Note: The following is posted with tongue planted firmly in cheek and is intended to be humorous

My skating will definitely coast me more money than it will ever earn me.

How exactly would one "train to be famous"? Stand in front of the mirror daily practicing the Victory Smile and Wave? Have friends pretend to be papparazzi and chase one around taking random photos to post on Internet gossip sites? Make up a series of Questions Most Likely to Be Asked in an Interview and rehearse "spontaneous" answers? Practise signing one's name (spelled correctly, of course) with lightning speed so as not to disappont the legions of fans clamoring for autographs?

Lol! Love it.

And scarily enough, in all seriousness, I went to a skating camp one year where one of the off ice education classes was called 'Dealing with the press and interviews' and we had to pretend to do and interview having won the Olympics and pretend to do one having not skated so well. And we had to give examples of good answers to those questions and how we should speak of our competitors etc.

Very silly. I was the oldest by far - I felt like saying 'Do I look like I need to worry about interviews after winning the Olympics??' (I was 24 at the time and the next oldest was 18 but the majority were 10/11 years old). So it was pointless for us older ones - we were way past it, and irresponsible to fill the little kids' heads with such idea, imo.

One kid at our rink went through a phase of giving out signed pictures of herself. So I guess she was training to be a famous skater!

I guess I took the question the wrong way. I guess we arent training to be famous.. Just be successful and reach nationals some day. Even those who go to nationals arent famous

That is silly for a general camp- but I do HOPE USFSA does something like this for the skaters in their envelope teams and with international assignments. It probably really does help these skaters to practice some high profile interview questions- it must be horrible having to talk to the press after you knew you just blew it. After all, many of the skaters are still young teenagers, and some manage to interview with such composure they have to have practiced! (At the nationals exhibition Caroline Zhang and Mirai Nagasu gave such a poor interview [but an amazing performance!!!] during a "fluff" that I really wondered if it was just trial and error seeing yourself on TV, or if the seniors have some interview coaching.)

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

I don't know, I think learning to handle yourself in public and dealing with the press is not a bad skill to learn. You never know when you may have to be interviewed. I'm not famous, but I've been misquoted and misused by local press. And if there's a little fantasy involved in pretending to be an Olympian at a skating camp, I see no harm and like I said, learning to speak in public is a skill that can be used in many ways.

j

USFS does this kind of "media training" for Novice Skaters at Nationals. It's part of the training process they go through after their events and while the Juniors & Seniors are having practice ice. As someone who works in the media though, I'm not sure they do a terrific job of it though.

I think the standard answers they encourage are: "I am just happy I skated a clean program" and "I didn't have a chance to watch the other skaters. I was focusing on how I was going to skate".

I am going to be interviewed on our local Cable 10 sometime this summer.... (sigh) my first tv appearance - fame and fortune next?!?

__________________
If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

I'm not training to be famous but to be as good as I ever want to be, which at the moment is to master a mohawk. Maybe in the future I'll be training to do a toe loop or lutz or something or even a competition. At the age of 41 I just train to have fun.

At Adult Nationals in Chicago this year, Pairsman2 and I, on the spur of the moment, decided that we would create "fame" for ourselves just to see what that might feel like. So, it started as a joke...we printed up about a dozen photos of us (8x10) in the hotal business lounge, went to Office Depot, got a Sharpe, and autographed all the photos. So, that was fun and we were laughing so hard that I was practically p**ing on the floor!

So, we're sitting there with all of these autographed photographs and I'm like "let's go down to the lobby and hand some out to some people and see what that feels like!" So, we get into the elevator, it stops on the next floor and a group of woman and men come in the elevator...so, just to try it out, I tell them that we're here for the Adult National competition and that we're PairSkating "Rock Stars," and I hand one of the guys one of our photographs!

Punch Line: THEY WERE ALL JUDGES!!!!

Okay, when they told us they were all judging the event, then I'm really p**ing in my pants...I thought we were going to die from laughing so hard! I really don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life--I was crying it was so hillarious!

It's fun to create your own fame! Why wait for someone else to do it for you when you can do it for yourself!!! LOL!!!

ROFLMAO! That's priceless! I thought sh!# like that only happened to ME!

__________________
Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Oh Andrea, that's too funny!

I hope the judges appreciated it and gave you an extra point when the time came.

__________________
Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Well, let's see...we came in second to last in our event, Championship Pairs...so, either our skating sucked, or we really weren't "Rock Stars" after all...or, probably a little bit of both...

Here's a little secret: I STILL THINK WE'RE ADULT PAIRSKATING ROCK STARS!!!

And rightly so....

__________________
If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

Of course you are!

__________________
Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!