Eastern European countries immediately began involving formal dance training into the development of their skaters.
The video that is part of today's story shows several skaters especially the last one to appear, Ms. Fairburn, who is a flowing graceful performer. But watch the video closely and you will see moves that we identify with Russian skaters and every female skater has to master the Elizabeth Manley spin as you will see three skaters working on it in the video.
Unlike team sports like hockey, soccer and baseball, skaters have to tackle the mastering of skills, deal with artistic style and polish up a performance so they can go before an arena full of people and fall on the butt and with a smile get up and carry on. Skating is difficult and involves enormous expenditure in time and money, all of it to conquer one's own demands to seek perfection. If you have a skater in your world give them what they need most, not pointers and criticism but encouragement and your support no matter what.
This year's school goes for three weeks and offers more than three hours of ice time a day, solid coaching and dry land training. Working on their sport in a collaborative spirit with a concentrated time frame offers each participant the start they need on the coming rigorous season of hard work and competition.