Fiesta Skate

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My running friends are always posting about the cool swag they got at their latest run. Skating competitions lag in that area, but not this year at Fiesta Skate!

Fiesta Skate swag

Whoever created the cool magnet did well, the custom chocolate bar was a nice touch, but the best was a free sitting and postcard at the competition photo booth:

Fiesta Skate photo

Fiesta Skate is an in-house competition I skated in a couple of weeks before adult Nationals. It has a lot more heart than most skating competitions. Wish I’d taken some photos of the decorations and the volunteers dressed up Fiesta style with some pretty great sombreros.

beginning of Tallis free skate

I skated both of my programs exhibition. Spent the whole day there between two warmup ice sessions, the skates, and Douglas Webster’s seminar at the end. It made for a full day, and sharing the warmup ice with Basic Skills skaters who hadn’t learned how to look where they were going was scary, but I’m glad I was able to run both my programs through at a public performance close to Nationals.

free skate

The night before the competition I had a sudden fear when I lay down to sleep. I knew that Douglas Webster would be teaching his seminar at the end of the competition, and my coach had introduced me to him when we were on the same freestyle session (with Keegan Messing too!) earlier in the week. I wondered if Douglas might see my free skate and I didn’t feel ready for that in that moment. Doesn’t make sense perhaps, there was going to be a whole audience anyway and plenty of accomplished coaches and skaters around.

Done!

As it happened, when I arrived for Douglas’ seminar he said hi to me and said he had seen my program. He said “it was a lovely performance.” That was very nice of him, he didn’t have to say that. I mean I know what kind of skater I am. So my fear came true in a way and yet did not turn out to be a bad thing at all.

On that skate of my free program I tried reversing my starting position by 180 degrees to practice facing the judges if they were on the opposite side of the arena. What ended up happening was that I started my program at the starting spot for my other program, my rose program. Oops. Surprisingly it didn’t make a huge difference and I was able to skate that program pretty well. My lutz, however, didn’t work at all, so I redoubled my efforts on it for the last couple of weeks before Nationals. My sit to back sit spin didn’t work so well, either, and I put more training effort into that too.

Rose showcase program

My rose program earlier in the day felt rushed: unfortunately it was still similar at Adult Nationals. I promise to write about Nationals next time!