U.S. Ladies [#20]: In a Week, Maybe Two, They'll Make You a Star

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Willin said:
This is not what I said. What I said is that parents should not force a kid to do a sport that they have zero interest in doing and continue having zero interest in doing. If it is necessary (like ear exams and vaccines) I'm fine with that. But sports and hobbies are not necessary at all.

As I mentioned, I've met Dinh and his mother - both loved skating a lot. I'm sure what he meant was that, like any other kid, you have times when you want to quit the sport you're doing - not because you hate the sport itself, but because you are being bullied for skating, are hitting a wall in your sport, want to try sports other kids are doing, or simply hate getting up so early in the morning for practice. No matter how much you love something, you will hit moments when you don't want to continue, and having someone push you through that is fine.
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When I was interviewing Charlie White, he said something similar. That there were times (when he was very young) when his mom made him go to the rink because she knew that, well, he was a kid and sometimes kids just don't like the idea of stopping one activity to start another. But that ultimately, skating was a privilege and if he wasn't working hard, she'd pull him off the ice, not badger him to do something he obviously didn't want to do. It was he who finally made the decision to come back each time. He also talked about adults helping kids see the connection between hard work and having fun; that working hard means gaining skills, and that gaining skills means having fun. But he also said that if a kid just doesn't like a sport, to keep looking until the find a sport they do like so they could learn those lessons. (Here's the whole interview. I had to edit for length.)

Same with Gracie Gold (interview). She said she played a lot of sports -- soccer, swimming, track, tennis. She said indoor swimming wasn't her favorite. Could you imagine if her parents had said at 7yo "This is what you're going to do, you're going to be a competitive swimmer, and if you don't like it now, you'll learn to love it." Luckily, it seems like they had a healthy attitude about not specializing or pushing any one particular sport, since she got to try so much. (And believe me, some kids are being made to specialize by 7yo. It. Is. Nuts. )
 
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Willin said:
This is not what I said. What I said is that parents should not force a kid to do a sport that they have zero interest in doing and continue having zero interest in doing. If it is necessary (like ear exams and vaccines) I'm fine with that. But sports and hobbies are not necessary at all.
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Stuff like ear exams and vaccines are in the same class as pushing through disliking practice, with the lesson in persistence. You do it because you know you'll be better in the future because of it.

I have friends who hated going to the dentist and they didn't go for years. They associated that experience with only the here and now. Now they're paying for it with tooth abscesses. I admittedly have bad teeth, but I've escaped major dental work so far, partly because I go to the dentist religiously every 6 months. I dislike it, of course, but I know I'm better off for it.

Even if I disliked practicing piano a lot when I was a kid, I eventually came around and started practicing with nobody pushing me to do it. I wanted to be better. Teaching kids patience and persistence is incredibly important. But it's not healthy to teach them to never quit, at any cost. I've seen quite a number of my peers fall into this trap (comes with the high-achieving Asian culture) and it's sad that many of them never find that inner drive to be better at something, just to be better at it. They're only at it either because their parents expect them to, or they don't know how to quit.
 
Anita18 said:
Stuff like ear exams and vaccines are in the same class as pushing through disliking practice, with the lesson in persistence. You do it because you know you'll be better in the future because of it.

I have friends who hated going to the dentist and they didn't go for years. They associated that experience with only the here and now. Now they're paying for it with tooth abscesses. I admittedly have bad teeth, but I've escaped major dental work so far, partly because I go to the dentist religiously every 6 months. I dislike it, of course, but I know I'm better off for it.

Even if I disliked practicing piano a lot when I was a kid, I eventually came around and started practicing with nobody pushing me to do it. I wanted to be better. Teaching kids patience and persistence is incredibly important. But it's not healthy to teach them to never quit, at any cost. I've seen quite a number of my peers fall into this trap (comes with the high-achieving Asian culture) and it's sad that many of them never find that inner drive to be better at something, just to be better at it. They're only at it either because their parents expect them to, or they don't know how to quit.
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Speaking as a parent, maintaining health is far different and more important than any other life lessons gleaned from a hobby. Then comes academic education, and then sports and arts/hobbies. I would push far harder regarding matters of health, and this is how it should be. That means parents say "No" to practicing to the point of serious injury or getting back in the game with a concussion, and "Yes" to making kids quit a sport when stress on emotional/social health becomes overwhelming. Lessons learned from sports can be learned elsewhere or with a different physical activity. Kids more naturally learn to become persistent at activities they choose themselves.
 
Anita18 said:
Exactly! I've always thought that about the two of them.
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True. Add on that Gracie had 10 times the natural talent Ashley had you have one skater who had to work twice as hard. When things got hard for Gracie she crumbled. I don't mean that in a bad way....she just could not deal with what was expected of her...
Basically to be everyone's darling. Not everyone is a naturally gifted athlete and not all athletes are made of steel competitors.

.
 
AxelAnnie said:
True. Add on that Gracie had 10 times the natural talent Ashley had you have one skater who had to work twice as hard. When things got hard for Gracie she crumbled. I don't mean that in a bad way....she just could not deal with what was expected of her...
Basically to be everyone's darling. Not everyone is a naturally gifted athlete and not all athletes are made of steel competitors.

.
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That's a very simplified view of a very demanding sport and the different facts, personal histories and situational complexities of two very different human beings. No two athletes are an exact one-to-one comparison.

Any athlete who gets to the level of National competition -- and even hundreds of those who don't -- has pushed through "when things get hard." The number of bone-crushing times it takes to land a single axel or double axel, let alone triples and doing double run-throughs are, believe me, all very, very hard and beyond the mere mortal category. Any skater at that level has done what is expected of them, and more, over and over and over again, oftentimes getting conflicting messages from different sources about what those expectations are, and working doubly hard to meet them all.

Gracie competed at the highest levels as an athlete and succeeded. She got through plenty of very hard times. Period. No one is required to destroy themselves over a sport. All athletes lose at times. She gets to keep and own all her very stellar accomplishments with head held high.

You know, it could be that those who "work hard" through one more challenge will also be the ones with the first hip replacement, or the ones who suffer debilitating chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or the ones who suffer depression and don't know what to do with their lives once competitive skating is over.

Gracie said she is and has been suffering mental health issues and is stepping away. Either we respect her choice and take mental health seriously, or we relegate it back to calling people with mental health issues "weak" and force more people with mental health issues to ignore/hide symptoms and not get help.
 
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Jozet said:
What @mtnskater said. There are a lot of sports open to girls now than before -- sports that are less expensive, more accessible, school-sponsored, and with scholarships attached. Around here lacrosse, field hockey and cheer are huge, as are soccer and softball. The hours for practice fit parents' schedules better and team sports are always going to be less expensive than the roughly $30-50,000 per year it takes to keep an elite skater on the ice.

As for trophies, sure, give every kid a trophy. Who cares. You can buy them online for $5 and have "Olympic Champ" engraved on it. I received participation trophies way back in the 70s for dance and my dad received one back in the 50s for baseball. I was under no illusion that I was going to the Kirov and my dad didn't show up uninvited to Mets training camp. For some kids, just stepping on to the field and trying to look athletic is a huge accomplishment -- maybe more of an accomplishment that the kid who hits all the home runs because the kid who "just participated" didn't have anyone at home to play catch with him, or his mom is ill, or his dad is working three jobs, or he's being bullied at school and told by other kids to stay off the team....I don't get this whole "kids gotta learn about real life as soon as possible so let's do it by sucking all the joy out of their childhood and in the process make them hate sports so they sit inside and play video games instead" attitude.

Believe me, kids get that life is rough and unfair. Youth suicide is at its highest rate ever, the number two killer of boys between the ages of 14-25, and increasing in young girls. That's not all mental illness or bullying; that's the freaking hard-knock life of uber-competitiveness in schools, starting in middle school, hearing that your whole entire life is hinging on testing and grades, starting with 7th grade pre-Algebra, if not your first grade reading scores.

Youth sports are more competitive than ever and parents and other adults are doing their darndest to make young athletes' lives a misery, from forcing them to specialize early in a sport, thereby subjecting them to overuse injuries, burnout and just ending up hating the sport they once loved.

If you gave every kid on my son's hockey team a trophy that said "You're the Awesome-ist," they would still know who scored the most goals, who is the best team player, who is the kid who gets the most penalities, who gives their all at practice, who always loses his equipment, etc. And those trophies could all be 10 feet tall, and believe me, no one is under the false impression that they are going to be called up by the NHL. And if you gave none of them a trophy and stopped keeping scores at games, they would still know what's what. (Honestly, I think it's mostly the parents who want to keep score at games -- I've heard more than one kids say they'd love to play games with no parents watching because of the grief they get before, during and after the games.)

Kids are smart. They know when an 11th place finish at a large qualifying competition is a bigger personal "win" than a gold medal at a small, club competition. They know when a clean lutz at a competition that doesn't have video playback is a "gimme" they might not get at a competition where the tech panel is watching slow motion replay.

I have three kids. Here's my deal.
  • Unless you're out running or riding your bike every day, you have to do "something active" in an organized way.
  • "Something active" can be dance, martial arts, team sports, individual sports, a class at the local gym
  • If you join a team, you need to show up for practice and participate and do what the coach is asking you to do
  • For team sports, you can only quit after the season is over, unless there is an abusive situation going on
  • Once I sign a check -- for a competition or coaching session or clinic -- you will participate or pay me back
  • You can't quit on a "bad note" e.g. if you are frustrated by a skill that your coach thinks you can learn, come up with a goal-setting plan to work the problem. This is a life skill and one of the most important reasons you are playing sports, not trying to get to the Olympics or World Cup or NHL or whatever.
  • If you switch sports, you need to give the new sport 3-6 months before switching again.
  • Collect all the participation trophies and medals you want. I trust you to figure out which one have meaning for you.
Anything above recreational competitive sports needs to be kid-driven. When it comes to sports, kids should not be forced, ultimately, to do things they hate. Being an elite skater means a huge sacrifice of a child's time, body and potentially their education and emotional and social life. If a kid is not pushing to be at the elite level, a parent should not be pushing, and nor should anyone else. It won't work. If anything, sensible coaches and parents will be holding uber-driven kids back so they don't compete while injured or over-practice or not give up all their time to one activity.

When kids are young in a sport, parents help kids organize and learn responsibility and teach them how to work through challenges, but at some point, the kid needs to internalize that motivation if they want to go above and beyond. If they don't, oh well. It's OK. It may not be good for U.S. Figure Skating -- maybe -- but it will be good for individual human beings.
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Just quoting this because it bears repeating. This, and Jozet’s subsequent posts are the most sensible and realistic things I’ve read in here in a long time.
 
insideedgeua said:
Just quoting this because it bears repeating. This, and Jozet’s subsequent posts are the most sensible and realistic things I’ve read in here in a long time.
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Thanks. I get what this site is about, and I enjoy the banter and witty repartee about skating. But I'm also a crazy sports mom and fierce advocate for youth sports, meaning I also take seriously parents' roles in keeping kids grounded and healthy while participating. It's my soapbox "thing." But I've been soapboxing a bit here, and will back away and not further derail the convo on ladies' skating. :)
 
berthesghost said:
Anyone have the skinny on Isabelle Inthisone?
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Here's a :cool: blog article and interview with Isabelle before Nationals (unfortunately she withdrew from the Intermediate Ladies free skate): Isabelle Inthisone: Lao America’s Figure Skating Phenom

Excerpts:
What’s your dream for the future?
My dream is to one day represent my Lao-American heritage on Team USA and hopefully be able to compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. I’ll be 17 ½ years old, then.
So, what does it take to become one of the best in the sport?
Figure skating—you have to be so well-rounded. You must have a strong core, incredible balance, grace, musicality, and presence. The sport is about having everything, not just the ability to catch a football and run, and when you crash into the ground—it’s not dirt you’re crashing into, and you aren’t wearing protective gear like padding and a helmet. You’re slamming hard at a high speed straight into an icy, cold, hard surface—wearing nothing but a costume meant to look good, not save you from pain.
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She made some really good points above!
Who is your hero in the sport?
At first, it was Michelle Kwan. Because of her performance in figure skating—she is one of the most famous athletes ever. As the sport keeps changing, a favorite of mine right now is Nathan Chen. He’s really showing that the impossible is possible!
How do you and your family handle all of this?
It’s really about taking it day by day and keeping the goals where they are meant to be. You never know what will happen next year. So, for now, at the Intermediate Level, I’ve got 5 triple jumps planned.
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She's 13 years old (will be 14 in May) and is coached by Alex Ouriashev in the Chicago area.

ETA:

The Laos blog linked to a CNN iReport story during the 2014 Olympics in which Isabelle, then age 9, was featured at the end and quoted her mother as follows:
Praxaya-Inthisone often discusses the pressures involved with skating with her daughter but says that that concept has not dawned on Isabelle just yet.
"Her mentality at this age is that this is all for fun, and she is out there to perform and not really compete. Her ballet instructor teaches her that you need to enjoy the performances in order to bring out the best ability."
Praxaya-Inthisone says she's felt criticism from other skating parents about the amount of time Isabelle is on the ice. She admitted she struggled when other skating parents gave them the cold shoulder or made snide remarks.
"Some parents will make comments that school is more important than skating, so that is why they don't skate as much," she said. "One time a parent asked me, 'What does Isabelle do besides skate?' implying that she had no life and was forced into it."
Non-skating parents and especially Isabelle's school, on the other hand, have been quite supportive of the girl's passion.
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Jozet, what you have said needed to be said though. I think many passionate skating fans really have no idea of the reality of this sport and how hard skaters work to get to the top.

There are no slackers at the top and money alone won’t get you there, each and every skater works incredibly hard.

When things aren’t going well, skaters know it, they’re trying and they’re getting advice from everywhere they can. They never step on to the ice to compete with the intention of taking it easy, or under rotating because they think the panel that day isn’t a tough one. They aren’t out there to disappoint anyone. Clearly you understand this.

I get the point of the site and enjoy much of the banter. It’s the totally unrealistic stuff that gets me shaking my head at some people. So it’s good to see someone post a more realistic view of things.
 
Jozet said:
That's a very simplified view of a very demanding sport and the different facts, personal histories and situational complexities of two very different human beings. No two athletes are an exact one-to-one comparison.

Any athlete who gets to the level of National competition -- and even hundreds of those who don't -- has pushed through "when things get hard." The number of bone-crushing times it takes to land a single axel or double axel, let alone triples and doing double run-throughs are, believe me, all very, very hard and beyond the mere mortal category. Any skater at that level has done what is expected of them, and more, over and over and over again, oftentimes getting conflicting messages from different sources about what those expectations are, and working doubly hard to meet them all.

Gracie competed at the highest levels as an athlete and succeeded. She got through plenty of very hard times. Period. No one is required to destroy themselves over a sport. All athletes lose at times. She gets to keep and own all her very stellar accomplishments with head held high.

You know, it could be that those who "work hard" through one more challenge will also be the ones with the first hip replacement, or the ones who suffer debilitating chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or the ones who suffer depression and don't know what to do with their lives once competitive skating is over.

Gracie said she is and has been suffering mental health issues and is stepping away. Either we respect her choice and take mental health seriously, or we relegate it back to calling people with mental health issues "weak" and force more people with mental health issues to ignore/hide symptoms and not get help.
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You missed my point. But that is ok.
 
Jozet said:
I get what this site is about, and I enjoy the banter and witty repartee about skating. But I'm also a crazy sports mom and fierce advocate for youth sports, meaning I also take seriously parents' roles in keeping kids grounded and healthy while participating. It's my soapbox "thing."
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:respec: to @Jozet and please continue to contribute your valuable perspectives as a mother of young athletes here. :)

ETA:
insideedgeua said:
When things aren’t going well, skaters know it, they’re trying and they’re getting advice from everywhere they can. They never step on to the ice to compete with the intention of taking it easy, or under rotating because they think the panel that day isn’t a tough one. They aren’t out there to disappoint anyone.
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Cheers to you, too! :40beers:
 
Does anybody have a link to or a list of all the senior ladies competing?
 
Per said:
Does anybody have a link to or a list of all the senior ladies competing?
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Practice groups are:

Group A: Mariah Bell (B=Bye), Courtney Hicks (B), Angela Wang (B), Tessa Hong [P2], Hannah Miller [M1], Franchesca Chiera [E2]
Group B: Karen Chen (B), Bradie Tennell (B), Caroline Zhang (B), Emmy Ma [E1], Brynne McIsaac [M2]
Group C: Ashley Wagner (B), Polina Edmunds (B), Amber Glenn (B), Starr Andrews [P1], Kaitlyn Nguyen [P4], Ashley Lin [M4]
Group D: Mirai Nagasu (B), Megan Wessenberg [E4], Vivian Le [P3], Emily Chan [M3], Katie McBeath [E3]

ETA: First official practice is later today (mid-to-late afternoon in San Jose).
 
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Just to go back to earlier posts (because this is FSU after all, and I can't resist:D).

When it comes to the boring happy hoo-hah about oh, all the little darlings are praised far too easily today, they're not tough tough tough like I was when I walked 10 miles barefoot in the snow uphill both ways to school :violin:(spousal unit and I call those our "Mabel and Egbert" moments), just remember this about "participation trophies":

Charlie White loves them. About a year or so ago on Twitter, someone with a name like "Debbie Deplorable" tried to call out little snowflakey kids for wanting participation trophies, blah de blah, and Charlie (in his polite Charlie White way) asked "what's wrong with participation trophies, as an Olympic gold medalist proud to represent the USA, I don't understand the problem with participation trophies" and Debbie D. tried to answer, well, kids today, they expect it handed to them, not like you, and Charlie answered to the effect that "Participation trophies are a good thing, they kept me interested in the sport when I wasn't that good and kept me motivated and involved".

When it comes to participation trophies, I'll stand with that lazy slacker Charlie White over the random Debbie D.'s on Twitter:lol:

*None* of any of our skaters' perceived problems come from laziness, entitlement, or any of that baloney. Go US ladies!:cheer:
 
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el henry said:
*None* of any of our skaters' perceived problems come from laziness, entitlement, or any of that baloney. Go US ladies!
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And here's where I disagree: I see entitlement in general -- not just for US Ladies -- when the judges and tech panels reward bad technique for a long time, and then athletes and coaches are :confused: and sound entitled -- Arutunian on Asada, anyone? -- to have those flaws grandfathered when the winds shift or when a tech panel comes along and is strict.

Tutberidze's students have jump issues, but I haven't seen protocols from her top skaters with all-but-one jump or a majority of jumps under-rotated with a proliferation of edge calls. Those issues don't just pop up overnight, but have been rewarded over the long term.
 
Is the bad US judging entitlement? I think they are mostly cowards. Maybe it's the same thing. But the bad US judging needs to stop. They look foolish.
 
From what Ive seen in practices thus far...

Mirai and Bradie look like rockstars.

Ash... seems good. I think she'll get high PCS with this.

Courtney seems like Courtney

Mariah seems a bit better

Polina got a 3/3 done in the SP but I will guess last jump would get a <? She got her other jumps done.

Anyone seen Karen yet? Anyone know what she'll be skating to?
 
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NAOTMAA said:
I'm an American, with younger siblings who all grew up in the 90s and mid 2000s :shuffle:, but I never encountered this "everybody is a winner" mentality (at least promoted on such a mass level) until the Obama presidency of the last 8 years.
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Sorry I don't think you can blame this on Obama. My kid was competing in USFS competition starting in 2002 and always getting medals. There would be 4 in a flight so everyone got a medal or there were medals given to everyone. She also played soccer starting in 2003 and everyone got a trophy. The winning team just got a bigger trophy.
Pretty sure Obama wasn't in power in 2002 or 2003.
 
Lanie said:
They started doing the participation stuff back when I was in elementary school in the 1990s...
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They had it when I was school in the 1980’s. I loved my participation ribbons!

Edit: I just remember something else! When I was marching band, the entire color guard got participation trophies with their name on them as a senior award. So I joined as flag girl just for that reason. Though, that year they decided it was unfair for just the color guard to get trophies and gave it to all the graduating seniors in the band. :angryfire
 
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