Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Thats right everyone, synchro competition season has finally arrived. California Gold made our debut this past week at Anaheim Ice, with our Senior, Intermediate and Nuggets (beginner) teams skating. My life experiences with synchro competitions have overwhelmingly involved slushy buses and cramped indoor spaces. Competing in southern California in November is anything but that. Teams sat outside as they prepared for competition, complete with lawn chairs and inflatable mattresses.

It was an incredibly long day for the senior team. We arrived at our home rink in Artesia at 5:45 am and didn't leave the rink in Anaheim until 7:00 pm. We had our own practice and two official monitoring sessions, along with competition and preparation. We got to watch our intermediate team pull out a great performance to, The Princess and The Frog, and take home a silver medal and chant for the adorable Nuggets skating to, The Cat in the Hat. There were also long periods of doing hair etc, where I felt the team was able to bond for the first time.

As I said in my previous blog, this team comes from all over, literally and figuratively, and many of us still don't know each other well. But this past weekend gave us the chance to be silly and chat as we showed off our skills. It made me think about how competitions, in many ways, define a team. A team is who they are at a competition, when a lot is at stake and excitement is high. Those are the memorable moments.

This team has yet to travel together, but based on the tone set this weekend, I look forward to it greatly. We have only been together a short time, but already we have come so far. In Anaheim, we weren't competing against anyone for the short program we put out, but we took it seriously none the less. The skate wasn't perfect, however, we can now see more clearly what we need to do. A memorable moment from the competition for me was getting my hair piece stuck to a teammates tights as I ducked under her leg in our spiral. A synchro snapshot for my memoirs, good for retelling, not ideal for scores

Written by:
Emmeline Weinert - Senior Blog Writer
Senior Team Member 2010-Present
Co- Captain 2011-2013
USFS DREAM Skater 2011-2013 

:)

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