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.
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. 
