Tag Archives: lessons

Sports

Demystifying Figure Skating

Leave a comment

When I was five years old I became obsessed with figure skating. Not just mesmerized or fascinated, but outright obsessed. I watched it every chance I got on television and imagined throwing myself into the air to spin like the skaters I idolized. I even used my slippers to glide across the kitchen floor, pretending I was skating on ice.

My parents were pretty entertained by this and when my obsession didn’t go away after a few weeks, they enrolled me in skating classes at the local ice rink. I’m pretty sure they thought I’d get bored with it and move on after a few sessions. But instead I turned out to be an avid skater, rarely ever falling, and skipping right past the tots intro class that required you to wear a helmet and skate with an orange safety cone.

For the next few years I skated every winter (it was a seasonal rink) and did fairly well, that is until I hit the moves that required me to have a fair amount of (read: any) coordination.

I skated on and off until I was twelve, when a not-so-great injury made me realize that I was not built to throw myself into the air and never would be. I moved on to other interests but I still hold a love for the sport that captured my attention when I was little.

So to help those who are new to this wonderful sport (yes, it’s a sport, don’t you dare argue with me), here are a few keys elements you’ll be looking at when watching the skating unfold.

1) Jumps

Ah, yes, throwing yourself blindly into the air and then landing on a thin piece of metal on a slippery surface. No big deal, right? There are six types of jumps – the toe loop, the Lutz, the flip, the Salchow the loop, and the Axel – often in double and triple form (if not quads, which is INSANE) because that’s how many rotations they have to get through in the air before landing. To get an idea of what these look like and for more detail on what each of them are, check out this awesome article from The Wire with gifs of each of them. They then have to land on the appropriate edge of their skate (inside or outside, depending on which way they’re going) and they better not even dare to land on two feet or man are they screwed in points.

2) Spins

There are a six core spins you will see and hear about in the Olympics, all of which require so much speed that many of the skaters become blurs before your eyes –  the scratch, the flying, the sit, the Biellmann, the layback (my favorite), and the camel. Check out this handy guide, with GIFs, that compliments The Wire’s article. All of these require a solid center, much flexibility, and an enormous amount of power and core strength to keep the speed up. These spins often have variations as well – like switching feet, picking up speed mid-spin, and even occasionally combining spins – in order to get more points for difficulty. On top of it, they are seen as more artistic than jumps, and therefore must be graceful in order to also be seen as effective. It’s no easy task.

3) All those other random moves they do

A lot of other moves are seen more for artistic movement. Some don’t have official names, and most of that is dance-like stuff, but there are a few I can quickly introduce you to.

Spiral – nonsensically, this is the move where the skater puts her leg high into the air behind her (or sometimes in front of her if she’s a pretzel) and glides. It’s actually a lot easier than it looks (didn’t think I’d say that, eh?) but requires massive amounts of flexibility and balance.

Lunge – this is exactly as it sounds. The skater puts his leg down onto the ice and drags it behind him, usually for just a second or two because it will slow him down. This requires a strong center of gravity, let me tell you, or you’ll end up in the most uncomfortable half-split of your life. I may or may not be speaking from experience.

Crossovers – oh, these things suck. These things are what did me in early in my years of lessons because I was so clumsy. The concept is that you cross one foot over the other, either forwards or backwards, and it helps you gain speed—plus it looks nice. They do these constantly while skating. Look for them next time you watch and you won’t be able to un-see them again.

There you go – your basics to the language of figure skating. If you’re still hungry for more terminology, check out the United States Figure Skating Association’s glossary of terms – it’s comprehensive and very useful. Now go pop some popcorn and settle into your couch while you watch these skaters fling themselves into the air, spin at high speeds and generally do things that seem unsafe for the population at large. And then watch them cry as they get their scores. It’s the next great American pastime – only with ice, blades, and absolutely no padding, because padding is for amateurs.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

“You’re not my daughter anymore.”

4 Comments

“You’re not my daughter anymore.”

“Okay.”
“I am not your father.”
“Okay.”
“Do not try to contact me or your grandparents.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe someday we can have a relationship again, but not as father and daughter.”
“Okay.”

I had a wonderful childhood. My brother and I got good grades, played sports, never got in trouble. We were “good kids.” I don’t have many bad memories or scars that I’ve carried with me, that is, until my parents told us they were getting a divorce. We had no idea it was coming. It didn’t seem like my parents were fighting. The way it happened was so matter-of-fact. Two houses, two Christmases, two TVs; two of everything. It sounded fine: we would spend half our time with mom and half with dad, and we were all pretty okay with it. I wish I’d known then how not okay it really was.

After the divorce, my father got more involved at our Episcopalian church.  We had always been religious: my brother and I went to Sunday school; we were in the youth group led by my father. But, when the church allowed female priests and then accepted homosexuals, my father decided we were leaving. We went back to our previous non-denominational fundamentalist church and things at home got more religion focused.  We noticed my dad’s behavior changing but nothing too weird.

My brother and I were now teenagers and I was in high school. Teenagers are moody, teenagers have emotions, they like to ask questions, mostly hard questions. This was not okay with my father. He tried to deal with our “insolence” by having more household rules, more chores, and more “family meetings.”

He started bad-mouthing my mom, telling us that she was a terrible person and that she was evil.  He blamed her for leaving him and claimed she was having an affair with another man. He hated her and now we could see it. (My mom told us later that she had been dealing with this for a long time but had tried not to bring us into it.)

He was so angry; he called social services and claimed my mom was forcing us to get drunk because we were allowed to have wine with dinner despite being under-aged. (But “have wine with dinner” actually only meant special occasions where we could basically have one sip if we wanted.) We were called to the counselor’s office to talk to a Social Worker; which was mortifying. He was furious when nothing came of it, and called the cops. When they explained that responsible alcohol consumption supervised by a parent or guardian in the home is not something the police deal with, my dad tried to make us swear to God we would never drink again. I swore to not drink till I was 21.

Around the same time, my dad had started dating a woman from our church. I’m not going to deny that my brother and I were hostile and not as welcoming as we could have been—she said she wasn’t trying to replace our mother, but it was very hard to not feel guilty doing things with her and not our Mom.

Then, my father proposed. We were not okay with it. Things had already been so tense between all of us in the house, we felt like an addition to the family would only make it worse. When she broke off their engagement, my dad told us it was our fault, that we had not been nice to her. But we had never been mean to her. Looking back though, maybe we were cold and we hadn’t sought out any interaction with her specifically. My dad felt we weren’t trying hard enough. But we thought that their relationship was moving too fast and we were struggling to adjust.

They did eventually get married. And that’s when the rules really took off: my stepmother didn’t work and had sleeping problems so I was grounded for washing the dishes before I left for school because it was too loud. The next week I was grounded for leaving a dirty knife in the kitchen sink in the morning. Our bedroom doors had to remain open at all times, but their door was shut and locked and they rarely interacted with us except at family meetings or scheduled activities. My brother and I had to have our laundry done before we went to our mother’s house, but we couldn’t do laundry together because it was inappropriate for him to see my underclothes.

So my brother and I began leading double lives: trying to be Christian angels in one house and regular kids in another. I tried to be the “good” daughter my father wanted, but his rules kept changing. It seemed no matter how hard I tried to do everything right, I would always make a mistake. This led to curfews and check-in calls and extra Bible study at home as punishment.

Not long after they got married, my father and stepmother started watching an evangelical minister on TV instead of going to church. My brother and I were not comfortable with watching a TV minister, but my father informed us that the hierarchy was: “God, me, your stepmother, you”—since he was closest to God, we had to do what he said. I believed in God, I knew what Christianity was. It was forgiveness and love and sharing the gift of salvation. What my father was living was not Christianity to me.

We started getting depressed. My father was telling us we were sinners, not true Christians, because we kept making mistakes and never seemed to learn. My mom ran as much defense as she could. And she was amazingly supportive; really, we couldn’t wait to go to her house and escape from my dad’s. We could see that what my dad was doing was wrong, but we were “good kids,” and we certainly didn’t want to lose our dad. He loved us after all, and we loved him, so we went along. And, yet, he knew we didn’t really believe the things he believed and it was getting harder and harder to fake it. But I couldn’t find a way to articulate this to him.

My dad and I finally went to a Christian counselor that he had picked.  I let it all out. I told my dad how hurt I was, how he never thought of our side and never considered that maybe we had our own ideas or relationships with God that he wasn’t a part of. I asked him to be more understanding and not take out his anger at my mom on us. The counselor agreed with me. He told my dad to work on being more forgiving and patient with us. My dad was convinced it was a complete waste of time and that the counselor was obviously a quack. We never went to counseling again.

The dysfunction in our relationship finally came to a head at the end of my senior year. I had asked my mom to chaperone my last field trip but it was on a day my dad had custody. The day before the trip, I mentioned that my mom was chaperoning and my dad lost it. He said that this was the “last straw.” He called my mom and made her cancel. He made me ask my teacher if he could go instead. He didn’t care that he had never chaperoned anything before and that it was special to me that my mom chaperone this last one. He accused me of always choosing my mom over him.  He was probably right.

As High School drew to a close, I was accepted into a private college across the country. My dad disapproved of me going to an “expensive” school—really he disapproved of me going to college altogether. He believed I should get married immediately, start having kids and be the perfect Christian wife. I didn’t have everything figured out but I was pretty sure I wasn’t interested in that path. After the chaperoning incident, he told me that I had to move out the day after graduation. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t say anything really. What else was there to say?  I couldn’t handle the confrontation anymore.

My dad and stepmom didn’t come to my high school graduation. My stepmom felt I had betrayed them. The following day, I moved out. They made me leave anything they had ever given me as gifts.

I didn’t see them again until the end of that summer, my dad took my brother and me to the park to say goodbye. He hugged me and wished me well and I cried, unsure about the future. This was the last time I saw my father.

The night before I left for college, he called me. He told me he never should have hugged me when he said goodbye to me. He told me I was not the kind of person he could call his daughter. To this day, a lot of that conversation is fuzzy. I think I was in shock. All I could say was “Okay.” He hung up and I just sat there.

I was sad, I was angry, I felt betrayed, but more than anything, I couldn’t believe that a religion really meant more to him than family. After a few days, I was relieved. I had been living in fear and stress and anxiety for years. Now I was free.

Wouldn’t it be great if the story just ended there, with me feeling free? It doesn’t. The mental abuse stuck with me. I didn’t drink again till I was 21 because I was afraid my dad would find out and then we would never be able to reconcile. In hindsight, I was more damaged than I could admit.

A few years ago, my stepmother sent me an email. She said the hurt had gone on long enough and that she hoped we could put it all behind us. I assume this was due to some sermon that struck a chord. I replied that I agreed and was willing to start over but that since my dad had ended our relationship, I had to hear from him that that was what he wanted.  I never heard back from either of them.

But the wound had been reopened, so I decided that I would take the first step. I wrote my dad an email. I said I was sorry for the way things ended, that we both made mistakes and that I would be willing to start a new relationship.

His response was one sentence: “How have you changed your life so that what happened before will not happen again?”

I deleted the email.

I had—have—regrets. I lost my father. He didn’t see me graduate from college. He didn’t walk me down the aisle when I got married. He won’t meet his future grandchildren. They won’t have a grandfather. I lost half of my family. And I foolishly hoped for a long time that he would see that he had made a mistake.

Two years ago I found out that my grandmother had passed away. I should have found out about my grandmother’s death from my father, I should have had the opportunity to go to her funeral, to mourn her, but I didn’t. Because I didn’t even learn of her death until months after it happened, when, by chance, my now husband Googled her name.

That was what finally sealed it for me. There is no hope for a relationship with my dad. I don’t have delusions anymore. There is only regret left. And pity. I pity the person who does not forgive, the person who cannot love their family because of things they have cherry picked from their religion, the person who lives in fear of change and hates everything that challenges them. I don’t hate him or myself, or anyone involved in the situation. I value the family I have and the family I have gained marrying my husband. Last year, my mom walked me down the aisle and it was perfect.

I hope he is happy somewhere, wherever they live now. I hope my grandfather, if he is still alive, is well cared for. And even though I don’t have any desire to see him again, I hope that my dad forgives my brother and me someday. I have forgiven him.

Photo by Remi Coin

Photo by Remi Coin

Relationships

She’s not Dead, She’s Sleeping (And Other New Mom Lessons)

3 Comments

I always knew I wanted to be a mother, I just never really thought it would happen as soon as it did. When I graduated from college, my boyfriend and I decided that in a year and a half, when I turned 25, we would start seriously talking about having a baby. Who would have thought that a year and a half later, and ten days before my twenty-fifth birthday, we would welcome our daughter M.

My boyfriend is a little bit older than I am (only sixteen little years), grew up around babies at his mother’s in-home daycare, and helped raise his ex-wife’s daughter (long story). I, on the other hand, am an only child who never babysat an actual baby, but always had an overwhelming maternal instinct and a love of children. When we found out we were expecting, the unwarranted advice started rolling in. People will give you tons of advice when you’re pregnant and a new parent (look, I’m doing it right now, and you’re probably not even pregnant). They mean well, but you will never truly understand what it is like to be a parent until that little bundle of joy comes barreling into your life and changes it forever.

As a new parent, it is almost impossible not to constantly worry. The small foreign creature you brought home from the hospital appears so fragile and delicate and every cough, rash, and change in bowel movement seems like the end of the world. But let me tell you, babies are quite resilient. I remember M’s first diaper rash and thinking it was so horrible that I started Googling images of diaper rashes and immediately concluded that she needed antibiotics and to see the doctor ASAP. I consulted my boyfriend who recommended we put some rash ointment on it and check on it in the morning. I begrudgingly agreed, but if it was still there we were headed straight to the pediatrician! The next morning it was practically gone and I vowed never to Google images of any ailment or disease I self-diagnosed my daughter with. Although, I did slip recently and thought she had hepatitis or aluminum poisoning because her poop was clay colored. The pediatrician did not agree with my diagnosis.

Another thing I found myself worrying about was her growth and milestones, compared to what is considered “normal” for babies her age. Pediatricians tend to freak out if your baby loses too much weight initially and M has always been much smaller than her peers and not-at-all comparable to the giant baby I was. I consulted websites describing the week-by-week progress for infants to research what she should be doing, when she should be doing it, and what to expect her to do next. Heaven forbid she started rolling over a few weeks late or not start solids at the appropriate time! After a while, I forced myself to stop the worrying and had to trust that she was developing at the speed that was right for her. I needed to stop thinking she was dead if her nap went a little longer than usual, and just enjoy the unexpected extra alone time that day.

Alone time. How I miss it. Solitary confinement is vital to one’s sanity when it comes to being a parent. I miss going to the bathroom by myself. Now I have to keep the door open so she can come in and close the door herself (one of her favorite past times) or else she sits outside the door and whines until I come out. My non-parent readers, enjoy your silent potty time while you still have it because soon a little person will want to watch you while you do your business and you will call it “potty training.” (And don’t even get me started on how intimately I know my own child’s butthole.)  Once you become a parent, your life and the world doesn’t revolve around you anymore, it is all about the little one. I treat myself to a monthly massage and try to pawn the baby off on daddy for a girl’s night whenever I can. While taking care of yourself is important, it is mutually beneficial to make time for your partner (especially sexy time). Intimacy after childbirth is another article in itself.

And while we are on the subject of bedroom activities: You never truly realize how important sleep is until you’re not getting it. When M turned four months old, we decided enough was enough, she was going to sleep through the night in her own bed, whether she wanted to or not. We chose to do sleep training, and it was not easy. There are many different approaches and techniques for conducting sleep training, but most fall in to two different strategies: non-crying and cry-it-out.  We chose the latter because sometimes babies just need to cry and learn to get over it. Sleep training is not necessarily the right choice for everyone. I recommend it, but not all parents, doctors, psychologists or babies agree on the best way to go about it or if one should subject their child to it. What I can say is that it took less than a week to get M sleeping through the night, and she goes to bed at roughly eight o’clock and wakes up around seven in the morning. She does have the occasional late night wake up when she’s sick, but those are few and far between.

Being a parent has its challenges, but there are special moments in between that make it all worthwhile; like first words and steps, tickle sessions that make you both roll in laughter, and snuggles that make you not want to ever let go. In the end, it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t crawl until she is ten months old, or that you haven’t had a good night sleep in who knows how long… what matters is that she is a healthy and happy baby who waves and smiles at everyone, loves books, and gives you kisses in the morning.

Photo by Jenny Butler

Photo by Jenny Butler