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| Me at the rink with my daughter Lexie back in 2012. |
NOTE: As explained in this post from September 2021, State of the Skate is now State of the SkateMUSIC and has moved to a new location! Here's the link:
Hey State of the Skate-ers,
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? The last skating-related thing I wrote about was 2021 Worlds, and U.S. Nationals ahead of that. Otherwise, this space appears to have been overtaken by a very enthusiastic fan of some couple on some show about a “good” doctor (wink). (Hint-- it was me)
Part of the reason for my lack of skating posts is easy to attribute to COVID and the lockdowns, postponements, and cancellations that have permeated just about every non-essential activity in life. But a bigger part of it came from me taking a harder look at this blog I started way back in 2008 (!) and wondering if I really wanted to keep it going or not.
(It turns out that I DO, so if that floats your boat, keep reading.)
State of the Skate has been a part of four different Winter Olympic cycles thus far. I’m not sure how many blogs and/or podcasts (and all platforms related to those two) have come and gone in that time! But of those currently active-- including Jackie Wong’s Rocker Skating, Dave Lease’s This and That, and Ryan Stevens’ Skate Guard-- the most interesting ones benefit from the same things as ever: a strong voice, a unique niche, or both.
So the basic question I’ve pondered is… do I want to continue State of the Skate as what it’s primarily been for the past several years? Competition previews, predictions, and post-mortems?
I could do that. But like other aspects of present-day figure skating such as coaching dramas, COVID conflicts, and an obscene number of athlete assault and abuse cases (because even one such case is one too many), I know there are plenty of folks who cover these territories and do it much better than I can.
Meanwhile, over the past couple years my mind has continued to drift back to a post I wrote in early 2018 called “The ‘Carmen Karaoke’ Theory” which sought to explain why skaters continued to skate to excerpts from Bizet’s opera Carmen ad nauseum… and why, even in the advent of vocals being permitted in singles and pairs competitions, Carmen remained a steadfast choice (with vocals or without).
Fun fact about that post-- I tried to sell it as a stand-alone article to a number of different online publications, hoping that 2018 Olympic fever would propel it to bigger audiences. When I was unsuccessful in that attempt, it ended up on my blog in the midst of all activities Pyeongchang.
So while I didn’t get where I wanted to with that article, it definitely sparked my interest in writing about the music that drives this sport. For whether programs are created from a coach’s CD collection, an athlete’s favorite film soundtrack, or an engaging-but-obscure cut that began making the rounds a few years ago, every skater uses music.
And… there are often stories behind the music itself. Stories about the composers, the source material, the inspiration-- it depends, of course, on the kind of music involved.
So much music! So many stories!
Someone who knows a little about skating should try and tell some of them!
🙋🙋🙋
That’s where I’m going with this…. State of the Skate is becoming… (Should there be a drumroll? Pretend there’s a drumroll)
State of the SkateMusic!
And…
You’ll find State of the SkateMusic on my brand new website… hopefully as soon as next week!
Watch this space for updates on when it goes live… I’ll get into more detail about the new format at that time.
In the meantime, thanks SO MUCH for reading up to now, and I hope you’ll continue to find yourself reading in the future!
UPDATE: State of the SkateMUSIC is now live... check it out at this link:
https://impala-cuboid-xsgf.squarespace.com/stateofskatemusic
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