Steven Helmer Publications

We have a full day planned tomorrow. My daughter has a skating competition down in McFarland, WI and we are pretty much planning on spending the whole day there. Her first event is around 10:30, meaning we have to be there at least an hour earlier than that. Her final even isn't until almost 4. There's a pretty big gap in between so I might drive over to Costco for lunch and to do some shopping. This will be her final competition until May. Ice show rehearsals start next week so I'm going to let her concentrate on that. She'll still have one 30-minute session per week with her coach so she can keep her programs memorized and practice for her next US Figure Skating test session. That doesn't mean my wife and I will get a break, however. Our other daughter has two dance competitions coming up, one this month and one next month.

This is something I mentioned in a comment on another post but thought I would take a few minutes to elaborate on. My daughter, as I mentioned in that post, had a fall during skating practice Wednesday night and, as part of that fall, hit her head on the ice. Fortunately, she suffered no (apparent) long-term injury from that. She had a bump on her head but has shown no signs of a concussion from her fall. But, the incident, along with the fact it is the second time she has hit her head on the ice, did prompt me to order her a Crasche band (a head band designed to protect skaters' heads) immediately after. As I placed my order, I was reminded of a question I asked myself a while ago, why doesn't U. S. Figure Skating require all skaters to have some sort of head protection? Image courtesy of Pixabay My daughter has been involved with the sport for a few years now and, from watching her and the other skaters, I've learned to appreciate just how challenging and dan...