My First Program: Choreography

 Coach Miss Bianca gets an idea for my program

I am going to be Captain Hook from Peter Pan!So Coach Miss Bianca scripts out my choreography

Then we run through it. I camp it up.

Exaggerated Sword Play

Head Jazz

Arm Movement and booty shaking

We're still negotiating the level of camp I can put into my skating.

(The full 1960 NBC presentation of Peter Pan with Mary Martin as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as the absolute classic Captain Hook is on YouTube) Here's my special part (cut down to 1:05)

So there's my next three months of skating!

My Christmas Program

Miss Bianca is determined that I do a Christmas program. Why she wants to torture a poor audience filled with parents and children, I have no Idea.

"What song?" I asked.

"Shimmy Like My Sister Kate."

The woman is clearly insane. I'm an exuberant older woman who's willing to go places of bad taste that is clearly inappropriate for an under 18 audience.

"I have no skills." I say, but I'm sure she intends to choreograph something. I can see it now.

I stroke in as fast as I can.

Start with a shimmy

A two foot spin

Some back skating

A little backend work.

Then I do some foot work

Some final shoulder work

And a nice ending

Well, old performer that I am, I know what it will take for this program to work. "So," I say to Miss Bianca, "Can I have a costume with Double L cups?"

Figure Skating Culture

Figure skating culture is very entre nous. While the literal translation is "between you and me", the broader meaning is "only understood by insiders".

Outsiders see figure skating as

OMG! OLEM- PIKS!

Insiders see figure skating as building skills and making the cut

Outsiders see skating as "entertainment"

Skaters see it as "a program"

Outsiders see skating "for little girls"

(Mike Kirby was one of the founders of ISI. 

A Manley woman podcast with his son David Kirby 

has some interesting US skating history)

Insiders see it "for everyone"

Ice tourists base their idea of skating on their experience of public skate:

Skaters see it as practice, practice, practice....and learn to live with pain.....

And finally, outsiders see skaters at "sparkly little princesses"

But we KNOW....WE.ARE.ATHLETES!

Vanessa James