As it happens cyclically we come into contact with disciplines of which we know the form, the expression, but we do not fully understand the substance, especially when it comes to winter sports.
We give a summary, superficial, exclusively aesthetic evaluation with no contents that can describe the preparation, the work necessary to achieve the performance.
Figure skating, or rather figure skating, is one of these.
I ran into the Olympic trials and every time the reaction is always the same.
From an apparent calm before the exercise it grows second by second according to the tension and anxiety between steps, holds, lifts and thrown jumps.
You are totally involved in the athletic gesture, the choreography, the synchronism knowing that the mistake can cost the whole race.
You go electric.
The tension squeezes you to the limit of holding your breath that explodes with a liberating breath at the end of the music.
And this is only the effect of the one who cares.
Immediately afterwards, with a cool head, you elaborate the difficulties but above all the complexity.
A skater is 3 men / women put together. A sort of superhero who must merge 3 personalities and characteristics that make him go faster, higher, more lenient, that never make him fall.
It's a calculator, a mathematician with skates that must be distinguished for precision and balance with precarious supports depending on the performance of the other and relying not only on one's own calculations. A student of his body and that of his partner who places his trust, his story in someone else's hands.
It is a gymnast who experiences the acrobatics at temperatures unfavorable to the mind and muscles, which is expressed on a slippery and moving beam and for which he will have to work in strength, elasticity,
It is a dancer that mixes rhythm with competition, music with points, expression with result.
3 personalities in an athlete.
3 separate and contemporary jobs to do.
This description as soon as you write it, as soon as you read it, puts tension.
Then, just like when the race ends, you think about the quality and the work needed to get to the top and you realize that all of this could be jeopardized in a hundredth of a second.
Voltage becomes electricity. Electricity turns into anxiety.
Article Ice skating, electric anxiety From Sports born.
