Sorry it has been awhile since I last wrote. I have been so busy with kids, work and have had no inspiration actually. Until yesterday...
My coach and I have been kinda dabbling with the Adult Silver MIFs for about a year and a half now. We work on them on and off (mostly off) but lately we have been working on them quite consistently. I have the forward cross rolls down pretty well and the back cross rolls are coming along. My spirals are good to go. The eight-step is horrid mostly because the outside edge on the mohawk is driving me crazy. We have not really work too much on the power pulls. I have the concept down but struggle getting the rip. Worst of all for me are the three turns in the field.
Yesterday my coach decided to break it down old school! We actually did patch for 30 minutes! Doing this pattern over and over again was difficult - don't get me wrong - but totally eye opening. I actually felt the back push into the circle - a revelation. It was like the skating goddess was shining down on me at that moment. A beautiful thing.
Now I know that the old school figures were boring for judges to watch, tedious for skaters and silly for a television audience, but USFSA had to just get rid of them? While the MIFs have some of the same type of skills embedded in them, there is something to be said for the practice of the very thing that made this sport FIGURE skating instead of just ICE skating. I remember watching Dorothy Hamill doing compulsory figures and saying to my mom, "I want to do that." Scott Hamilton writes about his experience with figures in his most recent book. How they helped shape him as a skater and as a person. Figures take patience, diligence, and a sense of calm that is lacking for most skaters today. I can't imagine my daughter standing on a square of ice, tracing the same pattern over and over again for hours until it was perfect. I wish I could - but that is not what skating is today.
So, I will do my patch as the kid almost runs me over in her double lutz and the rest of the skaters pass me by. I will do my figures with patience and hope that I can use them to make me a better skater and ultimately a better person.
