Competing As An Adult Ain't Easy 🥶
As an adult skater, competition is daunting. You compare yourself to the skater you used to be, and wonder if you belong on the ice amongst all the younger skaters. When you compete as a young kid or a teenager, competitions may cause you stress and anxiousness, but there’s no doubt that you belong there. The same isn’t always said about adult skaters. Let me know if you can relate!
To Compete As An Adult, Or Not
The Artistic event was always my jam when I was a teenager and even into my college years. My jumps were never consistent, so the Freestyle event was always hit or miss for me. But my spins and transitions were always where I thrived. Keeping that in mind motivated me to choregraph a new program for myself, initially just to practice, not even to compete.
The doubt of “should I still be doing this,” rattled around in my brain as I committed to my artistic choreography and started practicing my new program. This was weeks before I even registered for the Lake Placid Competition, by the way.
When my synchro coach and business partner asked if I was competing in the Lake Placid competition, I said no at first. Over the next few weeks, I got this gut feeling that I should do it. I had been feeling pretty stressed with the new season in full swing, choreographing new solos and team programs for the skaters I work with, and managing my overall schedule. Not showing up during public skating felt easier than going to skate because I was only going for myself.
I needed a little fire under me to push myself to show up at public skating sessions to practice spins, work on my edges, turns, and jumps again. Registering for the Lake Placid competition gave me a big goal to focus on and it was up to me to figure out how to make that happen.
The Preparation… What to Wear, Music and More!
Registration ended mid-November, so that gave me about six weeks to prepare. At the eleventh-hour, I changed my music from “Make Your Own Kind of Music” to “Dream On”. I cut the three minute 20 second song down to two minutes and started pulling out skating dresses that have been tucked away in my closet for quite some time. I tried on a few dresses that didn’t fit me the way I wanted them to (what a reality check), but luckily, I found one that I liked.
Another eleventh-hour decision I made was stoning my dress with new hologram rhinestones. I made this decision Monday on Dec. 29th at 11:00pm. My travel day to Lake Placid was Thursday of that week on Jan. 1st… E6000 glue for the win!
One thing adult skaters don’t talk enough about is how difficult it is to find something comfortable to wear on the ice. Most skating apparel and dresses are geared towards little kids and pre-teens or meant for the body types of Olympic athletes. I don’t know about you, but neither of those archetypes describe me.
I found my dress on Amazon (no gatekeeping here!) and took a chance that it wouldn’t be too small. The sellers asked for my measurements and I bought two sizes, just in case. This was one of the few Amazon dress sellers with a generous return policy. Beware when you’re shopping online for skating dresses, more times than not, the sizes are made for small bodies.
In preparation for my program, here’s what I worked on:
Jumps off-ice
Lots of stretching before bed and in the morning
Skating two to three days per week
Forced myself to practice my Axel Jump during each practice session
Ran my program without music
Ran my program from start to finish, at least twice each practice
Debuted my program during Finesse Figure Skating Club’s Season Kick-Off event amongst friends and their families
I may have many years of experience competing, but this time felt different than any time before. I entered this competition as a different skater than I once was. I’m still learning how to navigate this new chapter as an adult skater who also coaches. But I’ll take you along and keep sharing my experiences.
Until next week,
Coach Ashleigh
