magazine rack, I throw a silent yet violent inner tantrum. All I can do, instead, is watch good ol’ Rachel Ray and The View, in closed captioning on the TV looming above, the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen a few annoying seconds after they’re spoken.

I have to be careful: despite all the skating and the balance you’d think would go along with this sport, I am kind of…well, klutzy. I drop things, spill drinks, and trip over invisible seams in sidewalks. For example, during my latest adventure in homemade soup, I managed to overturn a burning-hot portion of it so that it sizzled its way through my hand. Point is, I’ve had a few mishaps on the treadmill. Think about Lucille Ball, if she were going to visit the gym. That would make a great episode of I Love Lucy, but in real life it’s a source of vague terror and potential embarrassment.

Yet, I force myself. What has made it slightly easier in the last few months (even when People Magazine didn’t come through for me) is that I’ve had a distinct goal: I signed up for the Midnight Run in Central Park, a 4-miler that starts at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve. I did this wacky run five years ago and it was one of the more memorable New Years of my life. It was time to try it again.

I enlisted four friends to run with me and started “training”. Ha! What I mean is that I started running on the treadmill for 15 minutes then increased that by either one or two minutes every week so that for my last run of 2008 I was up to 29 minutes. In other words, an absolute eternity.

I’m not sure if skaters should run. I tend to think it’s a little too jarring on the knees. It certainly makes mine feel somewhat creaky and this bothers me since one of the main things I coach (and demonstrate) on ice is kneebend. But I was yearning for a goal and a New Year’s plan apart from the usual debauchery.

It’s hard to say what’s more challenging about the Midnight Run: staying awake and pumped for it (thanks Beyoncé) or weathering the cold. Our pre-party at my apartment was like a festival of layering interspersed with uncontrollable bouts of dancing (again, thanks Beyoncé). The temperature this year was 17 degrees and with wind chill the radio said it was going to feel like 5 below – I would have said more like 50 below, but who am I to niggle? The winds were gusting at 25 miles per hour. Eek – it was even colder than the rink! The funny thing is that, once we started running, we discovered that there was lots of ice underfoot. Of course, this caused me to think, I should have brought my skates, har har, a notion I would have shared with the group if I hadn’t been panting so hard.

A particularly tall and handsome member of our running group runs this loop in the park all the time so he was preparing us for what was ahead. “We’re going to go up again, then back down, then flat, then up, then down, then that same thing about three more times, and then we’re done!” He made those next 2,000 miles sound so simple. One member of our group was like a lightening bolt out ahead. I tried to line myself up right behind her to see if I could get any benefits from drafting, like cyclists do. One of us had to stop “to re-tie her sneakers” twice, but everyone saw right through that as a resting ploy (and appreciated it). The fifth member of our group boldly took off his mittens mid-race in defiance of the cold. I was certain his fingers were going to freeze then fall off but they apparently stayed attached.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that it was fun. It was kind of like skating with all those other teams back at the University of Delaware when I was a teenager. It was difficult and sometimes painful, but it felt like we were all in it together. Besides, the long-dormant athlete in me enjoyed having that goal: the finish line. Okay, and also the all-night diner we planned to visit afterwards where they would be serving French fries for as far as the eye could see (or that’s how I was envisioning it, anyway, during that tough patch around mile 3.5).

Will I do the Midnight Run again? Yes. After all, I really like fries…

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Happy New Year! Hope you also had an excellent one. What did you do? Leave a comment below.

Thanks to my fellow runners and thanks to everyone for your extremely kind comments in my last installment.

To see some impressive photojournalism and read more scintillating details about the Midnight Run in the words of The Informer (me), click here.

I’m finding that there are millions of different ways to explain skating techniques and millions of ways to try and verbally convince skaters to change their positions and habits. For example, I think I’ve come up with at least 45,000 ways of describing appropriate skating posture, involving eagles, giraffes, trees, prairie dogs, toboggans, starfish, pita bread (bad) versus a slice of bread (good), walls, arrows, guards at Buckingham Palace, and the list goes on…

I’ve even managed to plug good old Starbucks in the posture discussion. I’ll say something to my student like: “Don’t you stand straight and look up in order to place your order of… <Depending on the season, I insert hot chocolate or frappaccino, here, both of which are more advisable and kid-friendly than the Double Tall 74-Shot latte I’m currently drinking>?” I continue: “Don’t you look up at the sign while you’re walking toward the barista? If you can walk without looking at the floor, then you can skate without looking at the ice. That’s all we’re asking for, here.”

Still, despite all the various tricks I pull out of my (wool) hat, I can’t always get my messages across. Sometimes, I’m downright stumped. I’ll scratch my head and wonder how on earth I can get such and such skater to straighten her free leg. I mean, she knows what “straight” is, she knows what I mean by “locked”…she even knows she should be emulating spaghetti noodles before they go into the pot rather than afterwards. And, she can straighten her leg while standing at the boards. Then, out on the ice: Bent! Loose! Limp as a cooked noodle!

Well, I asked the universe for a solution and it recently came to me: Champion Cords invented by coach Sheila Thelan. These are basically bungee type cords that attach skaters’ hands to their feet. These cords create tension and resistance that help the skaters to be more aware of their limbs and torso. Thelan, of Minnesota, got the idea in 2003 while teaching a student who was struggling with her axel. She wanted to tie the skater’s left hand and left foot together so that she would move as a unit. She found some bungee cord in the rink and did just that. The results were immediate.  

The cords are easily attached to the laces with a hook, then looped around the bottom of the skate and hooked again to keep it secure. Champion Cords offers a few different types of hooks, including the Triple Hook and the S-Hook. I have tried both and have found the S hook to be a little easier to work with, once your hands are cold. On the other end of the cord, there is a loop that just fits around the wrist like a bracelet. 

Before trying them out on my students, I took them for a test run, myself. It was a strange sensation for the first few strokes, to be connected to these strings. Though there was no Gepetto in the rafters, I felt like a marionette. After stroking around for a while and doing a few basic exercises, I started to notice a few things. For one, my arms were getting quite tired: it was taking a surprising amount of strength to hold them up. (Oh the gym, the gym, that dreaded and oft-avoided destination.) I could imagine that this challenge would also benefit my students. Second, I noted that I was stretching my limbs and my neck a bit longer than usual. Aha! I felt like the “starfish on skates” I’m always blabbering about. Finally, I experienced a heightened awareness of how I was positioning my body and, as a result, an overall sense of deliberateness. It was a very cool feeling.

I was even inspired to try a spiral, something I haven’t dared to attempt in public for several years. I’m not going to say that the cords helped me get my leg to Sasha or Nancy elevation, or anything, but the tension created a sense of security and a bit more balance. I think I looked pretty decent, for such a long hiatus. (The plexiglass wouldn’t lie, would it? )

In fact, these are all the things I noticed in my students when I proceeded to rig them up with cords for stroking, for pulls, for spirals, etc. Suddenly, shoulders were back, arms were straight, and legs were lifted higher. At first, they giggled and skated a bit hesitantly, just like I did. And, by the way, almost every single one of them commented (unprompted by me, I swear) that they felt like a marionette or a puppet. I could see that they were experiencing that increased awareness in their limbs and shoulders. Then, when I took the cords off, this awareness seemed to stick. I’m not saying the lesson is miraculously long-lasting, or anything, but we’re aiming for muscle-memory, here, and these cords are an extremely helpful tool. They’re like flashcards in the game of memorization. 

Since I teach mostly moves and dance, this is what I have used them for, so far. But each set of cords purchased on the Champion Cords website comes with an instructional DVD featuring skaters wearing the cords (either on just one side of the body or both) for jumps and spins. I can imagine that the tension of these cords would help to create similar awareness and alignment for these as well. The DVD also demonstrates an alternative way to use the cords to assist with posture: looping the cords around both wrists so that it’s behind the shoulder blades. This helps skaters feel that line and horizontal stretch.

Anyway, I’ll keep using this new contraption. I’m interested to see what results I can get from here (though I’ll probably also keep racking my brain for new analogies.) The kids have enjoyed using them, so it’s a nice breath of fresh air in my teaching regimen. 

I recommend these for you or your skaters. They are endorsed by the PSA and lots of coaches: Frank Carroll, Audrey Weisiger and Paul Wylie have used and applauded them. ‘Tis the season of gift giving and I for one am swinging toward the more practical rather than the frivolous end of the spectrum. These are a great pick. Click here to learn more and to purchase.

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What about you? Have you tried Champion Cords? Are you an actual marionette by trade, birth, or profession? If so, remember that imitation is the best form of flattery. Finally, if you are the one person in the world who looks down at his feet when ordering at Starbucks, and you’re planning to poke a hole in that brilliant posture analogy of mine, please don’t click on Comment below. All others: you are very welcome to do so.

In these increasingly troubled economic times, I think rather than compulsively purchasing new items it’s important to take stock of everything we already own and consider whether or not we’re allowing each of our possessions to fulfill their maximum potential.

For example, we invest a lot of money into our figure skates. Has a regular person (i.e. non-skater) ever asked you how much skates cost? Did you have to pick her up off the floor or rush her to the ER to get her jaw re-attached after you told her? 

I’m not saying we should stop buying the things, I think we should just get as much use out of them as possible. We should be inspired by Tom Hanks in that movie, Cast Away, where he’s stranded on a desert island after a plane crash. A bunch of Fed Ex boxes drift ashore and lo and behold one box contains…ice skates. My mother recently caught this movie on TV and reminded me of the scene where he has a toothache: he uses the skate blade for a little impromptu self-dentistry. Horrifying! And brilliant. This is exactly what I’m talking about, here: we need to think outside the rink.

So here are some other suggested alternative uses for figure skates…

Self Defense: Who needs mace, pepper spray or a karate class when you have your skates at the ready? Potential attackers will be surprised, I guarantee. 

Butter Knives: This is a no-brainer. We’ve been using dull skates for this purpose for years. And it’s a fact: butter officially makes everything better.

Whittling Tool: Just think how easily you could take care of your entire Christmas list (and especially if you use your skates to also chop down the tree). What boyfriend hasn’t always wanted a tiny wooden owl figurine? What grandmother doesn’t want a nice skull and crossbones? And don’t be too hard on yourself here: remember that beauty is often in the imperfections.  

Turkey Carvers: In many households across the country, carving the turkey on Thanksgiving is a coveted role. Who can deny you this honor after you get your skates freshly sharpened? Stand up in the dining room with them on your hands then perform a dramatic, so-fast-it’s-blurry knife show á la Edward Scissorhands.

Mirror: The only obstacle here is access… Mirror mirror on my foot, who’s the most flexible of them all?

Juggling: Let’s face it, that act with the bowling pins and the torches is getting really old. Granted, you’ll have to get a second pair so that your show includes three skates, but maybe shops could start selling skates individually for this purpose.

Shoes: Boots this expensive should get some serious mileage. Slap some guards on the bottom and you’re ready for all sorts of terrain. In fact, I see a huge opportunity for the guard industry. There are already illuminated styles perfect for the disco, but what about guards with cleats? Stilettos? Soles rugged enough for hiking? Hey look, stock prices for blade guards just went up .0004 points. See? We’re onto something.

Icee Shavors: Kids love this icy treat and we could all use a little extra practice on our snowplow stops. With a just few different types of flavoring and some cardboard cups, you can get a good side business going and give the snack bar a run for its money.

Getaway Vehicles: As long as there’s enough ice, you can escape any situation, literally or figuratively, with these gems on your feet. See turkey above.

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What did I miss? Please contribute by clicking on Comments below.

And I know, I know, ’tis the season to be thankful, but I have a few very specific pet peeves to gripe about. Click on Cusp of Greatness here.

So I was going to post a book review today, but that will have to wait until next week. Something funny – well, more like “traumatic” – happened to me on the way to the rink on Wednesday morning and I feel compelled to share this tale of woah. In last year’s post entitled, “Morning Madness,” (to read, click here), I detailed my extreme difficulty with the morning shift. While some people seem to coach at the crack of dawn with relative ease, for me, it’s practically torture.

It’s not just that it’s cold, or that it’s early, or that I have trouble pretending I’m human at that hour. It’s also that weird things seem to occur when it’s still dark, and there are less people around to witness you then lend a helping hand if you need one. There’s a creepy vibe in the air.  

This is how I felt the time when I still lived in the suburbs and I had an early morning, pre-rink show-down with a skunk in my driveway: it was like an old western movie, except he was the only one with a weapon. This is how I felt the time a cop brought the entire highway to a stop and then singled me out to pull over. My heart skipped several beats and I squeezed the steering wheel wondering if I’d been weaving across lanes in a daze, or if I’d been going 1000 miles an hour, or if I’d accidentally robbed an ATM machine in my sleep.  I guess they were looking for someone specific: maybe my car fit the description yet I did not because as soon as he shined his flashlight on frightened me, he waved me away with disappointed disgust.

Then there was the morning last year when I was on the Bruckner Expressway, minding my own business and a huge bag of trash appeared in my lane. The SUV ahead of me practically toppled sideways in an attempt to swerve around it. I made the split-second decision to instead align my wheels on either side so I could just sail over it. Well, it was too big: it grabbed onto the bottom of my car and held on so that within seconds my car filled with the noxious scent of burning trash. In my rearview mirror, I could see that sparks were flying and it looked like my car was pooping trash down the road. People alongside me were pointing in horror and indicating that I should stop, but I couldn’t figure out a safe place to do so.

When I was finally able to pull over, I saw that the bag was lodged in place and because it had started to melt on the bottom of my car, it just wouldn’t budge. There happened to be a sanitation worker parked nearby, but he responded to my damsel-in-distress request for help with a shrug of his shoulders and an unapologetic “sorry” before taking another bite of his Egg McMuffin. So I just laid down on the filthy ground, kicked at that bag angrily, and chiseled it away one nasty chunk at a time with my little ice scraper. When I finally got to the rink, I was practically in tears and, though I was already late, I washed my hands about 42 times. Later, my trusty mechanic put my car on the lift and removed gunk from its underbelly with the help of a blowtorch and a razorblade.

This leads me to my latest early morning misadventure. There I was at 5:45 AM last Wednesday, at a red light, waiting to turn onto 9A. I’d already been awake for an hour and in the car for 30 minutes. This is the time when I traditionally work up the nerve to look at myself in the rearview mirror. After wincing, I decide that maybe some lipstick will help. I reached into my purse and out jumped…A MOUSE.

It scurried right across my lap and disappeared in the darkness at my feet. I proceeded to scream at the top of my lungs and convulse with heebie jeebies violent to the point of whiplash. I turned on the interior lights in order to see better. Where was it? Would it crawl up my pant leg? Should I get out of the car and run for my life?

I noticed that my brother happened to be at the light right in front of me, as he was scheduled to start his lessons at the same ungodly time. If I could just get to the rink, which was only about 3 minutes away, surely he would save me from this unexpected invader. My brother would later report that he could see some woman freaking out in the car behind him, but couldn’t tell it was me. He claimed that either his “facial recognition software hadn’t yet fully booted up for the day” or that my face was so “twisted with terror” that I did not look like myself.  He thought maybe “this lady” had spilled scalding coffee on her lap.  

When the light changed, I sped out in front of him like a banshee, shrieking. I don’t think I ran any red lights but it’s all a blur. I still couldn’t see the little guy and I had no idea whether he was under my seat, under my tensed foot, or perched on the visor by my face. Now this was torture. It made the simple act of getting out of bed seem like a pleasure in comparison.  

When I got to the rink, I jumped out of the car as if it was on fire and leapt from foot to foot spastically. “Mouse! Mouse!” I screeched, pointing to my car when my brother pulled up. “In purse,” I added, in a state of shock, as he started to laugh.

He swiftly took my bags out and sat them on the ground on their sides, as if to allow a whole family of rodents to exit. Then he slid the seats back and forth and peered under them, chuckling the whole time. It was evident that he was amused but I’m pretty sure he was also somewhat squeamish. We didn’t see the interloper, but it was pitch dark out, so he could have been burrowing anywhere or he could have made his escape right when I did.

Okay, so he was admittedly teeny, maybe two inches long. I’ve seen mice before and a few more, recently. The landlord is supposedly on the case. I live in New York, so, to a degree I’ve had to accept living in “close quarters” in many senses. For this reason, I keep my place clean, I keep all my food in the refrigerator (even dry goods), and I always leave my bags on a chair. But I guess the climbing talents of such critters cannot be underestimated.

After I taught my lessons, I approached my car as if it contained a bomb. I tiptoed around it and inspected the interior in the daylight. My brother helped me extract and inspect everything from my trunk, as my stockpile of scarves and mittens would certainly provide excellent nesting opportunities. We didn’t see any stowaways. Paranoid and positive it was going to scramble across me again at any moment, I nervously drove to the car wash and vacuumed. Still, I saw nothing. Maybe he’s still hiding in there somewhere, as one friend insists, or maybe he’s long gone. I’m just not sure I’ll ever be the same, in a psychological sense. 

I keep replaying the morning: was he snoozing cozily while I ate my dry cereal and listened to the reports of the presidential election? Was he snooping around the car while I drove? Or was he, as my brother suggested, having a grand ol’ time in my bag, listening to my ipod, chewing my gum and putting on my make-up? (Lipstick on a mouse!) I don’t know. I’m just glad he didn’t scurry up my arm when I reached in there for the car keys. I’m also glad the “moment of discovery” happened while stopped at a light instead of on the highway.

In times of trauma such as these, I know it’s important to appreciate and acknowledge the support of friends and family.

So thank you to my brother for his prompt heroics. Thanks to my skating student who suggested I invite a cat to stroll around the inside of my car. And thanks to the same student who contended that mice, with their cute little pink bellies, soft fur, and tiny paws, are far more afraid of us than we are of them (though, in my case she is downright wrong). Thanks to the zamboni driver who offered, through laughter, to set a mousetrap. Thanks to everyone who humored me when I wondered aloud whether or not I should call in an exterminator.

Thanks to my mother who was appropriately dismayed by this tale/tail and admitted she would have gone equally berserk. Thanks to the friend who suggested that the mouse just wanted to help out by handing my lipstick to me. (Come to think of it, I’ve always thought it would be nice to have an assistant…)Thanks to the friend who suggested I set out some food in my car overnight to see if any nibble marks would show up in it the next day. When I was leaving her house, she provided a fancy Carr’s cracked pepper cracker (only the best) for this purpose.

Finally, thanks to the friend who posited that the mouse actually had amorous intentions and is now feeling low and rejected. This same friend insists that, having been dropped off at the rink, the mouse has very likely been inspired to become a skater. Maybe he’s working on his jumps right now in order to win my affection.

I am happy to report that I’m doing better. Those early morning freestyle sessions are so clear and productive that I just have to bounce back. There never were any nibbles on that cracker. But I now carry my purse over my shoulder at all times when I’m home, even while I’m cooking dinner, brushing my teeth, and going to bed. I think I’m going to get one with an industrial-strength zipper. And a padlock. Likewise, maybe I’ll get the interior lights of my car replaced with spotlights for improved visibility… 

But surely nothing this crazy will ever happen again in the early morning, right? Right?

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What about you? Anything weird ever happen to you on the way to work? Please share by leaving a comment below…

Truth be told, this unfortunately isn’t my first run-in with a rodent. If you didn’t already read about Ratgate 2008, click here.

Yup, I love Halloween. It’s silly, it’s goofy, it’s creative. It involves devilish amounts of candy. What’s better than that?

This past weekend, lots of kiddies in my neighborhood (socialites that they are) were making their rounds to Halloween pre-parties. I spotted a bumblebee, a tiny Sponge Bob, and a few impressive action heroes I wasn’t up-to-date enough on my cartoons to identify. I saw a father dressed as a king and a mom dressed as a cat. This, in my opinion, is a beautiful thing.

I have some big costume plans for Friday…I just have to work out a few kinks. Okay, I still have to work out all the kinks. First, it was essential that I carved my joc-o-lantern (see above).

Of course, this time of year, I’m forced to think about Halloweens gone by. A skating friend and I were talking over the phone about what costumes her three kids are going to wear – Peter Pan, Hello Kitty, and a Pirate. This led us to the topic of Halloween-past and she revealed that in 4^th Grade, she dressed up as a Skating Instructor. She carried a clipboard and wore her skates (with guards) around school all day! Now that’s an homage.   

One of my fondest (and maybe funniest) Halloween memories took place at the Madison Ice Arena when I was little. The Figure Skating Club of Madison’s Halloween party that year was going to be a club fundraiser, a Skate-a-Thon for which we were supposed to get sponsors to donate something like 10 cents for every lap we could skate around the rink.

I was personally thrilled with this idea, since we would be doing our laps in costume. My older brother was pleased as well, albeit for different reasons. In several ways, he had already proven himself to be quite a businessman, so he threw himself wholeheartedly into raising money.

Sure enough, he got tons of sponsors. With his help, I also got a few, though my primary focus was really on the costumes. We were going to be Popeye and Olive Oyl. This was mostly our mother’s idea (and it was/is important to ignore the fact that they were a romantic “couple”), but I was delighted and my brother went along with it, probably figuring there were worse get-ups we could foist on him. (And, wow, was he right…oh the skating outfits I would end up forcing him to wear.)     

In order to make Brad’s arms look cartoonishly muscular, our mom cut up a pair of my old ballet tights and stuffed them with mounds of cotton for him to wear like sleeves. She then embroidered an anchor tattoo on one arm with yarn. She found him a pipe and a sailor hat.

I wore my hair in a low bun and Olive Oyl’s iconic black and white striped tights with a red sweater and a black skirt. Even though my mother’s big red, clip-on earrings pinched my ears numb, I loved them.

When we arrived at the party, I remember that everybody had a good chuckle over our costumes. My brother immediately sat down to lace up his skates and I bee-lined for a table displaying an assortment of orange and black cupcakes.   

Though my brother was not necessarily the fastest skater in the club at that point, he was determined to do more laps than anyone else. While the rest of us skated around at a medium clip, blabbing about nothing in particular, he leaned forward like a speedskater, in order to make himself more aerodynamic. With a grin on his face, he of course skated circles around the rest of us, literally, and raised lots of money, all the while holding a can of spinach.

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How about you? Any good Halloween memories? What are you going to “be” (such an existential question) this weekend? Click on “comment” below. I promise I won’t steal your idea. Then again…if you’re in a different state, or on a different continent, or even in a different borough, would it really matter? Come on…

And if you want to see some fab Manhattan decorations as identified by The Informer (me), Click here.

To: My power skating students and the skaters of the world         Re: The benefits of power skating

It has come to my attention that you hate power skating class. Some of you told me this directly. At the beginning of class, you said in no uncertain terms, with an extremely whiney voice and slumped shoulders, “Awww, I hate power skating.”

Some of you used to do power skating but haven’t been back in a long time, thereby letting your absence do the talking. Maybe there was that one class where you tried really hard and then you woke up the next day screaming in pain, as if a boatload of sailors had extracted the muscles from your legs then used them for knot-tying practice. You didn’t realize that this was the “desired” result, in fact, essentially the whole point.

Others of you keep showing up to class but you let me know how much you hate power skating (and, by the transitive property, me) by that expression on your face, the one where you manage to throw daggers from your eyeballs with such uncanny precision that I now must come to class carrying a protective, metal shield. Soon, I’ll be trading in my down coat for a full suit of armor.   

Some of you have never tried power skating or even heard of it. If this is the case, you could probably be in a lot better shape, you could probably be far more powerful, you could probably skate your programs, your dances and your moves with lot more speed and ease. If you were to take up power skating, you might even be a better human being, in every possible, conceivable way.  Okay…maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

Power skating is like rigorous exercise class in skates, and specifically, it’s on-ice interval training. In other words: exertion, rest, exertion, rest, and so on, usually for about 30 minutes. The rest period isn’t time for you to lie down on the ice and whimper, as you may feel compelled to do, but to glide around at a lower intensity and prepare for the next exercise.  The exercises can vary from simple stroking to complex footwork steps, depending on level and experience.

If you have a good class, and you push yourself to do your absolute best, what you can expect is that your lungs will feel as if they have caught on fire and sweat will spray from your pores as if they are shower spouts. Your face will turn neon red and steam will rise off your body like smoke.

As a result of exhaustion, your skates may start to feel as heavy as cinder blocks, increasing the likelihood of tripping over your toepicks. Indeed, you might fall down, slide into your fellow power skaters, and knock into them like a set of equally-tired bowling pins. You might even slam your chin into the unforgiving ice. 

Sound miserable? Perhaps. But it’s like medicine: even though it might taste horrible going down, it will make you better.      

My brother and I developed our class several years ago with a series of fast footwork exercises, steps that work the entire body, including the torso and the arms, in addition to the legs and the ankles. These are mostly skated on circles, with either one, two, or three separate circles on the ice surface, depending on how many skaters have had the good sense to show up. We put the whole thing to music so we didn’t have to skate around with a stopwatch and a whistle. This way, we can focus all our energy on chasing skaters like crazy banshees, and, of course yelling frightening encouragements like, “Go, go, go!” “You can skate faster!” “Bend your knees!” and the surprisingly necessary, “Don’t forget to breathe!”

I have a friend who is a skating coach and a trained exercise physiologist. Having read lots of studies on the subject and put the theories to practice herself, she is a big believer in interval training. She says that this is a great way to build stamina for skaters. Interval training more closely mimics figure skating programs than continuous exercise because there are similar physiological changes happening in the body throughout a program, such as increases in fatigue and changes in heart rate, etc.   

My brother and I were first exposed to power skating by the late Pieter Kollen, a figure skating coach who also did power classes with hockey players. This was during summer skating camp in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  The mornings after power skating classes, my brother and I would lie in our beds and repeat the phrase, “Oh my legs,” with exaggerated misery over and over again, until it became one pathetic word, “Ohmaleggs.”

The thing is, my brother was an enthusiastic student of power skating; he knew it was beneficial and seemed to enjoy the pain. He was always up in front, trying to out skate whoever was ahead of him. He pushed himself to his limits then redefined them. Every once in a while, I see a few determined skaters driving themselves similarly and loving it.  

Me? Well, like many of you, I hated power skating. I can admit this.

I chugged along, I tried, but also used up far too much energy throwing those dagger glares. So I know it’s hard. I know it hurts. But I also know that power skating helped me become a stronger, faster, more powerful athlete than I was previously. And I’ve witnessed it do the same for many others.  

So go ahead, I invite you to hate it exactly as much or even more than I did. But do it. Grit your teeth, scrunch up your face, glare at me angrily then bend your knees and SKATE. You’ll be glad you did.

Oh, and by the way, don’t even think about escaping over to the boards to take an extra long swig from your water bottle or to take off your jacket in a leisurely fashion, one zipper notch at a time. Nice try, though.

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You? Have you experienced or witnessed the splendors of power skating? Click on comment, below.  

She skates faster than a speeding bullet.
Glides with more power than a locomotive.
She triple axels over tall buildings in a single bound.

Look up in the sky!
It’s a bird, it’s a rhinestone-studded plane. No, wait, it’s Skaterwoman!

Are you concerned about what’s going on in the world today and even a little scared? Nervous about the faltering economy? The endless war? The rapid depletion of natural resources?

Have no fear, Skaterwoman is here! She’s been training for this moment. She’s all warmed up, stretched out, and it takes her less than .0000000004 seconds to lace her skates. So just breathe a sigh of relief and sit back to enjoy the performance.

In the next four minutes, Skaterwoman will not only “balance” all the budgets in the land, her spinning will generate enough alternative energy to power the entire planet.

Her smile will melt the hearts of the coldest dictators and her dove-like grace will smooth over international disputes. Besides, you’ll see that she can touch her foot to her head, fly like a camel, shoot ducks with her eyes closed, and stealthily disguise herself as a pancake.

Most impressively, the ease with which she transports herself from place to place will inspire commuters across the universe to abandon their gas-guzzling cars and instead travel to work in their own skates.

Trust me: she skates softly, but she wears big blades.

And so, without further delay, I present the one and only super-heroine who can rescue us from this mess…Skaterwoman!

(Pause.)

(Silence.)

Wait, is the stereo broken again?

Skaterwoman, can you please save the world without the music today?

No? Okay. Well folks, I forgot to mention that Skaterwoman is also a larger-than-life primadonna. I guess we’ll just have to figure something else out.  

So I finally gave in to something I’ve been resisting for a long time. I’d been getting these e-mail invitations from friends to join that social networking site Facebook. No offense, guys, but I deleted them. I mean, I already have about 502 separate e-mail accounts and at least 75,000 websites I need to check in with on a daily basis. How much more can a girl do?

And I know myself: I’m a social creature. I’m prone to blabbing on the phone for hours on end, going out to dinner with friends eight nights a week, and writing jokey e-mails all day long. Besides, I am an avid and (despite what my teenage cousins think) speedy texter.

Outwardly, I played it like I just couldn’t be bothered with one of these online social networks – “Look, I’m already in touch with everyone I want to be in touch with!” – but secretly I knew I could become an addict.

And that’s exactly what’s happened. I joined up about two weeks ago in response to some particularly enthusiastic peer pressure. It’s a good thing I don’t have a Blackberry or a fancy iPhone – otherwise I might be logged onto Facebook every waking moment. What’s remarkable is that I’m not on it right now. Wait, let me just check to see if I have any new Facebook messages….okay, I’m back.

So, other than wasting gobs of precious time and serving as a procrastinatory crutch, what is the point of all these sites, like Facebook, Friendster, and MySpace? I suppose, like the internet as a whole, they make the world a smaller, cozier place by connecting you to others…instantaneously. Feeling lonely? Facebook. Feeling friendless? Log onto Facebook. Questioning whether or not you exist? There you are onscreen, smiling from the picture on your “profile page”. And there you are typing a quippy little note on your “wall” for all to see.   

In some ways, it’s the new address book. If you manage your “Friends” page meticulously enough, you can put together a pretty thorough list of just about everyone you’ve ever known (and some you never knew, or maybe you did, but it’s getting a little fuzzy…).

Granted, Facebook fulfills different purposes depending on your age. I can’t speak for other age groups, but for those of us who are over the age of say, 20 or 25, this site is a slick way of traveling backwards through time. Very few of us stick around our hometowns, anymore: I myself have moved six times since leaving Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin at age 14. I have attended several different schools and have had lots of different jobs. Try as I have, it has been nearly impossible to stay in touch with everyone who I have genuinely enjoyed being acquainted with over the years.

And skaters of the world are an especially amorphous group. I have been associated with several different ice rinks and skating clubs. From both competing and training, I know skaters from all over the country and I’ve never had any organized way of keeping up with them…until now. It’s not like there are reunions or a directory of “past skaters.” In the last two weeks, I have contacted and been contacted by all kinds of flashes from my skating past: people I’ve often wondered about. It’s great to have them on my so-called radar, now, and vice versa. And we didn’t have to hire private detectives to track each other down. 

Of course, it’s still not possible to be in really close, meaningful contact with everyone you’ve ever known, even with the help of a conduit as smooth as this. I have to resist the urge to individually e-mail all the people who have “friended” me or vice versa: I’d enjoy doing so, but I’d never have time to leave my house again. On that note, I have to wonder when I see that some Facebookers (mostly those under the age of 25) have more than 500 friends – do they really know all these people or are they just amassing friends of friends of friends? What percentage of these people are they managing to be in contact with? 

If you can keep control of your Facebook experience (or maybe just accept that control isn’t really possible), it’s a hoot. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself chuckling a lot. Like, “Oh, yeah, her. Wow, she lives in Seattle, now. Who knew?” You might also find yourself going to dinner with two long lost friends from high school on Thursday night. 

If you haven’t joined Facebook yet, then I think you’re time has come. You’re not the last person on earth who hasn’t done so, but I have a feeling you will be, soon. So here’s what you do:

First, go to the Facebook Website by clicking here. Signing up is free – while it will probably end up costing you many many valuable work hours, they never ask you for your credit card number, an admirable and rare thing.

Upload a picture of yourself looking fabulous. (Or, in my case, the best one you can find…and then get a friend to de- redeye it in Photoshop so you no longer look like the devil.) Try to not cringe too visibly when one of your skating students remarks how dorky you look in it and suggests you switch it out for something a little “sexier” i.e. without the glasses. 

From there, you just fill out a few general details about yourself, like where you went to high school and college and where you live and what websites you may be associated with that you want to shamelessly promote, wink wink. 

This next part is when it starts to get interesting: you start to amass “friends.” The first step is allowing Facebook to rifle through your e-mail address book to identify all the people you know who are already in the so-called club. By simply checking their boxes, you will be requesting their Facebook friendship and, unless they still owe you money, the chances are very high that they’ll accept.

Once you start collecting Facebook friends, you can go through their personal lists to see who you know, and contact those individuals as well, forging more and more paths in this gigantic online maze. Along the way, over in the right hand column of your  “home page,” Facebook will be constantly suggesting people you might know, based on their association with someone you already have on your list…and, as a matter of fact, you will know lots of them. Lo and behold, some of them have just sent you a request to be their friend. Receiving such requests might give you a nice tingly feeling: it’s like getting a “Will you be my friend?” note passed to you across a few desks in the second grade.

Finally, using the Facebook “search” function, you can also look up individuals one by one, but just make sure you know the exact spelling of his or her name…and also hope that they have a unique spelling because, according to Wikipedia, there are over 100 million Facebook users worldwide…and, I’ve found, for example, that many of them seem to have the exact same name as that one guy I dated for 10 minutes in high school.

But, in this way, I successfully found a friend from grade school in Wisconsin who I haven’t seen in more than…well, let’s just say many many years. Turns out that, though she now lives in Minneapolis, she often comes to visit my exact neighborhood in New York City. We’re going to meet up next time she comes through town – and I am thrilled about this prospect.

I will also be thrilled to stumble upon your lovely mugshot on Facebook, whether you’ve already jumped on the bandwagon or this CSOM installment is inspiring you to join up. Either way, I cordially invite you to be-”friend” me, Facebook style, by clicking here.

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What do you think? Is Facebook a waste of time, or the perfect conduit, or both? Leave a comment below.      

I’m back. I hope your summer was excellent and that your fall is coming together nicely.

Geeky as it may be, I used to love going back to school in September, mostly because that meant obtaining a new pencil case and also partly because of those What I Did This Summer reports we got to write. Of course, I also adored Show and Tell day, so imagine me reading this report in front of a classroom with the blackboard behind me… 

Let me clear my throat and shift around up here somewhat nervously as I look out at the rest of you folded into your little desks…okay. So this summer, in addition to coaching, I did lots of writing, which involved obscene amounts of java, bleary eyes, and tense typing shoulders (otherwise known as “boulder shoulder” in certain circles.) For better or worse, my skin tone remained utterly unchanged. Rink tan + coffee shop tan = frightening white.

I did stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge once, meander through Central Park once, did enjoy the splendid view from a friend’s rooftop deck (24 floors above the city), watched the sun set once from a NYC bistro on the Hudson River, dined amid two flourishing gardens outside the city, and generally took advantage of as many sidewalk cafes as humanly possible. Mainly though, I tap danced my fingertips across my keyboard.

Recently, instead of telling my friends that I’m writing when they call, I say that I’m at the “office.” Of course, my office is nomadic; it includes a circuit of coffee shops (both in my neighborhood and beyond) and sometimes the desk in my apartment. I like how saying “office” sounds slightly official. I also like how it’s a bit unspecific. What I mean is that if I were to claim that I was writing, that might not literally be the case. I might in fact just be staring at the wall gearing up to write. Or I may be looking at my laptop screen, thinking. Or I may be fidgeting with my fingernails, thinking about gearing up to stare at my screen so I can think about writing. If I say I’m “at the office” this means I’m in the writing space, in the most general sense.

For example, I might answer my phone kind of softly so as to not annoy the fellow coffeeshoppers around me, “Hello?”

“You’re in ‘the office’ aren’t you?” my friend might say.

“Affirmative,” I might say back, cupping my hand over the phone and looking at the person at the table next to me with an apologetic this-won’t-be-long expression on my face.

“Okay,” my friend responds respectfully, but also probably smirking. “I’ll let you get back to work. I don’t want your boss to get mad.”

“Yeah, she’s been a real jerk so far today,” I say, furtively. “Call you later.”

Pretending I have an office and all-powerful writing boss helps me to best utilize the limited hours I’m away from the rink. But here’s the most beautiful thing…and can I get a drumroll for this please?… Here goes: if you put a space between the two syllables of the word office…you get ‘off ice’ and you don’t have to know me well to realize that I find this clever little word play downright delightful. 

So the main thing I worked on when I was off ice this summer was my book, called “Skate at Your own Risk.” Many have kindly requested to see this manuscript and have been denied that pleasure. For that, I apologize, but I believe that “all good things come to those who wait” and “patience is a virtue.” Trust me, the book doesn’t rely on clichés nearly as much as that last sentence might imply. I just want the thing to be fully cooked before I serve it up. Some of you have seen some snippets and others, if you’ve been reading this blog, have gotten a taste without even realizing it.

To “show” the other things I worked on this summer, I present the following three links:  

The first is an article about Tommy Litz for icenetwork describing his exciting foray into “phototivity.” I love to see how this sport can inform other areas of our lives and Tommy is making very cool connections between figure skating and art.  To read, click here.

The second is another article for icenetwork about the venerable Wayne Seybold – he is now the mayor of Marion, Indiana. My brother and I trained alongside him and his sister, Natalie, when we first arrived in Delaware as teenagers. The Seybolds were a huge inspiration to us back then so I was thrilled to interview him about all he’s gone on to accomplish since competing in the Olympics. To read, click here.

Finally, I am excited to announce that I have become a staff blogger for a website called Uppereast.com (because there just wasn’t enough blogging in my life already.) It’s called the Upper East Side Informer. This means I go around and review different businesses and events in this quadrant of New York City. Basically, it’s a matter of enlisting my friends to join me in eating, drinking, and gallivanting through the neighborhood, while I take notes along the way. By the way, from here on, if you’d like to refer to me as the The Informer (as a few people in my life have sarcastically begun to do), you are welcome to do so. To read, click here.

Enjoy, and check back next Tuesday. For the months ahead, I’ve got lots of funny lined up, reviews of skating products and books, interviews, and even some “hard-hitting” journalism (note quotation marks).

If you send this link on to others who might appreciate it, I’ll be forever grateful. And I can aim that gratitude more specifically in your direction if you leave a comment telling me you did so…okay, or just telling me anything at all.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in a few months ago on their favorite installments and who made suggestions for future ones. It’s good to be back!  

Back in January, I outlined (okay, whined about) the fact that coaching skating is “one of the coldest jobs in the universe.” Well, I’m happy to report that now it’s time to gloat.

For example, during a recent heat wave here in New York City, I found myself dialing up my non-skating friends to brag.

“Guess where I’m headed,” I said in the snotty tone of an eight year old who just got a new bike. I could envision my friend on the other end, slow-roasting in her apartment.

“Where?” she asked without interest, too hot and lethargic to actually play my little guessing game.

“Oh, just the ice rink. Yep,” I continued, “just taking my scarf and mittens over to that freezing workplace of mine.”

“Lucky,” she acknowledged, again without much enthusiasm and too overheated (or polite) to point out that I’d called to whimper about this same destination only six short months ago. After an awkward silence, she slowly said, “Look, I gotta go, I think my elbow just burst into flames.”

After we hung up, I dialed another friend to boast some more. I had a lot of time to fill since I was heading into work about four hours early.

Despite a well-meaning yet ineffectual air conditioner balanced precariously in my window, my apartment had become as hot as a sauna. As the temperature increased outside and the hot air easily climbed the five flights of stairs to my apartment, it started to seem more like an oven. When the sun rose, my “cozy” little nook started to resemble a broiler. The disturbing sizzling sound turned out to be emanating from my very own flesh.

Everything around me had looked as if it was starting to melt, kind of like the clock in that Salvador Dali painting. I was clearly becoming delirious. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move. The fact that I didn’t even want to eat was probably the most alarming aspect of my condition. I’d basically lost the will to do anything other than stare at my ceiling.

Suddenly, I remembered that it was Monday and this meant it was time to go back to work! Though the rink is 30 miles away from where I live, I could see it with complete clarity right before my eyes, glowing like a frosty, blue oasis with angels singing in the rafters. Nirvana. I imagined staggering into the arena, aiming directly toward the ice surface then lying face-down, gradually returning to my former self.    

I know that the sport of skating has been good for me in many ways but never before has it so obviously ensured my survival. Likewise, I enjoy my job, but I’d never headed toward it with quite this much enthusiasm. Granted, getting ready was no easy feat, since my fingers had swollen to the size of sausages and I had trouble fitting my hands through my shirtsleeves. Speaking of feet, I knew there was no chance mine were going to squeeze into my skates. No matter, I had every intention of going out onto the ice barefoot, anyway.

Once in the car, with the vents blowing AC on my face, I started to revive a bit. This is when I launched into that series of braggy phone calls. Afterwards, I felt somewhat guilty about flaunting my enviable work situation and I wondered, momentarily, if I really deserved such luxury. Of course I deserve this, I quickly decided. This is exactly what I earned when I contracted frostbite, hypothermia and shattered teeth (from chattering) during those long winter months.  

Still, it didn’t really seem fair that I got to seek sanctuary while others suffered. On the street, people wiped their brows in misery. Other rink-less souls tried to take cover from the sun under awnings while their dogs panted and tried to fan themselves with their own ears.    

What if? I thought. What if I rounded everyone up and took them to the rink? Sure, I’d like to buy the world a Coke, but I’d prefer to take them ice skating. By the busload. “Hop in!” I’d beckon from the driver’s seat. “Real refreshment awaits!” Then I’d deliver them to the hot-day version of heaven on earth. And for them, if only for a few hours, everything would be okay. Well, better than okay: Cool. 

All right, I don’t own a bus and I don’t have a license to operate large vehicles. And I can’t fit more than 3.5 people in my car. Though I do have a brain, albeit modestly-sized, and I really attempted to use it the next 30 or so minutes.

What if? I continued my earlier theme. What if everyone in the universe turned off their lights and air conditioners for one day then strutted on over to their local ice rinks to beat the heat? How much energy could be conserved in this manner?  It would be kind of like the cold version of carpooling. We could call it “coldpooling.” I’m surprised Al Gore failed to mention this concept in his otherwise brilliant documentary about the sorry state of our planet called, “An Inconvenient Truth.” I’ll have to discuss this with him next time I see him. 

I’d like to point out that the general public is wrong to only associate skating with winter. In fact, it should be the exact opposite. People should be waiting in lines at ice rinks instead of smoldering away on the hot tar of amusement parks. And swimming pools? Last I checked outdoor pools adapt to the air around them rather than the reverse. Don’t even get me started on how beaches are hotplates and how lounging on them is basically grilling yourself like a piece of meat. Sunscreen works to a degree, but mix it with ocean water and what you have a salty marinade. All you can do is be sure to cook both sides evenly – I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. 

I don’t want to sound like some kind of Summer Scrooge. I just want to be part of the solution. And I know first hand how uncomfortable it is to sweat: it’s an embarrassing and rather annoying part of being human and it tends to make people irritable. Why do you think crime rates soar in the summer? As temperatures rise, tempers flare, but can’t we all just get along? Can’t we all just lace up, lock hands, and skate a few laps together?

What could diffuse gang tension better than a skating party? Or: Mad at your neighbor? Miffed at your best friend for dating your ex? Upset that your partner embezzled those funds? Instead of saying, “I’ll see you in court,” why don’t you all just come on down to the rink? Let’s just cool down, literally and figuratively.

I really like that character on the TV show, Entourage, named Ari Gold. He is an angry entertainment agent who often loses his temper. After he unleashes his vitriol, he will often embrace his victim, saying, “Let’s hug it out.” You know what I say instead? “Let’s skate it out.”

As I drove toward work, I started to fantasize about becoming some kind of grand-scale mediator, or a skating missionary, determined to bring our nation and the people of all nations together through the Gospel of Rinks. It became gradually clear to me that many of the world’s most bitter conflicts are currently taking place in hot climates. What if, I thought, What if?

Michelle Kwan, our Ambassador, tell them, tell them all that the blade is mightier than the sword! Okay, scratch that. The blade is kind of like a sword and could be used in a similar fashion so…maybe skates themselves should be taken out of this particular mission.  Maybe all these sweaty, warring factions should just come to the rink and slide around in their shoes. Perhaps we could organize a big, civilized game of…curling?     

I pulled into my parking space at the rink quite pleased with all the excellent brainstorming I’d accomplished in the name of World Peace. I was really proud of how I’d turned all that gloating into something beautiful, something larger than me, something to be shared. I vowed to hammer out the specifics of my master plan, and pass it on to others…perhaps through the written word… perhaps delivered on the wings of a flourishing little bird they call the internet.     

Fortunately, in my walk across the steamy parking lot, I temporarily came to my senses. When I opened the front door to the rink, I did not fall to my knees and cry out, “Hallelujah!” at the top of my lungs. I didn’t even lie down on the ice as I had planned or skate barefoot. I simply bundled up and taught my lessons.

Toward the end of the day, I was shivering and my toes were numb with cold. Pulling my scarf a little tighter, I gazed longingly at the sun streaming through the building’s front doors. I couldn’t wait to get back outside.

Dear 2008 Graduates (and, retroactively, graduates from years gone by), 

We have been skating together for a long time, now. Okay, really, you were skating and I was yelling, but nice-yelling just so that you could hear me over the music. The point is that we’ve laughed, we’ve learned things, and even shed a few tears. And now, I am truly upset.

How dare you graduate! The nerve of you to now go off into the world to have adventures so far away. This will be difficult for me to forgive. The worst part is that I have had to suffer this same affront many times and you have already witnessed, first hand, what this has done to me.

The fact is I have enjoyed our time together, however fleeting. It has been cool to watch you become more of yourself. Like skull cartilage gradually becomes bone, all of your traits that were a bit hazy and inconsistent when you were younger have solidified, somehow. I’d like to think that all your hours in the rink have contributed to this steady transformation. Just look at how well you skate! And how nicely you present yourself both on and off the ice! Those stories you tell: so truly eloquent!

In the last year or so, you have reported on your college visits. Amid skating technique, we have bemoaned the application process and debated school characteristics such as near vs. far, small vs. large, urban vs. country. You have shared your uncertainties and in response I have bestowed wisdumb as if my own experience is infinite when in fact it is only a slice.

Of course I am proud of all your skating and academic accomplishments but what I’m really leading up to here is that I have a rather large and scandalous confession to make:

I have been secretly hoping that you wouldn’t graduate, and as a result you wouldn’t get into college.

While I know that this would be devastating for you and your family, just think how great it would be for me! We could continue to share ice time…into eternity. We could keep everything exactly the same and, together, pretend that time isn’t marching forward, that no one – not me, not you, not your parents or mine – are growing older. I kind of thought you understood this unspoken agreement, but apparently not.

And now, here you are going off to lands only partly known where the pizza and bagels may or may not be inferior, where the living space will definitely be miniscule, the adventures limitless, and the opportunities (educational and otherwise) will be laid out for you like a buffet.

I know that you will pack your skates. I know that you will lace them up anywhere from four times to a few hundred times. But I also know that your priorities will reconfigure and that everything you are doing now (including our lessons) will in three month’s time start to seem distant, and gradually become more a part of your history than your reality.

Okay, wait a second – I have to admit something else, and I suppose this cancels out that previous confession. It isn’t really that I hoped you wouldn’t graduate, what I’ve actually been experiencing is envy. For when I hear you tell about your prom, and your graduation ceremony, and the last summer job you’ve wrangled before you leave home, I am reminded of my own excitement at your age: all the possibility and the sparkling unknowns. I remember the specific giddiness I felt while shopping for a new duvet, my very own mug, and who could forget that all-important shower caddy. It was all going to be so incredible. And, in fact, it was.

In the end, what I mainly want to say is, Bravo. Have fun. And try to appreciate every single millisecond. This latter edict, like three patterns of the Starlight Waltz or a double run through of the Senior Moves test, or 50,000 axels in a row, is of course far easier said than done. But I trust that all of your experiences thus far, the ups and downs (literally and figuratively) have rendered you a very real and thoughtful person, and that you will be able to process the upcoming experiences with a dose of perspective.

I also trust that if you have your own skating students along the way (and after all, shouldn’t you try to earn back some of that money your parents spent?), that you will please teach them to bend their knees, not push with their toes, and look up instead of constantly searching for that dollar bill they apparently dropped on the ice. Last of all, I trust that you will keep in touch. For you realize that if you go off into that future of yours and never come back to visit, I will be shattered. No pressure, though.

Seriously? This goes straight from me to you: Woo Hoo!

                                                             ***

Are you worried that you might be drinking too much coffee? Determine whether or not you are addict by clicking on Cusp of Greatness in the column over to the right.   

Practice makes perfect. But nobody’s perfect. So why practice?

I read this inscription on a plaque in an engraving store at the local mall when I was a teenager. I laughed out loud both because it was delightfully ludicrous and because it was a strangely defeatist notion to have on a “plaque,” of all things…perhaps it made sense for a mug or even a bumper sticker, but on something usually given as an award then proudly displayed on a shelf? Funny.

At the time, my entire life was dedicated to practice. I was training approximately five hours per day five days per week including on and off-ice work. When I wasn’t at the rink, I was studying, re-reading chapters in my Chemistry textbook two and sometimes even three times then spending the weekend poring over Transcendentalist essays too dense for me to understand at first glance.  

I wasn’t especially gifted as a skater: I was tall and not terribly aggressive. And I was definitely not a gifted Chemistry student, but by the time I was about 14 or 15 I’d figured out, with the help of my parents, my coaches, and mostly my older brother, that “moving forward”, “doing well,” and “achieving success” was dependent on how hard I worked.

I think that because this mentality has now become so ingrained in me I sometimes forget that I had to learn both the value of practice and how to go about it. I think some people (my brother, for instance) are born with “drive” and others, like me, grow into it. I come across these two kinds of skaters all the time at the rink, and probably more in the latter category than the former.

Of course, no one is perfect, and contrary to the above inscription, practice does not make perfect… but it does make you better. Every skater is starting in a certain place: she may be loaded with physical talent or she may not. But the goal is to move forward from that starting point and this requires a certain amount of repetition.

I have not done a scientific analysis of exactly how much repetition this should be. And of course it is going to vary in every situation based on age, specific skating goals, the rink schedule, and the outside commitments of both skater and family, but I can very generally and confidently say this: those who practice consistently at least to some extent in between lessons tend to improve more rapidly.  

It is essential for skaters to think through the technical concepts their coaches have provided for them, to solidify these concepts both in their minds and in their muscles. Furthermore, it is ideal for skaters to learn how to problem solve, or at the very least, to identify what problems they’re having with a certain element.

From a coach’s perspective, it is frustrating to repeat the exact same concepts week after week. Granted, certain concepts are truly physically (or sometimes mentally) difficult to apply, but many figure skating concepts are really very simple.

Say, for example, I want a skater to get her left arm up while doing forward crossovers counter-clockwise, instead of letting her left arm droop down behind her. This is not physically or mentally demanding.  It is a matter of: 1) lifting that arm up; 2) remembering to lift it up throughout the lesson; 3) practicing lifting it up outside of the lesson so that it becomes a part of “muscle memory” and no longer something that has to be consciously thought about; and 4) coming back to the lesson either the next week or very soon and demonstrating that the arm is now consistently in place. Once this unsightly case of Droopy Arm is corrected, I can go on to the next 6 (or 60 or 600) concepts.

Skating is like math. It is cumulative. When we master one set of skills we can go on to the next. Of course there’s also the whole cardiovascular aspect of things, the necessity to “over load” the muscles in order to build strength, and the necessity to generally develop the body as an athlete. (Even in the case of Droopy Arm, some shoulder and arm muscles may need to be strengthened.)       

If the skater comes to her next lesson and the next, and the arm is still drooped down, then we need keep going over this. I’ll keep demonstrating where I want the arm to be, placing her arm where I want it, and going through the same explanations I went through the first time, in the process whipping up some more analogies, perhaps having to do with beach balls, or pancakes, or manicures. The point is that I’ll be forced to use our precious lesson time to repeat something relatively easy that the skater, with dedicated repetition, could correct on her own. This means that I am basically monitoring her practice time. What our lesson has become is a form of…babysitting.

I am not always at the same sessions or rinks as my students. And even when I am, I can’t directly monitor whether they are actually practicing or not. Sometimes I ask how their practicing is going and the answers run the gamut from sheepish excuses, to a specific run-down of the practice week. However, without asking, I can usually tell if someone has practiced since our last lesson. Perhaps what we were working on last time is now better. Perhaps the student comes to the lesson with a burning question starting with the words, “I was working on (blank) and I still don’t understand…”. Or the student comes to the lesson excitedly reporting how she finally mastered (blank)!

On the flip side, maybe the student doesn’t remember the steps to the new dance we learned last week. Or doesn’t remember having learned it at all. Hmm.

So how to impart the practice of practice?

First, I suppose it’s a matter of educating skaters and parents of its importance. Without practice, skaters cannot fulfill their potential. In his excellent article in the May/June issue of Professional Skater Magazine, Bob Mock addresses the issue of what he calls “the drive-through skater.” These skaters expect to pass through the sport with minimal effort. These skaters have not yet figured out the correlation between dedication and success. For many of these skaters and their parents, frustration is mounting. But most parents have not skated and may not have participated in a sport anything like skating, so it’s incumbent on the coach to provide the “this is how it works best” information. 

Second, skaters, coaches and parents should develop a general game plan. In other words, how often can the skater consistently get to the rink? How many other lessons does the skater have and therefore how much time is left over? This will be arrived at on an individual basis, based on age, level, and other commitments of both skater and family.

The most helpful thing a parent can do in order to encourage a skating career, is to get her child on the ice, thereby creating the opportunity for the skater to practice. Parents can also help to impress upon their skaters the value of that session time, and the necessity to not take it for granted. Not that there can’t be any chitchat whatsoever, but obviously lengthy palavers over at the barriers are a huge waste of time and money. I think it is great for skating to be a social outlet (it certainly was for me), but socializing should take place on the bench before or after sessions or at sleepovers, etc.     

Third, coach and skater can develop a more specific game plan in order to organize the practice time. This may be broken down in to a certain number of repetitions of an element (ie. 15 double axel attempts) or a certain number of minutes per discipline (i.e. 20 minutes of moves in the field patterns or stroking exercises).

Finally, this practice regimen needs to be implemented. Because the skater can not be monitored at all times by the coach, and should not be monitored at all times by the parents, the skater, no matter the age (at least from the age of 7 or 8 on) should be able to take responsibility for this herself. A notebook, a calendar, or some kind of tracking grid that the skater creates can assist with this. I’ve noticed that kids like to check off lists almost as much as I do.

Of course there are the rather large issues of enforcement, and rigidity, and motivation. These could form the substance of about 8 other blogs, but suffice it to say for now that they are a matter of a coach’s personal style. Ideally, a skater will experience the benefits of practice and the proof that this works will be in the so-called pudding. Directly pointing out how practice ended up contributing to a particular success helps to demonstrate and validate the connection.      

Note that it’s important to practice correctly, i.e. with thought and applying the technique the skater has been given. It doesn’t help to repeat things incorrectly, in fact it only re-enforces the wrong movements, so it’s important for the skaters to wear that ever-sensible accessory called The Thinking Cap. Along these same lines, (and this only refers to a small subgroup of skaters) it’s possible to practice too much, i.e. to the point of stress injury, or obsession, or flat-out discouragement. Every once in a while, practice limits need to be drawn.

I’ve noticed over the years that some skaters have enough talent or aptitude to pull themselves together at the last minute, training for a few weeks or even days before a test or competition and somehow ending up with surprisingly good results. But just imagine what could happen if she’d been training diligently all along?     

Let’s face it, there are very few guarantees in life. Coaches cannot guarantee that skaters will pass a test or win a competition. But we can guarantee one thing: if you practice and do so correctly, you will get better.

                                                            ***

I am very interested in other coaches’ and skaters’ thoughts on the subject of practice, so please share them by clicking on Comment below.

Also, I hear it’s going to be very buggy this summer. Read some suggestions on this topic by clicking on Cusp of Greatness in the right hand column.   

Lately, in my capacity as a skating coach, it seems like I’m always on my way to a test session, coming back from a test session, or printing out applications for the next one. To be exact, I’ve coached at six test sessions in the last two months, an unusually high number for me, and it seems like I have 52 more sessions on the calendar (okay, 4.) This means that I’m often on my cell phone in my car (of course utilizing my hands-free ear contraption…except for that one time) trying to explain skating tests to my non-skating friends.

I usually say something fairly abstract like, “They are judged performances designed to determine if the skater is ready to move up to the next level.” Even as I’m saying it, I know this description falls short; it doesn’t even begin to do justice to the unique adventure that is The Test Session. So I’ve decided to work on this.

As I have mentioned here before, I am a fan of the USFS(A) testing system and how all these smaller, more manageable goals lead to larger ones. Going through all these tests as a kid may very well be the reason that I am now a proponent of the “Bit by Bit” method of approaching most projects in life, in other words, taking one thing at a time, compartmentalizing, etc. Test sessions may also be why I believe that everyone should occasionally…scare themselves {insert menacing thunder clap sound effect.}

Anyway, here are some other possible ways of describing test sessions to skating outsiders. Feel free to use any of these in your own travels:

• Test sessions are like the invisible ladders of skating. In order to climb from one rung to the next, you need written approval from two out of three supervisors. If you do not receive this majority when you first apply, you have to wait 27 days before applying again, so hold steady and pack a sandwich.
• Or: It’s kind of like tap dancing at the foot of Mt. Rushmore. The judges are made of stone (or ice) and everything you do with your feet seems to echo throughout the universe.
• Or: It’s like testifying in a Skating Court of Law. You’re the defendant, the judges are the jury, the rink is the courtroom, and instead of the Bible, you swear in on the USFS(A) Rulebook before taking “the stand.”
• Or: It’s kind of like going to the dentist. The lights are bright and you can’t really speak up for yourself (read: make excuses.) Sometimes you leave smiling and sometimes…not.
• Or: It’s kind of like getting silently interrogated by a well-coifed government agency. The primary methods of torture are extreme cold and a pack of butterflies specially trained to invade your stomach.
• Or: It’s sort of like taking the S.A.T.’s. It seems like your entire future hinges on your performance in the next few hours (or moments.) But, of course, that’s not really the case; you can always meet up with your tutor (or coach) again in order to gear up and “Retry.” Besides, though it’s hard to believe this at first, in several years time you won’t even remember your score.
• Really, test sessions are classic demonstrations of Murphy’s Law. The more prepared the club Test Chairman, the judges, the coaches, and the skaters are, the more things that seem to go wrong. Still, you’re advised to arrive ready for anything, and don’t forget to throw an extra pair of laces in your bag. 

Granted, when my students are about to step onto the ice, I don’t mention any of this, no, no, no. Instead we talk about how taking this test is not a big deal, how it’s just like any other day of practice, how it’s all about having fun. And, of course, all of this is true as well.

“Good luck!”

                                                        ***

Any other ideas? Please share by clicking on “comment” below.

FYI, this weekend, I went on a wild and crazy road trip of not-so-cinematic proportions down to Delaware, USA. Read all about it by clicking on Cusp of Greatness in the column over to the right.  

Sunset from 95th Floor of John Hancock Building in Chicago this past Saturday. 

Skating seems to be getting more quantitative. Ever since IJS landed in our laps, I’ve been wishing I had a Degree in Higher Math. Alas, I am more of a “word” person. Not that I have anything against numbers. In fact, I’ve always respected them quite a bit…from a distance.

Lately, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of nice things about numbers. How you can count with them, for instance. How, when you use them in order to back up what you’re trying to say, your statements can sound a lot more like objective facts. How you can maybe understand competition placements after analyzing columns of numbers on a Protocol sheet, and maybe even, with the help of numbers, control those placements more proactively in advance.  

You always hear that there is “power in numbers.” This was hit home to me in several different ways last week at the Professional Skaters Association Conference in Chicago. First of all, there were a lot of coaches in attendance: approximately 800, maybe a little more or a little less, one of the largest Conference turnouts ever.  We filled a large ballroom and according to more than one speaker up on stage, we, as a collective group, were rather intimidating.

Indeed, from where I sat, the sea of skating coaches around me was an impressive visual. I hate to sound new-age-y but it was a powerful feeling to be surrounded by that many coaches in one room. I imagined that I was somehow buoyed up by all those people with similar perspectives, experiences, schedules, frustrations, and successes…not to mention similar addictions to both coffee and fleece.

But what I’m really getting at here is the weird thing that happened this week: I started to see the world of skating and the world in general as a collection of numbers. I’m not claiming that I suddenly transformed into a Mathematician or that I became Rain Man, I’m saying that I was overcome with the strange urge to create… A Spreadsheet. I admittedly don’t know how to create a real spreadsheet (let alone flow one of these beasts onto this website), but even thinking about doing so makes me feel very “professional,” so bear with me as I present…

THE OFFICIAL CURRENT SKATE OF MIND PSA CONFERENCE “”SPREADSHEET”" (extra set of quotes intentional):

Number of Years PSA has been in existence = 70

Years Kathy Casey has been coaching = 30+

Number of days in the year we should wake up with a burning desire to be better coaches, according to the ever-entertaining Kathy Casey = “every day” a.k.a. 365

The Component Score Susie Wynne would receive on the transitional skating she demonstrated in her wonderful class called, “Simply Skated” if she were competing under the IJS system and I were a judge = 10

Grade of Execution Gale Tanger would have received for her Spiral up on stage (though we’d have to replay the video to see if she held it for 3 seconds) = +3

Number of questions Doug Haw asked Brian Orser in the brilliant segment called, “Inside the Coach’s Studio” modeled after the television show, “Inside the Actor’s Studio” = 29

Number of dizzying revolutions Brian Orser a.k.a. Mr. Triple Axel seemed to do on the floor of his living room in the classic black and white footage from when he was a toddler = approximately 35

Number of syllables in the word “momentum” as counted by Orser’s coach Doug Leigh in the video footage = 3 

Number of pillows (both functional and decorative) on the beds at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare (and thank you to my conference buddy for helping me with the calculation of this statistic) = 7

Therefore, when two beds are in the room, the total number of pillows = 14

The deadline for coaches to complete their required Coaching Educational Requirement (CER) credits = July 2010

The number of people who currently understand exactly what this entails = 4

Latest ISU Communication that will probably change after the ISU Congress in June = 1494

Number of times presenters from the judging community encouraged coaches and skaters to aim for high GOE’s rather than high Levels = at least 10

Number of “extremely diverse” conferences simultaneously being held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare = many

Number of people wearing one or more of the following items for a particularly “intriguing” conference that shall remain nameless on this blog for fear of receiving a crazy amount of unwanted spam: leather, chains, collars, and something I can only call a “skirt-less skirt” = again, many

Number of times I heard someone ponder whether or not the aforementioned conference had a tradeshow = 5

Percentage of sport success that is “mental” according to surveys of Olympian Athletes, as presented by USOC Sport Psychologist Kirsten Peterson, Ph.D. = 50-90%

Amount of training time that athletes spend on the mental side of their sport according to Olympian Athletes as shared by Peterson= not 50-90%

Percentage of human communication that occurs through words according to Psychotherapist Frankie Perez = 7%

Percentage of communication that occurs non-verbally i.e. through body language, tone, etc = 93%

Ideal height of a leg extension for ice dance according to coach Iouri Tchesnitchenko= 80 degrees

Price of an all-event ticket for the World Championships according to a friend who worries, quite rightly, that cost is negatively affecting the skating fan base = $1000

Amount of weight gained from uncontrollable buffet grazing = No Answer

Amount of weight my suitcase mysteriously gained though I did not purchase or steal anything (I suspect foul play: invisible bricks, perhaps?) = 5 pounds

Length of the maze-like hallway leading from the hotel to the Convention Center where some of the presentations were held on the last day (and thank heaven, because I had to walk off some of that buffet-ing) = 16 miles

Pages of notes I scribbled because I am an obsessive note-taker (though in my defense, the pages of my notebook were rather small) = 56

Floor in the John Hancock Building from which my conference buddy and I watched the sun set while enjoying a post-conference drink (see picture above) = 95^th

Phone number of the JFK Jetblue baggage claim office in case they ever lose one of your bags = 7186326355

Total number of minutes they might keep you on hold over the course of 3 phone calls = 36

Number of skating blogs I’ll be able to write, thanks to all the information I gathered while on this trip (not that I was lacking for topics) = 477

TOTAL = Priceless

                                                               ***

Please add to this “spreadsheet” by clicking on comment below. 

And stay tuned. In future installments I intend to address such topics as:

Pair Skating in America: Ouch; Moves in the Meadow; The Ratings Game; Figures: Still Mourning; Youtube as Teaching Tool; Age: To Limit or Not to Limit

Finally, here is the article I wrote about the event for icenetwork: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080527&content_id=48350&vkey=ice_news 

This week, I’m flying to Chicago for the Professional Skaters Association Conference. While there, I’ll be attending all kinds of seminars and seeing coach-friends (including former competitors and mentors) from around the country. Amid packing for this event and canceling my lessons, I have been thinking about career paths. Mine has been somewhat circuitous.

I’ve mentioned in previous installments that I didn’t know I was going to become a figure skating coach. Not that I didn’t admire my own coaches growing up; becoming one just didn’t occur to me, for some reason. I am certainly glad I chose this particular path but sometimes I just have to chuckle at where I thought I’d end up instead.

For example, when I was very young, it was clear to me that I was going to be a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Through watching football (and rooting for the Packers) with my dad, it was pretty obvious that the cheerleaders for the Dallas team had the best sense of style. Their outfits were a little more glamorous (covered in silver stars!), their Keds (and smiles) were a little whiter, and their cheers a little more convincing. Of course, I suppose they had a few other famous “attributes” I didn’t even notice. Perhaps my own pom poms were the wrong color scheme (red and white for the Wisconsin Badgers) and the bleachers on our front lawn were empty (okay, not even set up), but I put in some long hours honing my high kick and my woo hoo! on our driveway.

Someone, probably after asking me, the What do you want to be when you grow up? question, convinced me that becoming a Dallas Cheerleader was extremely difficult, so I decided to reconsider this path and move on to something more realistic. I figured it would be a lot easier to become a…Supermodel. After all, all you had to do was look good. You didn’t even have to do any cheers. As soon as I heard that in order to excel in this vocation you had to basically stop eating, it started to lose its appeal. I figured I’d just hold this idea in reserve as something to fall back on, just in case.

From there, I took a slight left turn toward the sister industry of Fashion Design. I pored over the beloved “Fashion Plates” set I received for my 10^th birthday. With these stencil-like panels, I created thousands of different wardrobe combinations and committed them to paper with the help of colored pencils. I’d later go on to design my skating costumes by sketching them out first on typing paper. I’d fold the sheet in half and draw my dress on one half and my brother’s costume on the other. I colored them in, down to the last detail, with that same trusty set of colored pencils.

I eventually discovered that, in order to be a Fashion Designer, you had to know how to sew. It was one thing sewing by hand and quite another when you got a sewing machine involved.  In 7^th grade Home-Economics class, I discovered that threading a sewing machine was the domestic version of Rocket Science. The few times I attempted to use my mother’s sewing machine on my own, it made a scary whirring noise. The thread flew off the spool and into a terrifying knot in the shape of a skull-and-crossbones. (Of course, now that would be a trendy fashion statement, so I was clearly way ahead of my time.)

For a while there at the beginning of college, I thought I’d be a Lawyer, wearing slick skirt-suits and winning cases like the heroine in a girl-Grisham novel. The problem with this is that I wasn’t exactly one to speak up, either in class or in almost any group scenario. And I certainly wasn’t one to debate things.

From there, illogically, I decided that I was destined to become a Professor. I suppose the distinction for me was that, in a classroom, I could “share” my ideas rather than “argue” them like I’d have to in a courtroom. I was starting to become an avid reader and I had this image of wearing eyeglasses and my hair in a bun. (Okay, well… for those of you who know me, please stop laughing, and for those of you who don’t, I guess I should admit that I usually wear glasses and my hair pulled back in a bun.) I envisioned leading my eager pupils to the shade of a campus tree, where we could gather ‘round and dissect poetry.

In fact, I did eventually go on to teach a college course, Composition 101. It happened to be a night class for adults and I was the youngest person in the classroom. When I walked in on the first night and I put my satchel on the desk (a bag I thought seemed very academic), one of the students said, “You’re our teacher?” She loaded that you’re with disdain. She felt insulted by being taught by someone younger and her attitude was contagious: when I had the nerve to assign reading and essays, I was hit and wounded by many dagger glares over the course of those three months. Right around the time that I had to determine final grades (they weren’t all that great) that would have a ripple effect on GPAs and transcripts of people 5, 10, 20 years older than me, I decided that this was probably something I’d be better suited for once I had some more life under my belt. (Oh…to be too young for something, what a hardship.) So, just like my Supermodeling, I put this on the back burner.

There was also a brief stint as an Advertising Copywriter, enjoyable enough that it created a dilemma. Around the time I started teaching group and private lessons at the rink where I am currently on staff, I was offered a position at a firm on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. I could see it: the water cooler, the Happy Hours, all that hip, creative synergy. And of course the fashion component: the high heels, the slacks, the green leather briefcase purchased at a downtown boutique. But I also envisioned something else that compelled me to turn down the offer: I could see myself coming home at night and not wanting to write my own stuff after sitting at a computer all day writing brochures and radio ads. 

Of course, this leads me to the other thing I thought I’d become. A Writer. This fantasy predated (and coincided with) all else, the Cheerleading included. In boxes at my mother’s house, there are laminated “books” I penned and illustrated. One details the adventures of a thumb (my thumbprint included.) Another is about a wounded bird my brother and I found in our backyard. Another is called “A Day in the Life of a Skater.” The protagonist, as you might imagine, is me.

Becoming a writer was probably the craziest idea of all, and, it turned out, impossible to let go of. When I flip through that ancient masterpiece about skating, it seems so obvious that I’d become a Skating Writer or a Writing Skater, but I’m glad I tried out some other vocations along the way, even if only in my mind. Besides, it occurs to me that, as a coach, you have to be a little bit of a cheerleader, a bit of a professor, and sometimes, if meeting with resistance, a bit litigious. Sometimes you have to give input on costume choices or designs, and sometimes, as an ice dance coach, you have to try and get your skaters to strut around the rink with the confidence of runway models. In this job, you get to wear many hats. Literally and figuratively.

The Sociologist in me (yes, I toyed with that for about 10 minutes in college as well) wonders how many people actually end up in the careers they youthfully identified when asked the, What do you want to be when you grow up question. Probably a handful, but it would be interesting to have some statistics…

I posed this question to some of my students today and their answers ranged from Engineer to Orthodontist to Veterinarian to Lawyer. One student, a 9 year-old blushed and answered, “Figure Skater” shyly, as if I might not think she’d qualify. Of course, I was flattered, though it should be noted that she did not say “Coach” – I suspect that her current idea of growing up doesn’t go too far beyond the age of 18. Over the next 10, 15, 20 years, I’ll have to keep track of how many of these abstract plans come to fruition.  

I also asked a few coach-friends (all of whom obviously love what they do) to share three careers they thought they were aiming for, once upon a time.

One friend answered:

1. Prima Ballerina
2. Trial Lawyer
3. Boutique Owner

Another:

1. Journalist
2. School Psychologist
3. Sports Psychologist

And a third:

1. Flight Attendant
2. Scientist
3. House Wife

And you? Whether you are skating coach or not, please share three “Careers not Chosen” by clicking on “Comment” below.

                                                                         ***

I anticipate that in next week’s installment I’ll be regaling you with my Chicago adventures.  But then again, we’ll see, life doesn’t always turn out as expected….                

It’s ice show season. Some rinks and clubs host their ice shows at the end of the summer or during the holidays, but most cook them up right about now, after the competition season winds down and before the summer schedule ramps up.

I’ve never personally made an ice show from scratch, but I’ve been an ingredient in many, observer of several, and an assistant in a few. Preparing an ice show is a gigantic undertaking, but the results are well worth it: they spice up the year’s skating buffet and once you’ve had a taste, you’re not likely to forget it.

So if you’re up for the challenge, roll up your sleeves, sharpen your knives (okay, blades), put on your goofy white chef’s hat, and fine-tune your Emeril imitation…because we’re about to kick it up a notch.   

First, chill ice rink to approximately 50 degrees, then gather the following ingredients…

Several thousand pounds of Skaters: This is the meat of the dish. For the most interesting texture, try to obtain a variety of skaters including tall, short, young, old, free range, and grain-fed. The more tender cuts are usually still wearing rental skates and the more “seasoned” variety come with freakishly deformed feet despite custom-built skates.

1 extra-bold Theme: This largely determines the flavor of this stew. The possibilities are infinite. If you’re hoping for an international fusion, go with, Skate Around the World. For more regional fare, go with These United States or Roadtrip USA. If you’re hoping to whip together something of a more seasonal nature, try Seasons of Skating or Holidays on Ice (for more on this latter theme see “Holidays on Ice” the column over to the right). Broadway and Hollywood concoctions are always a safe bet. But really, you can choose just about anything, as long as it’s somewhat recognizable to the general palate.

1 emotionally-stable Director with an iron fist: This is the head chef. Due to the complicated, stressful nature of this endeavor, he or she must be tyrannical in the kitchen. After all, without one determined leader willing to stir this all together, it would never get made.  

Several slices of music with the fat trimmed: Choices will be determined based on the theme, though only the best parts should be retained. Slices that are too large (read: too long) tend to make the skating stale and, as a result, difficult to digest. For added authenticity, the music system should break down at least once during the show, ideally prompting all the house lights to be turned on and the announcer to fill the dead air with jokes his family only tolerates to be nice. 

A generous bunch of multi-colored Costumes: These can be sewn by dedicated parents, ordered from a catalogue, or simply thrown together using items most everyone already has in their pantries. For the record, it is widely understood that the smallest skaters are best dressed as bumblebees, ladybugs, and pumpkins, though they do look cute in just about everything. Teenage girls prefer costumes that are as revealing as possible and for this reason it is far more satisfying to instead dress them in big furry costumes and large red clown wigs: they will outwardly groan and roll their eyes, but they will secretly love it. Adults usually prefer to be wrapped in black. Evening gowns with long white gloves are an excellent pairing. Ideally, there will be at least one costume malfunction, probably a detached component embarrassing the wearer and tripping another.   

A sprinkling of Props, lined up separately in the locker rooms in the order they will be added: For example, brooms work well for witches, American flags are appropriate for the Fourth of July, and wands are ideal for both princesses and fairies…the possibilities are endless. Again, dropping a prop greatly contributes to ice show authenticity, as does accidentally poking another skater in the eye.  

An abundance of Coaches, well-coddled: These will function as the sous chefs, doing a lot of the prep work in the form of choreography and general organization. They will also be the wait-staff on night of the big feast, ensuring that the ice show gets served in a relatively smooth fashion. If you are lucky and provide costuming of a not-too revealing or not-too-silly variety (after all, that was then and this is now), they may even jump into the pot themselves. Of course, the more intra-staff tension, the tastier.

A large serving of Spectators, chilled: Though the goal is to attract fans from all over the county via posters and perhaps ads in local publications, the audience will most likely be comprised of blood relations of the skaters. If you are desperate to fill the stands, you may have to pull hapless bystanders off the street and pay them to attend. As an insurance plan, it’s not a bad idea to dub pre-recorded ovation onto the end of each slice of music. Note that every great club ice show in the history of club ice shows features at least one spectator losing her footing on the metal bleachers. If the EMT has to be called in, it is simultaneously unfortunate and also yet another sign of authenticity.

Several printed Programs, slivered, collated, folded in half: At bare minimum, this is a simple menu listing what the diners are in for. More sophisticated versions include revenue-generating ads from “corporate sponsors” (a.k.a. businesses owned by skaters’ parents) or from grandparents. The standard copy for these ads generally reads: Good luck Susie! We love you! Grams and Gramps. Misprints, especially those that may have legal ramifications, add a nice little kick.

Guest skaters (optional): Though it will cost you, you can import a skater of a more “gourmet” variety from a nearby rink or from across the country. This is intended to transform your show from something more casual into haute cuisine. Of course, it’s highly likely that she’ll be sick the day of your show or slightly injured (as most elite skaters usually are), and so she won’t attempt any elements more impressive than what many of the perfectly-respectable skaters in your club can already do. 

2-4 rented Spotlights (optional): While not essential, these contribute nicely to the ambiance. They can make a mediocre ice show seem instantly more appetizing. Authenticity, here, is achieved in two ways: first, when spotlight operators lose track of  skaters so that the skaters are in darkness and the spotlight is focusing only on empty ice; second, when a skater becomes disoriented by the spotlights and aims in the wrong direction, bumping into the group of skaters behind her and creating a series of falls that demonstrate the Domino Effect. In the words of Emeril: BAM! 

A selection of wooden Stage Sets (optional): These also contribute to the setting and are most-often the product of creative bursts on the parts of a few parents, occurring usually in a garage, at the last minute. The best part is that when one of these wooden panels – say, in the shape of a large teepee for a Native American number – gets accidentally knocked down on the ice, it makes a sound similar to a gunshot. Not only will babies for miles around start to cry, everyone will jump out of their seats and look around, panicked, therefore not noticing that a young skate-wearing “papoose” is trapped under her one-dimensional house.

A pinch of Parents: Despite their other commitments, parents will assist with absolutely  every aspect of the show including gathering ingredients, sewing costumes, building sets, tracking down props, selling ads for the program, and picking up the guest skaters from the airport, etc. Frighteningly (and thankfully), they often walk around with open safety pins between pursed lips. It is important to make sure that their role remains completely unsung because this is what they have become accustomed to; any form of unexpected praise could distract them.    

1 highly-animated Announcer: This person is either a radio DJ by profession or a skating dad who wants to be one in his next life. When he talks, he inflects his words with such exaggeration that, in any other scenario, it would be quite… “grating.” His own special contribution to ice show authenticity is the mispronunciation of the names of at least three soloists and accidentally leaving the microphone on while asking his assistant how much longer this is going to “drag on.”

Several sprigs of Chaos (inevitable): You might as well just accept this particular ingredient, whisk it in, and savor it because you have no choice. In the end, it will provide the most lasting memories and fits of laughter.

Exactly 15 miracles (highly recommended): Because things tend to boil over, or burn, or remain inexplicably raw, as the day of the ice show approaches, it’s important that you try to track down this precious ingredient. You won’t find ice show miracles in any stores or even in skating catalogues, so your best bet is to just pray for them, even if you’re not the praying type.

To Prepare:  

First, set extremely valuable miracles off to the side in a tightly-sealed tupperware and hire a guard to watch over them. Memorize the passcode and secret handshake for when you need to get them.

Set timer for approximately 30 days. Add all other ingredients gradually over the course of that one hectic month.

Simmer, uncovered, on medium heat. Stir constantly during rehearsals and also during what may feel like thousands of sleepless nights. Knead your hands together with worry and rub your aching temples. You should realize that the creation of an ice show is an unwieldy though surprisingly inexact science, so while precise order and methodologies may seem important at first, they are most certainly not. In fact, there has probably never been an ice show put together without a great number of mistakes, oversights, and gaffs, for which you will of course need those aforementioned miracles.

Note that, even as late as the dress rehearsal, your ice show will look like a mound of lumpy, unappealing slop. But no worries, your dish will be ready when your timer rings, indicating that the expensive slot of ice-time you’ve rented has arrived. Your show will be ready, if for no other reason, because it has to be.

And if all else fails? There’s usually quite a delicious spread over at the club bake-sale table.  

Serves: approximately 250, give or take 100.

Bon Apetite!

                                                        ***

What did I forget? Do you know of any other variations on this recipe?  

Also, have you ever lost your wallet or had it stolen? I have some advice. Click on Cusp of Greatness over to the right.

The time has come to clarify something: I am not jealous of Kristi. The word ‘jealousy’ implies a certain amount of malice and this is not at all the case. No, what I’m experiencing is definitely more like ‘envy,’ which is a far friendlier beast.  

It’s not that I dislike Kristi, it’s that I want to be Kristi. This point gets hit home to me week after week as she cuts a proverbial rug (more like: shreds it) on the not-much-of-a-contest contest show called, Dancing With the Stars. I have excitedly viewed her Foxtrot, Tango, Paso, Jive, etc. thanks to the kindly and prompt posters at youtube.com. And if you haven’t seen her on the dance floor yet, I suggest you visit youtube as well.  

Truthfully, I have not watched the other contestants, though I trust they are equally entertaining for lots of reasons. I am mainly interested in watching Kristi because we have so many things in common. Wait, scratch that, we really only have one thing in common: we’ve both once (or a million times) laced up a pair of skates. 

As a result of following her performances and the fluff footage they’ve aired over the last month or so, I have come to the conclusion that, while I have many excellent qualities, I pale in comparison to Kristi in every conceivable way. Rather than feel bad about all this, I think it’s best in these kinds of situations to just come clean, to specifically define what’s really going on in order to really own it. This is why I have compiled the following list.

                                          Ten Things I Envy about Kristi

1. Her fame has reached the point where I can refer to her without using her last name and everyone reading this knows exactly who I am talking about.
2. Her ability to dance with sharpness, agility, and nuance…and move in a way that is vastly different from how she ever did on skates. (For lack of anything else to critique, the shows’ judges have repeatedly criticized her for not demonstrating enough emotion or passion while dancing, but this is an obvious attempt on the part of the show’s writers and producers to create the illusion that she has something to improve upon.)
3. The dreamy dresses the Dancing With the Stars seamstresses have created for her, not to mention the trim body they have to work with.
4. Her opportunity to dance with the nicely-sculpted, accent-wielding specimen that is Mark Ballas.
5. Her sporty, hockey-playing husband who, at least from this distance, appears to have all his original teeth.
6. Her ability to ingest many hot dogs in one sitting. (Okay, her success on the hotdog eating circuit was an April Fool’s hoax for the show, but even knowing it isn’t true, I still can’t help myself from wanting to be able to do this, now that she’s “demonstrated” it.)
7. Her cute little daughters rendered doubly adorable by matching outfits.
8. Her dignity and the sportsman-like way she comports herself in seemingly every waking moment.
9. Her competitive drive, which I have every reason to believe would translate to success in any field she tried to enter: High finance? Basketball? Competitive juggling? She could surely master any and all of these. 
10. Oh yeah, and her Olympic Gold Medal. 

                                                              ***

Here’s something I have that Kristi (presumably) does not: a parking space in New York City. Then again, she’s probably better off. Read why by clicking on Cusp of Greatness in the column over to the right.  

I’m not talking about the trip to the rink (though that can be harrowing as well). I’m referring to the trip around the rink. Navigating traffic on public sessions is one kind of adventure (see archived installment about Bryant Park) but it is something else entirely on freestyle sessions, mainly because everyone is traveling in a thousand different directions. Ten, twenty, and sometimes more skaters loop, circle, and switchback again, mostly managing to avoid one another.

If you were to perch on the rafters (like the birds who sometimes manage to sneak into the rink) and watch a freestyle session from an aerial view, what you would see is chaos of a highly organized variety. The way skaters swirl around each other while practicing jumps, spins, moves, dance and programs is kind of like a moving puzzle, each piece carving out paths with varying speed and predetermination. 

It is, to a degree, a thing of beauty. But watching a freestyle session is not for the faint of heart because in fact, when you look a little closer (or brave the ice itself) you will see that the pieces don’t always move together so poetically. Paths get regularly derailed, patterns interrupted. There is frustration. There are collisions. In fact, every few moments there are near-misses that would make professional stunt men cover their eyes. The real miracle is that there aren’t more injuries from skating accidents. It’s a wonder that every backward spiral doesn’t result in a beheading and that the ambulance doesn’t regularly have to pull up to the double/triple lutz corner.

Traffic is definitely a daily issue, crowded sessions or not. As one of my colleagues recently pointed out, sometimes the so-called “empty” sessions are more treacherous than the more densely populated ones because skaters tend to let their guard down. Competition warm-ups, which can have as little as only two to only eight skaters on them, can be especially risky due to the fact that skaters are so focused on preparing for their rapidly-approaching performances.  

Every skater copes with traffic differently. Some barrel ahead as if wearing blinders: the hapless individuals in their paths must either move or get flattened. Some skaters can’t contain their aggravation, frequently displaying rink rage. Other skaters constantly stop for everyone else, in the process never fitting in any of their own elements and therefore accomplishing little. Others are well-meaning but clueless, seeming to lack depth perception, often misjudging how close they are to gliding directly into someone else’s camel spin. Some just haven’t yet gotten the hang of steering; they see the traffic but can’t physically maneuver around it. Still others manage to find that balance of being both productive and safe. 

There are written and unwritten rules. Spins usually go in the middle. Double and triple jumps usually go on one designated end, and lower level skaters go on the other. Of course, dance, moves and programs require the entire sheet of ice. Lessons and programs generally have the right of way, but these are difficult things to keep track of from one half hour to the next and one month to the next, respectively. Some rinks and clubs provide bright colored pinnies or sashes of some sort to distinguish the person who is doing the run-through to her music, a tactic that seems to have varying amounts of success.

As a coach, you have to decide whether or not you want to brave these dangerous frozen waters. If you’re standing in the middle of the rink to watch your student, you are like a sitting duck, in danger of getting hit. If you sit at the side, you can’t always see your student’s jump or pattern from the ideal angle.

If you have a particularly timid student attempting one of the Junior Moves diagonal patterns…or attempting the backwards section of the Quickstep…or a student particularly prone to aggravation…or particularly ill-equipped to find so-called “openings,”…or a dance or pair team putting up a lift that could be especially hazardous to themselves and others…or a student trying to fit in her 455th double loop attempt in the last 10 minutes…in these cases, as a coach, you sometimes have to skate along with the student in order to be her eyes. This also creates power in numbers: for example, with my extra-wide, down-feather coat, I am the equivalent of about three skaters…and this tends to part the freestyle seas.  

The real challenge for a coach, wherever you are situated, is to watch your student, while also watching out for your student. You don’t want your skater to hit anyone or get hit, so you are in a constant state of scanning on her behalf, trying to keep your eyes one step ahead of where you know she intends to go. Simultaneously, you want to be able to see what she is actually doing so that you can advise accordingly.

Often, when danger is imminent, you have to yell out some kind of warning at the top of your lungs, usually, “WATCH!” hoping that either your skater, or the other skater, or both, will hear you and take heed by either changing course or stopping immediately. I have been told, by certain factions, that I am an alarmist in this regard. (Or, really, I should say “faction,” singular, who I won’t name, except to say that I’ve known him for a while and long ago he attempted to transform me from a timid skater who never got anything in to a more aggressive skater who should, quote, “hold her line” while practicing pair and dance elements.) It has, in fact, been suggested by said faction, that I may have my own issues with depth perception. He posits that I tend to yell out “WATCH!” when in fact two skaters are, quote, “miles away from each other.”

This may or not be the case but either way, I am unapologetic. In this, and most areas of life, I adhere to the Better Safe Than Sorry Philosophy and I believe that my students are still (for the most part) in one piece because of it.

But skaters don’t always have a coach to scan the rink for them: what about those times when they are not in lesson? What about when they don’t hear their coach’s startling warning shriek? What about when they don’t have their music on and when they have no pinnie? How can this situation be improved? I think these are important questions.

Many areas of the sport are benefiting from creative innovations in biomechanics, physics and exercise science. Likewise, with the help of the U.S. Department of Transportation, I am currently developing several new ways of controlling freestyle traffic. Once our proposal is complete, which I expect to be in the near-ish future, I will of course post it here for your review.

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to… “WATCH!”

                                                      ***

Are you curious how my real estate broker convinced me to rent my current apartment? Read excerpts from her brochure by clicking on Cusp of Greatness in the column over to the right.  

FYI, Here are the coaching expenses my accountant considered either “excessive” or not necessarily “essential” enough to deduct. For the record, I do not agree, but I am deferring to her expertise.

FYI, here are the expenses my accountant considered to be perfectly valid:

I have developed sudden-onset carpal tunnel syndrome from writing my check to the Internal Revenue Service, but as soon as this clears up, I will get to work on the next CSOM installment, which will be about Kristi’s dancing skills, or Sasha’s flexibility, or something else of skating significance.

                                                                 ***

Incidentally, this winter I was compelled to write a memo to my older brother. Read a copy of it by clicking on Cusp of Greatness in the column over to the right.

A Letter of Appreciation To my Adult Students and To the Adult Skaters of the World…

This week, while many adults are converging in Lake Placid for the 2008 U.S. Adult Championships, I would like to take the opportunity to express my sincere appreciation and admiration for your skating endeavors. For though, by definition, you are a bit “longer in the tooth” than other skaters and with that comes a whole host of challenges (including sometimes, tripping over your teeth), your excitement is evident, your enjoyment contagious, and your improvement impressive. Whether you are competing this week or not, your specific efforts in this sport (and contributions to my own enjoyment of it) deserve to be documented.

First there is your wacky schedule. Thank you for getting up when it is dark and coming to the rink while saner people still slumber so that you can squeeze in your skating before commuting to work. Thank you for arriving with a spring in your step and a smile on your face, and carrying your nicely-pressed work clothes on a hanger you hook on the ledge by the front desk. Thank you for coming to your lesson even though you were awake all night worrying about the fate of the planet or riding in an ambulance on your way to volunteer EMT calls. Thank you for scheduling your conference calls around our lesson and running over on your lunch break. Thank you for unloading your pockets and piling your cell phone, keys, blackberry, coins, and work ID on the barriers so that you are not weighed down by them while you skate. Thank you for driving to a rink that is far away from your home on your only day off. Thank you, by the way, for e-mailing me the notes you typed up after our lesson.

Then there is the issue of practice and your genuine understanding of its importance. Thank you for practicing with such earnestness and diligence of your own accord, without me having to nag you. Thank you for bounding over tall buildings and solving all kinds of logistical algorithms in order to get on the ice for even a half hour of 3 turns. Thank you for offering detailed reports (complete with spreadsheets and graphs) of your practice week including, with no small amount of guilt, the fact that you had to miss one day for a perfectly legitimate reason like assisting an aging parent, traveling to Chicago for work, or taking your dog to the vet so he could have that cyst removed from his nether regions. Though I’m not sure it was entirely wise, thank you also for coming to the rink even when you had a herniated disc in your neck, a mysterious golfball-sized bump on your knee, and even after you dropped a chair on your toe.

I have noticed that you are very good sports. Thank you for gamely re-taking tests when a panel of judges has suggested that you “Retry” them. Thank you for tracking down a skating skirt then debuting this strange garment the day before the test, as a dress rehearsal. Thank you for letting your eyes well with tears and hugging me in celebration of passing your first test. Thank you for persevering to get your Gold medal though the path to get those last four dances was seven years long and riddled with injuries (both mine and yours), necessitated several pairs of new skates (both mine and yours), and was interrupted by all kinds of a life obligations (again, both mine and yours.)

Thank you for asking me to explain the same element in 450 different ways so that you may analyze it from just as many angles. Thank you for forcing me to call upon the Laws of Physics, though I never officially learned them in a classroom and have only loosely picked them up as a skater. Thank for helping me to expand my arsenal of analogies. Thank you for understanding my sometimes odd vocabulary and also for, very appropriately, making fun of it “with vigor.” Most of all, thank you for laughing at my jokes (which I know has not been an easy feat.)

Thank you for subscribing to the adage that we should all try things that terrify us once in a while and for wearing your wrist guards along the way. Thank you for trying to conceal the look of abject terror in your eyes and attempting to appear relaxed by increasing the space between your shoulders and your ears (though I suspect you are still clenching your toes like little fists inside your skates.) Thank you for taking up a new activity in the search for personal fulfillment and, through your example, reminding me that I want to become fluent in French, learn how to paint something slightly more complicated than polka-dots, and maybe even try something like…clogging or…power-knitting.   

Thank you for so openly envying the way I demonstrate a line of outside edges because, later in the day, my students may not even notice what I just demonstrated, let alone be impressed with it. Thank you for showing interest in my skating background and for believing me when I tell you that all the videotapes of my performances were destroyed in a bizarre, tragic fire.   

Thank you for sharing with me your skating mantras, skating revelations, and introducing me to the rather kooky, yet also rather comforting concept of prayer skating. Thank you for helping me to appreciate the adventure that is skating and all the ways it instructs, informs, mimics, and affects other areas of our lives. Thank you for helping to provide Perspective, a commodity we can never have enough of, no matter our profession. 

Oh, yeah, and thank you for confirming your lesson! I’ll see you tomorrow.

Best, Jocelyn

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Check out my icenetwork articles featuring competitors at Adult Nationals this week: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080409&content_id=47184&vkey=ice_news

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080410&content_id=47308&vkey=ice_news

And something quite upsetting happened to me last week here in New York City, prompting me to write a letter of a very different nature. Check it out by clicking on “Cusp of Greatness” over in the column to the right.