Lessons from Western Ontario Sectionals: Risk and the Learningful Failure

Western Ontario Sectionals have passed and we are back in the arguably lower stress conditions of everyday training. Grace achieved mixed results. She had a very rough outing in her short program—skating slowly, tentatively, and without presence of mind. This performance garnered a personal low score that put her in the first group of skaters for the long program. She was shaken by the low score and felt sad that she hadn’t been able to put together a competition performance that reflected what she had been accomplishing on practice ice. Coming back strong in the long program, though, Grace scored a personal best. She pushed herself for power and grace. She exhibited presence of mind, attacking every element. The performance wasn’t perfect, but there were extraordinary moments—that’s for sure—including a beautiful double lutz/double loop combination.

Far more significant and meaningful than the low and high scores, however, were the lessons Grace carries away from her first Canadian sectionals and forward into training. I think Grace learned an important lesson about the importance of her attitude toward practice and lessons—about the importance of not merely of showing up for training, but of bringing the fullness of one’s attention, energy and will to practice ice. I think she learned that she has the potential to accomplish the extraordinary, but that potential is only realizable to the extent that she risks training at the outside edges of her ability and prior knowledge in ways that prepare her to skate with her whole self—fully investing each moment with commitment and drive. The imperfections of Grace’s long program constituted, in other words, learningful failures. She can study the successes of her program as well as those moments of imperfection and use the information she gathers to design foci for her own training. The performance is worth studying because of the extent to which she committed herself to each element, every transition, to her music, and to the story she was telling her audience through that music about the world and about herself.

I have lost count of the number of students enrolled in my courses over the years, but I imagine I have now taught over a thousand students. I have worked with some extraordinarily gifted young people as well as some who might have thought of themselves or been told they were quite average, but who wrote in exceptionally powerful ways for my classes.

In some ways, I admit, I am most interested in the latter category of student: the ones whose abilities as intellectuals and as writers have been systemically underestimated, but who are doing battle against the internalization of that particularly demeaning evaluation of their potential. And it strikes me that students in this category begin to thrive precisely at the point at which they no longer fear failure—at the moment they recognize that there are far worse experiences than falling short in performance, that not all failures are equal, and that the learningfulness of their own failures is a condition they can create. Moreover, students who resist their categorization as average and whose experiences of failure generate a willingness to risk practicing and performing at the outside edges of their ability with the support of teachers and coaches learn that risk is fundamental to extraordinary performance.

Skating safe and writing safe are neither learningful habits for training nor do they produce performances that are impressive to watch or read. And that, I think, is a terrific lesson to learn at thirteen years of age.