Dream of the Perfect Double Axel

Combing the internet for pieces of my past, I started searching for names of the prominent skaters who were competing when I was a kid in artistic roller skating. Again and again, as my only option, I came upon the Web pages of one Susan A. Miller, who has amassed a comprehensive press and oral history on roller figure skating during the 1970s and 1980s (apparently this is known as the "Classic" period of artistic roller skating). Again and again, I found pictures of faces I remembered, including dozens of glamorous older skaters I idolized and a couple of my first "girlfriend," a national champion from Orange, and links to events I skated in, and articles about old friends...and I welled up with appreciative tears. It was as if I had been given an entire part of my history back to me in one appealing cyber-chunk, and I want to say thank you, Susan A. Miller, for that gift.

Susan says (we exchanged e-mails) she was never a skater herself, but got interested in it while a young girl on Long Island. After a few ill-fated lessons, she became the sport's most vehement, and, by all evidence, most faithful, follower.

On a complicated but joyous note of semi-ironic fun, Susan maintains the world's only Roller Boogie fan site, and keeps the candle burning for ex-teen-heart-throb Jim Bray with a radical set of Appreciation Pages. I knew Jim Bray slightly as one of those older, glamorous, idolized champion skaters I mentioned above; he sometimes said a few words to me, which I treasured the same way I did the interactions I had with all my childhood idols. But Bray was special because I do believe I also had my first sexual fantasies about him--I'm sure if you've looked at the link, you can see why. Susan, in an e-mail, said she'd heard [source unidentified] that absolutely everyone wanted him back then (when he was 16, 17, 18), and that he was a "real player" in those days. And I would say that was a fair assessment. Miller's wacky sense of sarcastic humor takes the main stage in her hilarious Roller Boogie drinking game, which should get you well smashed past caring about what an abysmal film it actually is.

If you don't know anything about roller figure skating, check out Susan's wealth of material and acquaint yourself with a sport that I believe is made for mass consumption (i.e. television), but has never quite made the grade for Olympic or mainstream status. The closest it ever got was when the indominatable and inimitable Natalie Dunn (of my hometown, Bakersfield, CA!) appeared in a few highly entertaining National Television spots during her reign as World Champion in the mid- to late-1970s. Since then, enthusiasm about its possible upgrade has waned, though the sport stays just as vital. Natalie herself, along with her father, Omar, remains a dedicated powerhouse to the art and craft of artistic roller skating. She's perhaps the most important and most enduring of my childhood figure skating idols, and after much careful thought, I do believe she is the best skater of all time. More on that wild claim in a future post.

Till then, boogie on.

Categories: backstory, bakersfield, skating, history, tributes, heroes, links

During these off weeks on the international figure skating scene, meaning when there's nothing of the Grand Prix playing on ESPN or ABC, I rely on my new subscription to the Figure Skating Channel (I got in on the early bird special at $99 per year, thanks to a financial gift from my ever-sensitive mother -- thanks Mom!). Through this wondrous connection, I can view local, state and regional events, and the channel is also slated to broadcast the national meet early next year. Sorry, no international events; only those sponsored by the US Figure Skating Association, it seems, plus, through some miracle of marketing synchronicity, I'm sure, the British Championships, though I haven't read the fine print. I was under the impression the Channel would allow me to watch international events without having to adhere to a television schedule, but I've found that everything but those events is available.

Not to worry. It makes me feel like a real insider. Slaving through the poor video and sound quality of most of the event recordings is enough to test any usually surefooted fan's bearings, so I feel I'm enduring a sort of test sitting through some of this footage. I'll tell you one thing: It really makes you appreciate the level at which TV-ready, world class skaters perform. So if you're truly committed to seeing the whole, unruly, inconsistent, passionate, often poorly filmed picture, I highly recommend the Figure Skating Channel; but beware: it's charms will be lost on any but the fellow skater and the diehard enthusiast. If you're looking for pre-packaged glamour, better stick to the networks, Babe.

I caught Irina Slutskaya's winning performance at the Cup of China this morning on ESPN2, and I have to note that, since overcoming her multiple illnesses, she has blossomed into such a delightful creature that it's hard not to smile every time she opens her mouth. Everything she says and does is so genuine and sweet that you just want to pinch those plump, rosy cheeks of hers and have a good giggle with her, even if she is 26 years old and one of the most powerful athletes on the planet.

On the ice as well, her bubbly personality burns through the lackluster of her more rudimentary skating, and makes it shine. Some may wince at the use of the word lackluster to describe the current world champion, but despite her virtuosic jumping skills and less impressive, but still laudable, spinning prowess (I know everyone thinks she "owns" the Biehlmann spin these days, but she doesn't get enough momentum for my taste, no matter how perfect her ambidextrous form), she hasn't really progressed that much over the years in the elegance and expression departments. Yeah, she's a hell of a lot more graceful than the plodding, pumping jumping jack of a teenager that burst on the scene over ten years ago, but she's first and foremost a jock on the ice. I find it devastatingly charming when I see her take a big sniff or wipe her nose with the back of her hand (nonchalantly, she imagines) in the middle of some complicated piece of footwork. Still, like I said, her spritely personality and her unassailable jumps make her seem like nothing more than the world's most talented imp, leaping around to spread glee throughout the land.

And then we have Michelle Kwan, who has gone through the opposite learning curve. At 25, she's already exhibiting signs of "old lady syndrome," which is what I call it when skaters of a certain age start shying away from the more difficult combinations and seem less confident of the ones they still do. Okay, that's harsh, but it's her lack of jumping adventuresomeness that has kept her out of the gold medal slot at the Olympics, to the great delight, I am sure, of America's indominatable teen terrors, Tara Lypinski and Sara Hughes, both of whom out-combinationed Kwan to the top spot.

But the way she skates, the emotion she pours into every stroke, glide and stretch, the heartwrenching looks on her face that seem to embody the very crux of the human paradox, the energy she can sustain in a way that makes her program seem like one, long, deep, cleansing breath, and those achingly gorgeous spirals--for all of this, and for the extra dimension that opens up when a skater gives as much as she does, she is easily one of the all-time greats, even if she hadn't tied the record for world chapionship wins--or Olympic near misses. She is a skater whose skating has touched something so deep inside me that I have cried, and that is a true gift.

I once had a dream about Michelle Kwan. It was set in the future, and the ice skating world was dominated by cybernetically enhanced twelve-year-old quintuple-jumping freaks. All ages and sexes were mixed in the event I conjured in my dreamworld, which seemed to be a mix between the Olympics and Rollerball (the original, not the remake). The contestants were national heroes, and competed against each other in fierce battle rather than chivalrous competition.

There was buzz in the stadium that a surprise entrant would appear, and appear she did, quietly, as the crowd held its collective breath. Michelle Kwan was about 50, with a shaved head and dressed in the simple brown linen of a Buddhist nun (though a Buddhist nun whose robes have been designed by Vera Wang, I'm sure). She had spent the last decade exploring the unknown through the combination of prayer and figure skating in a remote village in the Nepalese countryside, and now she was back to teach the world what she had learned from the great unseeing eye on the vast ice of heaven.

As she took her place in the rink, the skating surface seemed to become more transparent, and in the high reaches of one of the corners, a group of a hundred Buddhist monks stood in the shadows and began chanting. Kwan skated slowly at first, doing deeper and deeper edges that led her into tight-laced school figures, then spins, and finally, as she took off for what seemed to be a triple loop, she levitated, rotated slowly two, three times, then rose higher, did a double flip with a twist, and landed ever so lightly on a perfect right-outer-back edge. The crowd could not cheer because half of it was in tears. The other half had fainted. In my dream, instead of giving Kwan yet another set of perfect scores, the world skating federation decided to make her its first official boddhisatva and high priestess, and from that day on, skating events became sacred occasions, joining the many new forms of worship that had been slowly replacing the creaky, old concept of organized religion over the past few decades.

My dreams are often absurd--this one's actually a pretty understandable one: Michelle Kwan really does make me feel as if I'm watching something sacred when she skates. Slutskaya, on the other hand, reminds me that I'm experiencing something born of pure joy.

This year, these two young old-timers will meet in their final World Championship and Olympic bids, and much has been made of the difference in their approaches, records and styles over the years. Will it be the imp, springing her way to the top with a mischievous grin, or the priestess, skating her heart out to heal the world?

Or will it be yet another teen terror, such as Alissa Czisny, who is not only another crackerjack jumper and spinner, but is far more polished and refined than the last two terrors ever were (okay, she's two years older than Lypinski or Hughes were, too, but she's still a teenager)? Luckily, the other teen terror, Mao Asada, who snatched second place at the Cup of China out from under her far more experienced Japanese compatriot, 2004 World Champion Shizuka Arakawa, is too young to compete on the official international circuit in the senior division. Whew!

Whatever happens, both the imp and the priestess will go down in history as two of the most talented and most openly honest, engaging and genuine sportspersons in any field. Good luck to them both; and I can't wait for their first head-to-head of the season once Michelle gets back on the ice following her recent injuries, which may not be until the Olympics!

My personal skating journey

When we were kids, my sister and I had two friends named Jan and Julie who were so close that we called each other cousins. They were the children of my mom's best friend from high school, and our families pivoted around each other like chess pieces on the often boring board of our Bakersfield, California existences.


In the summer of '73 (I was seven), we all went roller skating for the first time at Rollerama. Saturday afternoon public session. Jan and I, the older siblings, were both naturals, while Julie and my sister Lynn clutched the railings the whole time. We all started lessons because Jan and I wanted to. Lynn and Julie were forced, really. My sister was already doing ballet and tap, so no one but my mom thought it was necessary for her to take on yet another extracurricular activity. I think the tacit purpose for our new hobby was to give our parents more free time.

I still remember all those dances I learned during my first few months of skating in Saturday morning classes: the Chase Waltz, the Skater's March, the Highland Schottische, the Siesta Tango; and the rainbow of 45rpm records, each garish color signifying a different tempo. In no time, it seems, we were all in "Junior Club," lording it over the rink in a bratty way we'd never have gotten away with at home, learning how to do jumps and spins, and arranging our first private lessons.

My coach, Buzz, was also the owner of the rink, and he was a Dick Button on roller skates. From the exact same era, and with comparable credentials, he even skated with that very masculine and efficient, bent-arm, quick-stroke style that you see in the clips of Button's championship programs. He was great with me and he could see I liked it, so he pushed me pretty quickly, and I skated my first Regionals in '75. In '76, I made it to Nationals in Fort Worth, Texas, where I made it to finals holding second, then wiped the floor with my butt and ended up seventh.

The next year, I won the Juvenile Boys Singles Southwest Pacific Regional Championship, garnering a pre-teen fifteen minutes of fame. Preparations for Nationals were amped up a notch that year because I wasn't the only skater from the rink going as I had been the year before. We joined up with the skaters and coaches from a sister rink in Northern California in a caravan and took a slow, sight-seeing drive cross-country to Texas. It was the first time I'd traveled without a parental unit, which made me feel extremely grown-up, and the first time I'd taken a real road trip--which got me hooked for life (though the current price of gas keeps that hobby under wraps for now).

At Nationals, I did a lot more growing up than I did good skating, and I didn't even make it to the finals. During the next two years, I didn't even make it out of Regionals, though I skated my heart out, and continued getting better all the time. I just couldn't become consistent no matter how much I practiced, and I still have a problem with consistency, to tell you the truth. It has to do with being emotionally balanced, which I certainly wasn't back then, but I did train as if I were getting ready for the Olympics. Skating was my life, and the textures, sounds and stories of skating dominate my childhood memories. I'll be peppering my reports with many of these entertaining tidbits.

As I got older and better, I harbored fantasies that I'd be able to switch to ice and actually make the Olympic possibility a reality, but the circumstances were never right--the money was never there, or I failed to make a good impression when the right people were around--and finally, after spiraling slowly out into the wonders of teenagedom, I quit skating at fourteen, the summer before I started high school.

I didn't admit to myself that I was going to quit until I failed to enter myself in Regionals, but I kept practicing anyway. I'd been toying with a double axel for the past year, landing only one with a nasty cheat on the end of it in several months of trial and error. Buzz's son Kevin, who won several National titles and now owns the rink, I believe, was training for Nationals himself that summer, and would give me tips on my double axel as he skated by on his way to landing perfect triples.

One muggy afternoon, we were alone in the rink with the swamp coolers blowing like jet engines. He started yelling out advice, then made smaller and smaller circles around me while I tried again and again, and stuck with me until I finally landed one. It was perfect, with effortless lift, a firm center and a low wrap (I usually had a high, rather wild wrap, like Midori Ito), and the landing was one of those solid landings that sends a synergistic reverberation through your entire web of nerves, muscles, thoughts and emotions. Kevin was the only one to see it, but it wouldn't have mattered if no one had, because it was imprinted on my very being, and since then it has become a touchstone memory for the perfect fusion of ecstatic energy and perfect control. The entire meaning of the universe seems to be wrapped up in the confident execution of a jump like that, and though it's impossible to put to words, once it happens to you, you know it, and you treasure it.

That may sound like a mere trick of poetics, but it's not. Whenever I feel up against a wall, or unable to accomplish a seemingly impossible task, I dream of the perfect double axel. Every time I feel like I'm too far out on a limb, whether financially, physically or emotionally, I dream of the perfect double axel. When I feel boxed in and unable to express my true talents, I dream of the perfect double axel. Last year, I had cancer, and during the first few months of a grueling treatment, I constantly dreamed of the perfect double axel. In fact, the dream of the perfect double axel was one of the primary things that kept me in touch with life itself during the first, touch-and-go part of that particular ordeal.

I'm better now, but I still dream of the perfect double axel, with eyes both opened and closed. Watching figure skaters do jumps and spins on television, no matter how vicarious, continuously renews the feeling of elation that perfect double axel gave me all those years ago, and because of that, I'm rather addicted to it in the way that ex high-school quarterbacks can't pull themselves away from Monday Night Football. But it is also a form of devotion, or prayer, if you like. I watch it with a devout eye for precision and subtle nuance in the same way a theology student pores over sacred texts to drink up their deeper resonances.


My favorite skater of all-time is Lucinda Ruh, because her spinning describes the essence of spirituality that figure skating holds. She's a living, multidimensional mandala when she spins. But many skaters have left lasting impressions on me, and I'll be writing about all of them in the months to come.

A few years ago, I wrote a book called Plato's Garage, which was a personal and journalistic testament to human creativity and power through the lens of the automobile. This blog is my way of using figure skating as a focusing device through which to see the world. And viewed this way, it sparkles.


Categories: backstory, Bakersfield, skating, spirit

here it is
stick with me while
i bring the zamboni
out for a round

come back soon
thanks
rob