The Ballet Days

It seems like I've been doing a lot of "lecturing" lately so I figured I'd share some more personal stories this week.

I started taking classical ballet in seventh grade when my coach suggested that it might benefit my skating. You see before I took ballet I was probably the least graceful child ever. She used to tell me that my hands, when they were supposed to be delicate, looked like they were clutching grapefruits. My knobby elbows bent into sharp corners instead of into the round, soft shapes that they should have taken on.

My ballet training were made up of some extremely memorable moments, both good and bad. I only took class twice a week, Monday and Friday. I took one class on Mondays, but Fridays I was at the studio for three and a half, sometimes four, hours straight. In addition to ballet I also took jazz, choreography/partnering, and eventually an advanced ballet class. It was difficult and very sweaty but I managed. I left the house on Friday mornings at 5am for an early morning skate and didn't return home on until 9:30 after my partnering class had ended. Somehow though, I loved how exhausting it was. I felt productive and strong.

My ballet instructor, or Madame as we were told to call her, was a woman in her eighties but she had a youthfulness about her. She would sometimes dance with us, move with us, and she taught for hours and hours a week. She was tough and very strict, but those were the reasons I respected her so much. At least initially.

Into my second and third years of ballet training I began to notice some unhealthy things happening at the studio. She used to always encourage me to come to more classes, "it will make your skating better", "your ankles will be stronger", "you'll be a better skater" , "you need to be at Wednesday and Thursday classes" she would say almost every week. My response became almost scripted. I would tell her, very politely and carefully, that if I attended any more classes than I already was that I wouldn't have the resources, time and money, to continue to skate. Granted, I would have probably been worlds better if I had gone to class every day. Heck! My progress after the first year was incredible. I went from no turn out to quite a bit. I went from no grace to quite graceful. I went from sickled feet to pleasantly pointed toes. At this rate, I probably could have done great things with ballet but it wasn't my focus. My reason for taking classes was to strengthen my skating. To make me a better figure skater. And I constantly had to remind myself of that.

But that aspect wasn't what made me uncomfortable. It was that I always wondered if she wanted me to take more classes because it would benefit my dancing or if it was because it would put more money in her pocket.

In general, i'm a competitive person...which makes things difficult when it comes to competing because even though I want to be the best with every bone in my body, I also get incredibly nervous. But when it came to Ballet there were no nerves, I was competitive as usual. I wanted to be the best in the class, or at least one of the best. And I was on my way there if I hadn't quit. But Madame picked favorites, big time. She loved the new students, the young students. She gave them lots of corrections, talked them up in front of the class, praised them for their hard work. I was that student my first year and part of my second year. Once a student had been there for a few months, maybe a year, however, it was as if they had become invisible. I began to notice this by my third year. She was no longer correcting me and I know it was definitely not because there was nothing to correct. She rarely commented on anything having to do with my dancing, nor did she even look at me sometimes. She was pre occupied with the "triple threats" in her class. The "potential Broadway girls", and she seemed to forget about everyone else.


One day, she sat us all down for a lecture. She did this occasionally and we rejoiced that class had ended a few minutes early and we could sit. Usually she told stories of how hard she had to work in her day, how she has grown soft over the years and we should be thankful. Some comments were mildly frustrating to hear but this day, this day was different. She went around the room commenting on each person. On their dancing and on their personal being. When she got to me she looked at me a minute and I could feel my heart beat in my chest. "Now" and she said my name "I don't know if you are too socially, emotionally, or intellectually immature or all three...." she continued but the blood rushed through my cheeks so hard and so fast I thought my face might light on fire. I gnawed on my lower lip, clenched my jaw and tried to look as calm as possible.

What I really wanted to do was a cross between cry and scream. At 14 she was probably right, I was probably a little immature as most 14 year olds are but she had no right to call me out on it in front of the entire class. I did my best. I worked hard. She had even treated me the previous year as if I was her prized possession and now she was tossing me out onto the curb like a sac of used goods. For a girl that already struggled with self-confidence issues this was my tipping point.

I sat quietly in the car on the ride home, I never said a word. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth the cry would escape. My mom was concerned at my silence and she knew that something had gone awry. I didn't open up until later in the summer before registration for the next year began. I told her what had happened and that I didn't want to go back.

I miss ballet sometimes and I'm far from being bitter about my experiences with Madame. She taught me a lot about myself and what I am capable of. I learned how to be graceful, how to be balletic and delicate. I learned how to be mentally and physically strong. They were very important, those three years I spent with Madame and I wouldn't take any of them back.

I was glad that I could finally acknowledge that her teaching style was unhealthy and it had nothing to do with her being strict. It was the personal attacks that bothered me the most, and the favoritism. If ballet was my life long passion I might have stuck with it, but the reason I started taking it was to better my figure skating. For a girl with self-confidence issues already, this definitely wasn't helping.

It's ironic because I made my decision for what I felt, and still feel, were mature reasons. Staying in an unhealthy situation would have been immature, at least from my perspective. And it took a lot of guts to give up something I loved for what was right for me. It's been three years now without ballet and I'm thinking of starting again in colleg
e. Something light duty, easier going, just to revive my passion for movement and expression. Madame kindled a passion for ballet in me, and I'm thankful for that, and I cannot wait to rekindle that passion.

Best of Luck!! (and lots of love to all of my readers!)

On Popping

I've struggled with popping jumps since as long as I can remember. The worst bout of it I had was a few years back with my double lutz. I spent probably close to three months where I would not rotate a single one. I would pop and pop and pop continuously until I thought my coach was going to personally kick me up into the air with her skate...toe-pick first. If you haven't had a problem with popping the sensation is something like banging your head into a brick wall repeatedly. It didn't matter that I wanted to try the jump or that I really did think I was going to do it "this time". I could not, would not rotate. Up, pop. Up pop. Up pop. And thats how it went for about 3 months until finally my coach, frustrated and out of ideas threw me a Hail Mary.

She reached into her skate bag at the beginning of my lesson one day and pulled out a journal. The cover had Barbie dolls or something girly on it and it was spiral bound. She flipped open to the first page. On it were drawn three columns headed by a line for the date. One column was labeled land, the second was fall and the last column was for recording pops. There were six rows, one for each jump and I was to make a tally mark in the correct column after every jump I did. If I fell on a double sal I marked it down. If I popped a double loop I marked it down. If I landed a double toe I marked it down. It was tedious and slightly time consuming since I had to keep my pen and paper at the ready during every practice. At the end of the day I was to count up the percent of each jump attempt that I ended up popping.

Her point in having me do this was to make me see just how pressing my problem was. If I had to write it down, it would be much more visible. For instance I found that I popped something like 45% of my double loops and 97% of my Lutzs. For me, this was enough to shock me into changing my ways. Every time I circled around the rink it counted, and at first I was embarrassed to show my coach the notebook after a few days of keeping track.

In a weird way having to write it down made me realize how much time I wasted on bailing out. Instead of just wanting to land the blasted jump I started to want to make a check in the "land" column. This changed my focus from "stop popping" to "start landing". I believe that this technique worked for two reasons. The first is that it addressed my issue and shocked me into seeing how big of a problem it actually was. Secondly, the notebook made me want to "land" jumps instead of "stop popping" jumps. It changed the wording.

Popping, no shock here, is all psychological. It's all in the head. My coach told me to come up with a keyword to repeat to myself before I took off for every jump, such as "Up". There is one little catch to this technique however and it is that the keyword must be positive. It cannot be something like "Don't pop" or "Don't fall" or "Don't Stop Believing" (yes that is a Journey reference). When you say "Don't pop" what your brain actually hears is "pop", so it does what it's told. By making the statement affirmative such as "land" it is much more effective. I still say "land" in my head before I take off and it works almost 100% of the time. I stand by my belief that skating is 70% mental and 30% physical.

In fact, this technique is actually advocated in parenting classes. When you reprimand your child you are supposed to tell them something along the lines of "Next time keep the cat on the floor" rather than "Don't pick up the cat by it's tail". Affirmative is better!

An image from Duhigg's novel showing the habit loop
in regards to Alcoholism and how AA meetings can
help break the addiction. 

The major issue with popping is that it becomes a habit and habits, my fellow nail biters know, are very hard to break. I'm currently reading a nonfiction novel titled The Power of Habit. It's written by Charles Duhigg and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a summer read. In it, Duhigg discusses the nature of habit loops which you can read more into if you so choose.

Here is my personal 4 step method to handling popping:
1. Keep a journal. Record all of your pops, lands and falls.
2. Figure out the ratio of pops to landed/fallen on jumps. The number might be large enough to widen your eyes and send a shiver down your spine. If so, the shock factor step has been completed.
3. Pick an affirmative keyword to repeat to yourself right before you take off on every jump. "Land" is a simple and effective one.
4. Continue this process until you change your habit from popping, to landing! It takes about a month for a habit to be
completely changed so be patient.

Best of Luck!!

Envy vs. Jealousy

There is this big green monster that we are taught about in elementary school and that big green monster if you remember, is named Envy. Envy is a powerful, yet not evil, emotion. However, it's twin, Jealousy has a bad side that possesses many people. There is a big difference between envy and jealousy, that difference being that jealousy includes hatred. You can be envious of your friends new car and you can be jealous of your friends new car. Envy only implies that you want the car. Jealousy implies that you want the car and you hate your friend for having it.

As I'm sure many of you already know, both envy and jealousy run rampant in the skating world and it is one of the leading causes of, you guessed it, the notoriously insane rink drama. You would be lying if you said that never in your whole life have you ever experience either one, or both. It's human nature. We all have a tendency to get a little envious of our neighbors swimming pool, their new car, a child with an ice cream cone, or that other skaters triple flip. Envy isn't necessarily a bad thing. It only implies that we want something as well. Sometimes, envy can power us towards our goals and motivate us. It's jealousy, the evil twin, that causes trouble.

I spent probably most of my competitive years in juvenile through junior being both chronically envious and jealous of other skaters. It consumed me somedays, especially the bad ones. There were days where I would sit in the lobby lacing up my skates and stare at another skaters clothes, hair or skates and wish that I could have that too. I was jealous of other skaters for having big training facilities and schools of skating friends, for being stick thin and
for being able to sit in the kiss and cry at nationals or go to proms with fellow male skaters.

I don't know why I let it get to me so much. I always felt as if I had drawn the short stick. If I had just lived somewhere else, had more money and more ice time that I could have been more successful. It was especially painful the year I competed in Intermediate at my regionals. I didn't even make final rounds when another girl from my rink made junior nationals. She got flowers at the rink, send off parties, competitor parties at nationals and recognition back at home. All I got were big black mascara stains on my pillow at home.

I felt like a failure. I wept about my skate for days and wallowed in my self-pity. It was awful. In hindsight I wish future me could travel back into the past and give 13 year old me a big ol' slap in the face. I was consumed by jealousy after that. I wish I had a better rink. I wish I had more money. I wish I could skate more. I wish I was a better skater. I wish I made Junior Nationals. 

Just recently, I've made some emotional breakthroughs. It's been a long time since I felt that amount of jealousy towards another skater. Envy yes, jealousy not so much. It's difficult, but I am working on it. Going back to my "the grass isn't always greener on the other side" metaphor, it's useless to spend time wallowing about what others have when there's time to be spent bettering ourselves. Even those skaters struggle with their own demons, even they probably have someone they are jealous or envious of. My dad always used to tell me that while we are envious of the Millionaires of the world,  the Millionaires are wishing they were the Billionaires.

Best of Luck!!

Who Would We Be?

Yesterday I received a scholarship application in the mail from my Synchronized Skating team. They are awarding $500 to one of four graduating seniors and one of the requirements is an essay. The essay prompt reads " Write an essay about the impact that figure skating has had on your life". When I first read the prompt I did a little fist pump, this was going to be oh so simple. But as I sat down this morning with a cup of tea and the intent of pumping out my 500 word essay, I began to realize that this was going to be harder than I thought.

See heres the problem, its hard to say which areas of my life have been impacted by skating because skating has been my whole life. Where do I draw the line, I would literally not be the same human being I am today if I had not taken Learn to Skate classes. It has been such an integral part of my life since age 5 that it is impossible to separate "non-skating me" from "skating me". Every dimension of my life has been shaped by skating, how do I put that into 500 words?

Should I start with the emotional and mental aspects? That seems the most obvious. Skating has taught me determination, perseverance, self-control, confidence, dedication, blah blah blah, those are things preached about in every sport. Socially I have been impacted. Since I opted to not play a school sport in a high school of jocks and jockettes, I didn't have as many friends as I probably could have. My family has been impacted financially as well. We spend so much money on skating every year it's hard to imagine what we would be able to do if I quit. Heck! I would be able to purchase designer shoes instead of skates and we could take fancy vacations. That said, I wouldn't trade skating for the world...even a closet filled with Manolos, Louboutins, and Jimmy Choos.

Cognitively I have been affected by skating. If I had more time to study my grades might be much higher, I might be going to an Ivy League University in the fall. But it has also taught me how to work hard and plan out my time. I am a time management pro due to my busy schedule, even if it means waking up extra early to finish a World History essay before heading to school. Physically my feet are covered in old lady like bumps and my hands are shaped by callouses.

To be honest, it seems irrelevant to imagine this parallel universe where I never skated and compare it to the universe in which I do. It is as if I am trying to imagine a life in which I only had one leg, or for a parent with a Downs Syndrome child to imagine what it would be like if the child wasn't affected. Skating will not cease to be my life either. As I age I will hopefully grow a group of students to coach and in turn make an impact on their lives. I will explore the world through Disney on Ice and experience performing on a bigger stage. My extra income from coaching might one day permit me to compensate for those lost vacations and designer shoes. Or maybe not. Predicting the future is just about as useful as looking into the past, or into a parallel universe for that matter.

I guess by asking me what impact skating has had on my life, they are asking me who I am. And to be honest, at age 17, I really don't know. But I hope to find out someday.

Best of Luck!!

Smart Shopping Saturday's #3

Today is the second Saturday of July and that means it's time for another Smart Shopping Saturday's! Below is a review of some products you should know about and some you should avoid. Enjoy!

Apparel

Just like most skaters prefer one skate manufacturer over another or one brand of dress over another, many prefer one brand of tights. Mondor is my go to brand. I find that Mondor tights have a medium to thick waistband on the top that smooths everything out. I tend to pull my tights up high, just slightly over my belly button to give the "spanx" effect. This way you can ensure that nothing is getting smushed out over the top. Mondors fit very comfortably, don't slide down, and are very durable. I wear the footless version because I skate barefoot with Bunga pads but they carry over the boot, and footed tights as well. I don't usually purchase the knit type mainly because I find that they would be too bulky to be worn under skating pants. However, for younger skaters wearing dresses for practice or competition, knit tights are a must have. From a distance they don't appear to be bulky or knit but they keep the skater much warmer than regular tights.

http://www.mondor.com/en/see-our-products.php?search=tights&x=0&y=0

Hair
Hair nets, and not the kind that your elementary school lunch ladies wore, are the essential finishing touch to any bun. Hairnets come in various shades to match any color hair and are superb at holding down the fly aways and securing a bun. I wear Bunheads brand hairnets that I purchase through Discount Dance Supply but if you're lucky you might be able to buy them at a local cosmetics or pharmacy store. For just a few dollars, a hair net will give the polished look you're searching for and you might be able to get away with using half as much hairspray! Also, if you are not a bun making master and have yet to perfect the perfect bun, a hair net is a good way to correct any mistakes. It smooths out any bumps and gives a bun shape to any  mess of hair. When I first started taking ballet I used to just pile up all my hair, plop a hair net over the top, pin it down and it looked just as good as anybody else.

http://www.discountdance.com/dancewear/style_BH420.htmlpid=864&Shop=Style&SID=501373783

Accessories 

The accessory for today is something I have loved for a very long time. I refer to it as "The Roll". The Roll is a long foam roller used for getting into deep muscle tightness. It's technical name is something like Self-myofascial release, or SMR and it is painful and glorious all at the same time.There are various positions you can contort yourself into on the roller to get a deep stretch everywhere from your calves to your upper back. With a roller you can get into areas that you wouldn't be able to loosen up with a traditional stretch. For me, I found that my IT band, the muscle along the outside of the leg from hip to knee, was very tight. It was beginning to cause me some mild knee pain but once I started rolling it out the pain subsided. You can buy one of these foam rollers anywhere from Target to professional gym stores in various levels of densities. The denser the roller is the deeper of a stretch you will get.
HERE are some SMR foam roller stretches and HERE is a link to Target's website where you can purchase various foam rollers.

Best of Luck!!

On Body Image Issues

Alissa Czisny

I've been putting off writing this post because I'm not entirely sure I'm qualified to write about weight issues. I'm still dealing with body image issues myself. As a figure skater, we feel a lot of pressure to be that size two or less, stick legged athlete. I most certainly am not. For one, I am a size 6 and I have muscular legs which I occasionally whine about. I have hips, I am a girl after all, and I'm 5'6 which I complained about for the longest time. I have fully come to terms with my height now that I have stopped growing. I have also realized that not all competitive figure skaters are the size of an olympic gymnast. In fact, skaters with long legs like Alissa Czisny are sometimes much more beautiful to watch.  Just make sure that those "gazelle" legs, as one of my coaches refers to them, are not bent.


So as a 5'6", muscular skater with hips and boobs and thighs I sometimes feel like I have the wrong body for the sport. Between my freshman year of high school, which I entered at age 13, and my senior year of high school which I left at age 17, my body has changed dramatically. I went from one of those little stick figures to an actual human being. This is a transition I still haven't come to terms with. I feel betrayed by my body and by myself. Sometimes I think if I didn't eat as much through high school that I would still be a size 2.

Junior Ladies Champion Polina Edmunds

Skating is different from other sports in that you are being judged and everything is subjective. In hockey you either score a goal or you don't. In football you either make a touch down or you don't. In running you either cross the finish line or you don't. Sometimes the staff has to look really really close, but the placements are still objective. In a subjective sport like figure skating or gymnastics, every little detail about your appearance seems to count. Is your dress to small? Is your dress ugly? Does it go with the music? Is your hair a mess? Does your makeup make you look like the Joker? Are your skates white? And finally...what about your weight? Are you fat? Skinny? I always felt that if only I had a more glamorous dress, if only I could drop a few pounds, that  I too could stand on the top of the podium.

The truth is, none of those things will make a dramatic difference. The physical appearance aspect might separate placements 2 from 3 or 1 from 2 but it will never take a skater at the bottom of the results sheet and shoot them up to the top or vice versa. The only thing that should really matter in skating isn't the politics or occasionally wacky judging, it's how you skate that counts. If you feel that you are at a disadvantage for whatever the reason, the solution is to work harder. You will feel better if you had to earn the medal around your neck.

There are some skaters, like Caroline Zhang who have undergone this transition at around the same time as I have. Many of you might remember this very young national medalist from 2008 when she began to appear everywhere. Suddenly she fell of the national stage but she has made a comeback! Low and behold, she no longer looks like a 12 year old girl. Why is it that this normal, natural transition is so shunned in figure skating?

That said, I still look in the mirror every day and wish that I had my 13 year old body back. My point in making this post was not to sit here and whine about my own issues. It was to point out, to myself and to you, that if you want something, you have to work to get it. If that something is out of your reach, you have to work harder in other areas to compensate for it. When I was younger and Oprah was on television she would often have overweight individuals on the show where they would cry about their weight. I used watch them sob and say, as thought they could hear, "Tears don't burn calories!" In hindsight, I realize how insensitive my comment was. But yet at the same time, nothing is stopping you, or me, or them from greatness besides ourselves. It's time to stop standing in our own way and to get out there and fight for what we want out of life. Don't let the myths about skating tell you that you are not good enough.

Sorry if that was too preachy for you!  Saturday's post will be a Product Review so stick around!

Best of Luck and lots of love to my new readers!!

Is The Grass Greener on the Other Side?

My whole skating career with the exception of three or four years when I was younger, I have been an individual member of US Figure Skating. I would say that there weren't any clubs in the area but actually, the exact opposite is true. Within a 40 minute range there are about six clubs. Because there are so many, none of them are very strong. There are three synchro teams, each with barely enough for an open juvenile team. If we put all of the clubs, all of the synchro teams together, we could have one very strong, very popular club. But no one seems to want to work together, after all, it is the skating world. So instead we scrape by with our six clubs, each of which are always on the verge of sliding under. In addition to this there are also three rinks that do not have a club. No club means cheaper ice time, but it also means less ice time in some cases. I  spend most of my time at the rink closest to where I live but I often have to drive to several other rinks in order to get all of my skating in.

To be honest, I really wish my "home rink" had a club present and I wish it was a massive, extremely popular club with exciting skaters and famous coaches. I hope for something like Broadmoore, SC of Boston, All Year FSC, or SC of New York. But we can all dream. I could join one of these clubs, the one closest to me, just to have the name announced at competitions but it wouldn't be the same. 

What I long for is the closeness of the skaters at the rink. At my rink, the coaches are very territorial. It's as if there is an unspoken rule that you are only allowed to talk to other skaters taught by your coach. This creates a drama vortex. It seems that the coaches hate one another so much that it more often than not, ends up only hurting the skaters.

I know that at this point there is no changing the way that the rinks and coaches in my area operate. But I hope to one day, after college and traveling, come back to my hometown and start coaching. When I do I will make it my goal to create a warm environment for not only my skaters, but others too. I want to bring in an independent coach to teach off-ice classes and begin to make my home rink like those rinks I have envied my whole life.

When I was younger my parents would always tell me "The grass isn't always greener on the other side". This meant that sometimes we think someone has it better, but come to find out, they actually have it the same or perhaps worse. As I'm getting older I'm beginning to realize that sometimes in fact, the grass is actually greener on the other side. But rather than wallow and mope about how much you hate the grass on your side, you can do your best to water and feed  what your given and sometimes, just sometimes, the grass on your side will get green up. Don't give up on what you're given. Make the best of what you have because all the moping and the whining and the pouting won't change a thing. What will change something is hard work and dedication. In the end, when you put in effort to change something for the better, the feeling of satisfaction you get when you succeed will be worth your while. In the words of Drake, "Started from the bottom now we here". Just thought I'd throw that in there.

Best of Luck!!