Of course, I did not skate during that period and temporarily suspended my aerobics membership. Since I ate a healthy diet, weight gain did not concern me as much as maintaining muscle conditioning to facilitate the transition back to an athletically active lifestyle. My physical therapist prescribed exercises to do while wearing the cast. In addition to these, I did upper body workouts with weights. As soon as the cast came off, I began to work with the therapist on a semiweekly basis, which continued throughout the recuperative process. I did not approach therapeutic exercise with the verve that accompanied my quest for the axel. These exercises were boring and unimaginative. They did not provide a creative outlet, though they insured my ticket back to the ice arena. Although I looked forward to skating again, I did not rabidly anticipate my return to Chestnut Valley and Winston Arena. Perhaps I had mellowed a little that spring semester.
Four months after being carted out of the rink on a gurney, I returned. The doctor said I could skate, if I promised to just skate, not to try anything fancy. Excitedly, I shoved my feet into an old pair of boots that had been retrofitted with blades salvaged from the skates that had been cut off my feet. I walked cautiously on my plastic guards toward the edge of the ice. Placing one foot on the surface, I felt a slipperiness that should have been familiar. However, its familiarity reached back into my childhood, toward the lessons I had taken in Stockton from Beth Van Buren when I was six or seven years old. Mentally, I was a beginner again. I hesitated by the doorway for a moment before carefully placing the other foot on the ice and pushing off. Flying camels that I used to do on command existed only in a faraway dimension where they kept company with the sloppy axels that had caused this problem. I stayed close to the boards, and cannot remember ever skating that tentatively before, not even when I took group lessons as a little girl.
Some people never psychologically recover from a serious injury. Landing in the hospital gives an athlete a glimpse into his own mortality, or more specifically, into his personal limitations. Although I did not realize it during the thirty minutes I puttered around the Chestnut Valley Arena that morning, I had begun to diagram my limitations. I could have become discouraged or paralyzed with fear and hung up the old pair of surrogate skates that I had borrowed from retirement. Instead, I left a deposit on a new custom order and vowed to skate exclusively at Winston Arena’s cheap public sessions until I graduated from toe pushing along the wall.
Meredith threw her arms enthusiastically around me, a reaction that took me completely by surprise and made me feel guilty about complaining to other adult skaters about her intermittent ice hogging. I had seen no one from Winston Rink since my accident, though I had talked to a couple of peers over the telephone and exchanged an occasional email. Everyone knew I had been hurt while skating. Word of a mature person breaking a bone on the ice travels through the adult skating community to uncharted rinks to be heard by complete strangers. Such a story strikes fear in some participants, particularly those who are already uncomfortable with the challenges they face. Understandably, many adult skaters simply cannot afford to be injured. A broken leg can severely complicate professional and family obligations.
During my absence, once over the novice moves in the field hump, Meredith also passed junior moves and had begun to seriously tackle the final moves test. With that test complete, the rink would list her as a “gold medallist” in its skating school brochure. She radiated new confidence partially from her testing success but also because her coaching business had grown considerably. She was contemplating moving out of her parents’ house and renting a one room apartment which would allow more privacy with her boyfriend. In her bubbly tone, Meredith proclaimed: “Everyone missed you, Kate.” Regardless of her history of moodiness, it certainly was nice to hear.
I skated every other day. Since I was not supposed to skate for very long, I could always fit a visit to Winston Rink into my schedule. I even appeared for weekend public sessions. If I only intended to stroke around the track, crowding did not really matter, unless the crowd was rowdy and careless, bumping into other people or falling at their feet. Every time I skated, I improved a little. Small unimpressive increments measured that improvement. I might skate a few inches farther from the boards, or hold an extension a fraction of second longer. Within a couple of patient weeks, I did crossovers and patterns of crossovers. Eventually, I stroked around backward and did back crossovers. Surely my doctor did not consider a simple crossover “fancy skating”. He meant spins, jumps, and tricky footwork.
Each modicum of progress pleased me, almost as much as a few extra degrees of rotation in my axel or double salchow. Picking up one foot and placing it over the other tickled me as much as prior forays into advanced spin combinations. I delighted in the sensation of gliding, feeling metal edges cut through ice with each push and stroke. This solidified my love of skating. Simply moving on the ice made me happy, even if I were not expanding my horizons with new harder moves. Although I would not have dared to try an axel or even a simple salchow or waltz jump, I did not miss the challenge. Some skaters expound upon the thrill of jumping, flight over frozen water. I might have sung similar praise at one time before jumping became a painful chore that made me question the purpose of my skating. The struggle had overtaken the joy.
But I did jump again, over the summer. My leaps started small and stayed small for several weeks. The sessions were busy at Chestnut Valley, and I was cautious. After my first wary hop from forward to backward, walking through a basic half revolution waltz, I completed every single rotation jump, landing each modest effort cleanly and neatly if not spectacularly. I stopped there; no combinations, no axel drills. During my reintroduction to skating, I rediscovered the pleasure of the sport. Before deciding to seek coaching credentials, I approached skating differently. I was not chasing a dream. The simple state of being on the ice embodied the dream. My skating had been honest and unspoiled, uncomplicated by ambition. I could not stay satisfied with that; not someone who always pushed for more, someone who earned a doctoral degree when a master’s would have sufficed. Discovering I possessed some measurable talent for skating pushed me onward, from recreation and enjoyment into duty and obligation. I wanted to transform that inkling of promise into a vocational option, a way out of the conventional lifestyle that bored and frustrated me.
During the spring semester, fulltime study and work at the counseling center consumed most of my time, and I had to forego weekly lunches with Felicia, my sister-in-law. My schedule eased in the summer and we resumed our regular meetings. Felicia, a former environmental chemist, followed my career change with morbid curiosity. Her son, Matthew, was certainly old enough to admit himself to the house after school. For years, Felicia enjoyed being a mother, chauffeuring her son to hockey events and school activities. She relished motherhood and was an attentive, caring parent. Her husband, Mitchell, earned sufficient money such that Felicia did not have to work. They were not wealthy, but the family was not destitute. Her salary would have provided for excess; but was unnecessary for the materials of everyday living. They owned a modest house, and Felicia’s constant availability allowed Matthew opportunities working parents cannot always provide. My sister-in-law cited her son’s needs as a reason for her to stay home. However, as Matt matured and became more independent, his mother’s ongoing presence was less critical to his happiness.
Felicia claimed to admire me for exploring other possibilities rather than merely suffering in an occupation I hated. Aside from the overwhelming travel, she did not want to return to a career in environmental engineering. She found the work political and depressing. Yet, Felicia expressed a need to do something now that her child had grown. This was a passing desire, one that made interesting conversation over lunch, but became unpleasant if taken too seriously. Felicia was a happy housewife. She played tennis, exercised, had lunch with friends, and drove her marvelous son wherever he wanted to go. She had a wonderful life and recognized her blessings. Felicia was slow to sacrifice comfort for the stress of a job, particularly since she had been completely removed from the professional sphere since the birth of her son. Felicia wondered if she could ever go back. She doubted she could conform to a rigid schedule or interact diplomatically with difficult people. Mrs. Mitchell Svenssen had been the queen of her own domain too long to serve as an underling in someone else’s.
Felicia was more than a relative by marriage; she was a kindred spirit. Until I discovered peer counseling, I did not want to return to work, unless my career involved wearing a pair of ice skates. My dread of conventional employment so terrified me that after I left Consumer Solutions, I pushed myself toward the axel as a means of ensuring a more attractive alternative. In the depths of my psyche, I must have questioned this possibility because I continued to take one university class at a time, pecking away at a nebulous goal and keeping my mind sharp for the inevitable. Since Felicia had a child to rear, she could proudly classify herself as a stay-at-home-mom, a title many women might have coveted. I had no such justification.
However, following the semester of the broken tibia, I no longer cowered when presented with the prospect of returning to a serious occupation. I had discovered something I liked to do. I actually looked forward to my hours at the counseling center and enjoyed the time I spent there. Not only did the work stimulate me intellectually, I enjoyed the company of the other people who either worked there permanently or as part time apprentice counselors.
With the passage of August into September, another summer ended and another skating season began complete with competitions, tests, and uncluttered daytime sessions. Maxwell encouraged me to remain enrolled in the counseling graduate program as a fulltime student. However, I had a clean bill of health, a fully healed leg, and a rendezvous with skating destiny. Over the summer months, I had regained my foundation skills in basic jumping, spinning, and footwork. I had not broached the axel or its precursors, but this challenge topped my fall “to do” list. Despite my well-meaning husband’s wise suggestion, I did not sign up for a complete university schedule. Instead, I selected two convenient classes. As a part-time student, I was not entitled to a counseling center assignment, and was only awarded leftover shifts, which amounted to one or two afternoons per week. As in the past, I chose skating over a mainstream profession, even over one that reawakened my enthusiasm. I could not escape the demons that made me skate, the voice of rink manager, Robert Welles, encouraging me to complete the gold test and become a coach. I was simply too close to conceded my dreams and skulk off into the humdrum sunset on a crash course with normalcy.
Gently, with the compassion of a doting parent, Preston Reece buckled me into the jump harness. I had performed unassisted waltz-loops to his satisfaction and merited the next step in my reintroduction to the axel. We did waltz-backspin drills within the safety parameters of the harness while Preston provided physical and emotional support. In another lesson, I tried an axel in the contraption or, at least, made a valiant effort to appear to try an axel. I actually just hopped up slightly and twirled in the air as my coach held me aloft and replaced my intimidated landing blade on the ice. Neither of us approached this challenge wholeheartedly. I was afraid and Preston was cautious. I outwardly exuded interest and determination, but my words fell empty in the hollow rink as I fluttered through the air like a child being lovingly blanket tossed at a family reunion. My coach never treated me like a fragile flower before, but he had scraped my broken ass off the ice and dug through my purse for an insurance card. He had called my husband at work and watched the ambulance drive me away. Before that unfortunate incident, Preston handled me like a prize fighter. A big muscular woman with an iron will, I possessed insatiable athletic desire and realistic potential. I visibly spun as adeptly as his teenage students and generated speed like a dare devil. Healthy and strong, he could identify no tangible reason why I could not learn these jumping skills.
Fear most likely truncated my otherwise sincere attempts at the axel. I may not have consciously trembled in my boots with brazen fright, but insecurity forced me out of each jump while I could still predict the outcome. An impenetrable barrier existed somewhere between flat-footed under-rotated failure and a proper landing. Something kept me from crossing that barrier. I believe the culprit was fear.
Over the next month, both coach and pupil became more confident, and I tried more earnestly to complete a harness-assisted version of the axel. I worked various drills without a safety net both under Preston’s guidance and during independent practice. As my spins became more magnificent than they had been before the injury, Preston’s enthusiasm returned. I was completing spins, flying spins, and combinations unheard of among adult-trained skaters. My spins received compliments from other coaches, parents, and competitive youngsters. Occasionally an eligible teen athlete would approach me with a kind remark or request for advice. I found these exchanges most flattering because they could only be absolutely genuine. Young competitors generally receive ample training and are knowledgeable about the sport. They recognize good technique and wish to absorb it into their own arsenals. Most of my admirers assumed I had skated as a child. As one coach noted, it is difficult to teach adults to spin with such proficiency.
I mastered movements most adults will never try and some movements rare among serious competitors. I landed fast flying camels and rolled over into an inverted position, a spinning skill heralded as one of the most difficult in ice skating. I did series of stars culminating in a standard forward camel or leaping into a flying camel. Preston taught me butterflies as isolated elements or as a dramatic entrance into a backward sit spin. I learned illusions both forward and backward. I mastered the flying sit spin and death drop. Preston choreographed outrageous spin combinations not for the faint of heart, motion queasy, or rotationally disadvantaged. Stringing together unlikely positions, he discovered that I could transition efficiently through unconventional sequences that are rarely seen on television. We applied my flying skills to jumped spin combinations, adding a new dimension to my repertoire.
The limitlessness of my spinning potential was truly bizarre. After learning the basics years before, I became a master of the foundation skills and ultimately learned to merge them in a mind-boggling array of permutations and combinations. As a training exercise primarily reserved for younger skaters en route to competition, Preston devised a game he cleverly named “command performance”. On a whim, Preston invited me to try his silly game. Once the student began spinning, the coach called out commands for subsequent positions. Each position required a transition, and the coach might specify a jumped or pushed transition if a change of leg were required. I was exceptionally good at “command performance”, and this activity often drew attention from improbable sources. I could maintain speed and flow through ten or more transitions with alarming regularity.
While such a display of spinning prowess may be viewed as belabored, prolonged, or extraneous in the context of a competitive or exhibition program, its training value is obvious. The student learns to change positions quickly and efficiently while preserving precious speed. Ideally, the skater gains speed whenever possible allowing momentum to continue for the next element in the series. Additionally, the student learns to compensate for change of balance and improve reaction time, developing cat-like reflexes that allow the athlete to salvage a bad spin or save a near miss.
No skater incapable of a simple axel deserved to be as good at “command performance” as I was. While the spinning drill built my confidence it also sparked a fury. Certainly, I had puttered around long enough with axel drills and exercises. I was ready to give the difficult jump an honest shot. I cut the ice with backward crossovers, creating sensible speed. I turned forward, skating knee bent and ready to explode. My arms extended back, a taut free leg reached far behind ready to snap forward like a pulled rubber band. The leg began to move through its arc as my knee sprung upward, rising to the toe pick and releasing elastic potential. The free leg climbed an imaginary staircase, skipping to a higher level. My body began to rotate.
The instant lasted too long. I had an unfamiliar amount of time in the air, enough time to wonder when I would contact the ice again, enough time to scream expletives in my mind. In that moment of panic, a moment better spent locked in the backspin position, giving the jump an opportunity to climax, I broke formation and reached downward, looking for security. My blade hit the ice sideways, ready for a three-turn. The clap of steel on frozen water echoed in the arena, bouncing toward the rafters and ricocheting around the bleachers. It sent out a shockwave allowing seismologists to triangulate the coordinates of my disaster.
All I felt was pain.
The passage of time is unavoidable. The earth continues to spin on its axis and travel around the sun at a constant speed whether we want to linger over a precious moment or fast forward through a miserable episode. Initially, I wanted to fall asleep and wake up with a mended bone only to pick up right where I had left off when my body’s frailty so rudely interrupted my training. The time in between seemed tedious, prolonged, and ultimately wasteful. However, as I delved into other opportunities, those months of recovery jogged along quickly.
Chapter 91 posted 5/23/04
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