For this month’s SPIN, I kick off Spring 2016 with some adult international and U.S. skating events that I’ve attended, more looks at Tai Babilonia’s Skating Coloring Book, SkateGuard’s latest and more!
In February, I was asked to come up to Ottawa and teach a one-day seminar for the Skate Canada Eastern Section Adult Clinic. We started with off-ice warm ups, leading into on-ice technical skating classes where we did jumps and spins, which took us into music interpretation, footwork classes, a touch of ice dance, then finishing off with Storytime with Randy! They asked some great questions, most of which I could answer. I surprised them a little bit with my personal history – discovering at age 40 I was adopted, finding my birth mom and starting a relationship with her and finally what coming out was like in the 1980’s.
I had around 20 women skaters and several coaches in class. All were great skaters, mostly competitive and willing to learn anything! Greg Rochefort headed out the clinic and ran a beautiful day of skating in the great capital of Canada, Ottawa. Then within 24 hours, I was off back to Los Angeles where I quickly ramped up for the 2016 Adult Sectional Championships in Paramount, California.
There’s something about a group of adult skaters, all having these incredible goals in their skating, sharing their talents and skills and forming a bond unlike any other. I’m always so impressed by the creativity and time spent on all these numbers they do, fully costumed, choreographed to the max and cleverly performed. Kudos to the coaches that encourage all of this! More to come during this season…
Lots of chatter about Debi Thomas, World Champion and Olympic medalist. Now bankrupt and living in a trailer. The commentary and her quotes lead me to believe that there are some serious emotional issues going on. See Randy’s Spin February 2016, comments and more comments… RG
Now, from previous posts:
http://www.taibabilonia.com/shop.html
Debi Thomas: Bankrupt and Living In A Trailer. Thoughts? Spin Feb. 2016:
https://randy-gardner.com/2016/02/06/randys-spin-feb-2016/
SKATEGUARD BY RYAN STEVENS:
http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca
Happy Spring!
RG
The Official Website For World Figure Skating Champion - Randy Gardner 