What was your first day as a competitor like?

[FSWer]

Ok Kids!!!! I've asked you what it is like for you to compete. NOW it's time to please tell me from the time you first became a skater what your first day as a COMPETITOR was like?

[Muskoka Skater]

Fun, because I came 3rd!! I just went out there skated well. My first competition for some reason I wasn't nervous at all. But now whenever I compete I get really nervous.

[Mrs Redboots]

Great fun! I met up with some friends I'd made on the Internet and hadn't met before, and made some new friends who are still friends today.

Of course, I came last in everything I'd entered, but who cares?

[jazzpants]

Scary!!! I met my competitor for the first time and she happens to skate at my rink, just at different times. This was at Skate SF 2001 and it was the Pre-Bronze FS I event. (Back when I *WAS* a young'um, myself and before they switch the age classes around, and before the whole WBP thing and you can do a lutz in Pre-Bronze... ;) )

Anyway, it got really bad during the warmup when I overheard her coach yelling "Okay, now do a lutz!!!" (Ummm... I don't have a lutz! I barely had a loop and it was just a tiny little hop. :roll: ) Of course, I came in 2nd to her, but met a new skating friend in the process. We still skate together when we're in the same session and are friendly at the rink. :mrgreen: (Of course, she is no longer competing now. She's "so over that!")

Little has changed...I STILL don't have a lutz in my program!!! I just BARELY started landing them early this year. :roll: (But I hope to land more of those later this year in front of my NYC coach... ;) )

[Mrs Redboots]

I was thinking of this thread while lying in bed last night, and remembered something I'd almost forgotten until this minute! Back then, in dance, it was common for the referee to call over all the skaters in the class and tell them that they were about to do two patterns of the Dutch Waltz (or whatever), and to start at that end so that the first pattern was skated past the judges, and if you should be so unlucky as to fall over, to start again from the step before the one you fell on, etc, etc, etc.

This particular referee said all that and then he grinned at us all and said "And don't look so frightened, it's not like going to the dentist!" Whereupon, as one, everybody said in chorus, "No, it's much worse!"

[TimDavidSkate]

Nervous, I couldnt stop chatting, I was all over the ice during the warmup, I dont think I landed anything. I placed dead last 6th/6-skaters :oops:

I couldnt get myself into focus and I didnt know how to control my nerves, it took me 2.5 yrs to understand and learn how to compete

[celticprincess]

Oh my gosh I was soo excited. I remember months before that I was freaking out about it. It was like four hours away and my friends and I all rode up together. Alot of people from my club attended it, so we would do dinner together and my three friends and I shared a hotel room. My first event didn't go so well...it was interpretive and I had to make up a program on the spot to the "Full House" theme song. It sucked..I had no idea what to do. The next day, was my compulsories in which I stayed dry, landed everything, and did rather well. Fourth. The final day was my showcase program..I was alittle nervous to begin with but once I struck my pose and the music started, I was fine. I ended up getting third out of like seven..so I was proud man. That was about three years ago...give or take...I will never forget that.

[Gareth]

I was nervous but excited, I was shaking during the warm up and I was first to skate so didnt really do much in the warm up. I was disappointed with myself because I had a fall on the flip, which is my best jump! Then it went downhill from there, I started slipping and got my combination jump wrong...Only did 3 jump- loop. Even after all that I came 3rd so it wasnt too bad!

[BatikatII]

Horrible!

Never intended to compete but arm was twisted by a very competitive skater who was at that time a friend.

It was a compulsory dance class and I had taken no tests. The level was bronze and under I think so would now be equivalent to level 6 and under.

I wasn't told to stay by gate by the steward when they let you on to the ice so skated to start position and then had to wait, highly embarassed, while they finished reading the marks for previous skater.

Somehow got through the Canasta Tango and Golden Skaters Waltz. Ended up something like 15th out of 20. I most remember being rather miffed that another skater from our rink beat me even though she'd done completely the wrong steps for the second sequence. She had waved her arms about nicely though so either they simply weren't looking at her feet or were blinded by the waving!:lol:

Mind in a competition since then I've been beaten by a guy who didn't even complete the second sequence of a dance and simply gave up half way through after going wrong on the steps. I still can't see how that can be right - my dancing wasn't that bad - even my coach was flabbergasted. Obviously there is no deduction for not completing the second sequence of a dance.

I absolutely hated the whole experience of competing the first time and swore I'd never do it again . However by the time of the Bracknell adult comp the memory of the horror had faded enough that I did enter and did much better.

Since then I have won medals in both free and dance and so have decided comps are not so bad after all - but much better enjoyed in retrospect than at the time.

[FSWer]

I was nervous but excited, I was shaking during the warm up and I was first to skate so didnt really do much in the warm up. I was disappointed with myself because I had a fall on the flip, which is my best jump! Then it went downhill from there, I started slipping and got my combination jump wrong...Only did 3 jump- loop. Even after all that I came 3rd so it wasnt too bad!

Say,question before we go on. In response to what Gareth says. LOL,I would find it very hard to be able to do...let's say for eg. a Spial. Shaking natually like that. How do skaters get through a Program or skate in any way doing that?

[Skittl1321]

Say,question before we go on. In response to what Gareth says. LOL,I would find it very hard to be able to do...let's say for eg. a Spial. Shaking natually like that. How do skaters get through a Program or skate in any way doing that?

Well, I can't answer for in competition- as I haven't competed yet, but I can tell you how they do it for tests. (I have horrible test anxiety and shook the entire time.) You just have to know exactly what you are supposed to be doing and be 1000 times better than necessary on your best day, so that you are good enough on the bad day.

It is HARD to skate while your legs are twitching, you feel like you are going to just tumble to the ice. But in your head you know that you can hold your edge, that you can land them jump, and you just have to do it. But if you're only "just good enough" in practice, chances are you don't have a chance during the real thing!

(That's why you often see skaters landing things like their quads in practice, but they won't put them in programs)

[mantysk8er]

I discovered skating at a weird age...17. So by the time I was good enough to compete, which I really wanted to do, I think I was 19. So not old enough to skate adult, but not good enough to skate against at least somewhat older kids. So my first competition was at Beginner. And I think they screwed up and put me in the younger of the two groups of beginners. And I am 5'11" so it is impossible for me to blend in with a group of like, 6 year olds. I looked REALLY out of place. But I was just so excited to be competing, that it really didn't occur to me to care! And I got 10th out of 10, but I still had a blast, and couldn't wait to come back the next year!

It was odd though...this competition couldn't quite get it together. The next year, I was allowed to skate with the adults, but then the year after that I had to go back with the kids again! By then though, I was Preliminary, so I was against like 16ish year olds. And I actually placed! :)

[celticprincess]

Hey mantysk8er,

I felt the same way at my first comp. My Interpretive event was level 1 so I had to skate with all these cute little five year olds to "Full House" and I was 20. Thats the hard thing about competing. I told my coach if I were ever going to do freestyle that I was going in the adult catagory because I dont want to go against some 5 yr old contortionist kid. Funny thing is that at my last comp, I went against 3 sixteen(ish) year olds in Showcase. Cool thing about Showcase is that alot of older girls (who dont do freestyle) like to do it. I personally love it. I've also been told I could pass for 16, so that works:)