February 18, 2007

I recently received an e-mail for a request that I would do a journal entry for this past Nationals in Spokane, but because I haven’t even made an entry since my fall season began, I will begin there, or at least mention a few moments of the highs or lows that I’ve had so far this competitive season. I would also like to mention again that I do not have a myspace page, and when one appears it is by someone who by identity theft has chosen to act as if they were me. My apologies go out to anyone who has believed to have had conversation with me through that false page. You can reach me through the e-mail on this website, and I will try to respond to you in a reasonable amount of time.

To begin with, my approach this season was the usual; train hard both on and off the ice, but this year I tried not to accept every show or competition that came my way early in the competitive season. Yes, the shows and competitions do help in performance and confidence building; however, I always want to perform as best as I can, and as I have learned, it tires me out before I can peak later in my season. I wanted to do one of the Senior international competitions this year for a warm-up before Skate Canada, but on the recommendation of my coaches and others, I decided to use Eastern Great-Lakes Regionals as a warm-up competition. It was close to home, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and doing that competition would not be as tiring as traveling to Europe for one of the international events. (That would mean Canada would be my third competition this season instead of my fifth, and Nationals would be my fifth, instead of my eighth.) I have competed many times in Ann Arbor, and have always enjoyed skating there; I usually can practice at my training rink, and sleep at home, instead of staying at hotels when I compete there. (This is exactly what I was able to do for this competition.) As with most of my competitive seasons, after each competition my coaches and I evaluate the programs, and then usually make some changes, either with choreography, jump order, footwork, etc., so the programs are usually works in progress as the season goes on.

With Regionals over, I had about 2 weeks to prepare for Skate Canada. That is one of my favorite competitions to do, and this year it was at the extreme opposite end of the country from Skate Canada last year, Victoria vs. Newfoundland. The flight was uneventful, Detroit-Seattle-Victoria, all in less than a day (we were only delayed a couple of hours)! I did get to see a little more of the city this year, and I really enjoyed seeing the beautiful scenery. It was a little colder and rainier than I thought it would be; we only saw sunshine the first day we arrived. Maybe the cloudy weather in the Great Lakes area isn’t so bad. Because I placed fourth, I got to do the exhibition, and I did my “Don Quixote” program that Kurt Browning choreographed. The finale was a lot of fun; Gary Beacom choreographed it. It had three parts to it and a few costume props in addition. In the first section, we each had partners, and we all wore those little yellow raincoats that looked like they came from a five- or six-year-old’s wardrobe. The guys had the rain hats and the ladies had umbrellas. We each had partners and did swing rolls in line to “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”; Johnny Weir and I led the line. The choreographers were to act as if they didn’t like that idea, and we were to turn in our costumes for another idea. The costume crew consisted of Gary’s son who was about 3 feet tall, and he came out with the costume rack, and then provided us with the new attire, big sunglasses. We all then followed Gary around the ice doing all sorts of bizarre moves to some strange music. Again, it was not supposed to be what the choreographer liked, so we turned in our sunglasses, and proceeded to make two lines on opposite ends of the ice, doing more strange choreography and then all at the same moment start running in place on our toe picks. From there we each did our little solo trick for the audience, and took our bows. It was probably the most involved finale that I have been in, but I think we all had a great time with it.

The competitors’ banquet party was a little different also. The theme of the party was “Black and Bling”, so most of us wore black with a few sparkles of jewelry. We were all given black feather boas to wear when we arrived. There were also a few contests for the skaters too, as who could come up with the best costume with their boas; our table didn’t win that, but another did when one of the groups at a table transformed one of their skaters into a black chicken with their boas.

I had a little less than two weeks to get ready for Cup of Russia, which was the week of Thanksgiving. I was excited to compete there and visit the country. I have been taking Russian language and culture at BGSU, so it would be interesting to see some of the country in person. The trip turned out to be longer than I thought, with the 5 hour layover for connections in Frankfurt, and the long bus ride from the airport to the hotel in Moscow; it was probably about a 19 hour trip.

I did not have one of my better performances at this competition, although, I felt that I was well prepared with my training. Since I knew that I wouldn’t be going to the Grand Prix Final this year (I really wanted to see St. Petersburg), I had extra time for training and I did make some changes when I returned home.

At some of my international competitions, the Ladies’ event isn’t always the last event to compete, and this was the case in Russia. I was, therefore, able to watch some of the pair’s freeskate event, and most of the men’s freeskate competition. That was an exciting event to watch; Brian Joubert had a clean long program that included three quads!

The day after I competed in Russia, I was able to do a little sight-seeing on Sunday morning and afternoon. My coach, Theresa, my mom, and I went with one of the U.S. judges, Roger Glenn, by bus to see Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin, Lenin’s tomb, and the GUM. We then tried to take the bus to do a little souvenir shopping, but got a little lost. We walked for quite a while, and then I decided to try using my Russian language skills to get directions. We found out that we were only a few minutes from where we wanted to be, so we did our shopping (I only bought matrushkas), had dinner, and decided to walk back to the hotel. Almost all of the crosswalks are underground, so that was interesting trying to find out which tunnel to use, since not every tunnel allows you to go either way across the street. We did get to see some beautiful architecture and statues on our excursion that day, and it didn’t rain or snow on us, but the sun never came out the entire week we were in Moscow. Morning, afternoon, and evening all looked just about the same. We made it back to the hotel just in time to take the bus over to the arena and watch the exhibition, and then it was back to the hotel for the banquet and packing.

Back home again I made some changes in my training, continued working on my triple-triple jump combinations, triple axels on the jump harness (so I didn’t injure myself before nationals), visited my choreographer, David Wilson, in Toronto, and began back-to-back run-throughs of both of my programs everyday. I was part of the Christmas tree lighting exhibition in downtown Detroit this year, and it was really the first time that I was able to skate outdoors here.

Nationals was scheduled later in January this season, so I was able to take a few days off from training to visit family in Wisconsin. There was no snow there or in Detroit this Christmas; I guess Colorado received everyone’s storms this year!

When I made airline reservations to Spokane for nationals, I chose to go through Denver rather than Minneapolis/St. Paul, because I thought my chances of delays due to snowstorms would be fewer that way. I was hoping that Denver was getting its bad weather out of its system before I would have to fly through there; Denver’s airport wasn’t having too good of a reputation so far this winter. It did take 13 hours for us to go from Detroit to Spokane, but at least we made the trip safely, although we were tired when we arrived.

My practices at nationals seemed to go well, although I didn’t really like the ice at the Convention Center arena. My blades felt like they were sticking in the ice when I would take off for my jumps or land them. At least I would be doing my competition programs at the Spokane arena instead, so I tried not to let it bother me. I had two interviews on Wednesday after my two practices, and I was also able to watch some of the junior men’s short program competition that day also. I train with William Brewster and Jonathan Cassar at the Detroit Skating Club, so I wanted to be able to cheer them on and see them compete their short programs.

Thursday was the short program competition. I drew 19 th. That put me at fourth in my warm-up to skate. I felt very relaxed, and prepared, so when I popped my lutz, I didn’t expect it. I just tried to stay focused and finish the rest of my program as I had trained it. I was fifth after the short program. That evening I went with my coach Julie and my agent Rocky to the Tom Collins Reception. I spent a long time talking to Brian Boitano while I was there (he gave me some great advice), but I had to get back to the hotel and get some sleep for my morning practice on Friday. That practice was at the Convention Center, and Kurt Browning was my coach that day, since Julie was with Jonathan Cassar at the Spokane Arena for the junior men’s freeskate. I have a great respect for Kurt Browning, for his many accomplishments in competitive figure skating, for his love of this sport, and his continued involvement in skating through shows, commentating, and choreography. Not to mention that he can keep you entertained, even without his skates on. ESPN did ask us if it was okay to microphone Kurt during our practice session, and film us also. I didn’t mind….I think I was almost immune to noticing the camera there after all of the practice I had last season during the filming of “Ice Diaries”. I don’t know if much of that morning was actually used for television, but Kurt and I both thought that they should have used the part where he and I were both doing handstands before I got on the ice.

My dad and sister both arrived in Spokane on Friday afternoon; we all went to watch the last warm-up group for the championship pair’s freeskate event. (We did see Derek and Tiffany’s throw quad salchow on the warm-up!)

Saturday I wore my competition dress for the 20 minute warm-up, as I do for my short program warm-up also. One thing that seemed different for me at nationals this year was that I felt that the championship ladies practices were earlier in the day than in past years. That was fine for me since I train mornings and early afternoons. This year the event was also scheduled before the men’s freeskate event. I don’t ever remember that happening before. I drew first to skate in the last warm-up group, a position that I am very used to and comfortable with. My goal was to entertain the audience and judges with my “Sabrina” program choreographed by David Wilson. He and Kurt Browning have helped me this year in the development of my presentation and expression. I watched many of Audrey Hepburn’s films this year to help with that also. After my skate, I had a hard time holding back tears. I had skated an almost perfect program, to win the long program. Two years ago at nationals I remember competing my long program with the flu; not this year! Last year I struggled with boot problems and then losing confidence in myself; not this year! Thank you for the standing ovation!!!!!!!!! You were a great supporting audience—to all of the competitors. After the ladies’ event, I was so happy to have won the freeskate, but since I do like the new judging system, I cannot complain about placements. I am just excited to go to Worlds and the Four Continents Championships this year. One of my goals this year was to be on the podium at Nationals and make the world team, and now I am back to training to reach my goals for the World Championships.

Alissa