Observations

First, allow me to apologize to Lexi, who asked a question on my last post. I have been trying to respond, but something keeps going wrong. So, to answer your question: I competed at the Neal Wood Open in Hershey, PA. Now that the "standard" competition season is starting, I realized something important: no matter how good you are, as an adult skater, unless you are Master Junior/Senior level, you're not as important as the kids. Sometimes even when you are Master level, you're not as important as the kids. Lessons are re-arranged, understandably because of competitions. Or preparing for competitions. Or just because. I'm not bitter; it's just a simple truth. We matter, just not enough. Here's an excellent example: The 2022 Adult National Championships took place in April. As of this writing, it is mid-September. The videos of that competition have not been sent to the competitors, nor uploaded onto USFS Fan Zone. If this was a standard competition, those videos would have been available in late April. Five months of waiting? Doesn't that sound odd? The general consensus is that the company erased the footage, but haven't figured out how to tell anyone. I didn't participate at Nationals, but several of my friends did and I really wanted to see them. Some of them medaled. To whomever the videographer was for Adult Nationals 2022, admit your error and go on. If people paid for these videos, give them a refund, issue an apology and take steps to prevent this from happening again. I actually asked a different videographer what could be the reason for the delay. He asked if other events had been uploaded, which they had. He thought that basically, the data was lost. A few years ago, at Easterns, a friend's program was accidentally deleted, along with three or so other skaters. To my knowledge, my friend never received acknowledgement of the mistake or an apology. This brings me back to adult skaters during the standard competition season. We are not forgotten, but our lives are turned on their heads due to scheduling changes. Constant schedule changes. Beginning in September until the end of the season, there are dozens of competitions that will capture your coach's focus. That's not a bad thing. An inconvenient thing? Definitely. A bad thing? No. The adult skating season isn't really a season, but the high points are Sectionals (March), Nationals (April) and international competitions, such as Ottawa and Germany. I'm not exactly sure when they happen, but I think it's September and May respectively. And that's about it. There are smaller competitions all over the place, but those are the big ones to the adult competitiors anyway. It's sad to be treated like an after-thought in the sport. We adult skaters really only quit when our bodies or our bank accounts tell us to do so. We rearrange our work lives and our family lives. No one is driving us to the rink in the morning; we do everything ourselves. While adjustments are made to our schedules to accomodate standard track competitiors, it becomes more of the "norm" than the exception. Adult competitive skaters, has your coach ever gone with you to a competition? Here's a funny story that happened to me a while back. The rink had a local competition and there were adult levels. I signed up, my coach at the time said she had other skaters who would be there and so she'd be there to. She had everyone's competition time and knew she'd be there all day. The youngest skaters were earlier in the morning; I arrived at about 11:00 with my event being at about 12:30ish. I saw my coach. Waved to her and we agreed that she'd be there at 12:20. 12:20 comes; no coach. 12:30, we are standing, waiting to go on for the warmup. I'm looking around for my coach. She is no where to be found. I skate the event, come in third, get my medal and start looking around for my coach. I'm thinking she had a family emergency or she was ill... something. I ask one of the skating mothers who knows my coach, if she knows where she is. She tells me that my coach went to lunch at 11:30 and wouldn't be back until the Juvenile event at 2:00. I volunteered the rest of the competition, but when I saw my coach, I asked her what happened. She looked at me with a blank expression. She had forgotten that I was competiting at all and although she apologized, it told me I wasn't as important as the Pre-Preliminary Girls or anyone who came after. At least, not to her. By the way, she dropped me as a student. She said I wasn't progressing fast enough. Kept another adult skater who quit the sport six months later. I'm not really complaining, just making observations. Lessons are changed or eliminated to accomodate the standard competitiors. Now that school is in session, it has become harder and harder to schedule lessons. Some lesson time is better than none. We all appreciate coaches who are willing to accept adult skaters. We want to be treated like the true athletes that we are. There are coaches out there who only want the money and are successful in talking us out of various competitions and do not think we will ever be good enough. There are coaches who will spend most of your lesson time working on crossovers, even though there's nothing wrong with your crossovers or stroking and the skater really wants to go on to other skills. That's not to say that stroking and crossovers aren't important, quite the contrary. However, if one has a thirty minute lession, twenty of those minutes shouldn't be taken up by crossovers and stroking. School is back in session. Early morning sessions will be crowded until outdoor rinks open. Coaches will be away and back and reschedule and cancel. It's the life of an adult figure skater.