Going to Sectionals

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Hi friends, I thought I’d stop by Fit and Fed to let you know that I am going to Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals this year. My season has been as much about recovery and PT as anything else and I haven’t done much jumping or spinning, so I wasn’t sure whether I would compete. I experimented with jumping in January and found that I was holding up to it, so I decided to brush up last year’s freestyle program and put it out there.

More than any other reason, I’m going to Sectionals because of the people I know. This will be the fourth year that coach Gary will put me on the ice at Sectionals. He’s based in LA and I’m in the Northwest, so we only get to see each other for this event. He loves competitions and I think he’s the best coach I’ve ever had for putting me on the ice. He hangs out with me and helps me warm up and get ready, and he’s very encouraging and soothing. I’ve also gotten to know his students and am really looking forward to seeing them too. Then there are all the other skaters I know who will be there. It’s like our little skating family, and it’s fun to see each other and cheer for each other. 

One of my fellow skaters who will be there is Diane, and I love what she had to say on her blog about planning to go to Adult Nationals (technically the Adult Championships) later this spring:

“I am going to go with a new “joy for skating” attitude and try and accept whatever level I am able to skate at and BE GRATEFUL.

Grateful I can skate at all… grateful my adoring husband lets me stay home and spend hours at the rink and when the coaching bills come in and the dresses are bought … he never says anything to me…. although secretly I know he is rolling his eyes wondering what the fascination is.”

This struck a chord with me since I too have so much to be grateful for with my skating, yet it’s easy just before a competition to fall into just feeling scared and ‘why did I sign up for this?’ One particular point of anxiety for me is my lutz, and if you have been a reader of this blog in the past you know it’s been an off-and-on element for me for years. I certainly had hoped to put it into the tried-and-true category of elements by now, but that’s not where it’s at. I only just recovered the jump last week and it’s still not clean most of the time. Nevertheless, it’s in my program, though I always have the option of bagging out and substituting a flip instead.

Even my flips, though, have not been as reliable as I’d like. I wanted to show coach Gary something much improved this year, not make him be the point man for trying to get my lutz together at the last moment, again. In the three years he’s put me on the ice I’ve never skated a clean lutz for him, though I did it a month later at Adult Nationals last year.

Well, I hope he will enjoy putting me on the ice despite the imperfections and uncertainties. And I hope he will be able to see some improvement in my skating over last year. Since I’ve mainly been working on dance and moves this year, I’m hoping there will be some improvement in my overall skating quality.

I hope I can also feel and focus on gratitude, as Diane wisely suggested. My husband, like hers, supports my skating wholeheartedly. I have excellent coaching. And the PT and medical care I’ve had access to has been top-notch and has kept me on the ice (and done lots more for me besides). I want to share more about my PT in the hope of passing on what I have received, and I’m going to write a post about that momentarily.

Blogging these days is supposed to be sophisticated, with photos, videos, etc., but that’s not what I’m able to put out at the moment. As with the skating, I hope I (and you!) can enjoy a more limited creation.