January Nerves

It’s funny.  Even though I am far away from the competitive world, I can just feel that Nationals is close by.  I think my body has been programmed to get really nervous around mid-January.

I haven’t kept up much with the going-ons in the competitive world. However, the other day those mid-January nerves began to kick in and I found myself online, researching the world of competitive skating 2011.  

Somehow I found my way to a site where people were predicting upcoming results, or analyzing past competitions or programs or teams.

And something struck a nerve.  I totally absolutely understand the desire for people to express their opinions about something they are not involved in first-hand.  It is along the same lines as reading a tabloid and then discussing the spilt of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James (who, by the way, is getting married to Kat Von D? what?! :> )  And, I get people guessing the outcome of an upcoming competition.  I have heard of that thing called betting.

But what makes me laugh is the questioning of choices.  Choices of choreographers, music, costumes, or even lifts. 

To answer those questions, I think we should focus on the basic idea that people make choices because, well, they thought it was a good- nah, the best!- choice.

I remember Tanith (Belbin) saying “it wasn’t for a lack of effort on anyone’s part” that they did not have the result outcome that they had hoped for or expected at a competition some years ago.  It is such a simple things to state -- everyone involved tried their best-- yet you feel you must make it clear.   

So, just to be clear, I have never, on purpose, made a bad choice.  I have always thought it was a good-- nah, the best!-- choice.  But, alas, sometimes I am just a dumb ass.

Okay, so this venture into the online competitive skating world got my wheels turning.  I started to do a compare and contrast of the competitive skating world and the show skating world. Wait.  Clarification:  The competitive skating world and the show skating world, relative to me. Of course. 

One of the most drastic changes has been the fact that in the show world, not every performance is special .  During a competitive season you really only get to perform a handful of times, and each time you do it feels pretty important.  And Brent and I always did a good job making each program feel special in that moment.  Well, now that we perform multiple times a week, it is a bit different. A few shows feel good, a few bad, and most just right in the middle.  As Jillian, a show veteran in our cast, would say, “Just another day at the office!”  I swear I skated out there sometime last week and thought, “what are all these people doing here? It is just a Sunday afternoon in Cologne.  I wish they would stop looking at me.  I am kind of tired.”  Whereas before, during a competition, I knew why they were looking at me-  I was competing at THE U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIP! (best said in a booming, echoing voice like a movie trailer voice-over) and that only happened once a year and was pretty damn important!  

Which leads to me to note that the level of mental stress for us has definitely lessened.  This has been a welcomed change.  Though that is not to say that there is not a set of stresses in the show world, but they come more in the form of challenges.  For example, the ice size changes from city to city, and I am told in France we will see the smallest ice imaginable.  Or the ice condition is just plain bad.  Or there is giant hole downstage, right where you do three big tricks.  Or there are two pink feathers where you do a lift.  Or there is a giant fountain in the middle of the ice during your number.  Or your heel splits mid-show and you have to go into another pair of skaters for the second half of the show.  All challenges, often annoying, but definitely less stressful.

And I guess that “annoying” feeling comes with the territory, considering that this is a job now.  Jobs can be just that- annoying.  As much as I tried to put it off, that is a lesson I must learn as I approach my thirties (how embarrassing!)  But the great thing is now I have a license to complain, just like a grown-up. “Argh!  I am so annoyed at my job!”   I didn’t really earn that right while competing.  It just makes no sense to say “Argh! I am so annoyed at this thing I pay to do” or better yet, “Argh! I am so annoyed at this thing that my closest friends and family help me pay to do!”

The coolest thing about being in this show world, having a job and having some income, has nothing to do with skating at all.  It is the fact that I can help fund my boyfriend  through wine business school, which he found when Brent and I were offered the Holiday On Ice contract.  So, Mark is living in Dijon, France, pursuing something he has been passionate about long before moving to Philadelphia to work as an accountant and help pay his girlfriend’s rent.  

It feels really good to help someone pursue their passion.  And Mark has been really grateful for the support.  Having previously been on the other side of the coin for so long, I hope I have been as grateful.

If you are reading this, chances are you deserve another big THANK YOU.  Hope you know that I am “paying it forward” as the saying goes, and we should all share some good wine together under Mark’s tutelage.  Prost!