A Brief Recollection Of My Life As A Figure Skater
During my time as a competitive figure skater, I've collected a bountiful harvest of anecdotes that still serve a vital role in my conscious mind.
During my time as a competitive figure skater, I've collected a bountiful harvest of anecdotes and abnormalities that still serve a vital role in my conscious mind. Here is a brief sampling of the nostalgic lifestyle.
In order to be somewhat successful in figure skating, one must practice, or "train" if you will. The practice sessions that were exclusive to serious figure skaters at my rink were called "freestyle" sessions. These would usually last from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. If you were really serious, you would do two freestyle sessions every other day. If you were homeschooled, you could do four or more every day.
And then there's freestyle etiquette: "Don't spin in corners." My sister lectured me once during a practice session. I had just finished a haircutter spin and was looking at the loops that had just been ingrained into the ice. My sister's face was pink with sweat beads lining across her forehead. She had dark rings encircling her eyes since the black eyeliner she applied early in the morning was smudged way beyond repair. "People jump in corners. Lutzes!" She then rolled her coffee-ground eyes, treating me like the true imbecile I was for not knowing that people take off for their lutz in corners of the rink and skated off. I was left to my own devices.
To perform a run-through of your program, you had to tie an orange ribbon around your waist in order to notify fellow skaters that you are the one practicing and that they must not get in your way. This symbol was usually ineffective; practice sessions were always a war zone with collisions - orange ribbon or not. If you had enough gumption, you would scream"excuse me!" right before cutting off a group of skaters and performing a required element. If you were a part of a pair skating or ice dance team, consider yourself the exception to freestyle etiquette, as a pairs team has double the momentum and double the power a single skater has. No one would have dared to get in your way, for the risk of dangerously colliding was maximized.
My skating coach was British and petite. She hated Obama, Rachael Flatt, and silence. She had a blond pixie cut and wore a large red coat with a fur-trimmed hood, making her even smaller in appearance. In the winter, she would carry a mini-heater onto the ice and plant it behind her while she gave instruction. When I did something wrong, she would call me knucklehead or Miss Mental Case. "When you do a spiral, make sure you look beautiful doing it!" she told me. "Would you want to shop at Kmart with their ugly, cheap decor or Macy's with their excellent window displays?" She stared at me incredulously. "...Macy's...?" I quickly looked up at her then back down, terrified of the verbal train that was quickly racing towards me.
All in all, my skating coach taught me several important lessons that I still apply to everyday endeavors. She also once advised me to purchase butt pads to cure my fear of falling on my jumping passes. In regards to health and wellness, she told me to never consume the icing on birthday cake and the fatty bits of steak. My life has never been the same ever since.
Looking back, I appreciate my competitive history in figure skating. I've adopted skills that most of my friends don't have. I also gained habits that are still stuck with me to this day. And best of all, my childhood and adolescence were spent on a frozen pond.
Please Stop Looking At Me, Thank You
Sparked by an observation on a run
As many of my friends know, I enjoy a nice run, but I realized yesterday that something has been bothering me recently while I am running. Now there is no way for me to not seem a little cocky when writing this, but after being honked at upwards of 10 times yesterday, (with one guy screaming out of a taxi to attempt to get my attention) I remembered and felt a familiar stare. I knew it had something to do with my body, and the clothes I was wearing. I didn't ask for any stares, but I did feel them burning through my skin. The male peer you could call it.
Now the following is just a personal observation of the world around me, so take whatever you feel from it. See ever since I took a sociology class last semester, and a psychology class the year before I have become fascinated with human behavior. It has been interesting learning the difference between the conscious and subconscious, nature versus nurture, and what truly it makes humans different from other animals.
So back to my run, as I ran down a very busy street I started to notice a lot of eyes making weird eye contact with me. Now I don't really care about a little glance, or a little up-and-down because I tend to not dwell, and let small things slide. I think that's part of being human sometimes. Because people are attracted to people, and humans are observant and innately curious beings who are looking around all the time. What I do care about is the glare because you can really feel it, and it's not a stare that you want on your body.
I think it is actually quite hard to write about how I feel being a woman in today's society. It seems you are either one of the boys, chill, and above it all, or you are a raging psychotic "feminazi". But I think girls are coming to collectively realize, for the most part, we are all just "bad bitches" and badasses. Can we just label ourselves as a women tribe or something? Ultimately, we all want the same thing. The ability, power, and freedom to do what we want to do when we want to do it in whatever way we feel the best.
I guess these days some might say, "if you didn't want to be honked at you shouldn't have been in just leggings and a sports bra". In fact, I know a lot of people would say that. I read in the news recently that two teens were kicked off a United Airlines flight for public indecency because they were in leggings. Teenagers. This doesn't seem right to me. I think it doesn't seem right because of my knowledge of sociological and psychological theories and explanations. There is a study of human behavior because humans are, in fact, animals.
Do you see animals wearing leggings? No, you don't. They're balls out, buns out all the time. Men, women, children are all animals. Am animal that somewhere along the way gained the ability to recognize itself in the mirror. The ability to comprehend reflection, and more so, perceive and conceptualize who was in the reflection. The conscious self is the differentiating factor of humans, but that does not mean we are immune to nature. Human behavior lies deeply in the subconscious. It's how our whitewashed history likes to explain the male glare.
Blame it on instinct. Blame it on sex and the urge to reproduce. The thing is since we are conscious beings, who base their lives around decisions made consciously and subconsciously. You can acknowledge the subconscious, and work to train it. Because you are human you can change behavior. It's like magic! You don't need to glare at me. You don't have to stare at me. My body is just lumps of flesh, but it's still me, and I feel your eyes. It's stressing me out, and I know from my past that stress usually complicates the production of happy thoughts and emotions. I do advise to fix this peer maybe just looked ahead. Study the road instead. I see too many drivers distracted anyway. Get off your phones while you are at it, and just focus on the road.