2022 PCAS Done!

Goal:  1st competition in 6 years

Goal: 1st ice dance competition ever

Goal: Don’t fall

Goal: Have fun

Check-Check-Check- … and Check (despite nerves that rival jumping out of a plane without a parachute)

Anyone who knows me - knows that I am a very nervous competitor.  Without being graphic .. I literally get sick before nearly every competition and shake so bad I am sure the judges can see me knees knocking.  

I’ve been learning how to ice dance for the past few years and tested a few pattern dances - from Pre Dance through Bronze leading into 2021.  Then I decided I wanted to try a solo free dance for testing and or competition.  My amazing coach Naomi Lang Strong has been working with me for a year on how to do a Twizzle, how to do a Counter turn, how to do a Chocktaw and how to skate like an ice dancer vs a free style skater.  I am definitely not there yet .. not by a long shot, but I have found a new love of the discipline and I’ll probably stick with it.

My one event was the lowest level of ice dance.  Bronze Solo Free Dance.  Meaning … I dance alone (duh) and it’s a free dance .. vs a pattern dance like the Foxtrot or the Fourteen Step or European Waltz … You are free to just skate to the music, but you are supposed to incorporate edges, steps and turns that are used in ice dancing and you are supposed to execute them with proper body carriage, leg and arm extension and skate over your hips - in dance positions.  

Fortunately at the lower levels .. and especially at the adult level you can just skate and there is not a lot of nit picking done on your elements.  If I test this same program at the Adult Juvenille Solo Free Dance level .. they will point EVERYTHING out.

I totally botched up my Twizzles on the exits, my Counter had a sub curve, my Chocktaw fell apart and my Sit Spin would have been DQ under IJS for not being low enough .. but under the 6.0 system I managed to get first place and a gold medal.

I will post the professional video here in a few days when it arrives.

Back to the drawing board.  Happy it’s over and proud that I didn’t give up.