“It’s been 11 months since I first started figure skating. I [have] always kind of wanted to switch artistic sports. I knew I wanted to still be in the artistic field coming from cheer, and I knew that wasn’t really the place for me, so I wasn’t looking for something that was a team sport. [I am] self-taught in the Russian [language], so I have a lot of friends online who are Russian. Artistic sports, especially like ballet and figure skating, are very big in that community.”
“I also know a couple of people who did figure skating, and they really liked it. One of my friends, Natalie Keenoy, who goes to Hickman, had been like, ‘Do you want to come ice skating with me for my birthday?’ So I [went] with her, and I was like, ‘Oh wow, I really like this. I wonder if I could do this full time.’ I basically kind of started looking around, and there’s only one rink really near us, which is in Jeff City 45 minutes away. I went up to [their] front desk, and [I was] like, ‘Hey do you have lessons? I pretty much just signed myself up because I was like, ‘I have nothing to lose.’”
“I need direction [in figure skating], especially because this is something I [want to] do [throughout] my life. With cheer not only was I unhappy, it ended at a certain point because your body cannot take it. It [has a] heavy impact, so you eventually age out of it. [Figure skating] really fell into this nice category of something that makes me happy, something that’s individual and something that I can continue with for the rest of my life. That’s kind of what I wanted.”
“I did All-Star and Rock Bridge Cheer, and I had pretty good relations with a lot of my teammates [on] All-Star, [but] not so much in high school and the team dynamic really does matter. You need to be around people who try hard. I know some don’t have the level of commitment that you’re at, and I understand not wanting to be here, but it got to a point where it was like ‘You can complain but please still give [it] your all.’”
“[Figure skating] is all at my own pace: If I don’t go to practice, I lose out on that day. It’s not a detriment to anyone else, only to myself. I don’t feel like I’m held back, [but] when I feel like I’ve held back, I build resentment towards others. Even unintentionally, when I don’t want to necessarily have this underlying resentment for some people, because it’s not like they’ve done anything really that wrong. It’s just my personality because I’m a very competitive person. But the individuality of [figure skating] has truly allowed me to grow at my own pace, which is very quick […].”
“I get to [go to] places I never thought I would get to, especially because I take more risks and in figure skating, I feel like there’s less consequence for failure because it’s not as a whole team.”
“When you’re in the general proximity of people all the time, you obviously make friends. Honestly, I think it’s easier to get along with people who aren’t your teammates because there is that separation. [But] then, [there’s] the common ground of [sharing] a coach. I do think it’s a bit harder to make friends in individual sports, but I [also] think that’s why I’m better friends with these people because I had to make the active choice to introduce myself, talk to these people, whereas [with] your teammates, you’re kind of just stuck with them.”
“I skate five times a week for a minimum of two and half hours. Just because, if I’m driving the 45 minutes and the 45 minutes back, I want bare minimum two hours. But usually there’s the session timeline where I get two and a half to three [hours]. It varies week to week because unfortunately, [since] figure skating doesn’t have a set schedule, our times move a lot, especially on the weekend.”
“I have always been inspired by some of these higher performance athletes that have made it into the Olympics, like Yuna Kim [and] Anna Shcherbakova. Those two have really been big for me, just because not only do I have a lot of friends who support them, but they seem like genuinely good people. Anna was not favored to win the 2022 Beijing Olympics. She was literally asked at her press conference, ‘Why are you even on the team?’ I really respect athletes that can adapt, see what needs to be done and not just constantly chase the show factor.”
“I really like figure skating, and I wanted to do it in college, so I was like ‘Let me Google if the college I’m going to has a team,’ and then I emailed the coach. I have an [All-Star] background, […] which has made a lot of these skills really easy, so I’ve been able to advance very quickly. I ended up asking the coach, ‘Is there space for me on this team?’ [She responded saying they] have one spot left [in their] club. It was very anticlimactic because I just got an email reply.”
“But you know what? This has been a journey because it’s like this has been something I’ve always wanted to do for myself because this makes you have your purse. It’s all kind of spontaneous.”
Do you prefer solo sports or team sports? Leave a comment down below!
