Steven Helmer Publications

  My oldest daughter started ice skating a little over 10 years ago and, this weekend, will be participating in her final ice show. It's been a long journey. She started out skating because of a free lesson, eventually started competing as a soloist and is now a junior coach with hopes of continuing to coach when she goes to college next fall. There have been ups and downs with this. She suffered two concussions and likely developed her asthma because of spending so much time in ice rinks. She also lost a few months (and one ice show) thanks to COVID and, for a while, had to learn how to skate while wearing a mask (which, ironically, helped her asthma). However, overall, I think it was an activity/sport that helped shape the person she has become and, while it's not the most affordable sport out there, it is one I would recommend to other parents.

My youngest daughter used to skate with her sister but, since she was also taking dance lessons and was on the dance team, was starting to get a bit burned out and has taken an 18-month break from it. Her dance schedule has changed a bit, however, and she is going to go back out on the ice this fall. This is kind of exciting because their ice time together was one of the few times I could watch my daughters not argue with each other and I could tell my youngest missed being in the ice show last spring. The last time she skated, she also competed in some solo competitions (she never finished lower than third). I'm guessing that won't be the case this time around and she'll just take the classes.

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...