From: gibian@talent.ljo.dec.com (Marc S. Gibian)
Newsgroups: rec.skate
Subject: Re: Who's who of net.figure.skaters
Date: 21 Jan 93 18:39:34 GMT
Reply-To: gibian@ljohub.enet.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


I am a very young skater's father (the only skater parent I've seen so far).
My 7 1/2 year old daughter is about to complete her first year skating.  She
started, having never put a pair of skates on, in the ISIA learn to skate
program at Nashoba Valley Olympia (NVO) the end of last January.  I have
to admit I am the proud dad as she has progressed very quickly... she ended
the school year last spring having worked her way up to the pre-alpha class,
took 6 - 8 weeks away from skating, and started the year by being promoted
into the ISIA Basic skills alpha class after a few weeks.  Right now she is
about to take her Alpha test, which her teachers believe she will pass VERY
easily.

Since Alpha skaters get to skate to their own 1 minute of music, we have
been working on getting her appropriate music over the past month or so.
When we started, she was a very athletic and fast skater, so she/we picked
a rather powerful and fast classical ballet except.  But, by the time the
instructor had time to listen to it and set her up with a routine, she had
changed dramatically.  Last weekend she tried skating to it and all of us
agreed that it is totally wrong for her.  She is now a very graceful and
deliberate skater, with a lot of flexibility, so the old music is out (the
instructor said hold onto it as its great Freestyle 1 music ;-) and new
music is in... right now it looks like we will take the a 1 minute slice
out of Cindy Lauper's True Colors (I skip the intro, start at the lyric
and run it through for her 1 minute... gives it a feel of completeness,
even in the very limited 1 minute constraint).  It seems perfect... the
right tempo, very expresive, and sung with a child-like feel in the vocal.
I hope she gets to try it out before she changes her strenghts again :-)

The rink happens to be about 1/2 a mile from our house.  Yes, you read
correctly, only one half of a mile.  Most of the instructors AND students,
at all levels at NVO, have very significant drives.  Our favorite instructor
drives down from Maine, usually over 1 1/2 hours each way.  NVO is the rink
where Nancy Kerrigan and Paul Wyle did most of their training prior to last
year's worlds.  (They moved their training to the Cape).  Last year it was
quite inspiring for all the kids in the learn to skate and basic skills
classes, as after their classes they would go the the second ice surface at
our rink and watch Nancy & the other top level freestyle skaters do their
training.  This year we don't have the big names, but there are some wonderful
skaters.. many of last year's who have made a lot of progress, with some new
faces that are very interesting.  We have noticed a number of new men (and/or
Boys) who are terrific!  (I don't know why, but we had Mark Mitchell training
at NVO for a while this fall... that was a big surprise, leaving after our
daughter's lesson and almost getting run over by him!)

I personally am a skier (started at 7 years old), but I am trying to learn
enough to be able to get out on the ice with my daughter, though I have no
hope of keeping up with her.  It has been very interesting as we slowly
enter the rather small and isolated figure skating community.  I have found
that everyone on the "inside" has a very different view of things than those
of us more used to plain spectators.

-Marc
--
Marc S. Gibian			email: gibian@talent.ljo.dec.com
Principal Software Engineer	phone: (508) 486-6598
Digital Equipment Corporation	fax:   (508) 486-6648  or (508) 486-6100
Newsgroups: rec.skate