Reflections on Ice

I’ve been in love with figure skating for over 40 years. I started skating at age 12 with group lessons and then semi private lessons with a friend. What I lacked in talent, I made up for in enthusiasm. I was always fascinated with choreography, and I used to love to dream up and choreograph programs in my head to my favorite pieces of music, which of course included all sorts of moves I could not actually do, but it became a fun pastime to play out the routines in my head, with only my imagination to guide me. Although I stopped skating for decades, I still often choreograph  programs in my head, sometimes to calm my mind as a way to fall asleep. I began skating again as an older adult when I learned of Elin’s IceFlow class, and I now get to experience some of that same joy I remember as a child.

I remember seeing Sandra Bezic’s work in early Stars on Ice shows, like Old Friends/Bookends and feeling like she had taken choreography to a new level. And although certain programs have become iconic and are stunning, I have not seen anything that moved me so powerfully since, until I came across Ice Dance International (IDI) and the groundbreaking artistic skating coming from this organization. Last fall, in what I now describe as the “best date night ever”, my husband and I drove almost 2 hours to a tiny rink in Dover, NH to see their show, where I first saw the program choreographed by Cindy Stuart called Experience starring Kurt Browning, Alissa Czisny, and an ensemble of extraordinarily talented competitive skaters. It was “breathlessly beautiful”, moving me to tears, and I experienced themes of love and loss and the passage of time which spoke powerfully to me. From there, I got to meet IDI’s founding artistic director Douglas Webster (and even skate with him a few times at community events). IDI’s shows feature a small, talented cast of former elite competitive skaters and each piece they produce takes the audience on a theatrical journey. The pieces are pushing the boundaries of artistic skating, weaving story through movement and shape and imagery. 

The other night, I was able to have a community zoom call with Cindy and Douglas where Cindy shared her vision of the program Experience. She affirmed her vision as the same as what I felt viscerally when I first saw it live, themes of connection, and then when those connections slowly diminish and disconnect. 

As a writer, I am always trying to faithfully give expression to that elusive and shining something that is always just below the surface. Yet one of the paradoxes of being human is that no one can see or comprehend all of it. Each of us must discover the teachers that speak truth to us – the ones we can hear. I believe that we pursue our curiosity and passion and suffering in an effort to uncover our teachers. One of my many teachers is art, in all of its forms, but quite powerfully through artistic expression in movement and skating.There is something humbling that happens when the muses in our lives are able to connect to our raw vulnerability. 

The piece reminded me that it is okay to connect, and then to disconnect, to remember and then to forget. That there is a place for every moment in every season. It is part of the journey. It is also okay to feel a little broken by life from time to time. Relationships have a natural course and pattern and rhythm. They naturally blossom and flourish and then wither and die, as we connect and disconnect. We lean on each other, then back away. We think we can make it on our own, and then later nakedly need each other again. We know that as sacred as meaningful community is, it cannot last.  Eventually, communities disperse, not because there is necessarily something wrong, but because everything is impermanent. However regardless of how long or short, wide, or deep a true community might be, its impact is timeless. In the end, the goal is not necessarily to make moments last forever, but instead to inhabit them as fully as possible for as long as possible, and then to carry their legacy forward. There is ultimately a peace in that. I see it at the end of the program as Alissa, alone, looks back with gratitude, and then with love.

The piece moved across the ice in patterns that emerged and re-emerged, much like a murmuration of starlings, reminding me that through my breakdowns and rearrangements, still everything is close at hand. We sometimes just need to recognize it, befriend it, love it, and embrace it. 

Photo Credit: Tina Tyan

I haven’t even been aware of them for very long, but IDI is something special. Douglas Webster hopes to create more artistic opportunities for skaters emerging from the competitive world as well as create community, and push the boundaries of artistic skating. IDI’s programs include classes, performances, creative community outreach, and one-on-one skating opportunities for those with disabilities. 

At a time when we are being buffeted by so much loss and so much divisiveness, where we feel the burden of too much bad news, it is good to stay in touch with the parts and people in our lives that are “breathlessly beautiful.” It’s good to experience the moments of grace and wonder, where our hearts can expand. But, it’s just as  important to be present to the sorrows and the losses. Experiencing both helps ground us in what lightens and softens our lives, the small kindnesses and moments that remind us that our world is still an expression of a profound love and that if we pause enough listen, if we attend with our hearts, there is always an ancient song that leaves us breathless.

If you would like to follow IDI, see more of their performances and learn about their community outreach, visit their website here or like them on Facebook here. You can also see other amazing IDI repertory, including brilliant pieces by Douglas Webster, Benoit Richaud, Kurt Browning, and Cindy Stuart. Don’t forget to check out their fun and creative community events and classes, as IDI offers both the experience and development of skating that is non-competitive, inclusive and community-focused, and hopes to share the joy of flight and flow with all. And if you loved Experience as I do, check out a video on the Making of Experience, which highlights some of the creative process.

It’s worth repeating. Here it is again. Take 5 minutes and revel in the beauty of this piece.

Last night I attended “Be Here. Be You!”, a celebratory skating and dancing “fun-raiser” supporting the LGBTQ+ community. It had been a minute since I was on the ice, but I found myself moving and gliding and celebrating with hundreds of skaters and dancers, alongside some superstar Olympians, as diverse and colorful as our lives. At some point, maybe it was after a brief interchange with Olympic pairs skater Randy Gardner, that I found myself thinking about Nana.

Every Sunday growing up, whether we wanted to or not, we spent the day in a row home in Philadelphia, PA with my grandparents and “Nana”, my great-grandmother. To be honest, I used to dread it. It was Sunday and I wanted to go to the pool. I wanted to go ride bikes. I want to go play with friends, but it was not negotiable. Nana, my great grandmother, lived with my grandparents in the basement of the row home that my grandparents converted into a little apartment for her. Nana had almost no formal education. She didn’t talk much. She learned to sew in a sweatshop after arriving in the U.S. as a teenager by escaping the Russian pogroms. I remember she would sit and sew and smile. She smiled all day long. One day, she just simply said, “Would you like to come sit quietly with me?”  I’m not sure I wanted to at the time. I was hoping Poppop would take us for a walk in the city and play Red Light Green Light. But, I did it.  Against my kid instincts, there was a part of me that was drawn to her gentle and peaceful spirit. I sat in her sewing chair, and she placed her hands on my head and said, “Quiet here—” she stood behind me and then she moved her hands down to my chest and said, “—so you can be here.” And then we sat in silence. Together. It was all she said. It was all she ever said.

It wasn’t until she passed that the immensity of her gift to me was understood. She left with me a legacy of deep, intuitive care about people that I feel I have for the people in my life today. She left me with a legacy of quiet strength. I have it because she modeled it for me. Her gift to me was her legacy of kindness and the value of deep stillness.

And I realized, I was witnessing legacy-making right at that moment. I scanned the arena and found Tenley Albright at the boards, 1956 Olympic champion and 1952 Olympic silver medalist, beaming, as she always is, watching her daughter, Elin Schrann, founder of Joy Skate Productions, and brainchild behind the event. Also on the ice were her entire family, her husband and three children, and of course we were skating in the Tenley E. Albright Performance Center!  Certainly, Tenley started a legacy of skating, but that’s not the legacy I’m referring to. Elin, who is passionate about diversity and inclusion, created this event at one of the most well-known skating arenas in the country, honoring LGBTQ+ people, promoting inclusion, spreading joy, showcasing the talent and gifts of all people, and celebrating the freedom to be ourselves.  

Tenley Albright, 1956 Olympic gold medalist, receiving a hug from daughter Elin Schran. Photo Credit: Katie Malone-Smith

Collectively, we are feeling the world as we know it shifting under our feet. For the first time in centuries we’re facing a common threat globally. Personally, I have felt the disequilibrium I think we all share and feel like I sometimes am just not sure how to simply make it through the day.  It’s as hard to avoid the contagion of fear as it is the contagion of the virus.

Parker J. Palmer has an amazing definition of hope — it's

 “to hold in creative tension all that is with all that should and could be and then, every day take some action to narrow the distance between the two.”  

Read that twice…it helps. 

So how do we hold onto hope?  I have always found hope in both sharing and receiving our gifts.  I believe all of us have  gifts of creativity and love. And so I am focusing on how I can give and marveling in the amazing ways others are giving.

My daughter’s voice teacher switched to online voice lessons, but also decided to start online karaoke for all her students.  32 voice students belting out their Broadway hits from their bedrooms. How cool is that?  My amazing gym started live recordings of workouts, and their dedication to our fitness is downright inspiring.  Musician friends started recording a song a day as gifts to the world connecting us all through online watch parties.  And Elin didn’t miss a beat transferring her Ice Flow class to something distantly accessible - SockFlow! 

So, this afternoon I found myself connecting to my breath by sliding around my kitchen in my socks. I just cleared a little floor space (not much is needed actually), put on my fuzzy socks, and focused on my breathing. Elin demonstrates each step and then we all do the step together in whatever way feels comfortable to each of us. And you don't have to be a skater to do it!  I glided and swirled, inhaled and exhaled, laughed and may or may not have tripped over the cat.  

We can’t see what’s coming but we breathe through that. I was reminded again that all is well in this moment.  I gently heard the truth that every exhalation is an invitation to soften, release and let go.

Creativity, whatever form it takes, is less about creating something out of nothing and more about being in relationship and conversation with life and the unknown.

This is the purpose of all gifts  - to carry our grief, our joy, our humanness and our wonder before all that is unknown. 

And the heroes will be all of us, as one.

Here are YouTube links to Eps 1, 2, and 3:

Episode #1

https://youtu.be/GzQqbxn2uSU 

Episode #2

https://youtu.be/ylzqbZ3_8Us

Episode #3

https://youtu.be/OhHpBZ2Idp4

Be well and safe, my friends.

I just returned from three days at Riverwalk Resort at Loon Mountain for their annual Adult Skating Camp with coaches Elin Schran, John Mucko, Sean Marshinki, PT Loni Rodriguez, off-ice trainer Pippa Teague, and special guest coach, World Champion Randy Gardner. 

I made the decision to go only a week or so before the event. It was a risk. I didn’t know anyone except Elin, and I knew many skaters knew each other and had been skating together for many years.  But I went anyway, not really knowing what to expect.  

It was a glorious three days of community building, camaraderie, masterful group and private coaching, wonderful meals, an epic party...

hot tubbing, and of course the experience of skating on a magical outdoor rink at the foot of the mountain. 

Each one of these coaches brought something valuable and unique and personal to the experience, whether it was technique, developing a program, finding inspiration through nature, connection and transition, or being fully present in the process. 

But it was John Mucko’s message to us on the last day that seemed to encapsulate the weekend.  A master choreographer, John invited us to take advantage of the whole ice as our canvas. Although it is tempting to stay in the corner working on your edges, or practicing that new spin or jump, John consistently challenged us to put ourselves out there, to take up all of the ice we are given, exploring the space around us, use our bodies to experiment with the negative space, and to remind us to “get out of the corner.”

We all experimented with this over the course of several days, and the coaches gave us exercises to explore ourselves on the ice, including guided skating with our eyes closed, improv skating, and developing our own program as we interpreted the music with our bodies. 

And I realized that the weekend really was about risk and “getting out of the corner” in all areas of our lives, both on and off the ice. We’d all like a guarantee before making a decision or taking a risk, but I believe the irony is that taking the risk is what opens us to ourselves.  

John challenged us to get out of our self-built cocoon.  We all get very habituated and attached to our particular familiar skin—our cocoon. Every one of us. It is part of our evolution. We develop our cocoon and we are attached to it. Most of the time, we are trying to get what we want and avoid what we don’t want as we try to hold on to security and comfort and push away fear or pain.  But the more we risk, the more we can not only see the goodness in ourselves and each other, but we then invite it out. To live permeably is to be open-hearted and audacious, to risk showing up as our truest self, and embracing a willingness to be astonished.

In this part of the country, winter is a time of dying off. We look around and it seems like there is nothing happening. And yet, what is resting just below the surface, gathering energy, integration, grounding and courage? What is still stunning and shimmering in the frosty air? What is already moving but still unseen on the surface of things? What can I see more clearly? In the winter I find myself drawn to do what the natural world is modeling, I sense that my spirit is connected to the wheel of the natural world. But in the busy days of my life, it is easy to disconnect from the idea that what is happening in nature, is also happening within me.

So today. What would happen if we created even just a little open space to remember how our spirits are connected to the wheel of the natural world? What does it feel like to embrace the whole of the ice, the whole of our lives, what is resting or gone, what is shimmering and luminous, what is coming into clearer focus, and what newness is waiting for us on the other side of winter?

Last week I got to attend the Kendall Square Holiday Ice Show and Community Skate in Cambridge.  As a skating fan most of my life, I’ve had the gift of being able to attend many ice shows, from local productions like Skating Club of Boston’s Ice Chips to large national tours like Stars on Ice. I love ice shows, and frequently find myself caught up in the beauty, mesmerized by the music and sounds of the blades as they grind into the ice, and energized by the power and speed of the athletes.  So why was this show so singularly  inspiring?  

Produced by Joy Skate Productions, Elin’s company, the Joy Skate Productions show left me feeling joyous, energized, and deeply connected.  Spectators sat and stood around the rink outside. There were few chairs compared to the numbers who arrived to experience the show, but I saw lots of adults graciously give their chairs to kids or allow them to stand in front of them to get a glimpse of the beauty.  Kindness abounded in the audience as strangers shivered together in the cold and chatted about their relationships to the skaters or to skating in general. Smiles were abundant.  I glanced over and noticed Elin’s mother, Tenley Albright (1956 Olympic champion, and 1952 Olympic silver medalist) in the audience and then noticed Elin’s daughter was also skating.  Three generations of skaters, all with their own unique styles and expressions.  

The skaters were all amazing of course, and each skater was showcased beautifully.  The choreography was brilliant and seeing Nancy Kerrigan skate after all these years was a treat. (She seriously has not aged).  But none of that was as powerful as what came next. After the show, they announced a community skate -- wait for it -- with the performers!   And here’s what it looked like.  Performers holding hands with little kids, clapping at their attempts to step across the ice, photos and selfies, high fives, holding hands, hugs, and big smiles. This was more than community; it was fellowship, and it was something I have never seen in decades of attending ice shows.  It didn’t matter what we did for a living or what we accomplished. We didn’t even know each other’s names. But it was a party on the ice that day, and we all celebrated together. 

We are becoming increasingly aware that in our busy, agitated world, disconnection from the people around us is an epidemic that hurts our well-being on all levels. I read recently, that if you place two living heart cells, taken from different people, in a petri dish, they will, over time, find a third common beat. That’s incredible.  I believe we  have an innate call to find each other and connect.  Hardship makes us forget our impulse to join,  but is actually when community is most important.  

A large component of Ice Flow includes community.  We breathe together - inhale, exhale - before each pattern.  We move in concert with each other.  We encourage each other.  We laugh often. We sometimes stumble. We lean in together  and we glide.  Elin and all the skaters at the Joy Skate Productions show created a community that day and that is no small thing.  Perhaps, the power of community comes down to this: skating, gliding, stumbling, tripping, encouraging, laughing, getting up and skating again through all life has to offer - surviving the falls, holding hands, breathing, and teaching each other as we help each other up, again and again and again. 

I’m not good enough.   There I said it.

I’m not a good enough writer to leave my paid job and become the next Mary Oliver, but I’m writing anyway.  I’m not a good enough artist to draw my own mandalas and sell them, but I’m creating them anyway.  And I’m not a good enough skater to win competitions (or let’s get real, to even compete at all), but I’m there most Friday mornings at Ice Flow class doing it anyway.

Today in class, Elin described and demonstrated our next pattern, and, as she often does, suggested a way to make it simpler.  My first instinct was to go for the harder option -- to challenge myself, to improve, to take risks, strive for the next level, go big or go home.  But then, I gave myself permission to not do that.  And guess what, it felt wonderful.  

As a child learning how to skate, I practiced my basic skills, moving my body in challenging and unfamiliar ways. I practiced until the edges began to feel familiar, like friends with whom I was having a wonderful conversation. I practiced because of the extraordinary joy I felt holding the edge, or jumping and spinning, or hearing the deep, grinding sound of my blade biting the ice.  I practiced because I wanted to explore the shape of the music I carried within me. I practiced because what I made in practice was beautiful in and of itself, and because I could feel the practice expanding me, helping me to sing the song my heart so longed to sing.  I practiced because I enjoyed the ride.

This class can mean different things for each of us. For me, it is my respite and a way to return to the conversation with my childhood friend. And so it’s ok if I never get that back inside double rocker twizzle phizzle.  It really is, although it sure is beautiful to watch Elin do it. Because whether it’s coming through a visual art, through music, through poetry, through dance, or the art form of our lives — every time we speak we are putting a certain spirit into the world; every time, every encounter. 

Every skater falls in practice, often, and everyone who competes, on occasion, falls in competition. When they do, they're alone on the ice, under the lights, in front of a panel of judges, in an arena full of spectators.  And while there are countless life lessons in working hard, persistence, grit, and resilience, Brené Brown took another look at resiliency and conveyed the sentiment:

“If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall; this is the physics of vulnerability.”  

I love this quote, because while most people focus on the benefits of working towards mastery, she draws me to the natural process itself, and mastery is not even mentioned.  This is how IceFlow works. When I first met Elin, she said “No one is watching you. No one is comparing or judging your skating. This is about you and your process and your breath.”  That’s huge. Where else do we feel so free to go at our pace?

It’s taken me a while to ignore the fact that I am one of the least proficient skaters in my class and I love that I am learning that it doesn’t matter.  And I am learning to apply this to my inner work as well as my outer work.

I am taking the back inside three turn on two feet right now.  I can do it on one foot only if I go really slowly and focus on checking my arms, and (as my friend Maya gently instructed me) to try bending my knees up and down on the turn. But it will be a while before I can do it effortlessly.  Even so, I can laugh at my attempts and feel encouraged by the kindness of the group as I flail like a drunken penguin. Our IceFlow class continuously reminds me that it’s ok to go slowly, and that our vulnerability is not a weakness, but is really the underlying, ever present and abiding undercurrent of our natural state. 

With inner work it is important for me to give myself the same kind of grace I would with outer work.  To be able to breath and even laugh at myself when well...here I am again.  We are all getting there, but the way is rarely linear; it takes practice. 

In my own life, it is so easy to get stuck when I have failed to reach my own highest ideals for myself or when I repeat some of the same patterns of thinking and reacting.  I feel ashamed. My inner critic gets very loud and unnecessarily mean. But what would it be like if we could always feel welcomed and encouraged, regardless of our attainment of the goal?  What would it be like if we all acknowledged our lives as a creative process? We get it right, we get it wrong, we circle around and try again, we learn something and rejoice, we forget something and come back and start again.  What if we all knew deep in our hearts that even though we all break and make mistakes, we are always mysteriously more than what is broken? Indeed, that we somehow grow from the soil of our mistakes.

Question: What would it be like to give yourself a little grace when you had to relearn or practice an inner point of growth?  How would things change if you gave yourself over to the process without impatience and adding a bit more compassion and humor?

If you’ve taken Elin’s IceFlow class, you know she teaches the pattern by both describing and showing us. The technique has importance to her, and learning the edge patterns correctly is certainly part of the class, but almost as an afterthought, she will frequently add, “or do whatever feels good to you”.  We all know the paradox right?  We know that freedom comes from discipline. We know that every good teacher and every good parent has somehow learned to negotiate the paradox of freedom and discipline. We want our children and our students to become people who think and live freely, yet at the same time we know that helping them become free requires us to impose structure in certain situations or learn the rules in order to play the game. When I watch some of the masters, I know they got there from countless hours of tracing patterns on a patch of ice with control and precision.

But it struck me that freedom comes from more than mastery. As I think about this paradox in my own life, I wonder is it just discipline that is important? Or is there something more to attaining freedom?  

Elin certainly has mastered many aspects of the discipline of figure skating, but more than that, she seems to have both a relationship with the ice, and a freedom with it.  She talks about bending and leaning into the ice. Yep ice.  You know...that frozen, hard surface?  She said “no matter how hard the ice, you can always lean into it.” I love this.

You may have heard of Barbara McClintock, who was groundbreaking in the field of genetic science, where she studied cytogenetics (using maize), earning her the Nobel Prize in science.  Later in her life, she was asked, “How do you do great science?”   McClintock, who was one of the most precise empirical observers and one of the most analytic, logical thinkers that we have ever had in American science, thought for a moment and answered,  “When you do science, you somehow have to have a feeling for the organism.”  

McClintock, who had worked with ears of corn all her life, then said “Really, all I can tell you about doing great science is that you somehow have to learn to lean into the kernel.”

Here was a scientist—Nobel Prize winning, responsible for the genetic breakthroughs with which we now live, in the late 20th century, a heroine of her own arena—who practiced the highest form of love in the doing of science itself.

Maybe freedom comes from the relationship also.  Perhaps it also involves exploring a sense of the sacred in the knowing, teaching, and learning process.  And while the discipline, practice and attention are all essential, if we don’t respect the inwardness of the things we study, we then do not respect the inward learnings that those things have for us.   Exercising our gifts and passions will exercise the heart and make us feel alive.  It doesn't matter if we perform our gift well or awkwardly, if we're skillful or clumsy, if we make great strides or fail.  Aliveness is not a judge in a skating competition.  

We drift in and out of knowing our aliveness. Pain, worry, fear, and loss can muffle and confuse us. But finding our passions and working at them will bring us back alive. Just maybe the purpose of our gifts and passions is to exercise the heart into fully inhabiting its aliveness, work with what we're given, and stay in relationship -- to everything.

Elin calls it the patience exercise, but I think of it more as finding my center.  We begin by pushing off on one foot, gliding forward in a straight line and then at some point, we subtly lean in the direction of the skating foot and circle around until we find that true north again. Then we push off on the other foot and glide forward until our body naturally leans the other direction.

Each time, we seek out and return to our center, where we can always begin again, pushing straight forward in a smooth and clean glide. And it’s that push off, the sound of the blade on the ice, and the pure blade to ice connection that brings me back to myself every time.

We all have moments of clarity followed by times of confusion. We're awake and then we're numb. We're buoyant and then we're down. Just as we inhale and exhale constantly, our wakefulness ebbs and flows. The fact that we need to return to our center lets us know that we will naturally drift away. This drifting is part of being human, and so there is an ongoing need to find our way back to what matters.

The wakefulness and sleepiness, the agitation and calm, the joy and suffering we encounter, are continual. Our aim is to navigate them from a living center, the way you'd steer a boat at sea while balanced in its stable bottom.

As I lean left, I reflect that life is a creative process…we get it right, we get it wrong, we circle around and try again, we learn something and rejoice, we forget something and come back and start again.

I started to make a mental list of those things that realign me and help me center.  Watching Bec laugh at her favorite musical in the world, Something Rotten - that laugh - that untethered, unselfconscious, glorious laugh that makes my heart ache - within it the promise that hope and joy and freedom are waiting. Or when the notes from her piano open up inside my chest and push forward through a curtain of pain like an atmosphere rippling above a fire.  I exhale and almost weep with the joy in her upturned face, hands gripped on a boogie board, bearing before the fringe of white waves.  The way her fingers always know to wrap around and curl into mine when we lie in bed together. These moments center me. And when we’re moved to care and love, who we are extends into the world and strengthens our roots.

I’ve been thrown off course quite a bit these last few months, and as I take that push forward with my blade on my exhale, I am reminded that we can, at any moment, regain our footing through anything authentic.  But I also remember that sometimes it’s there, in those dark and twisted side avenues, that I find what I’ve been missing and I unlock what’s been there all this time.

“Wisdom requires a pause… I am here to remind you not to fear the pause… some of the most courageous people I know are scared of it, as I have been myself.”  — Alice Walker, Nobel Prize Winning Author of The Color Purple

I’m getting to know Elin, both as a teacher and as a person, which really is kind of one and the same. Joy glistens out of her very pores and radiates outward from her being. The other day, I skated out onto our IceFlow session and a friend excitedly whispered to me “the scarves….she has the scarves!”  

Wait, what? And I glanced over.  Indeed there were scarves. Oodles of them. And there was Elin gleefully tossing them into the air like a wood nymph. Today, we would be improvising, playing, experimenting, letting go of inhibitions, she explained. There we were - twirling, gliding, flowing, spiraling - leaving brightly colored trails.   “Toss it up but wait before catching it. See how long you can let it flutter down before you grab it.”  

The challenge was to make ourselves pause -- to take in the moment, to connect with our breath. And understand that it’s not only ok, but essential to pause sometimes, even if the scarves fall. It’s ok.

I started to think about the pausing. In a world that increasingly asks us to move faster, and do more to be effective, the idea that what we actually need to do every now and then is wait can seem counterintuitive.  But pausing can help us reconnect with the present moment.

Especially when we are caught up in striving and obsessing and leaning into the future, pausing enables us to reenter the mystery and vitality found only in here and now.

Here we were on the ice canvas - quite literally skating in the swirl of color.  I became aware that, left to our habits and patterns, we get caught up in the swirl of the world. But instead of creating the space we crave and need to tap into our deeper wisdom and guidance to help us make wise choices and stay centered, instead of seeing the beauty in the space around us, we fill up the space with all the people, projects and tasks constantly pulling at us.

A pause can be the difference between regret and trust. Between who you were and who you want to be. Between judgment and wonder. Between a response and a reaction. Between old patterns and new chapters. Between fear and courage. Between self love and self destruction. Between a fight and a conversation.

Tonight I looked up briefly at the driveway’s end and there - a milky swath of stars, reminding me of a lineage long forgotten. 

And I paused - because it is in these moments of pausing that we really touch into kind of a natural luminosity, presence, intelligence, and creativity. The pause actually creates a space for the light to comes through.

The well-known pianist, Arthur Rubenstein, was asked: “How do you handle the notes as well as you do?” And I loved his response. It was really immediate and passionate. He said, “I handle the notes no better than many others. But the pauses, ahh, that’s where the art resides.”

pause this moment and we can dance between the seconds on the clock.

-Tyler Knott Gregson

“What would you do if you weren't afraid?” ― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead 

Before I started the IceFlow class, it had been 13 years since I’d been on the ice, so now stepping out onto the ice still scares me a little. My natural instinct is to stiffen and I don’t trust my muscles to remember. I still find myself feeling shaky and tense. And nothing feels natural.  But as I continue moving and gliding across the ice I eventually become aware that it’s gotten easier.   My muscle memory takes over. My knees bend into the ice. I start to relax into the edges, trusting myself to take them deeper.  It’s the doing, the turning, the trusting, and the leaning in to the fear.  And although I have not yet in this class, I’m sure that eventually I will fall.  Of course, when we trip and fall, we learn soon enough that it’s always the leg that stiffens and resists that breaks. Often, our resistance only makes things worse.

As I deepen my edges, lean in, and relax into what is still feeling uncomfortable and scary, I am reminded of when Becca was 12 years old. We were on vacation in Mexico. She was relaxing and reading a book in the sun by the resort pool when a man approached us and casually asked if we were interested in a scuba diving experience.  Was I?  Um, no.  But then Bec chirped us and said “I am!”.  My immediate knee-jerk reaction was “not a chance”.   “Pleeeeeze!?!?”.  I looked at my husband. I looked at her.  I looked at this young, handsome stranger.  We were in a foreign country. She has autism. She’s TWELVE!  He said “let’s first see how she does in the pool, no charge.”  

I exhaled and accepted the pool test. I took the man aside, and explained she had autism. And anxiety.  He looked me squarely in the eyes and said “I’ll make sure she is ok.”    Becca eagerly did the pool test. She aced the classroom test the next morning and then another pool test the following morning.  I googled the company. I googled the instructor. I talked to him again.  I emailed his references. I signed release forms. I inhaled. I exhaled.  I leaned into my fear.  The next morning, they left….my little girl and this stranger.  And I waited for their return.

And this is what greeted me three hours later.

And so I take those edges a little more deeply and with a little more trust in myself and the universe.  Like everything living, we open and close, as we both lean into life and resist it.  

Elin holds that space for us to move, to inhale, to hold, to lean in, deepen our edge, and exhale. And then to do it again, and again.   And when we do that, we open ourselves to beauty. We learn to trust. We find our rhythm.  We fly.

Love,

Betsy

“Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s a cha-cha.”― Robert Brault

We were gathered at one end of the rink as Elin was describing the next pattern. Take off on left outside edge, cross over at 6 o’clock, and then hold to your starting point, cross over, and then glide forward again towards 6 o’clock to start the next circle.  As she was describing it, she quipped “I so love this pattern. I always want to forge forward but it reminds me that sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back.”  

And I glanced around to see if anyone else heard it...right there in the freezing cold rink, the truth bomb.  Did anyone else hear it explode?

Looking back at my life thus far, as I often do, I notice a pattern of events and feelings resembling the activity on an EKG monitor.  I’m the mother of an autistic teenager and countless times we’ve reached milestones, only to see what looks like regression three months later.  My journey teaches me that growth is rarely linear and often does not happen in any predictable way.  For every peak, there’s been a valley. For every leap forward, there’s been a stumble backward—sometimes just an inch, and other times, what seems like miles.  We’re given the message every single day in both subtle and not-so subtle ways that we need to always be moving forward in life; that we need to keep our eyes focused on the destination, process be damned.

But just as tides ebb and flow, there is a continual back-and-forth movement in the trajectory of our lives.  Our best-laid plans can fall short or, for whatever reason, not come to fruition. Taking a step back periodically is a natural and sometimes necessary component of life. It can help us replenish and build the inner strength and courage to meet life circumstances. The key to our growth as human beings is the ability to welcome the backward movements when they come—as they inevitably will—and learn from them, rather than allow discouragement to stifle our spirit and motivation.Despite the bad rap “the past” gets, it will always be an integral part of who we are. While the world tells us to be ever fixated on getting there, I wonder if this mindset actually hinders growth. I wonder if the time is better spent focusing on developing the inner skills to navigate these timeless currents, and recognize that they’re part of the growth process, not a departure from it.

As I glide backwards to my starting point on my exhale, I admit to myself that the journey we are on is long.  A road with many turns, patches through dark so black that your soul begins to lose faith in the sun. I know my legs will burn from the hills I must climb and the weariness of seasons of unrest.  And I also know that this is part of the process of growth. It’s here. It’s here where we discover magic. It’s here where life happens, one breath at a time.

“Step toward the cold surface, say the old prayer of rough love and open both arms.”

— David Whyte

Hello! So glad you found us!  Whether you are an accomplished figure skater or just love the sport, we hope you will enjoy our reflections on the inner landscape of our lives, through the lens of IceFlow, a meditative and intentional practice of movement on ice. 

Reflections on Ice is about meditating on simple truths and learning new ways to apply it to our complex lives.  It extends from IceFlow -- a gentle, yoga-inspired edge class designed specifically for skaters of all skill levels from beginner to professional. IceFlow is the brainchild of Elin Schran, founder of Joy Skate Productions, which promotes health and happiness through skating for every age and ability.

Elin applies the principles of yoga to her work on the ice, stripping figure skating from the roots of competition and pressure, and returning to the sheer joy that movement and breath can bring. As a former competitive skater, and the daughter of Olympic gold medalist figure skater Tenley Albright, skating has always been a huge part of Elin’s life and a source of freedom and joy.  After leaving the rigors of competitive training, she wanted to find a way to experience skating in a new and gentler way.  IceFlow brings that magic and joy by connecting movement, stretching, and edges to the breath with positive intention. 

Betsy is a poet and writer of stories focused on finding the sacred in the ordinary and metaphor in the details. She tries to write at the frontier between deep internal experience and revelations of the outer world.  Her writing centers on themes of connection and she is driven to write stories and poems as a way to create and connect as a community -- to create a door through which others can walk.  She writes to capture the silent moments, the hidden glances that we often miss in the daily business of our lives. 

The site features stories, insights and metaphor stemming from the patterns we create on the ice.  Think of it as a deep dive into what life is teaching us -- paradox, metaphor, and the opening to the unfolding of life -- all learned through lessons gleaned from the canvas of the ice. 

We will offer reflective questions and meditations to help make sense of our own experience and appreciate each moment.  Come join us as we embark on our journey!

Love,