Oh, I Get It

I sat in for most of the Adult Skating Committee Forum this morning and came away with a new appreciation for complexities of administering the adult program in general and of organizing this event.

There's something of a butterfly effect in operation: even a seemingly small change in the rules can result in as many new difficulties as improvements. For example, if instead of combining the junior and novice skaters in my age division this year, our groups had been permitted to compete separately, at least fifteen minutes would have been immediately added to the competition schedule--shifting warm-up and start times across the entire day in perhaps all three ice rinks. Enough framentation along these lines and the competition gets extended an entire day, creating problems for adults who take off work to attend, causing registration fees to rise in order to extend the reservations on the rinks, and so on.

If the current referee, Lynn Goldman, who spoke this morning about this and other issues, is indicative of the dedicated people governing our program, I must say I'm impressed.

Most significant among the rules changes for next year will be an adjustment to the age groupings. Classes of competitors will now be broken down by decade: 21- 30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60 and 61 and over. In other words, at 53 in 2009, I'll now be a relatively young competitor in Class IV (which was 46-55) instead of among the oldest. So much for the lofty amateur ideals I espoused this morning ;-); I'm feeling the onset of a serious competitive attitude. Maybe I will work on my axel and double salchow afterall....I mean, hey, with those in my program, I'd have a shot.

Oh, I get it: Winning might be more fun than coming in dead last (aka - DFL).

;-)

Dawn

Plus Ca Change, Plus Ca La Meme Chose

The more things change, the more they stay the same (I can't seem to make diacritical marks in this blog program, but you get the message.)

Although, as I reported earlier, the prevailing spirit is quite wonderful here, there are a few minor chords.

It's not as if they're difficult to spot: competitors who have parked themselves in an age and division class and who win year after year, electing not to test into the next division; competitors who were "grandfathered" into their division (as I was) according to tests we took when we were kids, but who, perhaps (I've heard) didn't report their earlier achievements in full, whose records, perhaps (I've heard) were not maintained by the USFSA and who perhaps (I've heard) are competing in divisions below what their actual placement might, maybe, should be. If a person, say who's fiftish, has swept his or her division three or more years running and is landing jumps and so forth well above the field...well. It is a topic for discussion behind the scenes here.

If you golf you know this story already: you faithfully report all of your scores and your handicap is correct. Other, better golfers, elect to drop a few, most, of their better rounds and end up handicapped in your flight.

One word: karma.

Another word: c'mon.

Imagine, that is, the Buddha's version of c'mon. So...I've noticed that certain persons have an attachment to self (judging, winning) that I may not understand or share. Really, what does this have to do with me? When I was ten, taking my first figure test-- a lot. I was crushed, *crushed* when I saw my score sheet: "Judges prefer tan tights." My mother had taken special care to match my blue leotard *and* tights to the tunic she'd sewn for me for the test. Who knew that my leg color was so critical?

And so it goes here, too, still--la meme chose. A complicated system of rules and codes, some confusion, some outright strategizing, some resentment, some shrugging and stoicism. As for me and the new friends I've made this week, you could say we've decided to wear the blue tights and to let karma and c'mon sort themselves out. As psychologist Jean Shinoda Bolen writes, "Crones don't whine."

In the meantime, there are plenty of private ego-delights to indulge in that only marginally impact the road to enlightenment--I hope. There is, for example, a photographer with a telescopic lense in the stands taking second-by-second action pix of you as you skate. You can then go to the viewing station and purchase (for a not insubstantial price) a few of the most flattering images of you in motion that you might *wish* your husband could get for free with his little digital camera, but can't. There is, for another example, a videographer with state-of-art equipment recording on DVD your entire skating routine and music, which you can purchase (for a not insubstantial price) and re-view for years to come--or as I did, immediately after acquiring it, on the computer in our hotel room.

Wheew. As I said, I didn't biff during or barf at the end--and yes, I did feel extreme relief and joy watching it and that *is* undoubtedly all about me. I have tried to spread those good feelings around--but oh, well, back to the meditation mat...

The REally Big Show is tomorrow: the championship events followed by the closing party. Off to polish the sequins on my evening frock now....

;-)

Until tomorrow!
Dawn

And now, some images of the day...

Dawn, waiting in the wings to do her routine.








Dawn, being supported by Marica.

Dawn, finishing her warm-up.

The beginning of Dawn's routine.

Dawn's friend, Marcia, during her competition yesterday.

Spin Control ;-)

There are so many ways to explain why I feel like a winner today (and several reasons why, technically speaking, I'm not. ;-)

*You could say, for example, that I'm currently sixth in the nation in my age and division.
(Out of six competitors. ;-)
*You could say, for example, that at one point I was in second place.
(I skated second, so that ranking lasted about twelve minutes, total.)
*You could say, for example, that I posted the second highest choreographic component score.
(And the lowest technical difficulty score. ;-)
*You could note that I made it through my entire program and had enough stuff left to bow nicely at the end--without barfing or fainting.
(Although I skipped a jump, knowing I wasn't in the running, and seeing as I then became really committed to the idea of not biffing in front of the video camera, so that, at my post-competition party back home in a few weeks, guests watching the DVD will not be required to feel really sorry for the hostess. "Look! At least she didn't fall!" ;-)
*You could say that my worst nightmare, blanking out in the middle of my routine and forgetting what came next--which actually happened to me once!--never materialized.
(Not even close. I was oh-so aware of every single second of impending peril ahead...)
*You could say that I hold in my heart the things that several of my co-competitors and a few audience members troubled themselves to tell me--something like, your edging is amazing, you're so quiet on the ice, it's like watching a whisper perform, your grace was so inspiring, you epitomize the joy and beauty of skating. You were beautiful out there, and I'm proud you're my wife. (Thank you, thank you!)


This year, my division (novice) was combined with the skill division above it (junior)--such combinations occur at the referee's discretion when too few entrants register. This meant I was competing against several very good skaters with a lot of experience at this competition and a repertoire of double and combination jumps I've never had. The age span for the group was 46 to 52--I was in fact, the oldest--Nina, a little older than I, had to withdraw this morning, owing to an injury, so sad--brave lady! All that having been said I was also more delighted to be that seasoned and healthy and happy woman than I could possibly have imagined.

And there's always next year.

And the year after, and after, god willing.

Special affection for my rink-mother, Marcia Richards, a retired physician who "put me out" at the competition, as they say in skating lingo--smiling and hugging, telling me I was going to have a wonderful time, holding my skate guards, picking up my dirty Kleenex on the rail. She was the one who first suggested I compete in this event. She skated her first event yesterday (we'll post some images soon) and was showered with gifts tossed onto the ice afterward, having missed last year's competion while healing from knee surgery--on both knees. Wow. She's beloved, around here in her age and division--a worthy mentor in every way.

Huge valentines to my skating coach, Stephanie Grosscup, and to my Pilates coach, Rebecca Keene Forde, who patientely refined and rebuilt, well, everything that was left, and then added a good portion of determination and belief to it, in just three years.

And to my husband--the wind under my wings--much love and gratitude for sharing this adventure.

The week's reports continue with posts about our impressions and activities on Friday and Saturday.

Love,
Dawn

The Secret Weapon: O

At last: an advantage to living in Utah. ;-)

I've been training at 4200 feet altitude for the past three years or so. In that rarified air, by the time my three-minute-forty-second routine was over, I was skating on fumes. Well. Lake Placid sits at 1800 feet... Imagine my delight yesterday during my practice session when I finished my program *and* still had gas to spare. Honestly, it's such a profoundly obvious equation: more oxygen, less fatigue. I just had never experienced it before as an athlete. Sweet.

I had another practice later in the day and a short one at eight this morning. Everyone is quite serious about the rehearsals. Regardless of age or level, the skaters are here to give it their all. A few have sponsored their coaches to attend, but I think having my coach Stephanee here would have made me quite anxious. She's extraordinary, believe me, but without her standing by the boards, I find I'm able to reduce that incessant self-conscious mind-chatter having to do with then-now: Last week I could land that flip with my eyes closed. Stephanee must think I'm a complete...andonandon. There is an advantage, I'm saying, to anonymity, to being an unknown quantity to others--and in a certain weird way to myself here--that I hadn't anticipated.

But next year--and I'm quite sure I'll be doing this again, as long as I can, in fact--that circumstance will change. I like making new friends. The funny thing is, one of the first people who spoke to me, a coach for another competitor, knows more about my deep skating past than most. When I stopped for a drink of Powerade this morning, Loren O'Neil smiled and said that I looked so much like Sonja Henie, it was frightening. I have to say this pleased me; we were practicing on the 1932 ice sheet where Sonja won one of her several Olympic titles.

"You knew her?"

"I did," Loren said. And so we chatted for a couple of minutes.

Turns out he knew Joannie McCusker, too, who had skated with Sonja in the Icelandia show. She was hired to teach me Sonja's signature "toework" maneuvers back when I was thirteen (egad forty-plus years ago) and my then-coach decided that I was the perfect candidate to play her in a biographic movie epic. (He was also the one who arranged the photo session at Sonja's Beverly Hills mansion. Turns out she was deathly ill already that day from leukemia and died a couple of months later. But that's another story.) The movie was never made--and I'm probably about the age now she was then. Sigh.

Please stop me before I say it. Oh, nevermind: It's a small world--and while we're at it, Carpe diem.

I feel right home here among my peers, even though this whole competitive scene is quite foreign to me. The prevailing attitude seems to be joy; joy for the sport, the cameraderie, the fact that our bodies are still obliging our whims, at least in small spurts. And then, of course, there are the lovely skating dresses. A lady should never outgrow the joy of wearing chiffon and sequins in public.

PS: I'd like to thank my official photographer and videographer, Don Marano, for his splendid documentary work thus far.

Dawn

First Report from Lake Placid

We made it here, safe and sound, and Dawn has really gotten into the swing of things! These are clearly her people! Just as much as her writer friends that she so cherishes! Here are some photos of her on the way to her first practice session and a short video of her doing the famous "Camel Spin" that put her on the disabled list in 1997. Lookin' good now! More to follow shortly. Don

Actually it happened this way: The potato version

Donny has it right. Almost. (Remember those opening vignettes in the movie When Harry Met Sally ? Couples seldom agree on the exact version of events.)

I recall a fateful day at the rink in 1997. A young girl approached me and asked that I demonstrate a “camel,” a skating spin executed in a ballet dancer’s arabesque position. Without a second thought, I stepped into the camel and felt a sickening sensation in my left hamstring. It was as if a huge rubber band in my leg had snapped and balled up behind my knee, quivering. And then came an excruciating pain like nothing I’d ever known. I limped off the ice, knowing that whatever had happened was not going to be fixed by a bath in Epsom salts and a few days off. Soon after, a sports physician confirmed my fears: a portion of the biceps femoris muscle of my hamstring had “avulsed,” torn completely off of its attachment on my pelvis, and in his opinion was inoperable. At the time his diagnosis seemed an appropriate punishment, and I didn’t bother to seek a second opinion: I was out of shape. I hadn’t warmed up properly. I deserved what I’d gotten.

I was forty-one years old. For the first time in three decades I was being forced to consider my identity as something other than an ice skater. In spite of many other professional achievements, I realized how much I still counted on that one ability as a validation of my self-worth. Although I couldn’t appreciate it at the time, I had been handed the opportunity to start re-conceiving my sense of who I was.

Six years would pass, though, before I even thought about retrieving my ice skates from the back of the closet; six years during which I stopped all physical activity, other than an occasional game of golf; six years of unrelieved depression over what I perceived as an irreparable loss.

It was my husband who first suggested that I try to skate again. We were going to Sun Valley, Idaho, for a getaway weekend. He reminded me how much I’d loved skating on the outdoor ice rink there, and I countered with excuses. By then, I was suffering from chronic neck and back pain. As it had been explained to me by a massage therapist I’d been seeing, my condition was analogous to an old telephone cord that been twisted out of shape and had become progressively kinked and knotted. My illeopsoas muscles cramped constantly; I could hardly bear to bend my knees to put on a pair of socks. Reluctantly, though, I agreed to take my skates to Sun Valley. Lacing them as I had thousands of times, I was filled with dread. When I stepped on the ice I found I could barely stroke around the rink much less try a spin. After ten minutes I pulled my boots off and sank even farther into depression. I had been dreaming about skating nearly nonstop for months; it seemed that when I slept my body campaigned for itself, begging for movement to be restored to it. I’d awaken still feeling the familiar and delightful sensations that skating produced. Now I knew that I’d never enjoy them again, except in my dreams.

But later that night, sleepless in our Sun Valley condo, I had a sudden impulse to check my blades. Balancing a coin flat on the inverted left blade—a means of assessing the integrity of its edges—I could distinctly see an aberration, a place where the blade was nearly imperceptibly bent. Whether the damage had occurred before or after the hamstring tear, I couldn’t be sure. But for the first time since the injury, I had reason for optimism. A bent blade could be replaced. Perhaps my bent body might be healed.

Back home in Salt Lake City I consulted a physical therapist who evaluated the old hamstring injury and the related distortions caused as my body tried to compensate for it. My range of motion was still good, in her opinion, but my core strength was negligible.

“Pilates,” she said. “If you want to skate again, start doing Pilates.”

Inwardly I groaned. I’d already experimented with and rejected several forms of structured exercise. Swimming laps was mind-numbing. Weightlifting with an inexperienced trainer had caused more harm than good. Yoga was soothing, but, as a skating friend of mine put it, “How interesting is holding a triangle pose when you’ve been doing axels on ice since you were a kid?” Jogging made my knees hurt. And none of these options targeted the imbalances caused by the damaged hamstring and the rehabilitation it required.

I was desperate, though. On the way home from shopping one day, I stopped by Streamline Bodyworks for a brochure. Just a few mat classes, I told myself. No sense in going overboard.
Well. I went overboard. And nearly three years later, a few hundred hours of Pilates later, I'm off to my first, yes first, skating competition. (More on that later.)

Oh, and about the potatoes. On the way home from Sun Valley, back in 2005, Don and I talked a lot about skating, the bent blade, and my grief. Meanwhile, it was harvest time in Idaho. On the backroads that Don likes to take, we found ourselves following truckbed after truckbed loaded with pototoes. And every couple of miles, we stopped to make our own harvest of spuds--those that had toppled from the trucks. We came home with a plan (for my skating swan song) and with a peck of taters to boot. Lucky us!

Actually, it began much earlier...

... on the drive back from a lovely summer weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho, the home of the best outdoor ice skating rink in the country, the place where I fell in love with Peggy Fleming during her 1970 TV ice skating extravaganza! Miss Dawn hadn't even brought her ice skates with her on that trip, having not skated at all after an injury a number of years back. I caught her watching the skaters out on the ice on a bright, sunny, warm afternoon with what I saw to be a look of loss and maybe even yearning. So, as we drove home, I proposed that I would learn how to skate (even at my advanced age) if she would get back on the ice and begin training for the Utah Senior Winter Olympics. I am not quite sure why she agreed - possibly just to see me skate backwards (but not yet on purpose!) - or, possibly because it was just the right time for her to start her journey back to the bliss and joy of skating that had been such a major part of her youth.

Don

It Begins

A week and counting from the US Adult Figure Skating Championships in Lake Placid!

There are 600 competitors coming, I'm told. We range in age from 21 to who-knows-what, sorted into the several skating disciplines (e.g., singles, pairs, ice dancers) and then into various classes of competancy and decrepitude. I'm in the Ladies Masters Novice division, level 4 (ages 46-55). My survival kit speaks volumes: a new bottle of Aleve, a new jar of arnica lotion, a new box of Nicorette, Powerade powder, Power Bars, a heating pad and smelling salts.

Don and I will do our best to keep you posted on the adventure ahead!

Dawn