But they can make you feel better about yourself. And that's a good thing. Maybe we all need a psychological boost now and then.
The other day Miss Cheerleader took me shopping to get me out of the many, many black/grey/white t-shirts I wear and the jackets that are starting to 'go'. So now I have a collection of bright colored winter shirts, some nice jackets and a whole new attitude.
So, no, I don't skate better in the new clothes. But for some reason I enjoy skating just a little bit more when I take care of how I dress.
I'm of the generation where women wore gloves to church, and hose every day. So maybe it's just me. I like to coordinate down to the gloves.
And since I bought a couple of pretty skating jackets, they can do double duty as work jackets.
I'm now in love with Spyder and Zella jackets. I've found that scrimping on a jacket really isn't worth it. A well made jacket will last for season after season. My cheap-o ones seemed to last about half a season before the zippers gave out. As for shirts, Miss Cheerleader convinced me to get some bright colors that contrasted with the jackets.
I look stunning on the ice (for an elderly lady).
And when I skate, maybe I do skate with just a bit more style and panache. I'm going to cut those girls in Chloe Noel some slack from now on. :-)
One day I was at the rink, my head bent down over my boot while I was tying it, when someone came up to me and said, "Hi!"
I looked up. This 15 year old boy was smiling at me. "Who is this?" went through my brain. Nice looking kid, T-shirt, baggy shorts, run down tennis shoes. Then he started yapping at me, and I realized it was Dance Coach.
In my defense, I'd only had one lesson from him, and I'd never seen him in anything but his coaching jacket. The face was the same, but the whole impression was not of a man, but of a boy. Put his coaching jacket on and he became A Coach.
The difference between a coach in street clothes and in the Coat of Power is really amazing. Once a coach puts on that jacket they become a different person. Tiny little women you might mistake for a child suddenly seem taller and stronger. Easy going guys suddenly become commanding.
It had never been obvious to me before how important that coaching jacket was as a uniform. It gives coaches an instantly recognizable identity and authority on the ice. Like a policeman's uniform it gives kids on public a sense of 'the guy that's in charge.' Little kids who he knows come up and hug Dance Coach on ice. When he's off ice in 'civvies', only the parents approach him. The little kids don't seem to recognize him. I guess that means I'm a child at heart!
There are people who have a riveting presence on ice, and there's a male coach at one rink who has it in spades. I'm occasionally at the rink early, and I'll glance in to see who's on the ice. Sometimes I'll see this coach. At that point I'm like a slack jawed yokel, who's seeing 'them fancy moving pitchers' for the first time. I hate to tear my eyes away from his skating. I don't have sophisticated enough skating smarts to figure out how he does it, but even just stroking around he seems to be orders of magnitude above every one else.
I once chanced to see him coaching a student. At one point he demonstrated something, and my brain went, "OMG. Look at that toepoint." Yes, I stared at his boots, as if 'toepoint skills' could feed by osmosis into my brain.
He's Elegant. Effortless. He puts on posture, edge, and style like he puts on his clothes. Even when he's just leaning against the boards, he has perfect line.
The best word to describe this coach is soigne'. But that doesn't work into a moniker, does it? So I'll just call him Coach Dreamboat, because his skating is dreamy.
The couple of times I've seen this coach on the ice, he distinguishes himself not only by his skating, but by the way he dresses. He's the only coach I can remember seeing, who skates in regular clothes. And therein, I think, lies some of his visual appeal. Why? Because in regular clothes it's much, much easier to see line, knee bend, posture, and all the aspects of skating finesse, than when a coach is bundled up.
I'm old enough to remember when men skated in tweed trousers, or just comfortable slacks, and a very nice look it is. Perhaps I'm nostalgic for the customs of my youth, but I have to say that regular slacks have an advantage in that it's easier to see knee and ankle bend than it is in the insulated and padded coach slacks that are worn today. It's almost impossible to see line and body angles when a coach is dressed like the Michelin man.
To demonstrate how this works, below is an action shot of Dick Button from the 50's. Even though he's not wearing form fitting clothing, I think you can see line, bend, posture, attitude much better than you can see from a coach wearing a sleeping bag disguised as a jacket. And these pictures are over 60 years old, of poor resolution and in black and white.
Dick Button
And what it looks like in action? The late, great Robert Waggenhoffer in Crying.
So Coach Dreamboat's lucky students; a fantastic skater for a coach, and they can actually see the line, bend and posture when he demonstrates a skill.
Well, I did the laundry this weekend, and I have 4 pairs of stretchy slacks I wear for skating. Four pairs!
Most of them are old and beat up--and due to weight loss--don't fit. One pair even has a hole in one thigh where I fell on the heel of my blade. So I have to buy new ones.
And like every other woman's, they're all black. It's fashion tyranny! Don't go with 'just wear black'. Be daring. Be edgy!
I'm going to go out on a stylistic limb here---I'm going for NAVY!
.....Sorry, antiphrasis took over there for a minute....
I do wish a pretty outfit plus a Zuca bag would make my skating better. Life would be so much easier.
If you've been skating any amount of time, you'll have noted the wide variety of skating clothes. There's black slacks, and black tights, and black skirts....oh you know. Yeah, the teenagers who look like grasshoppers, and the rare adult woman who looks like that too, can wear tights with exotic trim. The rest of us, those of us who are 'people of size', 'shapely', or 'Rubenesque', or 'curvy', well, for me at least (at the shorter end of the human spectrum), anything on a 'skating clothes' website is too long or too skinny.
Below stairs
So far, I've stayed with L.L.Bean slacks since they have a nice distribution of petites in stretchy slacks. Unfortunately, they change the line every season, so there's nothing consistent. Every year I have to start over. The only thing I prefer are slacks with no pockets. Just one less thing to catch your hand on. The L.L. Bean slacks wear like iron though. I have a pair from when I first started skating that I still occasionally wear. This is a pair with a small hole in one thigh, from the time I fell on the tail of the blade when I was doing a Jenkins spiral (you don't see those anymore). They're still wearable, but I'm afraid after these many years the seam up the back will split at some point. And then it's 'oppsie daisy get off the ice'.
Upstairs
I'm a two layer shirt person. I wear a sleeveless shirt on the bottom and a long sleeved shirt on the top. This allows me to put on my elbow protection under the long sleeved shirt, without having to hide in the bathroom for modesty. And I find this keeps me warm, without bulking up under the jacket sleeves.
I didn't know that adult skaters were as snooty about skating clothes as teenagers. I skated at a rink for a while, and one day decided to retire my white denim skating jacket after I bought a new fancy-shmancy athletic jacket over lunch (hard to find those that fit someone 5'2"). As I was throwing the old jacket in the trash in the ladies dressing room, a cheer went up. I put on the new jacket and someone yelled, "You're a real skater now!"
Ephemera
I find I sometimes need to bring something on the ice with me: a camera, or an iPod. Since I'm small, the pockets in my jacket are too small to hold these things (plus the wallet, the car key, and the headphones). When I have to bring more than I can hold in my jacket pockets, I hand it over to Dance Coach. He has the big man's long jacket, with four zippered pockets in it. He denies he has any pockets (!), but I just point them out. In effect, I treat my coach like he's a purse---my very own Coach bag.
I'll be here all night folks. Don't forget to tip the waiters.
"This skirt is nice." Dance Coach said, "It makes you look like lady, you should wear it to test. Judges like skirts."
I managed to suppress an eye roll. This is the same man who two weeks ago, when I told him I had a skating skirt told me, "No, too late to change costume. What if it bunches up in hold. Or falls off."
I mean, where does he get this stuff? Is it just guy talk?
So, I'd never skated in a skirt before today. The skirt itself is from REI (yes the 'camping' store) and is a lightweight fleece kind of material that ends just above my knees. Under that I've got a pair of booty shorts from Target, and under that a pair of footless Mondor tight from my skate tech.
First thing, I learned is, even though I had on booty shorts underneath, 60 years of modesty kept me from propping my foot up on my knee to put on my Silipos and my in boot stockings. Plus I had to keep my knees together while I bent over to tie my laces. Note to self, either get to the rink before the crowds show up, or get used to flashing people.
So, I'm the first person to step on the ice, and it's wonderful. They must have finally got someone who knows how to drive the Zamboni. I take a deep stroke and just glide the length of the rink. Wonderful.
It took me a good five minutes to become accustomed to the feel of the wind on my thighs. I even dared do a spiral, with my free foot pointing in the direction where there's no people. I could get used to this.
Then the public shows up. It's public skate. It's winter. It's crowded. Coach starts chasing me up and down the rink yelling at me. I'm working on my extension in a power stroke, and this guy in hockey skates crosses from my right to left, then abruptly stops in front of me. No time or space to even do an emergency stop, so I grab his arm, use him like an axle, rotate around him, let go and slam myself into the boards without knocking him over. "Sorry," I yell. "Sorry." Coach yells. We're back to lesson in a heartbeat. As far as I know, he's still standing there.
We tried the Dutch Waltz a few times to practice for the test. At one point a little girl got in our way while we were in hold. I tried to skate around her to the left; Coach tried to lead be around to the right. We just sort of didn't hit her somehow, with coach still counting the beats. If dance tests are conducted like obstacle courses, I'm ready.
Coach finally threw up his hands. "Too many people. Lesson only half an hour today."
And it's going to get worse every weekend through January.
By the way, getting boots off without flashing people is just as hard as putting them on. I'm saving skirts for special occasions from now on.
