Just Skating By

(This is 8 year old me at a competition in 2004!)

The air is cold, the rink is quiet, with hushed conversations all around, the judges are deliberating about the last skater. My heart is beating so fast, flutters swim about in my stomach, I am nervous. It’s my turn to take the ice, the announcer calls my name and I take my blade guards off. I skate out to the center of the rink and hold my pose, anxiously waiting for my music to start. This is everything I have been working toward, and it all leads up to this moment, right now. They hit play, and I begin my program.

As I sit on my couch watching the Olympic Figure Skating on TV, I am reminded of a time in my life when I once took the ice. For those who did not know, I was a figure-skater for about 11 years of my life. I started when I was only 3, taking Learn to Skate lessons, working my way all the way up to completing Moves in the Field tests (by passing a field test, you are placed in different divisions of competition). In addition to regular skating lessons, I also took ice dance lessons, essentially learning ballroom dances on ice. The end-all be-all/big game/playoffs of figure skating is a skating competition, what all the work is for in the end.

To this day, the ice is a magical place for me. It is where I feel most free, where I can glide without fear and feel the cold air in my face. It reminds me of a different time in my life and how the sport of figure skating shaped my life forever, teaching me life lessons that I don’t know if I could have learned anywhere else.

(Somehow, my parents let me take Intermediate Ice Skating as a class in college my senior year!)

Below are a few of the many life lessons that I learned because of figure skating:

People will doubt you

Growing up and hearing the thing you spend your after-school hours on, the thing that you train for, the thing you love is “not a real sport” sucked. Sure, it may look effortless, beautiful even, but that is the point! Do you realize how much strength it takes to hoist yourself into the air and turn around a few times (an axel), only to land on one foot? Or holding a sit spin about 6 inches away from the ice, balancing on one foot? That shit is hard! I probably looked crazy, but I would skate in tank tops because I would sweat so much (I recently went to a rink in Chicago just to skate around and I literally had to take breaks because I was sweating so much.) Needless to say, it’s hard, ok? The sport of figure skating is about completing the elements & doing so with artistry, and making it all look easy.

When you fall, you literally have to get back up

It is a feeling I would wish on no one, the feeling of after months of preparation, falling on a jump during competition. It is so disappointing, you're half-tempted to just lay there and cry a little. But the music is on, the crowd is watching, and if you're going to finish your program, you better get up and act like nothing happened. That lesson of getting back up after you fall, that is something I have taken with me into adulthood, and reflected upon often. Times I got a rejection from a job application, times that I received harsh criticism on a work project. In those moments, I have thought about that little girl in her bedazzled dress on the ice and what she would have done. She would have immediately picked herself back up, as much as the fall physically hurt, as much as the emotions welled in her eyes, she would have gotten back up.

You can’t just go through the motions

It kills me to watch skaters do a bunch of technically amazing jumps/spins on ice, but without any “face in it.” Imagine watching a dancer with a straight face, it’s not as enjoyable as seeing the emotion run through their entire body. The same applies to skating. I remember how the nerves of competition could sometimes put your “game face” on, and autopilot kicks in as you complete the elements you’ve practiced, without really performing.

The lesson here is this; You can’t just go through the motions of life, you have to put emotion into it. Emotion means you care, you’re 100% in it. It’s the difference between an A or a B, a work promotion or not, you get what I mean. Putting heart into whatever you do shines, and expresses you through your work/sport/etc. There is a difference between performing and just skating by.

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I am forever grateful for this sport, encourage anyone reading this and watching the Olympics to think about all the preparation that these athletes endure. It is incredible to see what the best of the best can show us out there. If you want to follow along, here is a great link to the Olympic skating schedule for this month!

-M