Skates

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truction.  Just wait for it, it'll be good.   My task is to figure out how to upload my older, taped (but digital) movies to my computer.  Internet Invention requires skills. When I was in my mid-thirties, I decided that I should try to learn to ice skate, something that I had always wanted to do when I was much younger, but couldn't afford.  I was surprised to find an entire community of adult figure skaters that practiced and competed as diligently as many of the "Olympic-track" younger skaters with whom we shared freestyle rink times.  It wasn't easy, it was expensive but I developed a passion for moving above the frozen water that couldn't be denied.  There is something profound about moving to music that enhances the meditative state. Learning the "moves in the field" and the freestyle skills of spinning and jumping was body improvisation, I just worked constantly at imagining what I was "supposed" to be doing while working, little-by-little, to actually doing what looked liked the required element before the judges.  Choragraphy and choreography blended together until a program emerged that I would then take before the judges and my fellow competitors. This creative process was not unlike how singer/songwriter discussed how he had composed his tribute to oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the song "Calypso"; when the only words that would come to him were "Aye, Calypso, the places you've been to, the stories you tell..." but nothing else filled in the blanks of lyrics even after months of contemplative struggle.  While I had a coach to monitor, assist and choreograph a skating program, I alone had to put myself throught the rigors of practice, practice, fail, and practice some more.   John Denver finally succeeded in finishing his "Calypso" and I finally triumphed in practicing my way to move through the ranks of recreational skating to compete and win in several adult competitions, skating to my favorite Hawaiian music (Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai) through several seasons, working as a team member in Precision Skating to "Carmen" and reaching the level of Freestyle 5 in the Ice Skating Institute of America, skating to "Aria" by songwriter Chris Spheeris. I finally ended my colloquially-called "skating career" when I reached a plateau, facing the difficulties of mastering the dreaded single axel jump.  I also had a falling out with my coach who, while scoring an Olympic medal in her younger years, had difficulties in managing the career of a skater like me who only wanted to find the fun in gliding to music over ice.   I excelled less at artistic fluency and more at comedic performance.  My most memorable performances were as a skating "Disco Duck," "Godzilla" and holiday-themed "Mad Cow Christmas."

I miss ice skating immensely but I sense the brewing of several creative fictions with skating backdrops awaiting realization in the choral space of heuretics.

I retired from ice skating and used my time to return to college full-time and to volunteer at the Aquarium of the Pacific as an Education Docent, where my specialty was teaching about skates and rays.  I'm now training to work as an Exhibit Diver.

Update August 2013:  I started ice skating again this week, after a ten-year hiatus.  I couldn't do a single cross-over for the whole first hour of skating practice.  I'm still working at the Aquarium as an Exhibit Diver, as well.