First Figure Skating Competition

There are two major figure skating associations in the United States, USFSA and ISI. USFSA is the professional organization that you need to go through to be in the Olympics, but it does also accommodate lower level skaters. ISI is more of a recreational skating organization for people just looking to have fun. I am in ISI at the "delta" level. Now with that background let’s get on with the meat of my story.

Friday night was my first competition in figure skating. My routine is a one minute routine that I skate to Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I was in my car listening to some Green Day on my way to the rink. I was pretty excited about the competition at this point. Then my GPS beeped at me saying that I was there. At that moment I distinctively remember thinking that field doesn't look like a skating rink. Right after that thought, I was like oh crap I entered the wrong address in my GPS. In my years of using a GPS I have never had a problem getting someplace so I've gotten lazy and didn't come with a backup plan. I pulled off to the side of the road and called Kim, my coach, and told her I was lost. She told me the road it was on and I then stopped at a gas station to get directions. Luckily it was only 7 miles from where I was and I got there with plenty of time. Just out of curiosity when I got home I checked and the rink's website has the wrong address on it. The directions on their website are great, but not so great with the address. I think they did that just to be mean to us people who use GPS's. Anyways everything turned out fine, and from now on when I'm going somewhere important I won't be trusting my GPS so blindly.

Once I got there I didn't have an hour to sit back and relax like I had planned, but I still had a few minutes. After that I went on the ice for my five minute warm up. It was during this warm up that I started getting a little nervous. I was the first person after warm up to skate and so I skated. Once I got into the routine, the nerves left me and I did pretty well. It wasn't the best I had ever skated the routine, but it was a little better than my average during practice. It felt great to be done!

After waiting a half an hour I got my score. FIRST PLACE! Well that's a little deceptive because what I actually got was a gold metal. I was the only male at my skill level and age bracket so I skated against the book. Basically this means the judges rate my performance and determine a fair placing for the performance. In my case I was so awesome I got the gold.

Skating in front of a crowd like that was a great experience. I plan on doing it more as I become a better skater. One last thing. I ordered some pictures of my competition from a photographer since it was my first one. I'll be sure to post a few when I get them. Since I don't have any of me skating right now, I'll leave you with a shot I took of my coach's daughter. She's a princess.