icarus | Ice Skating last weekend.

Still sick, still spamming. *g*

Skating last week.

It's very different watching skating in person. The presence and charisma of these performers – and they are performers – really doesn't come across on TV.

Todd Elderidge is completely different in person. Frankly, I've always thought of him as a rather boring (and slightly geeky) skater. I figured he was popular largely because he was such a nice guy.

Nuh-uh.

In person, wow. His presence fills every square inch of that ice. There's almost a cube of presence. He's powerful and commanding. As Scott Hamilton said at the 2002 Olympics, laughing, "Todd Elderidge just owns that ice." I've met very few people like that, whose charisma fills up the space and you can't watch anything else at the same time you almost can't see them because there's just so much of them everywhere. My mother tells me Bette Midler's like that.

I learned how very hard these jumps are. Even the best skaters in the world miss jumps, and not just under the pressure of competition. If they're focused too much on the performance or make one slip – bump, down they go. A lot of the world class skaters missed a jump here and there.

And then there was Ilia Kulik. As light as a dragonfly in the air. And note perfect, every time.

I always loved the performance aspect of his skating. He's such an artist and obviously loves to choreograph unusual routines. But what I didn't know was that he could fly. You could see every turn of his jumps because he was up there so long, in slow motion. He made it look easy, effortless, like he belonged in the sky and was just coming down to visit us from time to time. He's Peter Pan without strings.

He did "Too Darned Hot" which is a cool routine but he seemed a little bored with it. So while it was perfect, it just didn't have fire. His later routine was less artful but featured more jumps and I had a feeling it was music he picked, because the music sucked but he was much present and obviously having more fun. He reminded me of a kid showing off his tricks on the swing set to a crowd.

Pelletier (of the Canadian Seles and Pelletier) is a joy to watch. He's so boyish and energetic, a really powerful and precise skater. He's solid. I always thought he seemed a little stiff on TV, but in person that stiffness comes across as a sportsman-like strength, like he's the kind of guy who'd be batting a soccer ball off his head in an alternate universe. Very different.

Alexei Yagudin is sex on ice.

He did a fast flamenco routine that, oh my god, I can't believe they had any ice left afterwards. He's steamy and hot, and he practically makes out with the audience. His presence fills the stadium and you kind of feel like you just cheated on your boyfriend (and don't really regret it) when he's done. *swoon* He has a rock star quality to him. Look out. This is the sort of skater who'll have groupies. (I'm now convinced that Plushenko's "Sex Bomb" routine is deliberately mocking his long-time rival, Yagudin. It's just too dead-on.)

I didn't pay as much attention to the women skaters as I did to the men (of course) but there was one woman who just… gave… so much of herself to the audience. Her performance was almost naked, though not in a literal sense, where you saw right into her, even if you didn't really know what you were seeing.

But this doesn't capture what Scott Hamilton created with Stars on Ice. It's worth seeing because Scott breaks up teams, mixing people together in new combinations, has Russians skating with Americans and rivals paired up. The point of Stars on Ice isn't cheesy (which I thought it would be). The point is for them to skate in a non-competitive environment, just for the joy of it. They add little insights into the lives of the skaters for the fans (and mock the assumption of the fans that they all live for skating and do nothing else ;), and little bits about their personalities (Jamie Seles was teased for being an endless talker), and how much the women love the costumes – and how much the men hate the costumes (Todd Elderidge said, "It's in my contract: No fuchsia, and no animal prints"). He still won the ugly costume award anyway, brown and orange, yikes, but when he skates who looks at the costume?

Before a baseball routine the boys talked about how they dreamed of being "a race car driver" and "a soccer player" and "a quarterback," though Yagudin said, "I just lived day by day, didn't think too much about the future." (Apparently he had it rough.) The guys said to Yagudin, "Awww…" shaking their heads.

Those of you who enjoyed "Cowboys on Ice" and the guys' virtual skating lap dance? They did it again in the "60s" number where everyone sat on picnic blankets and skated and jumped in twos and threes to a medley of Janis Joplin songs and "Let The Sun Shine" (you couldn't tell who was who through all the fringe and wiggery).

Interestingly, watching through binoculars was much like watching on TV. You saw the moves but you didn't get the impact of their personalities. So I definitely want to watch without the lens at the Nationals at least part of the time. But even from far away (I had sky high seats to this event, too) the stadium was small enough that I could still see everything. In Spokane the stadium shouldn't be much bigger.

Anyhow,

wildernessguru's sister just called with news of his mom, and WG shouted "Two weeks!" and then "Well, how would they know? They're not doctors" and "I'd better get down there soon, then" and "Oh, god, poor thing." So, um, there's news about his mom.

ETA: Okay, the doctor still gives her six months or less. The hospice people who are now coming over say that based on her color and their experience, she could have as little as two weeks. Naturally, WG's sister is not recommending we fly down (Icarus quietly strangles her) since WG had such a wonderful Christmas visit with his mom. Screw that. His sister is the one who wants everything to be perfect and smiley and happy -- that's not our priority. We just want to see her.

ETA 2: Correcting ~~bad guesses~~ misspellings of names. Oops.

Current Mood: snuffly and sick

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

electricandroid.livejournal.com

BIG BIG BIG BIG HUGS TO WG. Give him a massive hug from me and tell him if there is anything I can do (which is unlikely but still) just to drop me a line!

Skating sounds awesome. Seriously. So... more out of bounds?

From:

Students? I like to think of them as "test subjects".....

Ice Skating last weekend.

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