From Ontario to Ontario

On Wednesday, October 19 at 3:13pm, Asher, Carol, my Mum and I set off for Ontario, California to compete at the 2011 Grand Prix Hilton Honors Skate America. Having been well received at our first international competition of the year in Germany at the end of September, we were both extremely excited and determined to do what we’d trained all summer for: compete, and compete well.

The day of practice was pretty standard—eat, warm-up, skate, do a straight-off-the-plane caliber run-through, mop Asher’s glistening sweat-beaded face, get off the ice, breathe a sigh of relief—save for the fact that we got to spend our afternoon at one of Ontario’s biggest attractions: the Ontario Mills Mall. I’m a bit ashamed to admit it, but we trekked over to that outlet paradise almost every day. It’s not that we were intent on becoming crazy consumerists, it’s just that there wasn’t anything else we could do to pass the other 23 hours of the day that remained after practice.

This competition was the first in a long time that the Dance event was over early. Normally, the Dancers are given a day-off after the SD and end up being the last event to finish. However, this time around, we finished competing even before the Ladies and Pairs events started. Because of this scheduling, not only did the FD event finish earlier in the day (thus, another afternoon spent at the mall), but also we had a complete ‘free day’ (yet another morning spent at the mall). In actuality, I think we spent more time walking around the mall than competing :)

Even though, performance-wise, both our SD and FD were a lot stronger than they were at the Nebelhorn Trophy, a costly mistake at the end of our FD landed us in fifth place over all (less than a point away from third!). Nevertheless, Asher and I have become even more driven to improve and stretch ourselves and our programs even further.

Next stop: COS Sectionals!

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