The annual ice show

My rink, as most rinks that have a figure skating program, has an ice show. The intention is, once a year, to take the time to celebrate the hard work and progress of the skaters. There is a number for each level from tot's to graduating students, beginners to advanced, for each of the five syncro teams, there are solo numbers, duets, an ice dance number, guest skaters and of course the adult number!

The show takes months to prepare. The skating director chooses a theme, assigns an instructor to choreograph each number. The instructors select the music and costumes to go with the theme. The costumes are ordered from dance catalogues or custom ordered at least 3 months in advance, to insure they'll be delivered before the show. Five weeks before the show each group is assigned with an once a week hour to meet and rehearse on ice. The instructor has a choreography in mind but that doesn't always work out so it is adjusted and readjusted.

The week of the show there are lights brought in and a curtain installed and decorated. There is a technical rehearsal, where everything is organized - the changing rooms,  the introductions, the music, the lights, the entrance on and exit from the ice, the finale. The next day there is a dress rehearsal when everything should fall into place. There is a lot of work from the instructors, the parents that volunteer and the skaters.

 The adult number may be the hardest to choreograph because there are different levels of skating ability. Also adults have strong personal preferences and aversions about costumes, music, make up... performing in front of an audience, choreography.

I never watched a rink ice show or small level competition until I did my very own ice show. I didn't really know what to expect. Probably I expected more than it is. While there was a lot of joy and celebration and some very good numbers, there were also plenty of falls and uncoordinated movement.

This year is my fourth ice show. We are rehearsing now and like each year, I have mixed feelings.

Recreational skating versus training

As I mentioned in my first post, I started to skate in a recreational manner, once a week, in group classes and I enjoyed every second of it. I was skating around, sitting around, talking to people, and practicing at leisure, without pressure to get something until a certain time, or ever.

Now, I skate 5 days a week, I take 2 private lessons a week and it feels like training.Why? Because while I always wanted to skate well, slowly I realized that I actually could.

Before starting group lessons I had no contact with skating, I wasn't even watching much on tv. In group lessons I met people like me. The first realization was when I started to go to adult practice ice. While most of the skaters started as kids, there were some that started later in life and they were skating beautifully. What skating beautifully (as an adult) means to me, is skating with confidence, good posture, flow between forward and backwards and maybe some "tricks" (jumps and spins).

Next realization was when I got into the MITF (Moves In The Field) group class. That wasn't usually open for adults, but in one summer the class wasn't full so I was allowed to join. My previous group lessons were following Freestyle (FS) curriculum and covered mostly "tricks" not the flow that I wanted. Well, I found that in the MITF class.

The third realization was during the MITF class, which was a children class, and I saw that kids my level of FS were not actually much better than me. I had it in my mind that it's impossible for an adult to learn as kids learn. That is true for the highly athletic skills like jumps (triple, double, even... singles). But not so much for the steps with flow, edges, transitions, at least up to an intermediary level.

The last realizations was the kids practice schedule. At my level (a very wobbly FS4, that I would call and advanced beginner) I was skating twice a week, one group lesson and one practice session, they were skating 3 times more. They were in average in 2 group lessons, at least one private lesson, syncro team and practice ice 2 to 5 days a week. Some of them were also doing off ice training.

Training is committing to a certain level of practice focused on achieving a certain goal. My goal is to get to skate confidently and hopefully beautifully! As my first desire was to get flow on ice, I started to work on MITF and Ice Dancing. To keep myself motivated and have a structured approach to learning I decided to take the USFSA tests. Test would be a prerequisite if I ever wanted to compete, which I don't at the moment. I take one half hour lesson for MITF and another for ice dance every week, and I practice on my own 7 hours spread from Monday to Friday. I would like to somehow add soon the FS.

The commitment is huge, to learn skating means that after you got a skill correctly, you repeat it as long as you need for it to become muscle memory. And it takes a looong time... After I decided on the financial and  time commitment, I also had to accept the inconvenient schedule and the fact that skating takes away most of my free time. And then is hard work! My body hurts, I get discouraged, impatient, frustrated and then there it is, progress and satisfaction.

Falling and injuries

Falling in figure skating is... inevitable. But you cannot be afraid of falling if you want to progress in skating, because you would concentrate on not falling instead of learning new skills. Tell that to an adult figure skater! Adults are more aware of the danger of falling than children and afraid of the possibility of injury.I fall mostly when I learn or correct something, like a jump or the posture. But I also fall because somebody crosses my way or I just catch something in the ice. Some days I fall few times, but I also have weeks when I don't fall at all.

Good news, falling on ice is not like falling on concrete. The fact that you are sliding after the fall, makes the force with which you hit the ground dissipate across the surface. So falling on ice while figure skating doesn't always hurt and doesn't automatically mean injury.

There is a "proper" way of falling. I was taught in my first beginner group class, first off-ice and then on ice, to fall on the lateral part of the buttock and  roll on the side, similar with how you would fall in martial art. My most important points are trying not to break the fall with my hands as wrists are sensitive, not to fall on my tail bone and not to hit the ice with my head. All this applies when you fall backwards or to the side, falling forward while rare for me ,it's harder to save, I use my forearms to break it, again not my hands, and usually I end up with blue knees.

There is also a proper way to get up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oE5Tn79U6o

If you are prone to fall on a particular body part, you can use pads or guards, wrist guards, knee pads, hip and tailbone silicone or foam pads, a thick head band.

My worst fall was from just standing on ice and looking down at my skates, then, as I looked up, I lost my balance and I fell straight down on my left wrist. While it wasn't broken, it was tender for months. The next one was while doing backward crossovers and  playing with leaning more into the circle I lost an edge and I fell kind of forward but at an angle. I used my arm to break the fall and my shoulder was sore for few days but I hit the inner side of one knee hard. It also felt like I twisted the knee. Again, nothing serious but it took probably a month to heal completely. 

A skating  injury worth mentioning is the overuse injury. That happened to my left ankle because of a series of technical mistakes (not transferring the weight but picking laterally on the ballet jump, stopping the back spin with a lateral hit of the toe pick, then pre-rotating the Salchow on the toe pick...). I started to hurt even when spinning. I stopped doing all those moves but I kept skating and that's when I started ice dancing.

Almost every figure skater I know has a story about falling... off ice... like ice in the parking lot, in the house catching the rug corner... and me.. I fell on the slippery laundry floor. I had the basket full of clothing in my arms and I didn't se the floor was wet. It wasn't a terrible fall I though, but it bothers me for a month now! It seams that I pulled a muscle. As the pain wasn't so bad, even if I felt I didn't have my usual muscle power, I continued skating for a week. It was not only that that particular spot wasn't healing but everything around started to hurt, down to the ankle! I learnt that that is called overcompensation. So I cancelled my lessons, took one week break, while icing, rolling and lightly stretching. I'm determined to let it heal completely before starting to train (push) again. Last 2 weeks I skated very lightly and just 3 days.

I am an adult figure skater

I started figure skating in 2010 as an adult, I was in my mid 30s. I joined a friend to an adult group lesson session offered by my local park district. At first I was skating once a week for 45 minutes in my group class, not thinking of actually learning but just enjoying the ice. I liked the easiness of the gliding, the cold air on my cheeks especially when it was warm outside, and the fact that for those 45 minutes my whole mind was there in a both relaxing and concentrating kind of way.

After around 2 years I graduated the beginner levels into Freestyle discipline, where the jumping and spinning starts and eventual you get to build up programs on music. My group class instructor suggested that I would progress quicker if I would add a practice session per week. Progressing? At that point I was so worried about having to jump, that I didn't actually want to progress. Little did I know that jumping (just half jumps at first) will come waaay easier that spinning for example. Things were becoming interesting, so I welcomed the idea of progress, only to find out that progress was slow. I settled for the next 3 years into a twice a week skating schedule, my group class and my practice session.

Somewhere along the way, skating became more than skating as I've got to meet the warm adult skating community, I gained new friends and I found out  more possibilities in adult figure skating. Like beside doing Freestyle you can do MITF (Moves In The Field) and Ice Dancing, you can take private lessons, put together a program, compete (there is even an adult nationals event), test in front of USFSA (US Figure Skating Association) affiliated judges. Wow!

Here I am today, after 7 years from when I first started, skating 5 days  a week, with 2 half hour private lessons.

I love it so much, I thought I'll share my journey and experiences!