Spinning Around
December 30, 2007
Yesterday I went to my very first ever figure skating event. You can imagine that it was not my idea and the option of going or not was not quite an option. I don’t care what people think about it but I’ve never once enjoyed watching figure skating on TV.
2007 All Japan Medalists On Ice
All I ever notice is that aside from the costume and uniform changes, everyone does the same spins, kicks, twists, hand gestures, and even facial expressions. I don’t see the self-expression involved and thus I don’t enjoy it. Furthermore, the scoring systems always seem so arbitrary. I’m going to avoid commenting on the skimpiness of the costumes completely.
I wish I could say that watching figure skating live changed my opinion about it. Certainly, watching things live are much more exciting but it was still the same stuff. Luckily, skate routines are short, maybe 3 or 4 minutes in length, so boredom is limited to short spurts. Listening to many children shout out their favorite skater’s name was quite interesting; it’s something that you can hardly ever hear on TV.
Now the thing that I will give credit to is that although I personally don’t enjoy watching figure skating, I can easily see the training needed to perfect it. The fitness, flexibility, and strength needed to just hold your leg up almost vertically against your body is tremendous. I totally respect all the hard work that these very young people are putting into something that they love. It certainly is a beautiful art.
NOW WHY CAN’T I ENJOY IT?
January 3rd, 2008 at 01:00
I think its because you’re staight.
January 3rd, 2008 at 01:06
The thought did cross my mind.
January 6th, 2008 at 18:51
It’s OK, I don’t understand figure skating either. They put these routines to music but in the end they’re just executing spins and jumps. The music doesn’t put any of it into context so they might as well just have a contest to see who can do the most triple salchows in a row.
January 7th, 2008 at 07:51
That’s what I said! The highlights are always the jumps, so why not use House of Pain – Jump Around, and just keep jumping until you can jump no more? I think it would be very entertaining to watch teenagers tire themselves out silly trying to spin in the air. The climax would be at the end, when they try to jump their very last time and fail like an old person trying to get out of a chair.
I hope they’ll have that in Whistler come 2010.