**Announcement**

First off, I would like to apologize for the lack of both blog posts and tweets lately. As many of you might know, I am 17 and I graduated from high school back in June of this year. I am less than two weeks from moving into college and beginning a new chapter in the rest of my life. It's been a really busy month for me. Between cramming in family vacations, visiting with friends, graduation parties, trips to the city and packing for college I've been slammed. It's not that I'm trying to make excuses...well I guess I am...but I just wanted to let you know why the posting has been so sporadic lately.

Also, because I am going to be adjusting to a new life in college I am going to cut back the number of posts per week to just 2. One will be on Tuesday and the other will go up on Saturday. Thanks for continuing to read, I love all of you so much. When I started this blog, I was happy to have just one person reading it so I can't believe that all of you enjoy reading my thoughts so much!

Best of Luck and much love!!

Skating Films

Just incase there isn't already enough skating in your life, here's a list of skating films, some hockey and some figure skating, that are fun to watch with a giant bowl of popcorn....flavored rice cakes.

1. Ice Princess This 2005 Disney film is about a high school misfit who miraculously transforms herself from geeky teenager to graceful olympian. You'll find yourself laughing at how completely insane it is and it will leave your friends asking why you haven't landed your triple axel yet. Cute,
funny, and charming, this movie's got it all.

2. Ice Castles Don't be turned off by the fact that this movie came out in 1978, it's pretty timeless. But incase you have a deep rooted hatred for old movies, there is also a 2010 version starring Taylor Firth. It's about a girl on track to be a champion when she suffers a tragic accident. Definitely a chick flick, this film will have you laughing and crying at the same time.

3. Miracle on Ice Yes, a hockey movie, but this is a must watch for anyone in the skating world or any sport at all....or actually anyone breathing. Based on a true story, Miracle on Ice is a film about the USA Mens Hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid New York. It is motivating, uplifting, thrilling and it will send chills up your spine.

4. The Cutting Edge Another skating rom-com where hockey meets figure skating in a totally unbelievable match-up. A spoiled pairs skater who can't find a partner because of her rotten attitude and an injured hockey player who was forced to retire come together to make an olympic team. It's silly but it will pull you in, as all rom-coms do. There are several sequels in The Cutting Edge series.

5. Blades of Glory I'm sorry, but I had to stick this one in here. This has got to be my favorite skating film of all time and you haven't watched it yet, go watch it. You have to have a sense of humor to not be offended because this film is the ultimate parody on figure skating. Will Ferrel who plays a cocky arrogant ladies man is paired up with Jon Heder who portrays the stereotypical male figure skater. The two have been banned from the singles competitive world but they find a loophole in becoming the worlds first Male-Male pairs team. It's hysterical and disturbing all at the same time.

6. Go Figure This is a Disney Channel movie. Enough said. No, in all seriousness this film is about a young teenage girl who tries to balance Hockey and Figure Skating in order to get scholarship to a school where she can train with a renowned coach.

7. Youngblood This is a hockey movie but I saw it for the first time recently and thought I'd add it to the list. Starring Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze it has 1980's written all over it. It's about a young man, a very attractive young man might I add, who is trying to to work his way into an NHL league. It's got pretty faces, romance, and skating. What more could a girl ask for?

8. Rise This US Figure Skating film hit the theaters for one night only a few years back and figure skaters from every where took off their skates and headed to the movies. This heartbreaking documentary is all about the 1961 plane crash that took the lives of so many talented figure skaters.

Best of Luck!! And enjoy your movie night!

Smart Shopping Saturdays #4

It's the second Saturday of the month and you know what that means! It's time for another Smart Shopping Saturday! This is a mini-series where I review several different products and give my opinion on which products every skater should know about and which products every skater should stay away from.

Accessories
The board-side bag known as the Kiss and Cry Bag is a trend sweeping competition vendors and rinks everywhere, or at least my rink. This is a little colorful bag that you can dump all of your goodies into in order to easily carry them out onto the ice. The idea is great. It's much easier to have everything in one bag rather than trying to carry your CD, perhaps your phone, your water, your bandaids, and maybe your butt pads all separately. But is it really necessary to pay up to $49 for a bag? It's got all of the bells and whistles that will make every 10 year old girl scream for one, the pockets and dividers and the special little space for your tissue box, it has it all. Honestly, in my opinion, a little plastic bin from Target will do the job, come in fun colors, and will only set you back about $10.
Click to see the Kiss and Cry Totes website






Books
I recently checked out the bestselling book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg from my local library. Duhigg discusses the nature of habits, how they are created, and how they can be changed. As a figure skater I found this book very informative and surprisingly, very applicable to skating. The information in this book has the potential to help you change your training style and create habits that will make you a better skater. It is a good read and very informative as a plus.
Click here to purchase The Power of Habit
Click here to learn about the author, Charles Duhigg

Skating Tools
How a skater prepares their skates before a competition varies from person to person. Some tape, some polish and some merely clean. If you're looking to tape I would recommend Sk8Tape. It's shiny, comes in white, black, and tan, and sticks to the boot. It does leave a gummy residue if you want to take it off but this will easily come off with nail polish remover. If you are looking to polish your boots I would recommend Riedell's skate polish. It is thick, provides full coverage, and will leave your skates looking like new. This is the best polish I have found so far in terms of whitening my skates. However, it is quite messy and you have to put it on with a rag because there is no applicator. Doing this on the floor of a hotel room with your synchro teammates might not be the best idea....as I have learned from personal experience. A jar of this costs about $12.50 and lasts quite awhile. A little polish goes a long way. Just buff it out with a dry rag when the polish has dried and they'll shine right up.

Riedell Skate polish is available here

Best of Luck!!

Top 10 Warm-Up Songs

For most people music can really motivate a workout. Here, in no particular order, are the top 10 songs of summer 2013 that really get me going at the rink.

1. I Need Your Love - Calvin Harris feat. Ellie Goulding

2. Treasure - Bruno Mars

3. Come and Get It - Selena Gomez

4. Can't Hold Us - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton

5. Crazy Kids - Ke$ha

6. #Thatpower - Will.i.am

7. Feel This Moment - Pitbull 

8. Get Lucky - Daft Punk

9. Love Somebody - Maroon5

10. Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke

Best of Luck!!

Why Not Synchro?

I joined my area synchro team sort of late in the game. It was just two years ago that I joined and I had already been skating for nearly 10 years. It was sort of odd for me, to try to balance both the singles skating competitive world with the synchronized skating world since it's rare for skaters to do both. What I learned, and what synchro has taught me has changed my perspective on skating forever.

I started initially because my singles competitive career was not going so well. I was getting tired of the constant pressure, the anxiety, the let downs, and the general individuality of it all. I decided to join a team because I thought that having other girls around me might help to lift me spirits up. Boy, I could not have been more right! In a rink with drama and tough to break into cliques, it was difficult to make friends and frankly, still is. Synchro gave me the support system that I had always desired. Even when I couldn't believe in myself, they were there to believe in me. It helped to get me back on my feet, restored my passion for figure skating and gave me a massive confidence boost.

As a singles skater, I know that there is sort of a stigma that goes with synchronized skating. I know this because I too was once a "singles snob". Synchro is easy. Synchro skaters can't skate. These are common thoughts amongst non-synchro skaters and at one time or another, I thought these thoughts myself. But on my first practice of my first day of synchro, I felt as if I had joined another sport completely. Where I thought things would be easy, I found myself falling flat on my butt. I thought I would be able to understand the terminology easily but as it turned out I didn't know the difference between a block, a wheel and an intersection. Even once I got the hang of the basics, there was nothing easy about synchro skating. Even with 10 years of skating experience behind me I still struggled.

Not only do you have to have deep, edgy skating but you have to be able to do it in perfect time with everyone else. It's not about having the highest spiral or the fastest twizzle, it's about being able to have your leg at the same height as everyone else and rotating at the same speed in a twizzle as everyone else. This is where the misunderstanding has itself rooted. Many singles skaters especially, believe that because synchro skaters might not have the highest legs or the fastest twizzles that they are not capable. That is not true. The hardest part about synchro is being, you guessed it, synchronized.

I'm glad I gave synchronized skating a chance because it opened me up to a vast sea of new experiences. A synchro competition for instance, is one of the most thrilling experiences of the sport. The crowd is so wild at times and so loud. It is incredibly different from the polite clapping of singles, pairs, and ice dancing. I participated in my first team cheers, my first team dinners, had my first team jacket, and for once I felt like I was truly a part of something in the skating world.

I never thought I would be skating on a synchro team, but I'm incredibly glad that I had the opportunity to experience one and I look forward to collegiate synchro this season!

Best of Luck!! (and #WhyNotSynchro2018)

I saw this woman at Synchro Worlds 2013 supporting synchro for the 2018 Olympics

On Frustration

We all know how annoying those practices are where we just can't seem to land anything, center any spin, or hold any spiral. It's frustrating to pop jumps, fall out of spins and trip in a footwork sequence but if you can't get control of your frustrations they will eventually take over your skating. I'm speaking from personal experience because I have a problem with frustration myself. It used to be much worse but I am still my own worst enemy when it comes to bad days. It's what my coach calls a vicious cycle. A few bad jumps and I begin to get annoyed. The more annoyed I get the less I focus. The less I focus the fewer good jumps. Fewer good jumps equals more frustration and so on. Over the years I've developed a few methods to dealing with my frustrations but like anxiety, there isn't a magic button you can press that makes it all go away. You have to believe in yourself, and for most people, myself included, that is the most difficult part. Here are some different methods to dealing with frustrations.

1. Take a break. Step back from your skating for a minute and breathe. Whether it's just a sip from your water bottle or whether it's sitting down for a few minutes, or deciding to sit out a session, a little rest might help you to come back feeling refreshed.

2. Stop being so hard on yourself. Much easier said than done, am I right? But in all seriousness, try to remind yourself why you skate. Your answer should be along the lines of because you love it or because you want to.

3. Do something else. If it's that tricky double axel that's got you tripped up for the day don't spend time obsessing over it. Move on to something else with a clean slate. Take a deep breath and work on something else for awhile, something you know you have mastered.

4. Fake it till you make it. If you are kicking the ice, slamming down hard on landings, smacking the ice, it will only add to your frustrations. If you pretend that you are perfectly calm it will eventually convince you that you are in fact, cool, calm and collected.

5. Bad days happen. Most of the time frustration occurs because we can't do something that is normally easy for us. Remind yourself that if it was easy at one point, it will be easy again. But getting into that vicious cycle won't help. A safe bet is to leave whatever is driving you nuts until the next day. Chances are, it will be back to being good after a good nights rest.

As I said in my On Anxiety post, I'm not a psychiatrist or a professional but I do have a lot of first hand experience dealing with these types of issues. The best I can do is give you the same advice that sometimes works for me and hope it does the same for you. The hardest part about dealing with frustration is that you have to want to not be frustrated. This seems like an obvious statement on a day where you are calm and collected but when frustration takes over, it's a much different story. Just like with nerves, the key is to believe in yourself. Don't be so hard on yourself, you're better than you think. Still, easier said than done, I know. But give it a shot, you might surprise yourself.

Best of Luck!!

Tips and Tricks

So today I thought I'd round up some helpful tips and tricks I've found out or figured out over the years and share them with you!

1. Clear nail polish. Clear nail polish is the best way to quickly fix snag in a pair of tights to keep it from running. Just dab a bit of nail polish on the snag, allow it a few minutes to dry and BAM! No worries, your tights will have no runs or holes! This is also a handy trick for competitions. You can quickly remedy a snag if you don't have time to change your tights. Great money and time saver!

2. Tape. Using either masking tape or scotch tape you can fix your frayed skate laces. I know from first hand experience how frustrating it can be when the little aglets (yes that's what they're called!) fall off of the tips of the laces leaving them frayed. If you accidentally pull out your lace it can take decades to shove it back through the daunting little hole. A quick way to fix this is to wrap some tape around the tip of the lace. It will act as the plastic piece and keep everything compacted so you can re-lace with ease. Another option, if you're a bit of a daredevil is to burn the end of your skate lace. This will melt the fibers and have the same effect as tape.

3. Nail polish remover. If you tape your skates with sk8tape or your skates are just plain dirty this trick is a life saver. Tapes can often leave a sticky residue on the skate when taken off. The first time I taped my skates they were fairly white but I wanted them to look spectacular so I put shiny white Sk8tape on them. When I took the tape off after the competition my skates looked dirtier than they did before. I was disappointed because I knew now that I would have to tape my skates before every competition and polish was no longer an option. There was a sticky black residue all over my skates which got worse after I put them in my bag. My skate sharpener passed this little tip on to me, so now I'll return the favor and pass it on to you! Just dab a little nail polish remover onto a cotton swab, as if you're going to clean your fingernails and lightly rub it over the gooey areas. It will take the residue as well as any residual chipped polish or boot rot stains right off. Even if you don't tape your skates they're probably still dirty. My skates had reddish streaks on them due to boot rot of the leather soles. Nail polish remover took that right off as well.

4. Coca Cola. If your blades get rusty because you haven't skated in a while or you left your skates in your bag Coke is great way to remove the rust in a pinch. One of the girls on my synchro team had this problem before one of our competition official practices. I hadn't heard of this remedy until her mom bought a bottle of Coca Cola from the vending machine, poured some on a paper towel and wiped down her blades. It took the rust right off! Just make sure to douse blades with water afterwards to get any remaining Coke off. To keep skate blades from rusting it's best to take them out of the soakers after practice and let them sit in the open air. Additionally, make sure to dry the skates as well as possible and never leave them in the plastic guards. If Coca Cola can get rust off of metal, what is it doing to the inside of your body anyways?