A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Rink…
November 11, 2008
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?
***
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.
Happy Halloween
October 28, 2008
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 4th 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.
***
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.
Power Skating: A Memo
October 21, 2008
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.
***
You? Have you experienced or witnessed the splendors of power skating? Click on comment, below.
Skaterwoman to the Rescue!
October 14, 2008
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.
Hello Facebook
October 7, 2008
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.
***
What do you think? Is Facebook a waste of time, or the perfect conduit, or both? Leave a comment below.
What I Did this Summer
September 16, 2008
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!
Beat the Heat
June 24, 2008
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.
Congratulations Graduates
June 16, 2008
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.
The Practice Guarantee
June 10, 2008
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.
Test Session 101
June 3, 2008
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!”
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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.
