The Practice

A tribute to those who will grow to be Olympians -- and the many who will not

Sitting on the bench, I tug at the laces of my skate, loosening them row by row. I pull the sides of the stiff leather boot apart. God, I miss my old skates with their softened skin and creases, nicked up wood on the heel and sole. Why did my feet have to grow?

My fist inside the boot, I push the sides apart as if that will somehow expedite the painful process I know lies ahead for the next several months until my foot forces the hide to mold comfortably. Breathing deep, I acquiesce and dip my right foot toes first into the vice.

I can’t get my heel in. Ugh. I told them at the shop this was not going to work and they insisted. But who listens to a 12 year old anyway?

Wincing, I stand up – my left foot on the ball mount as it no longer will reach the floor and will my heel into the narrow entry. Pop. It’s in.

How I’ll ever get this thing off is another issue, but I guess that’s a problem for a couple hours from now.

Sitting back down, I bang the heel of my blade against the rubber floor in a feeble attempt to shift my foot into a more comfortable place – as if it had any room to shift at all.

Then I tackle the laces. Yanking the tongue of the boot up I create at least two millimeters more of breathing room, only to wipe that out as I pull the laces tight, beginning with the horizontal base at my toes, then wrapping the laces around my fingers for leverage and row by row tightening.

When I get to the hooks, I wrap them over the top and back under again. One of the big girls taught me that and it somehow seems more official and sophisticated than the way I laced when I was only 9 or 10. Finally, I tie the laces into a bow, tuck the loops back into the laces and pull my wool tights over the top. I’m in.

I exhale and look up for just a moment. One more skate to go.

During summers at the neighborhood pool, I jealously eye my school friends’ feet. They look so normal. Like a baby’s foot. Not deformed like mine that have basically grown into the shape of these boots, rather than the boots flexing to meet me.

I have been conditioned to understand that this grit is part of the sport. It starts here, off the ice, from the alarm next to my bed ringing at 5 a.m. and my mom driving me 30 minutes to the rink in the dark each morning. The nights of off-ice conditioning in our living room – I never knew someone could hate jumping rope so much. The relief as my body shuts down on the pillow at 9:30 p.m., rather than staying up till 11, gabbing on the phone with friends or watching David Letterman.

And now it’s 5:40 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Five minutes until I need to be on ice for figures, 45 minutes of drilling on a precise figure 8 etched into the ice with my scribe. Then an hour of freestyle and I’ll quick-change in the car to get to 7th grade in time for first period, squeezing in a meal and last minute homework too. Most days it’s a full day of school followed by a couple more hours in the rink in the late afternoon. In the middle of it all there’s cheerleading, the school play and dance classes. Every minute accounted for, every minute requiring my focus simply to satisfy the facets of responsibility in my middle-school life.

These solitary moments of wrestling with my boots are a meditation, a grounding routine of preparation. The same steps every day. No chit chat. Not even the sun coming up to join me just yet. Just grind, practice, routine. These formidable years of routine become so engrained in me that my entire life I will need this quiet intensity of practice in one form or another simply to show up as human for the rest of the day.

Showing up. In a sport that places you alone in the arena for the whole world to see your soar or fall, showing up has a whole different meaning. We train in community, with coaches guiding and family cheering, but on that ice it’s just a battle within.

Opening the heavy double doors to the rink, the whoosh of cold air hits me. How do they make it feel like the wind is blowing when you are actually inside? Fresh air, but not fresh at all. I would grow up to always love that first feeling of the cold air on my face when I step outside. A little voice inside, to this day, activates.

At 12 years old, something clicks as I step onto that rink with the cold air against my skin, my tiny 4 ft 9 in frame filling the oval. My arms span and my blade glides, my head held high, energetically connected to every person in the stands. The adrenaline of pressure buoys me.

The ice is clean, glistening and smooth, with a thin layer of water floating atop. I feel a pang of guilt as I step my blade onto it and muss up the perfection with the lines left behind from the glide of my skate.

Lifting my leg back and to the side, I make my first stride out onto the rink. Some skaters step out with small, swift movements to shake into the gracefulness. I’ve always arced into it. I fan out my wingspan, stretching my arms and flexing my ribcage, feeling into my hips, my groin, pressing my quadricep muscles into my legs as I point my right leg out, and then my left, eventually making a strong lap around the rink. With each stroke, each cross, I come deeper and deeper into the power of my body and my presence.

On this ice, my small body is expansive. When I’m in my flow, there is no boundary between my heart and boards, no space between my soul and the person sitting in the rear most seat in the stands.

But when I seem at war with my body – tormenting it to twist, turn or leap into some crazy configuration, it is actually a lonely conversation within my mind. My mind, I learn, is the true muscle of sport.

This ice and I have a love/hate relationship if I’m to be honest. It is the ground upon which I seem to float in glory, and it is the hard, unforgiving tormentor with its slap against my thigh, my back, my butt when I fall. This rink… it leaves a mark inside and out.

A mark my pre-teen self is only beginning to understand.