DD's 2009 Skate Milwaukee Video

WantFit

Cathlete
Just want to share my daughter competition video. This was her qualified round on last Friday. I was so nervous and shaking. She was much calm than me. ;) She got 4th in the qualified round and 4th in the final round. I did not get a chance to film her in final round. There were total 30 skaters. Looking at her in video, I can't believe she becomes a little lady now. In my eyes, she is always like a little girl. This was the first time she broke 40 points. I am so proud of her for so much hard work and displines.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC-Kw3kFzEA
 
How beautiful she looks! What talent! Congratulations to her! Hope to see a lot more of her and maybe her name will be spoken as often as Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamil and Co. (yes, that gives away what era I watched skating in!)!
 
Dang, I sure as heck wasn't doing all that at Juvie level!!! In fact when I was skating, that would have been considered at least a Jr. program. Talented little lady you have there!
 
Thank you all for your kind words. Unfortunately, this will be her last season. We have an agreement that after Oct Regional, we will be done with it. It is not she is not good. It is we can't afford no more. Also, when we started figure skating sport, we never thought it would cost so much and the parents are so crazy. This is not a grass root sport. You need to have money and time to stay in it. With economy like this, we can't pay so much for this sport with no more scholarship when it comes to college application.

Give you guys a snap shot of how ugly the scene could be. The girl trained with my daughter. Her parents inherited some money from her grandfather. So they had money to spend. The mother is so much into it. She had her daughter skates non stop. Had her daughter go trained with this personal trainer, that personal trainer in order to get ahead. She even refused to tell our coach which trainer she went to because she was afraid we will go. I was like, calm down, we will not do that even we have money. Girls are 11 - 12 yr old. They need time to live like that age girls, not like working machine. They have already trained 12-14 hours per week during school year. On top of it, they need to finish school work. They hardly had time to play. Once I asked her if my daughter can share ballet class with her so that we can just pay semi private lesson money. She refused. She wanted her daughter to be special. This time, my daughter got 4th, she was 6th. She was so mad. She told our coach right in face and in front of all girls that she spent so much money her daughter should be champion. How terrible she is. This should not be about champion, this should be about her daughter. What kind of mom can humiliate her own daughter in front of public. Her daughter worked really hard. She had a big improvement compared to last year. The mother was still not happy. Coach told us that her daughter body was not built for figure skating. She is double jointed, too flexible. Her hip flexor are too tight. She would be a great ballerina. But it is not easy for her to be a skater. Poor girl works so hard. Her mother should be happy that the daughter like the sport and work hard. She is not wimp. She is Trooper. But she just wanted champion. She said her daughter is a wimp. She could only cry. The coach should push harder, should not stop because of her crying. But these are very young girls we are talking about. The body is still growing. You can't keep push those young bodies. Non stop jumping is going to take a toll of those young bones. There were stories that kids with broken hips still non stop jumping, not even slow down, let alone to see the doctor. Our coach told her that money can not buy champion ship. Good for her. By the way, the points are very close. They are all good skaters. The placement order did not really represent who they really are. Everybody made mistake in competition. Even those elite skaters made mistake. But just because they made mistake in competition doesn't make them becomes wimp. I can't stand the mother.

My daughter loves figure skating. But she finally understood that we don't have money to buy more ice time, which means she could not practice enough. We also don't have money to pay coach, etc. I told her since she is very athletic, she should do good in other sports. I started her gymnastic in late May. She progressed very well. From intermediate to now advance. Now she feels better that skating is not just one thing she can do well. I think these young skaters need to go out of their ice cool rinks so that they can see how big this world is and how much this world can offer them. They all started very young age. My daughter started when she was 5. They grew up in rink. Due to long hours training, they dont have much time to enjoy the life. I talked to the other mom. I said the bottom line is I wanted my daughter to be a good person, a person that can contribute something to the world. I wanted her to feel confidence, to be independent, to be like normal woman, to have normal people life when she grows up. Champion or not will not guarrantte this. For people have money to do skating, I am happy for them. But with our household, we have to choose what is most benefit to my daughter in the long run. I am so relieved that she finally agreed. Because I don't want to break her heart. There is nothing wrong she wants to skate. It is not like she wants to do drug or something. As a mother I was torn between rational and emotional struggle. For two years, she came to this point. When she told me "mom, please let me finish this season. I want to leave this sport with good note." I could not reject. So I will try my best to get thru October. We finally will have normal family life. It is very hard to explain our feelings. Thanks for let me rant out.
 
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WantFit - Having been a competitive figure skater, I can so relate to all you are going through. I don't know how my poor parents did it! Skates ran us at least $1000 and I easily went through a pair a year. And then coaching fees, trip expenses, ice time - it really adds up. I shudder to think how much we paid for all of that! I finally got old enough to teach group lessons and summer camps and earned my ice time at the rink, so by the last year I wasn't paying for my time, but still had all the other costs. And the politics with the parents were CRAZY!!! By the time I quit for good, I was close to a breakdown. I still love the sport, but is definitely more brutal than most people think.
 
Thank you , Liann. It is very hard for outsider to understand this sport. We did not understand it when she started. We were so innocent, thought this is just another sport. We never know that we had to spend over $1500 for her boots and blades. Since she is growing, that meant we had to buy it every 6 mos. She is just Juv, the entry level for qualify competition. We have to spend over $20k. That is her college fund. I don't want her to graduate from college with tons of debt. Your parents must be very supported and strong parents. I admired them. I also can't take the stress from this sport. Just by arranging her transportation from school to rink will be a formal job. I work full time. It is so hard to find a ride for her to go to rink from school in the middle of afternoon. And that COSTS $$$, too. Then dealing with other parents...

But figure skating is a beautiful sport. Too bad it is like ivy tower for me, not the regular people sport.

No wonder you are fit. Being a formal figure skater, you must have already gone thru all those off ice training, which are a lot of strength and core work.
 
Thanks for sharing! She is very talented. Is there no way she can be sponsored? I know nothing of the sport except I completely admire it! My DD has shown some interest but we have not done lessons.

Liann - good grief - $1000 for skates??! Makes my new bike not seem so bad ;)
 
Wantfit, what a shame about your DD having to quit, but I sure understand. I was wondering how much time she had to practice, cost, etc. I have good friends who went through similar things with their DD in gymnastics. The DD finally said enough. She knew she wasn't "built" to be a gymnast (too tall) and wanted a real life. Skating is certainly a beautiful sport. It's just too bad it's so ugly behind the beauty we see on the ice.
 
Thank you , Liann. It is very hard for outsider to understand this sport. We did not understand it when she started. We were so innocent, thought this is just another sport. We never know that we had to spend over $1500 for her boots and blades. Since she is growing, that meant we had to buy it every 6 mos. She is just Juv, the entry level for qualify competition. We have to spend over $20k. That is her college fund. I don't want her to graduate from college with tons of debt. Your parents must be very supported and strong parents. I admired them. I also can't take the stress from this sport. Just by arranging her transportation from school to rink will be a formal job. I work full time. It is so hard to find a ride for her to go to rink from school in the middle of afternoon. And that COSTS $$$, too. Then dealing with other parents...

But figure skating is a beautiful sport. Too bad it is like ivy tower for me, not the regular people sport.

No wonder you are fit. Being a formal figure skater, you must have already gone thru all those off ice training, which are a lot of strength and core work.

WantFit - For what it is worth, I think you are making the right decision for your family. Your daughter is right on the brink of elite level skating and that type of skating involve huge sacrifices for everyone in the family - often including moving or splitting the family so that the skater can train at an Olympic training center. I had a friend whose parents bought an apartment in Delaware so that she could train there on the weekends. She lived part of the week at her house and then another part of the week, her and her mom would drive to Delaware and stay there. Other friends had to move with one parent to an Olympic training center and only came home every few months for a visit. It involves massive amounts of money and if you aren't a high level skater training in the US from another country, you aren't going to get any breaks on the expenses. I can remember a number of us being up in arms because our parents were barely making it while trying to pay for our skating while the US was letting elite athletes from other countries (athletes representing other countries, not just of other cultures) come and train for FREE. All that to say, once you get up in the higher ranks, skating takes over your entire life. It's a huge sacrifice that many people make and still never make it to the Olympics. You will probably save on years of therapy bills by making the decision you are making now. ;)
 
Skating is certainly a beautiful sport. It's just too bad it's so ugly behind the beauty we see on the ice.

Robin,
What you said is so true. Nobody would see behind the scene ugly thru those beautiful movements on ice.

WantFit - For what it is worth, I think you are making the right decision for your family. Your daughter is right on the brink of elite level skating and that type of skating involve huge sacrifices for everyone in the family - often including moving or splitting the family so that the skater can train at an Olympic training center. I had a friend whose parents bought an apartment in Delaware so that she could train there on the weekends. She lived part of the week at her house and then another part of the week, her and her mom would drive to Delaware and stay there. Other friends had to move with one parent to an Olympic training center and only came home every few months for a visit. It involves massive amounts of money and if you aren't a high level skater training in the US from another country, you aren't going to get any breaks on the expenses. I can remember a number of us being up in arms because our parents were barely making it while trying to pay for our skating while the US was letting elite athletes from other countries (athletes representing other countries, not just of other cultures) come and train for FREE. All that to say, once you get up in the higher ranks, skating takes over your entire life. It's a huge sacrifice that many people make and still never make it to the Olympics. You will probably save on years of therapy bills by making the decision you are making now. ;)

Liann,
I wish we could have known you and got your inside story when DD started. Then we would be much better prepared for it. We might just chose to be a recreational skater rather than competitive one.

Yes, we had saw many families fall apart because of skating. I have a 5 year old son. I really love my husband and I want to keep him. That is why I could not keep doing this. There is no way we can separate our family even if we have money to do so. It is not fair for my son either. I spent most of time driving for my daughter. My son stayed home most of time. Now I start to spend more time with him. I want him to have more time with his sister too.

Since you mentioned about skaters represent other country, I would like to share the other dark side of the figure skating. Since US have so many talented skaters, it is very tough to make out to national, let alone to represent US to compete in world and Olympic. There are many skaters who can not even make out of regional, into sectional, because of their connection, like one of skaters whose grandma was from Greek, the skater was born here in US and raised up here and trained here. She knew nothing about Greek, can not even speak Greek. She now represents Greek going to World Journior. While many others are better than her not even get to national. So it is very unfair. One of my daughter's skater friend mom was joking she should find some African countries to represent with (she is African American, very talented skater. But her mom told me she is going to take her daughter out for the same reason I have). My husband is CPA. When he heard this kind of stories, he was shaking his head. He thinks that was cheating.

I heard gymnastics is very similar to figure skating. I am kind of nervous to transfer her to gymnastics. But this time, I used what I learnt from skating. I was much more forefront. I asked them how much cost and training time we need. At least the place she goes now told me if she makes to the team. The lowest level team memebers trained about 7 hours (M, W, F & S, compared to her school year training 14 hours). The elite level (talking about going to national is about 17 hours. So this is much better than what she is now. Also the cost, the lady told me for lowest level is about $250 per month. It is about $310 for elite level. That is expensive is big compared to regular school sports. But compared to figure skating, that is penut. Just for ice cost, it was about $1900 for 10 weeks. Then we had to pay coach fees and ballet lessons. Now I just hope we won't be from one trap to the other. I keep my fingers cross.
 
WantFit - thank you for posting and allowing us to see your amazingly talented daughter!! While I cannot relate to figure skating training costs, I do have two DDs (7 & 4) who take ballet/tap and gymnastics. The costs of lessons, costumes and let us not forget the time - I work full-time so it is a shuffle of my lunch break from work and DH to get them to & from where they need to be. I also would get overwhelmed at their recitals with the stage moms who have full make-up kits, glitter and all that I just stand there dumbfounded - it can get crazy :eek:
 

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