Bullying in the Sport of Figure Skating

For the last six months or so Grace has faced bullying at the rink where she trains. She has been so distraught by the treatment she has received at the hands of other skaters that last spring I began to come to terms with the reality that she might well quit the sport. After she competed at Skate Detroit at the end of July, we allowed Grace to travel to Minnesota to train for a month in a club where she had trustworthy friends. Beyond the scrutiny and reach of the girls who had been insulting and ostracizing her, Grace thrived. She returned home with stronger jumps and spins, but also with more confidence and with a renewed sense of hope and possibility for her future in the sport of figure skating. While she was away, we made a coaching change so that when Grace returned the conditions in which she would train in her home club had been shifted.

For the two weeks Grace has been back she has been delighted with skating. She has looked terrific on the ice. She’s been smiling and laughing and talking skating non-stop. Grace loves her new coaches and especially appreciates the way they push and are supportive of her on the ice. In short, we thought we’d turned a corner.

But last night, the bullying started again before and during an off-ice class. And again, Grace spent the evening in tears wondering why the other skaters dislike her so, what she has done to deserve the treatment she receives at their hands, and feeling helpless to change her circumstances.

Intervening in the behaviors that have produced such despair in Grace has been complicated by the fact that the worst bullying directed at her has been covert and implicit. Further, to be frank, the worst offenders have been girls. Their techniques – far from being unique – are well described in current research on bullying, but little addressed in public discourse about prevention or in anti-bullying policies. Girls, it turns out, are far less likely to act aggressively toward others in ways that we would typically think of as bullying. Instead, girls who bully tend to practice what psychologists term relational aggression, which is characterized by persistent exclusion from social activities; public humiliation through gossiping, whispering, and the practice of organizing a group to ignore and exclude one individual; the withdrawal of attention and friendship.

Relational aggression is most often covert. Bullies engaging these strategies operate beyond the gaze and hearing of adults. But relational aggression is also under-recognized and frequently excused by adults even when they are in a position to see, hear, and intervene. While the sexual aggression of boys is too frequently tolerated under the adage “boys will be boys,” relational aggression is perceived as an inevitable feature of girlhood and similarly naturalized. Individuals and organizations fail to intervene because they think, "girls will be girls." Absent a more nuanced understanding of how bullying manifests among girls, adults frequently fail to recognize what is happening or are more likely to tolerate relational aggression than other more explicit forms of bullying.

The consequences of relational aggression for its victims can be severe. Girls who are targets of this form of bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, anorexia, bulimia, and suicidal ideation. In a sport like figure skating, in which there is - however little we like to talk about it - an ideal skater body, even absent bullying body issues can arise. Grace, who is taller than the typical skater and appears to be significantly older than she is, works very hard at conditioning as well as to maintain a body-fat ratio that will serve her well on the ice. While she currently exhibits confidence about her body's strength and beauty, I worry about how her body image may be impacted by the bullying she is experiencing. During the worst periods of marginalization and exclusion at the rink, she has been inclined to spend hours alone at home and has exhibited some depressive symptoms. She is tremendously strong, tremendously smart, and tremendously sensitive. Grace is an affectionate child and wants and needs to be liked in return. There is no doubt that her emotional wellbeing has been damaged by her experience at the rink and her commitment to the sport of skating has been impacted.

Skate Canada has an anti-bullying policy that can be found here: http://www.skate-eos.on.ca/Documents/General/BULLYING-Statement-SkateCanada_Nov13.pdf.

Having a prohibitive policy is an important step in the address of bullying. However, Skate Canada's definition of bullying describes what the vast preponderance of literature in the field agree are the characteristics of the sort of bullying typically perpetuated by boys. Even the cartoon, the organization has placed next to their definition, shows boys not girls. This seems a particular problem given that figure skating is a sport in which adolescent and teenage girls are the majority.

It is tempting, very tempting to think of the kinds of everyday micro-aggressions Grace is experiencing as mere unkindness. However, all of the empirical and qualitative studies I've found (in six months of research) of girls around the world (studies undertaken in Australia, Great Britain, Italy, New Zealand, South Korea, the United States, for example) coalesce around a recognition that relational aggression is, in fact, a form of bullying; that relational aggression is the prevailing form bullying takes when perpetrator and victim are both girls; and that the emotional damage caused by relational aggression among girls has serious and occasionally life threatening consequences for victims.

I don't like the idea of being or becoming the ugly American who advances all things American. However, it is true that the United States Figure Skating Association has developed a far more elaborate and nuanced anti-bullying policy than Skate Canada and one that could be used as a model for an address of relational aggression among figure skaters in Canada and among female athletes in the sport, in particular. The USFSA SafeSport Handbook includes emotional abuse as a manifestation of bullying. This resource can be found at http://www.usfsa.org/content/safesport%20handbook.pdf.

Closer to home, some of the scholarship I have read suggests that both boys and girls who bully are more likely to stop if another child speaks out against their actions. Further, these studies suggest, victims of bullying experience the interventions of other children not only as a relief, but also as creating conditions for emotional healing. Prohibitive policies and systems of discipline and punishment are important. But positive responses to bullying are also a significant deterrent to relational aggression, as well as other more explicit forms of bullying. Training in good sportsmanship that teaches skaters how to recognize all forms of bullying and gives them opportunities to practice effective intervention might also serve to prevent the kinds of experiences that Grace has suffered. Grace and other skaters like her would benefit tremendously from mentorship by older skaters. If Grace had an older confidante at her rink in whom she might confide and who might model strategies for navigating the social as well as athletic demands of the sport, she would have an easier time, I believe.

Today, Grace is afraid to go to her off-ice ballet class. There is a new instructor who has been making the skaters choose partners. For Grace, this is an ongoing exercise in public humiliation endorsed by adults. No one will partner with her. No one has willingly partnered with Grace in an off-ice class for more than six months.

I remind Grace of the wonderful skaters she has met - young men and women who may not remember the small and graceful acts of kindness they have shared with Grace during workshops or in chance meetings in the lobby of some rink; skaters like Ryan Bradley, Agnes Zawadzki, and Gracie Gold who are Grace's heroes on and off the ice. I remind her to emulate their kindness rather than return the smaller, meaner treatment she receives from her teammates. I think Grace does that in ways and to a degree that I struggle to attain.

For today, I struggle with rage. My beautiful kind daughter is in pain. She is suffering because of the conjoined cruelty of her teammates and the failure of her Club to institute meaningful interventions on her behalf. To be fair, the Club did intervene when a boy began imitating the bullying Grace was receiving from the girls in her Club. But they intervened in that moment because the boy acted out explicitly and publicly. I see Grace's pain in her posture, in her eyes, in the run-through of her short program I am just able to catch after work. I hear the fear of further humiliation in her voice as she asks for permission to skip ballet.

Today, both Grace and I are dealing with our sense of the unfairness of it all. No child deserves to be bullied and, certainly, Grace deserves better from her sport, from her Club, and from her teammates. It's a hard day.

Below are links to some (not all) of the materials available from both popular media and peer-reviewed academic journals on Bullying.

Popular sources on Girls and Bullying:

http://teenadvice.about.com/od/violencebullying/a/girlbullies.htm

http://bullying.about.com/od/Basics/a/Do-Girls-And-Boys-Bully-Differently.htm

http://bullying.about.com/od/Basics/a/What-Is-Relational-Aggression-And-Why-Do-Kids-Engage-In-It.htm

http://www.ncpc.org/topics/bullying/girls-and-bullying

Scholarly sources on Girls and Bullying (relational aggression)

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&UID=2007-14726-011

http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/13/6/627.short

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1995.tb00900.x/abstract

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=662CC67D705D4498013424F4F622668D.journals?fromPage=online&aid=4492232

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/108/4/615/

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-005-5680-8#page-1

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2009.00594.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

Relational Aggression and Athletics

http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20033077240.html;jsessionid=DB0870A59E40780919704B4DE01750C3

Sochi for Justice

The fact that I LOVE the winter Olympics should not come as a surprise to anyone. I delight in winter sports and when it comes to Olympic competition in them, I am an addict. But I confess that I feel torn about Sochi.

On 4 December, media outlets reported that retired figure skater, Johnny Weir had lashed out angrily at LGBT activists protesting anti-gay laws in Russia in an address delivered at Barnard College. According to these reports, Weir downplayed the impact of the laws, telling his audience that they only prevent having “anal sex in front of libraries.” Despite numerous reports (and videos posted online) of gay and transgender Russians being beaten, tortured, and humiliated by anti-gay thugs (who, by the way, seem very often to have also embraced neo-Nazism), Weir is reported to have justified his defense of Russia, arguing that he has never experienced homophobia in Russia.

I have been a fan of Weir’s for a very long time. He has been an elegant skater, blending athleticism with grace in breathtaking jumps and a sense of musicality unrivaled among the men against whom he skated. Weir has also faced his share of setbacks, including a disastrous freeskate at the U.S. National Championships in 2003. He came back the following year to win the National title in spectacular fashion. (See his 2004 Nationals long program here.) I have admired Weir’s tenacity, the grace of his own coming out, his in-your-face resistance of homophobia within the American skating world and among media commentators, in particular. But Weir seems to have gone off the rails on the matter of international participation in the Sochi Olympics. In some sense, although I’d like to believe those of us who feel torn about participation have not succumbed to the apologist stance Weir appears to have embraced recently, I do think his confusion mirrors our own.

There are arguments in favor of participation that make sense and Weir, himself, has made some of them. In this interview with Keith Olberman, Weir and Olberman discuss the ineffectiveness of Olympic boycotts, citing the failure of the international community to influence Soviet involvement in Afghanistan after their 1979 invasion of that country. In the interview, Weir also discusses that extraordinary moment in Olympic history when Jessie Owens won four gold medals during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin at the apex of Nazi power in Germany.

As it happens, my father was at those Olympic Games in Berlin. My dad wrote in the diary he kept at the time about his admiration of German social order and architecture, and about his pride at Owens’ accomplishments. And his fractured perception—or lack of perception—about the contradictions between these perspectives also reflects a kind of generalized myopia among Americans of the period: our collective inability to recognize our own racism, the resonances between that racism and the racial ideology of the Nazis, and the terrible if differently realized danger both ideologies posed to minorities in our respective nations. Owens, himself, noted that Franklin Roosevelt never acknowledged his victories saying, “Hitler didn't snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.”

Weir was wrong to minimize the import and impact of homophobic law in Russia. He was also wrong to hold up his own individual experience as a gay man in Russia as a means of discrediting the experiences of Russian LGBTQ peoples who have been targeted both by state sanctioned and vigilante homophobes. Weir has an opportunity as a former Olympian and as an NBC commentator to speak up and speak out for justice and equality—to do so would be to make good on his own Olympic oath. Many more of us are also wrong or will be wrong if we do not recognize the opportunity we have to examine the contradictions between our condemnation of the Russians and the homophobia we tolerate or acquiesce to by our silence here at home.

I do not believe that boycotting the Sochi Olympics will have significant impact on homophobia within the Russian state. Sadly, I am not convinced that even the most extraordinary performances by LGBTQ athletes will change the minds and hearts of those who craft and enforce anti-gay laws nor the hearts and minds of those homophobic vigilantes in Russia who have taken it upon themselves to seek out, torture, and humiliate LGBTQ Russians. I also do not believe that those extraordinary performances will change the hearts and minds of U.S. legislators advocating that the perpetuation of their own American brand of homophobia be sanctioned by U.S. law. What those extraordinary performances will do, however, is to give heart to those who struggle for justice within Russia and beyond. They will be a gift to queer and ally activists around the world and most importantly, at this moment, in Russia. The Olympics are an inherently political gathering, designed to promote peace, international understanding, a sense of brother- and sisterhood among nations. I believe that the Sochi Olympics constitute an opportunity for athletes, coaches, the international media, and fans to make that Olympic principle manifest in the games and beyond and to honour the Russian activists who are risking their lives for freedom and equality.

True Grit: Coaching, Teaching and Growth Mindset

Two of my children, Dan and Lucy, who both play hockey, attended Heartland Hockey Camp in Deerwood, Minnesota for over ten summers. Heartland Hockey Camp is owned and operated by Steve Jensen, a former NHL player with the Minnesota North Stars and the L.A. Kings. Steve also played in the 1976 Olympic Games and led that team in scoring with 52 goals. In any case, at the start of each camp, Steve would gather all the players in the camp fitness center for a talk. And every year for over ten years, my children heard the same message: you can be the most talented player on your team, but if you don’t work hard every day, all the time, you aren’t the most valuable player. Careers are made through determination, perseverance, hard work, not through talent.

This morning, I found this video of a Weekend Ted Talk on the front page of the Huffington Post. In it, Angela Lee Duckworth makes the researcher’s version of the same argument. Her research, she says, demonstrates that “grit” or the will to persist and not IQ or talent is the primary determinant of both academic and professional success. In fact, Duckworth says, “Talent doesn’t make you gritty. Our data show very clearly that there are many talented individuals who simply do not follow through on their commitments. In fact, in our data, grit is usually unrelated or even inversely related to measures of talent.”

Now, part of what constitutes grit, Duckworth argues, is “growth mindset,” a way of thinking about or understanding one’s own learning identified by psychologist, Carol Dweck. Growth mindset is “the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort. ” Individuals who possess growth mindset, say both Dweck and Duckworth, are much more likely to persist through failures because they understand that failure is not a permanent condition, but a learningful one.

In February 2011, the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project (U.S.) published a report entitled Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. The report identifies eight habits of mind necessary to write successfully at the postsecondary level. They are:

Curiosity: the desire to know more about the world

Openness: the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world

Engagement: a sense of investment and involvement in learning

Creativity: the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas

Persistence: the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects

Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those
actions for oneself and others.

Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.

Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

Interestingly, these habits of mind match up nearly seamlessly with the ways in which coaches of elite college athletes define coachability. Coachable athletes, coaches report, listen to and trust coaches. They are receptive to feedback; they learn well from indirective, formative feedback as well as directive or critical feedback. Coachable athletes become students of the game; they are inquisitive, ask a lot of questions and listen to the answers. They seek advice from many sources. Coachable athletes, say coaches, become their own coach: they internalize over long periods of time, a coaching voice that provides feedback to them in situ as it were: as they train, practice, and play. Coachable athletes are open to and seek change, growth, and development. They don’t frustrate easily, but persist through frustrations or disappointments. Coachable athletes are flexible and adaptable even and especially to the unexpected, whether they are surprised in the moment of performance or in training. Finally, coachable athletes partner with their coaches in their own training and development as well as in the coaching of a team; they cultivate reciprocal relations with their coaches and offer feedback to them, clarifying their own needs and interests as well as offering their insight to coaches. In other words, successful college writers and coachable student athletes share habits of mind. And these habits of mind, singly and collectively, sound a lot like “grit” and “growth mindset.”

Here’s the thing—and I’ll return to it in later posts as this one is already longer than it ought to be—I think those of us who teach at the postsecondary level and perhaps at prior levels as well should be asking ourselves whether or how our curricula, individual course design, assignments and feedback, and pedagogy actually support students in acquiring and sustaining habits of mind and qualities of coachability that constitute “grit” and “growth mindset.” Are we teaching/coaching these capacities? Or do we expect students to arrive in our classrooms with such habits already firmly in place? And if the latter is true, how do we respond to the criticism that our practices contradict what we know to be true about intelligence and ability: that they are not fixed qualities, but develop and grow over time?

I worry, I admit, that children and young adults are far more likely to find support in cultivating grit and growth mindset—the habits of mind for continuous learning and for success variously measured—at the rink (or on the field, or in piano or ballet lessons perhaps) than in the university writing classroom. At the very least, I think we, teachers, should show more grit than we have to date in our consideration of such questions.

Resources:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/j/jensest01.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tedtalks/angela-lee-duckworth-tedtalk_b_4277459.html
http://wpacouncil.org/framework

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.

Recovering Hope in the Sport

Some time ago, I allowed this blog to go fallow. When I began writing about competitive ice sports, in general, and figure skating, in particular, I was interested in what I saw as the resonances—both metaphorical and literal—between skating and writing. I was intrigued by what I saw (and continue to see) as the critical and dynamic interplay between technical understanding and ability and aesthetic innovation in both spheres of activity.

In skating, I thought I recognized a grammar of the body that enables and constrains both the physical and aesthetic performance of the athlete. In skating, this grammar is governed by the universal laws of physics and tested (creatively transgressed within limits) by the body of the skater as well as by her aesthetic sensibility across stages of physical, intellectual and emotional development. In skating, one can teach the sport, I suppose, as mere technique. But why would you when excellence in the sport is achieved not by the rehearsal of established technical ability alone, but through the explosion of spectator beliefs about that which is physically and aesthetically possible to achieve?

In the teaching of writing, many of us are working with students in both classroom and one-with-one settings (coaching) in ways that are deeply informed by the pedagogical theory of Lev Vygotsky. Briefly, Vygotsky demonstrated that students learn better and retain knowledge longer when they are provided with meaningful intellectual scaffolding as they learn in what he termed the “zone of proximal development:” at the outside edges of their prior knowledge. Simply put, when students are asked to repeat what they already know, they learn less, learn more slowly, and retain new understanding for shorter periods of time than when they are provided with support for using prior knowledge in order to produce new understanding. I have been intrigued with the sport of figure skating and with coaching of skaters for the ways in which I can observe this principle in use. Skating is a sport learned through the acquisition of technical understanding and ability under conditions of supported experimentation and risk.

I didn’t stop blogging because I lost interest in either the sport or what might be learned about teaching by studying the relationships and interactions between skaters and coaches. I stopped blogging because relationships within the world of skating can become poisonous in the same way that those within academia can. Internecine struggles within skating clubs among parents and between coaches can suck the joy out of the sport with astonishing rapidity for parents and, more importantly, for young skaters like my daughter. And as in such battles in academia, in skating the stakes can be absurdly low. In my professional life, if there’s a battle in which the stakes seem significant, I’m willing to stay with the struggle. But I don’t have the energy or the will for battles animated by ego, narcissism, and naked aggression—the willingness to harm anyone or anything to advance one’s own interests—either in academia or in figure skating. Particularly not in figure skating. Under the heading of “fool me once…” when poison seeps into the lobbies of rinks and the stands of ice arenas, I’ve learned to put my gas mask on and stay low.

But things have changed for me and for my figure skating daughter. I recently accepted a faculty post at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. We have moved here and Grace is now a member of a new skating club. The Kitchener-Waterloo Skating Club is trying out a new approach to the development of its skaters—an approach predicated on cooperative coaching of individual skaters, more significant and sustained group coaching, and an organized and developmentally based off-ice program. To succeed at this new initiative, the Club is working with both skaters and parents to build a meaningful social support network for all skaters. I’m pretty sure I heard the Club President, Dr. Paul Mallet, and lead coach, Kris Wirtz, correctly in the last parents’ meeting: for all skaters.

For my daughter, this new approach has meant group lessons not only with her coach’s skaters, but with skaters throughout the Club. She is being taught in group lessons, not only by her own coach but by many different coaches. Grace has the opportunity to work with her lead coach, Lorri Baier, who among other accomplishments possesses significant experience as an elite international competitor. Grace is receiving support from all of the Club's coaches including group and micro-coaching from the current coaches of skaters who in all likelihood will compete at Sochi and have a good shot at standing on the podium there. And all of the coaches with whom Grace is working are actually talking to each other! Working cooperatively with one another!

I am trying not to be mindlessly naïve and optimistic about how this Club experience might prove to be very different for both Grace and for me, but—holy insert-expletive-here. I am slowly and carefully unbuckling my gas mask. And that means, perhaps, that I can write about figure skating and teaching again.

Winterfest 2010 Photo Blog

A Response to My Last Post

I put up my post, chronicling my worry and fear about whether I'm being a good enough Mom for Grace right now, and received this response from a friend via my Facebook page. I got all weepy as I read it at the rink while I watched Grace skate. She had a fantastic lesson today with Jason. When she's on, she's just breathtaking! And so is this response to my post. I have permission to share it with you! Thanks, Erica!

Hi Frankie,

As a fellow blogger, I just wanted to send you a private response to your blog about Grace and the upcoming competition.

Reading through your blog as a mom-person ... it seems to me you and Grace have a parallel experience going on. So I thought I would, as Chris Gallagher says, "risk complexity" and offer you some unsolicited advice ...

She hasn't been able to find the joy this week, but then, it seems neither have you ... so I'm just wondering if the "lesson" this week is about modeling joy in the face of disappointment or difficulty. The transition into a new skating class, with a higher calibre of girls, will require Grace to work through some stuff, and part of that may mean she needs the new hair and dress to embody the performance of a self she'll become (but may not be just yet). I know it's difficult in a sport, because there is an emphasis on outcomes (whereas in writing we can focus on the process), so here's my unsolicited advice:

Make time to discuss how beautiful her struggle is, how her passion is an embodied thing (the shaking), and how fortunate you are to witness that. (This will help you, too). Her name is, after all, Grace. Sometimes, we moms focus on protecting our kids from pain, forgetting that the pain of birthing a new self (in this case, a new skater) really is like labor. She might need you to be the "midwife of her ideas" (I knew I could work Socrates in here somehow), to model the love and language of love within the struggle (bell hooks).

Praise the difficulty, be thankful for it (in a karmic sort of way) because it means Grace is being prepared, honed, challenged in order to gain tools that will serve her well later, in ways you can't possibly imagine.

But most of all, don't forget you too are learning to be a new kind of skater mom. And I'm willing to bet this process is beautiful, Grace-ful, and affirming in the end.

There. I know I don't know you very well, but I wanted to send this to you because I have to watch my kid take it in the chops every time she competes in culinary competitions. My mom alarm always sounds, the "should have" or "should I?" voices start, and I forget to witness her beautiful struggle as only another woman and mother can.

Have a great day!

Erica

Preparing for Competition (A Mom’s Insecurity Rant)

Winterfest is fast approaching and with it stress and anxiety for both Grace and me. I woke up this morning thinking about all the things I’ve done wrong as the parent of a figure skater.

I bought Grace a beautiful new dress for her compulsory program. But what if the new dress elevates the importance of competition, increasing her sense of the pressure around Winterfest? Yesterday, Grace got highlights in her hair to show off the blue of her eyes that match the blue of her Free Skate dress. What if she starts to think that she always has to change how she looks to be good enough for skating?

Week before last, Grace seemed to be skating beautifully, with joy. She was coming off the ice vibrating with pleasure at what she can do. This past week, she has struggled. She’s been tired and slow, struggling with program elements that seemed to come easily the week before. What if I’ve emphasized the competition too much so that Grace’s attention has gotten locked on the possibility of failure instead of on the joy of skating her best in the moment in which she finds herself?

Grace has been skating a lot. She skated fourteen days in a row, had one day off, and is now in the middle of an eleven-day stretch that ends with the competition. In the moment, she wants to skate, but what if I’ve given in to desires that aren’t really good for her? Maybe I should have said “No. You have to take three days off before you can skate again.”

Grace likes to win. But this time I really don’t expect her to medal. She’s skating at a new level against girls her own age who are great skaters as well as against older skaters who’ve been at this level for a while. What if I’ve not done a good enough job of preparing her for skating for herself, to discover what she can do on that day instead of skating to win? What if she peaked too soon so that she can’t successfully skate for herself with joy?

On Fridays, Grace typically gets to the rink after school at about 4:30. She skates with Coach James, takes a little break, and then helps out with the Moylan Learn to Skate program. She helps the adult coaches corral the youngest kids, plays with them, and helps them accomplish skills their coaches are teaching. This past Friday, James couldn’t be at the rink. Coach Jason had a cancellation so Grace had a lesson with him instead.

Grace admires and respects Jason like no other adult in her life. When she makes Jason smile or accomplishes something on the ice that elicits his praise, she is in seventh heaven. When he criticizes her work, she takes it in and works incredibly hard to apply what he’s teaching to her skating. Grace wants to be the skater Jason is always proud of and when she has a rough day, when he calls her out for being sloppy or slow on the ice, she is devastated.

On Friday, Grace’s skating was loose and sloppy as it has been all week. Jason told her so in no uncertain terms. She came off the ice vibrating, but not with joy. She was trying to hold in her disappointment and her tears. She wanted nothing more than to leave the rink. We talked about how she was feeling until she had words to say what she wanted and needed. We decided together that the right thing for her at that moment was to go home and regroup. She went back out on the ice to talk with the LTS director about not staying to coach. Jason called her over and she tried to tell him why she was leaving, but got tongue-tied. I took her home, stopping for pizza on the way, and let her watch movies till bedtime.

Saturday, we got up early and drove to Fremont for her power skating class. She did okay. Not great, but okay. She practiced after class for an hour. I got frustrated because she was repeating elements badly over and over that I know she is capable of completing beautifully. She was skating in front of other skaters and just generally in lala land. So I chided her. By the end of the practice, she had run through her program once without falling on her sit spin and her compulsory program with some speed. She wasn’t great, but she was better. We drove home, stopping at the car dealership to pick up the used car Mike and I have purchased. We traded in Mike’s old Jaguar, which he loved, for a Honda Civic that gets 38 MPG. We need the car so I can drive Grace to Omaha for lessons without spending $200 a week on gas in addition to ice fees and coaching costs. It’s a worthwhile sacrifice, but a sacrifice nonetheless (for Mike, at least: I hated that Jag). Then I took Grace and Lucy to see the Lightning Thief and then to the salon for Grace’s highlights. Last night we lazed around and Grace enjoyed her new hairdo.

For me, Dan and Lucy’s hockey is easy. They are on teams. When their teams lose games, they lose with their team. They may be disappointed, but they never bear the responsibility alone. They play games nearly every week not once every six months. My greatest worries with hockey have to do with Dan and Lu getting enough ice time for practice and with Lucy being treated fairly as a girl playing with boys. But Mike is one of the highest rated hockey coaches in Nebraska and he played hockey as a kid. He knows how to watch out for our kids. Figure skating is a whole different ball of wax. When Grace is thriving, I’m elated with and for her; when she struggles, she’s a wreck and so am I. I have no idea how to be a good Mom to her in either moment and, again, the lists of do’s and don’ts for figure skating parents don’t help too much. Maybe I worry too much, but the reality is that Grace’s coaches have lots of other skaters. They care about Grace, but not any more than they care about any other skater. I’m Grace’s go-to adult and I need to figure this out so my daughter can continue to love her sport, to grow and thrive as a skater and as a person, secure in the certainty that there are no conditions, no caveats, no small print attached to my love for her.

Grace's First Stab at Non-Fiction Prose

Have you ever been so proud of yourself that it almost made you cry? I have! It all started at 5:30 A.M. My mom made me get up for skating. Of course, I was tired so I went back to sleep in the car. When we got to Omaha, it was 6:45 and I had to get up and get into the rink.

I got my skates on and went out to the ice. It was cold and almost dark in there. I wanted a jacket, but I didn't have one, so I skated in the cold rink with out a coat. When it was time for my lesson, I wanted so badly to do my axel that I almost screamed, but I didn't.

Then I started to work on my axel and I almost landed it. "Do a sow cow from a stand still Grace," my coach said. I thought, "I"m finally going to start my double sow cow!" I could hardly breathe! I did one but it wasn't a double. And that was the day I was really proud of myself for starting my double sow cow!

*Grace's spelling and punctuation intact. My favorite is "sow cow."

Grace with Jason at the Ice Box

Backseat Driving

I am a lousy passenger. Riding in the passenger seat, I gasp, hold onto the dashboard, and liberally apply the imaginary passenger side brake. I’m a pain in the ass, basically, for whoever is driving.

The year Dan played goalie for his hockey team, I had to sit far away from all the other parents in the stands. I acted out Dan’s blocks from my seat, dodging and darting as if I was the one in goal. Even now that Dan and Lucy both play center, I sit by myself more than with the other parents. I can’t seem to help myself. I’m playing the game with my kids from the stands. It’s not that I’m mean or swear or engage in other bad-parent behaviors. No, it’s more that someone is likely to get whacked by a flailing arm as I fire off a shot with Dan or take one of those eleven year olds out on the boards with Lucy. And I’m sure I look like Severus Snape up there in the stands offering counter-curses; I keep up a running muttering monologue instructing my kids all the way through every game. I turn into a mother bear, suddenly separated from a cub she perceives to be in danger. The truth is that I am a lousy passenger.

Now, you might think, figure skating being a judged sport rather than a team and contact sport, that my lack of self-control as a skater-mom wouldn’t be an issue. At Grace’s last competition in St. Joe’s, MO, however, I skated Grace’s programs with her from start to finish from behind a glass barrier that, in better times, would protect hockey fans from flying pucks, but in this instance served to protect Grace from her crazy mother. At the end of the day, Jason informed me, in no uncertain terms, that at the next competition Grace and I would separate well before her skate and that I would be watching from the stands with all the other parents. Ouch. Now all those other moms and dads will bear witness to my lack of control, my inner insanity, my mama-bear soul.

As the day of Winterfest draws nearer, Grace is practicing her compulsory and freeskate programs and I’m practicing the fine art of letting go, trying to prepare myself mentally for turning my little one over to her coach, trusting that she’ll be cared for and care for herself in the manner to which I am accustomed.

I know Jason is right. And if I didn’t trust him, he wouldn’t be coaching Grace. I also know, whatever my own weaknesses, Grace has come hardwired with a spirit of steel when it comes to competition. She may feel nervous, but she has never suffered from the kind of stage fright that helped to implode my acting career. She seems absolutely convinced that she’s good enough to take that ice and win. Grace’s response to not winning is typically, “Huh. I don’t know why I didn’t get a medal. I thought I was great.” So, one thing I know for sure is that my emotional state during competitions is not about Grace and her needs, but about me. It’s not something Grace needs to work through, but something I need to take care of for her, so that she can accomplish what she needs and wants without me getting in her way.

Now what’s a mama-bear to do with that realization?

It’s a truism that babies don’t come with instruction manuals. With regard to kids in competitive sports, what pass for parenting instruction manuals, I find, simply do not serve. Typically these texts come in the form of lists of Do’s and Don’ts, but give absolutely no sense of how profoundly nuanced and complex the work of parenting young, competitive athletes can be. In part, parenting work for child-athletes is complex because, even within single families, the physical and psychological needs of child-athletes can be vastly different. And in part this work is complex because parents are not automatons. We come with histories that shape our conceptions of our selves as individuals, as mothers and fathers, and as members of communities, large and small. It’s easy for leagues and clubs and national athletic organizations to tell parents what to do in lists of marching orders. But so far as I can tell no one makes any kind of an effort to help us figure out how to obey those orders, particularly when the rules don’t seem to account for the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves. So far as I can tell those organizations make absolutely no effort to move beyond articulations of the obvious to speak or write with the recognition that the parents of child-athletes might be smart, loving folks who find themselves in unfamiliar territory and/or might need something more and better than lists of do’s and don’ts so broadly generalized as to be largely meaningless.

One thing I’m absolutely sure about is that I’m not paying Grace’s coaches to help me figure this out. Oddly, I was thrilled when Jason barked at me about staying too close to Grace at the St. Joe’s competition. The source of that somewhat testily delivered edict had everything to do with what’s best for Grace as a skater; and that is exactly what I pay Jason to know and do. If I’m doing something that impedes the success of one of my children, I want to be told clearly and directly. But now I need to figure out the how for myself, I guess. So, here's my list of things to learn by the last weekend in February (snort):

a) how to manage my own nervousness before her competition so that what I communicate to Grace is not fear, but love and pride and faith
b) how to let go of her with joy and trust when Jason says it’s time for her to prepare for her programs
c) how to watch her skate without projecting myself out onto the ice; how to stay present in the stands even as she practices presence on the ice

I’ve pretty much given up on any possibility of progressing along this learning curve for my hockey playing kids. There’s something about watching other children bashing my Dan and Lucy into the boards that defeats even my best intentions to stay calm and centered. But there’s still hope for me as a figure skating mom, I figure. At least I hope so.

Photos of Grace with Coach James and with Ryan Bradley

Grace with Ryan Bradley during the Skate with the Stars Clinic in Omaha

Grace with Coach James after skating for Haiti.

Disappointment

This morning I received a text from Grace’s coach, James. He wrote with a heads-up that he is donating half of all his earnings today to earthquake relief in Haiti. He said he wanted to talk with Grace about the ethics of skating and, in particular, about skating beyond self-interest, with integrity and generosity.

And speaking of Kairos again…

I really, truly, deeply love the Olympics (especially the winter Olympics) not only because I’m a sports fan, but because I’m moved by the spirit of the Games, by the principles of international cooperation and exchange they strive to enact, and by the hope I think the Olympic Games represent for world peace and understanding. I tend to be as cynical about expressions of patriotism as I am about expressions of piety, but I’ll admit that, for me, the Olympians who represent the United States should embody what I think of as the best of the American character. American Olympic athletes should, I think, enact a spirit of generosity, of sacrifice in service not merely of individual achievement, but of the collective good. American Olympians should be athletes who inspire young people not only to strive for excellence in their sports, but to be exceptional citizens of their communities, their Country, and of the world. American Olympians should, I believe, be filled with joy at the opportunity to play their sports at the highest levels, and I don’t begrudge these athletes the fame and wealth that attend success in their sports. But I do believe that athletes should feel blessed by rather than owed the opportunity to represent their Country as Olympians and should take seriously the responsibility to act as role models of what it means to possess the highest quality of character for the generations of young athletes who will follow in their footsteps.

So when I heard Evan Lysacek call this weekend’s National Championships “a practice event” (a claim I’m quite sure he would not have made had he come in first rather than second) and Johnny Weir avow that his goal had never been to be National champion (a claim I’m quite sure he, also, wouldn’t have made had he won), I was appalled. I find those two utterances to be shockingly self-absorbed, shallow, mean-spirited, and, ultimately, to be perfect examples of what it means to be not just a poor sport, but a bad sport. Lysacek and Weir now appear to me to be small and mean, appear to possess exceptionally withered characters particularly when one contrasts their behavior with that of Ryan Bradley, who expressed with deep humility his gratitude for the opportunity to skate, his love for his sport and its fans, and his respect for his fellow competitors (and who clearly desired and worked tremendously hard in an effort to earn both the National title and an Olympic berth, but came up short in scores if not in performance).

I should, if I am to be honest, make a couple of confessions, the first of which is that I am a fan of Ryan Bradley. I love Bradley’s skating. I admire his athleticism and I’m absolutely charmed by the quality of his performances. But even more than this and even before watching this weekend’s Championship, I have admired the quality of Bradley’s character. During a year in which Bradley was preparing to skate on the Grand Prix circuit, to compete in the U.S. National Championship, and for a berth on the U.S. Men’s Olympic team, he took the time to come to Omaha, Nebraska (Omaha, for crying out loud) to work with young skaters with big dreams, one of whom was my daughter, Grace. While Bradley was here in Omaha, I’m told, he continued his training schedule, working his own skating around clinic and private lesson times. Although he must have been tired and stressed at times, he was invariably warm, enthusiastic, and kind to the skaters with whom he worked. And Grace, I know, felt herself to be a better skater for her work with Ryan Bradley. He took the skating lives of the children with whom he worked seriously and offered them a meaningful opportunity to really learn from a great, competitive skater.

My second confession is that, while I love figure skating and have for years, I am unqualified to judge who should have won either the short or long programs at this weekend’s competition. I’ll admit that I tend to agree with Elvis Stoiko that the quad is underrated in the new scoring system. And I tend to think that the new system under-values the artistic quality of figure skating. However, I don’t understand the scoring system well enough to judge whether doubling two jumps is really worse than stepping out of a triple axel or whether landing two quads but doubling an axel is really worse than falling on a quad and bobbling a few other elements. I have strong convictions about what I like and don’t like, about performances I love and those I merely admire, but I’m really not qualified to judge.

So this is not a blog entry about how Ryan Bradley should have placed at this weekend’s National Championships. Instead, this is an entry about character, about the quality of character I believe should be required for the athletes who represent the United States at the Olympic Games, in particular.

Grace and I watched the men’s Long Program together yesterday afternoon. Grace was thrilled to see “her coach” perform and do so well. We screamed when he landed his first and then his second quad and both of us got teary as his program came to a conclusion. We thrilled to the performances of Adam Rippon and Armin Mahbanoozadeh. In fact, we celebrated all of the skaters’ performances and were absolutely awe-inspired by Jeremy Abbott. Grace left the room once the outcome was clear, but I stayed to watch the follow-up interviews with the leading skaters. I wish I hadn’t. For what I’m left with is a kind of sick, sad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Of course I wish Ryan Bradley had scored in the top three. But his missing the podium is not what drives this sadness I feel. What I’m sad about is my experience of a revelation about the lack of character in two of the three men who will represent the U.S. as the Men’s National Figure Skating Team. What I’m sick about is the failure of any of the commentators or interviewers to remark either on the graciousness of Bradley in defeat or on the arrogance of Lysacek and Weir, who seemed to expect their Olympic berths as their due, who were so shockingly disrespectful to their fellow competitors, and who, I really think, dishonored their country and their sport by their callow disregard for the integrity of the 2010 National Championships.

So, I’ll watch the men skate in the Olympics come February. Maybe Grace will watch with me. But when it comes to the athletes I’ll turn to when I want to talk with my children about the intimate relationship between the quality of one’s character and the value of athletic achievement, when I want to draw their attention to an athlete who might serve as a role model not only for athletic excellence, but also for good sportsmanship, I’ll point to Ryan Bradley as an exemplar. When I’m trying to reinforce the lessons Grace learns from Jason and James about integrity, generosity, and graciousness on and off the ice, I’ll remind her of Ryan Bradley. When Grace feels downhearted or frustrated about her skating, we’ll watch Ryan Bradley’s short and long programs from this year’s championships and talk about the strength, courage, determination, and unbridled joy he brings to the sport even when times are hard. I can’t speak with any authority to the technical legitimacy of the final outcome of the Men’s National Championship, but for me and for Grace, it is Ryan Bradley who is the real Olympian.

Learning Presence

One night last week, after her lesson and some practice time, Grace came running off the ice to find me. I was in the lobby of the rink reading. “Mom! Mom! Watch my sit spin! It’s awesome!” I moved to the observation glass and Grace went back out on the ice. She showed me a sit spin. Then she ran through her compulsory program…three or four times. Then she worked on backspins. Then she decided to run through all of her spins. Then she ran through her long program. Twice. Then she re-worked a jump sequence three or four times. By this time, she’d been on the ice for over two hours. I went to the gate and told her it was time to come off the ice. She groaned and reluctantly followed me back to her Zuca bag in the lobby.

Let’s see…when is the last time I’ve had to pull Grace from the ice after such a long skate? Hmmmm…I think that would be….ummmm…before we moved from St. Cloud to Lincoln, when Prescott was still coaching her.

This morning Grace came off the ice after her lesson with Jason and she was vibrating with energy. “Mom,” she whispered (as if speaking aloud would crack the world apart), “Jason started me on my double salchow! Oh Mom, I’m so excited!”

Let’s see…when is the last time I’ve seen Grace so thrilled, so beside herself with excitement about her own skating? Hmmm…I think that would be…ummm…before we moved from St. Cloud to Lincoln, after her very first ice show.

Grace has had a challenging couple of weeks. For some time, Jason had been talking with me about connecting Grace with an up and coming artistic coach he works with in Omaha. I’d watched this coach working with Grace’s super best skating friend and I was very impressed. It took us all a while, but just before Christmas we managed to begin scheduling regular twice-a-week lessons for Grace with James. While Jason focuses especially on the technical, athletic elements of Grace’s skating and pushes her ongoing, overall development, James focuses on the artistic, performative aspects of Grace’s skating -- on character development, artistry, attunement to music, and perhaps most importantly of all on presence.

This is HARD for Grace. As competitive as Grace is, as much joy as she takes from imaginative play at home and with her closest friends, Grace is a rather deeply situated introvert. Her joy, her passion for skating is driven, I believe, by the pleasure she takes from moving; she loves the feeling of flying that attends jumping, the feeling of speed that attends spinning. She loves the feeling of her body at the edge of what is physically possible. It takes work for Grace to think about and feel for an audience. The kind of extroversion that attends audience awareness, for right now at least, demands energy of her rather than feeding her with energy. So when Grace is challenged to skate a role, as emotionally connected as she may be with the character, she wants to hide herself, to tuck that self away deep within. Further, and complicating matters for Grace, is the fact that she knows she is a powerful competitor. She can pull out a performance on competition days and often relies on that ability. When she begins to believe that the purpose of practice is to prepare for competition, she can slack off, giving less than she is capable of giving in the moment in which she finds herself -- the learning, learningful moment.

James has challenged Grace to give of herself as a skater in ways I think she has not been challenged previously. He asks her to be present in her body with her whole self, to make visible the spirit that drives not only her skating, but her movement through the world as a unique, extraordinary being. In an email to me about his growing conception of himself as a coach and his work with Grace, James wrote, “You cannot teach students "presence" on the ice without teaching them the value of "the present." The present cannot be honored without Integrity. This is why I believe that artistry is in fact a byproduct of one's commitment to technique, discipline, compassion and awareness (both inside and out). Everything is connected. My goals for Grace have nothing to do with skating clean programs, winning gold medals, or going to the Olympics. My goal is to inspire her to be open to these ideas so that she may approach everything in her life, not just skating, with a focus (intention) that is "so complete," "so honest" that her work will be met with the rewards of self respect, clarity and most importantly - inner peace. If that isn’t confidence, I don't know what is. I want her to know that the moment to value most is not the moment that occurs four weeks from now in front of an audience and a panel of judges. The moment that must be paid due is the present.”

And Grace has resisted. She’s wrestled with herself and she’s wrestled with both James’ and Jason’s pressure to try, to push herself in these new ways. But as much as she has resisted, I can see her processing, experimenting, and even enjoying what she discovers is possible as she takes the most tentative steps toward what I would think of as generosity and what James frames as integrity in her skating. Grace has been practicing in front of a large mirror in our upstairs hallway. She’s been practicing in our living room and on the playground at recess. The other day she told me that she showed her classmates at school what she’s working on in skating, including her off-ice axel walk-through (an interesting choice given the level of difficulty of the move and the likelihood of falling down in public). This new way of thinking involves a very different kind of risk than the risk that Grace more naturally embraces in skating. James and Jason are asking Grace to risk revelation by risking presence as a performer.

What really interests me as a teacher and fills me with joy as a parent is the way in which this new set of challenges presented by Grace’s coaches seems to have re-energized Grace’s Bliss. Although things haven’t been easy for Grace on the ice this last month, suddenly she doesn’t want to come off the ice, and when she does leave the ice she’s vibrating with pleasure at what she can do and what she is learning to do. She is living the lesson that what may be hardest for us, what feels so terribly uncomfortable for us as we learn it, might also be that which brings us unimaginable joy. Now that’s an extraordinary lesson for a nine-year old to be learning on or off the ice!

Cool! Very cool!

Future Perfect

Grace has a new pair of skates. Grace has gotten her first pair of truly new skates. Always before we have purchased used skates, but this time round, Grace has gotten a pair of brand new skates. And because her feet have grown so much, she has also gotten new blades.

Breaking in new skates is no fun (even when they're new-used skates, but even more so, I think, when they're new, new skates). So for the last few weeks, we've been in the throes of adjusting and tweaking and Grace has had to go out on the ice even when her feet and ankles hurt so that the necessary adjustments to their fit can be made.

Grace had been skating in her new boots for about a week when Jason determined that the blades needed to be moved. He marked the boots to show how he wanted the blades shifted; I picked Grace up from school early one day last week and drove her to the Winning Edge in Omaha for the adjustment. The next morning, Grace had another lesson with Jason.

I watched from the lobby as Grace took the ice. Jason watched her skate for about three minutes before he motioned to me to come rink-side. "That left blade is perfect," he pronounced, "but the right blade isn't there yet. I'm going to get a screwdriver." Having borrowed the tool from Terry, one of the rink's workers, Jason set to work. He sat Grace down and took her foot in his lap and looked at the blade. Carefully, he loosened the screws holding the front of her blade in place and shifted the blade back and forth, pausing to consider its positioning as he manipulated it until he was satisfied. I'm pretty sure he didn't move that blade further than an eighth of an inch. He tightened the screws, patted Grace on the back, and said, "okay, let's go." I have to admit, I was a little nervous. I don't even want to think about how much those boots and blades cost. And an 1/8 of an inch? There was probably a part of me that was thinking, "this is like fixing a comma and thinking the writer will now be transformed."

I learn a lot about teaching and about coaching by watching Jason work with Grace. In some ways, as a parent, their work together is hard to watch. Together, they focus on what appear to be minutiae. Jason guides Grace in working the an edge in the entrance to a jump or a spin over and over and over again. Or a landing position. Or the reach and stretch of an arm. It's slow, hard work. There's not a lot of drama. And if what you imagine is some sudden, spectacular, epiphanic accomplishment, I've learned, you're likely to be disappointed. No, Jason is not coaching for the "A" to be awarded at the end of a session or a season; he's not coaching for a first place finish at the next competition. I think (and this is what I'm learning about teaching by watching Jason work with Grace) that he is coaching to open up a range of possibilities for Grace as a skater in process, a skater with a future though no one, not even Grace or Jason, can predict what that future might be. And Jason, I think, is uninterested in predicting an ideal future for Grace and teaching toward that singular possibility. He is teaching in service opening up the future to multiple possibilities.

I observed, I believe, in Jason's shifting of a blade an 1/8 of an inch an example of a teacher working in future perfect. When teachers engage the future perfect, we are imagining ourselves forward in time with a student and asking ourselves, "if we move this way, if we change this thing, what will this student be working on with me or with some other teacher/writer two weeks from now? a year from now? five years from now?" The move is not a culminating one; not a finish, but an articulation of possibilities, of potentialities.

Serious skaters tend to stay with coaches for a long time. Hence the admonitions Mike and I received against changing coaches and moving Grace to Jason. It may be that writing teachers and tutors, unlike figure skating coaches, don't have the luxury of years. But I'm not convinced we need to know the future or have certainty about what our relationship with a writer will be in order to teach the way Jason teaches skating to Grace. I'm not sure that this kind of future-perfect-mind requires certainty that there will be a "we" or a "together" weeks or months or years from now. The operative question in future-perfect-mind is what might be possible for this student if we do this thing now, and not whether the teacher will be present when possibilities are realized or not. This is a new way, for me at least, of thinking about student-centered teaching.

Teaching with future-perfect-mind might also shift how we conceive of teaching at the outside edges of students' ability in what Lev Vygotsky called "the zone of proximal development" (the learning space between what students already know and what they might be able to learn or do given a teacher or coach's conceptual (or, in the case of skating, physical) scaffolding and support). When Jason works with Grace, he engages her in the acquisition of a kind of grammar of the body that is specific to figure skating. These are the rules of motion, of movement -- of physics and muscle and mind -- that constitute the athleticism and aesthetics of the sport. But it would be a mistake, I think, to believe that acquisition of, fluency in this body-grammar is all there is to skating. The grammar is the structure that makes that which we have never seen before not just imaginable, but possible. Skaters, like writers, who inspire our awe do not merely perform this grammar to perfection; they press on its limits, extending the possibilities for what might be expressed, what meaning may be made in and through it.

So when Jason engages in future-perfect-mind as he works with Grace, he teaches not with the conviction that Grace will be the next Yu-Na Kim. Not only is that highly unlikely, it's not particularly desirable. The point is not to use the body-grammar of skating to replicate what others have already accomplished, but to use that grammar to discern what this skater will have done when she has done all she wants and is capable of doing. He's teaching with an openness to the graceness of Grace, to possibility, to potential, to a host of futures, some of which may include skating.

That's cool. At least I think so. And as a final note (not sure if I've said this aloud or written it already on the blog), changing coaches is the best thing we ever did for Grace.

Tidbits

Here's a story about Lucy:

So Lucy had a tournament last weekend in Sioux Center, Iowa with her Squirts team (co-ed). Lucy's coach has moved her back to play on a defensive line. Now, Lucy is a girl who likes to get her ice time. The team had won every game in the tournament. They're playing in the last game and things are shaping up nicely to take home first place. They're in the last few minutes of the game when Lucy's good friend, Kean, takes a rather pointless penalty. Kean is a fantastic player, but he does have a tendency to take bad penalties. The coach sends out Lucy's line absent Lucy (for reasons that surpasseth understanding, in my opinion). In any case, Lucy is PISSED. She fumes on the bench. She fumes through the end of the game and the celebration of taking home the tournament championship. She marches into the locker room; marches up to Kean; and dumps a full bottle of cold water over his head; marches straight back out again.

Beware the ire of Lucy.

Still waiting to see what if anything Coach will say...

Kairos

Kairos is time in between, not measured by the clock but time of indeterminate duration. Kairos is time in which something special is happening.

We must be in time-in-between. Grace's surgery was accomplished on a Tuesday and the following Thursday, Lucy, our crazy, energetic, driven hockey player, was diagnosed with mono. A few days later, I found myself in the emergency room with my Mom (who has relapsing/remitting Multiple Sclerosis) because she was in excruciating pain. It seems that Mom is in the midst of an exacerbation of her illness.

Time is moving differently. Or perhaps it is the case that Mike and I are moving differently through time. We are torn between what have become more visibly competing needs. I watch Lucy constantly and want always to be where she is. I want to hold on to her, protect her, make her well. But the nature of mono is such that one can only watch and wait. There is no speeding it on its way. Multiple Sclerosis is much the same, but worse. You can't fix it, mend it, undo its effects. Mitigation is all that remains. And worry. Too much worry.

Something special is happening. We are being forced to slow down and to say no to work, to practices, to opportunities we might have thoughtlessly agreed to just a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, I eeked out a few hours to spend with Dan, who has been left to his own devices far too frequently as Mike and I have turned our attention to Grace, Lucy, and my Mom. Dan is thirteen now and has found himself a crew of friends who live close enough to one another to gather at one another's homes after school. He is finding a new degree of independence, working out for himself a new relationship with Mike and me; one characterized more explicitly on the tension between responsibility and freedom than dependence and permission. And I worry. Will Dan's love of sport, his love of learning, his imagination and motivation be enough to carry him through this time of limit-testing? Have we given him a strong enough moral foundation to enable good choices as he moves into a world in which the range of choices available to him proliferates? I believe in him, have faith, and yet I doubt myself and worry.

And Lucy rests, demanding little yet needing so much that we are challenged to give: time, stillness, presence. When she sleeps I find myself snuggling in close to her like I did when she napped as a baby. I watch her face as her dreams animate even her still body, try to feel her breath on my cheek just to be sure.

And Grace dances along merrily. Her need is not so much to slow down as to focus, to attend, to be sharp.

The universe has given us this time-in-between. I know there must be some richness here, some beauty, some gift. But I'm afraid my fear, my insecurity, my worry is obscuring my perception for all I can think is that I want this to be over. I want my children and my mother well again and I'm afraid -- no, I know -- I haven't the ability to make it so.

Ecstasy and Agony

Sunday, Grace went to the Ice Box to skate. We arrived at the rink especially early because Grace wanted to work on her axel before her lesson with Jason. She looked at me before she went on the ice and said, "I know I can do it, Mom. Just watch." It's never wise to doubt Grace when she makes such claims, but I'll admit I wasn't so sure.

The Ice Box is a funny rink. It's located on the State Fairgrounds and in the summer during the fair serves as the horse ring. When the ice is laid down again in the fall, the rink is still full of flies in search of horses to annoy. As the building cools under the onslaught of the refrigeration system, the flies grow slow. They buzz gracelessly about the heads of skaters and their parents, who watch from the sidelines.

I took my seat close by the boards and watched Grace work. She warmed up, working her edges, stroking and doing crossovers. She tried out a few spins and then began working on the axel walk through. She jumped and fell, jumped and fell, jumped and fell. I walked to the rink lobby to stretch my legs, turned and walked back toward the ice just as Grace landed a jump on one foot. I gasped; Grace turned to me and grinned. She jumped again. And landed on one foot again. She stepped off the ice and gave me an enormous hug. "I'm going to show Jason," she said. "Wait," I cautioned. "He's still giving a lesson." Grace nodded. "I'll work on all my jumps."

Back on the ice, Grace meandered, unfocused now that her goal had been accomplished. Head down, she twirled a bit, got in the way of a few other skaters, then started to backstroke in preparation for a jump. Time seemed to slow down. Sometimes you can just tell when a skater is going to fall -- even if you know very little about the technique she ought to be employing. Grace tried for a lutz and her feet tangled. I watched her go down. She rose from the ice slowly, holding her hand, and skated toward me, her face a mask of shock and pain. As she came close, she held her hand out and it was covered with blood. Through the gore I could see her thumb, torn down the middle by a very deep gash: a to-the-bone slice.

I turned to the Club representative acting as Ice Monitor; she'd been sitting in the stands watching her daughter skate. "I need help," I said. She sat. "I NEED HELP RIGHT NOW." By then I was moving with Grace out into the lobby and the changing area. Grace sat quietly holding her hand as the blood drenched the sleeves of her skating dress. I turned and the Ice Monitor was moving in what seemed like slow motion toward me. "I need help," I said again. "I need a first-aid kit now." I ran to the ice and called to Jason. I ran past the ice monitor to the first aid kit in the skate room. A box of band aids and an old dusty eye-wash kit. I ran to the bathroom and got paper towels. I ran back to Grace. Jason told me to get wet towels. I ran back to the bathroom. Grace sat. Quietly. Holding her hand. Jason had taken her skates off for her. Someone said, "You have time. You don't have to race to the hospital." Someone else said, "Go to St. Elizabeth's. If you go to Bryant and there's a huge crisis, you'll have to wait forever."

Somehow, I got Grace's skates and guards into her Zuca bag and shepherded her out to the car. I'm sure we talked on the way to the Hospital, but I can't remember what we said. I called Mike to tell him where we were and what had happened. We agreed that he would stay to watch Dan's football game and cheer him on. There seemed little reason for both of us to sit in the Emergency Room. Lucy was at a birthday party and well taken care of for the moment.

At last, we were able to see a doctor. Grace's wound had exposed the joint cavity in her thumb and sliced into tendon. The doctor numbed her hand, carefully cleaned the cut, then sutured the edges closed. He had X-rays taken to make sure she hadn't broken her hand and those came back negative. "Well, Mom," he said finally. I always find it funny when doctors and teachers refer to me as Mom. "She's sliced into that tendon. We've got a new hand doctor in town. He's great. You'll need to get Grace in to see him tomorrow..." and on and on... "increased risk of infection..." "growth plate..." "could be quite serious..." "can't tell the extent of the damage..."

I took Grace to see Dr. Cullen the next morning. Dr. Cullen, I figure, is from Philadelphia. Maybe upstate New York. Definitely not the midwest. He wasted no time on niceties. "A serious injury. No way to tell how bad until surgery. Must do surgery quickly to prevent infection. How about tomorrow morning."

That night, Grace's friend and her Mom invited Grace and me over for dinner. They had gifts for Grace, to carry her through surgery: a toy monkey, a pair of pajamas, a snuggy blanket, and peace sign shirt from Justice for Girls, Grace's favorite store. They talked with Grace about the surgery, reassured her, and reassured me too. On the way home, Grace said, "it's a terrible tragedy when children die, isn't it?" "Yes," I said. "What will happen if I don't wake up, Mama?" Grace asked. "You'll wake up, Grace," I said. "I promise. And when you wake up, I will be right there with you." "I saw God the other day," Grace said (she's been listening to my Victor Wooten cd). "Really," she affirmed. "I saw God." In the darkness, I cried. I didn't have the words to comfort, to lift the fear away for her. But Grace had them somehow for herself.

The surgery is over now. Grace never lost her composure, never lost her faith. She woke up woozy and a bit dizzy, but quickly recovered. Dr. Cullen came out to speak with us. "Bad gash on that tendon. Surgery went fine though. Cast for three months. See you in two weeks." And he was off to the next case.

Six hours later Grace was dancing around the house, practicing her axel walk-through in our upstairs hallway. Mike and I looked at each other. "When do you think she should skate?" I asked. "FRIDAY," Mike said. "Sunday," I said.

I think we will follow Grace. She just seems to know somehow.

Zen and the Art of Grace

The weather has turned here in Nebraska; the sky today is a bright, light blue and the air is cool and clear. The leaves are turning just about their edges and those that have fallen early blow easily across streets, forming loose piles against curbs and fences.

Two weekends ago, Grace and I traveled to St. Joseph, Missouri for her first competition of the 2009 - 2010 season. We were both excited not only because of the competition, but also because we've finally made rink friends -- not casual acquaintances, but friends who feel like kindred spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would say. We all stayed in the same hotel, ate meals together, and played in-between events.

On the way to St. Joe's, Grace and I talked about her goals for the competition. I asked her to name three goals for the weekend. Grace's response was, "I want to take first place; that's my goal, my only goal." Sigh. I asked her if she thought she could control what place she takes in any competition. Finally, she admitted that maybe she couldn't control what other skaters do on the ice or how judges perceive her performance or those of other skaters. We talked about goals she could make for which she could control the outcome. Finally, Grace said she'd like to skate to the best of her ability, skate two clean programs, and skate with joy and to give joy to the audience. I thought those were pretty great goals and that the conversation was over.

There was a pause...and then Grace said, "Mom, I think I'm going to just get lost out there on the ice." "What do you mean?" I queried. I was worried. Was Grace so nervous, so stressed about skating that she feared forgetting her program? "Mom," she drawled, "getting lost is like when you go for it. But when you get lost you are going with so much joy and you have no idea what the future holds."

In Japan, there is this concept called wabi sabi. Maybe loosely translated the term signifies transience, imperfect beauty, an aesthetic that not only accounts for the unfinished, the temporary, the flawed, but celebrates these qualities in the everyday.

Life with Grace (with grace) might be wabi sabi; while she didn't skate perfectly clean programs, falling once in each, she did skate beautifully, with joy and courage. She took second in the long program. And she showed her coach and me a little glimpse what getting lost might look like when a child who is both tough and tender is nurtured, supported, and taken seriously as a skater.

More soon!

After a Long Silence

I haven't written about skating for ages. In part I've been silent because I've been so busy. But more than this, I've been silent because I didn't know what to say exactly. I'll give the update in brief and then begin to blog from where we are rather than dwelling in the past.

Grace had a disastrous winter and spring. At school, she struggled to find joy in learning in a classroom where enjoyment was read as a sign of disrespect and disobedience (for crying out loud! Maybe I need to write an entry just on this experience!). At the rink, she struggled to find the kind of everyday discipline that skating demands. After a very rough Winter Fest competition, Grace wrestled with herself on and off the ice. She worked and worked and worked, but seemed to gain little ground. She felt herself to be increasingly alienated from other children at her school and blamed skating, which, she felt, took her away from after-school play and made her different from a crew of popular girls with whom she hoped to be friends. We were driving to Omaha (fifty miles or so) four times a week and something had to shift: either Grace needed a breakthrough or she needed to quit.

After several months of soul-searching and agonizing, Mike and I made the decision to make a coaching change. We wanted a coach who would come to Lincoln during the winter when the Lincoln rink is open. And we wanted a coach who would take Grace's dreams of being a competitive skater seriously, who would push her to skate in her "zone of proximal development," at the outside edges of her ability, and who would give her the kind of coaching support she needs to stay at that outside edge. We made the change in late May and it was PAINFUL, but oddly not so much for Grace. I felt terrible (excited for Grace, but unbelievably guilty about what might be perceived as betraying the old coach); Grace seemed to feel exhilarated.

Grace has been working with Jason, then, for three months. She has a new compulsory program, and new freeskate program, and a new attitude. It's not all sunlight and roses. Grace is skating five times a week, still in Omaha because the Lincoln rink hasn't opened yet (it opens this weekend). She and I have been getting up at 5:00 AM or so to get to the rink for morning skates because ice time has been so limited even in Omaha. BUT...

The changes in Grace's skating are pretty incredible. In my next post, I'll describe them more and put up some before and after videos. She'll be competing this weekend in St. Joseph, MO for the first time as Jason's skater. We're not sure what to expect; it seems even more important than usual, given these dramatic changes, for Grace to really focus her competition goals around skating a clean program and having fun rather than winning or placing. And truthfully, whatever she does this weekend, she's a different and much, much stronger skater now.

More soon...