December 10, 2006

Ice skating weekend wrap up
First off- ABC broadcast the Marshall's Figure Skating Challenge today. Interesting concept- (for those not able to see it, here's the gist) There are two brackets- West Coast, and East Coast who compete in qualifying rounds to get to the championship. But, skaters are not seperated into the usual ladies, mens, pairs, and dance- they all compete against each other. And there are no judges. The audience votes from the auditorium, phone, and internet.

So the 8 competitors are West- Sasha Cohen, Katy Taylor, Evan Lysackek and pairs Rena Inoue & John Baldwin and East- Emily Hughes, Kimmie Messner, Johnny Weir, and dance team Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto. It was a neat concept and the pairs and dance team said it was fun to compete against the singles.

Anyhow- because there were no judges the programs, I thought, were more artistic than technical. And while she is an incredible skater, I really thought more than anything Sasha Cohen competed in the "emoting on ice" category. I don't remember if her olympic programs were like that. I remember her spirals and that's about it. But the first part of her qualifying program was literally ballet on ice- as in things you learn your first year on pointe shoes, but on toe picks. She had lots of difficult skatery stuff, but I think the main part was "look at me display emotion". It was probably a good idea, since it's an audience vote. Her second program was to God Bless America- another great get the vote move. All the skating was good and I'm so glad to see skating on TV again. It's on ESPN alot, but we don't get it.

Alright- taking the level of skating down about 1,000,000 levels (maybe more) and here's my wrapup.

Saturday- The only good thing I can think to say about the session I went to was skating in a skirt is fun. Courtenay (okay, another good thing) convinced me to go to the morning Freestyle. It will be awhile before I skate freestyle... I'm sure I wasn't in the way, but my level isn't high enough to need that ice. Nothing I really did worked well. I skated for about 45 minutes, then took off. Coralridge has a pairs team though, and they were fun to watch.

Sunday- POINTLESS. My feet started hurting almost immediatly. I need to figure out a way to stretch the front of my right boot. I gave up easily and only skated for 20 minutes. It just wasn't worth it. I couldn't do anything well. I hope Tuesday goes better.