Maura Moves Up

Maura isn’t competing this month but she is skating. Last week she took her test to move up to the Alpha level in ISI competition. I didn’t take her to her lesson that day—it was Martin Luther King Day and her mother had the day off—but Maura was excited to tell me that she had passed her test when she got home. I wasn’t surprised and I don’t think her coach was either. She had already begun working with Maura on her new program.

Maura has been hard at work on her Alpha routine for several weeks already. It uses the same music and has the same advanced elements but otherwise it is quite different from her Pre-Alpha program. Her path on the ice is nothing like it was before. Maura is learning it well. She has a good sense of timing and to my unpracticed eye the new routine looks almost as polished as the old one. She still has a few of the same old problems, though. Maura has always had trouble keeping her arms up.

Maura will have to skate really well when she competes again at the end of February if she wants to bring home a medal. Unlike in her last competition she won’t be the only skater her age at her level. She’ll have at least one friend from her home rink skating against her and probably others as well. There are many more skaters her age at the Alpha level than there are at the pre-Alpha level. Perhaps I can use that to motivate her to work harder getting ready.

Maura always works hard when she is on the ice with her coach. She truly loves skating and she also loves her coach. It is harder to convince her that she needs to work off the ice. She has an exercise routine that she is supposed to do every morning but she doesn’t always remember to do it, even when she is reminded. I know how she feels. I don’t like to exercise either and I’m certain that walking around with pennies on the backs of your hands isn’t nearly as fun as skating.