Hallå från Sverige!

Hello from Sweden! 

The Crystallettes have finally made it to Gothenburg, Sweden! After nine hours of traveling, we were thrilled to claim our luggage and fully focus on what we came to do. However, when we were getting our bags from the baggage claim, we noticed that one of our skaters was missing her suitcase with her skates inside of them. The missing skates were left in Detroit and caused quite a panic because of the upcoming practices scheduled for the next few days. Thankfully, one of the skaters on the Synchroettes was generous enough to lend our skater her skates. Before we took the ice, we had the opportunity to meet our team leader, Colette. She came with us to our first practice and gave us some great feedback about both of our programs. It was nice to finally get our legs moving and our feet back on the ice. Although we only missed one of our usual practices, it felt like we hadn’t been on the ice for a week.  After a great practice, we enjoyed a nice team dinner with our coaches and manager. Shortly after, bedtime arrived and we got our clothes ready for tomorrow’s practice and hit the sack.

With alarms ringing at eight in the morning, we knew today was even more important than yesterday. As exhausted as we were, we knew that we had to stay focused and keep our heads in the game. In today’s two-hour practice, it was imperative that we showed two solid run-throughs. With Colette by our coaches’ sides, they continued to support us and provided beneficial information to help us achieve our goal. We were happy to know that we had another solid practice under our belt. Following our practice, we took a team walk to the Hard Rock Cafe. Eating a full meal after a long day of hard work hit the spot.  Once we finished dinner, it was time to shop! We visited many clothing stores, tourist venues, and chocolate shops. It was a very fun-filled day.

To finish the day off right, we had a very productive off ice session. While we were having off ice, two of our team members went over to participate in the draw. USA was the first country to pick their place in the lineup and we had the honor of picking first. Funny as it may seem, we drew number one!  

Best wishes to all of the teams competing at the Leon Lurje Trophy & thank you again to the Synchroettes for the skates and the personalized gifts. We love them! :) 

Katilyn & Sharon 

Hej from Sweden!

Greetings from Gothenburg!

After two flights, almost a full day without much sleep, and some lost luggage... Miami Senior has arrived in Sweden!

Ready for take off! 

We hopped off the plane in Gothenburg, and after trying to track down some of our teammates' luggage that didn't make it to Sweden quite yet, we headed to our hotel with only a few minutes to get ourselves ready for our first practice.

Challenge accepted. We had a great practice, the ice is fabulous, and we're feeling solid and excited going into the competition this weekend. Next on the agenda... a good night's sleep!


More updates to come. Go USA!
Ashleigh

Kicking Off 2013 with Miami Skating

Hello again and happy new year from Sennett and Linnea! 

This past weekend teams from across the country crowded into Fraser, Michigan for the Junior World Qualifier and Mid-America competitions. In anticipation for these competitions Miami University's Varsity teams had been vigorously preparing over the two weeks prior to the completion from 2-7 hours day per day.  Everyone put in 100% effort and were very excited to be back together again; despite the fact that our winter breaks were cut two weeks short. We went into the weekend feeling excited and ready to show off our hard work.

On Friday the junior team competed the short program. The night before we all gathered in one of the hotel rooms in order to go through and talk about each part of our program to get us mentally prepared for the next day. We talked through element by element discussing things to think about; from key words or phrases, to our favorite parts of the program. The next day, we had a lot of energy and excitement going into the event. We really tired to focus on getting into character the second we left the locker room so we could be as animated as possible in our performance. We got off the ice still feeling the rush from the program and were even more excited to take the ice the next day. 

Saturday was the free skate event. As we were getting ready for competition, doing our hair and makeup we used the extra time we had to finish the music video we had started making over break.  Following living out our Hollywood dreams; we all gathered with our coaches and staff to review the video of our official practice.  We discussed key points of the program and got ourselves mentally prepared for competition.  We then loaded the bus to the rink and preformed our usual competition rituals on the way, including dancing and singing to our favorite songs.  As soon as we got off the bus we were in competition mode and headed to the warm up area.  We completed our competition warm up and ran through our programs and felt ready to take the ice.  We loved every second of our performance and felt very "glamorous" throughout the whole program! We were very happy with our skate and proud that all of our hard work over break had paid off. 

On Saturday night after the junior long competition was finished, the collegiate official practice session took place.  The five Miami junior/collegiate cross skaters gathered our things, had a quick dinner and headed to the warm up area to join our teammates.    We had a good official practice in which we skated a full run through then only a few sections the second time around.  Our official practice ice ended at 11:00pm on Saturday night, so we headed right back to our hotel to get a good nights sleep before the next day’s competition.  Sunday morning we woke up, packed our things and the collegiate team got into character for our “rocker chick” program.  With poofs in our hair and the usual amounts of competition makeup on we loaded the bus to head over to the rink.  Before leaving the bus we had a short team meeting.  We put our game faces on and prepared to enter the competition arena.  Before doing so however we all got out of our seats and let out our extra energy by rocking the bus!  Entering the locker room we were all very excited.  We got ourselves ready to skate and once we were set to go we let out the excess nerves by singing the Miami fight song.  Collegiate skated very well and we were very happy with the results!  We had a ton of fun skating the program and really embodied the theme of the program! 

We all cannot wait to continue our progress and work hard heading into our next competition which for the Collegiate and Junior teams will be the Midwestern/pacific sectional championships in Kalamazoo Michigan, and for the Senior team their international appointment in Goteborg, Sweden!

Best of luck to all the teams competing next weekend!

Love and Honor,

Linnea and Sennett

Cup of Berlin - Part 2

Greetings once again from the Cup of Berlin, 

The competition has now ended and the teams are all preparing to head home. California Gold had a very successful week in Germany and grew in leaps and bounds as a team. We finished in 8th place, moving up one placement from our short program, and the Hockettes junior team took 6th overall! 

CalGold and Hockette skaters proudly represent the US of A at opening ceremonies.

Neither of our skates this weekend were perfectly clean, but as our team leader Jeanette Davey pointed out, there will be very few times in your life when you will have that perfect skate. At competition, most teams make some kind of error, and she said that what matters to her, is how a team reacts and recovers. After the fall in our long program, the team rose to the occasion,  not allowing the mistake to shake us. A renewed sense of calm came over us as we decided silently and unanimously to finish stronger than we had started. 

CalGold waits for our scores after the long program 

This lesson about recovery not only helped us to move up a spot in placement at Cup of Berlin, it also helped to prepare my team for the next few weeks of training before U.S Synchronized Skating Championships. The team is ready to head back to Los Angeles to hone the technical calls that alluded us this weekend and improve our components. However, we are not heading back before we take a little more time to see Berlin! We can't stop ourselves from practicing, even as we travel the city!

CalGold does our lifts in front of the German Reichstag (parliament building) 

You'll be hearing from me again soon! 

Emmy 

World Junior Team Selection Recap from Skyliners!

January has arrived and our competitive season is now in full swing! This weekend marked our first event of 2013, the World Junior Team Selection competition in Fraser, Michigan. We flew in Wednesday evening and I must say it was quite warm for all the times I have visited Michigan in the winter: a surprising high of 50 degrees! It was hard to believe it was January. On Thursday our team was able to relax a little in the morning before our practice at the University of Michigan. At the rink we got our feet back under us after traveling Wednesday and had a great practice. I definitely felt confident and excited to compete after we skated. Afterward we headed to Olive Garden for a team dinner to celebrate our teammate’s Sweet 16. We all enjoyed the unlimited salad and breadsticks and back at the hotel we had birthday cookies. To finish the day, we did a little team bonding by watching some funny youtube videos with our coaches and team moms. Everyone got in a lot of good laughs before heading to bed.

Friday night we competed our short. Before skating, we loosened up by singing our ritual songs, “Defying Gravity” and “The Call”, dancing to “Sexy and I Know It”, and my personal favorite, singing “God Bless the USA” to get in the spirit. Our short program performance felt amazing. I always feel so elegant in our lavender dresses and our inspiring music reminds me why I love to skate. We skated clean and earned our highest score. The kiss and cry was exhilarating as we jumped, hugged and screamed after hearing the scores. We were incredibly proud of our performance and pumped for the free skate.

Saturday we got up very early for a quick unofficial practice. Because the rink was so cold we decided to wear pants under our dresses. For official practice that morning, we decided we liked the new look and made a fashion statement by wearing the pants with dresses. Official practice went well and we got to relax at the hotel before competing. That night we were excited and ready to compete; we enjoyed singing songs and doing the YMCA before stepping on the ice. Although we did not have our ideal long program skate and had a few technical mistakes, it is always fun to perform our West Side Story program. After anxiously awaiting results in the locker room, we were overjoyed when we were told to put our skates on to greet our fellow Junior World Team members on the ice. Congratulations to the Lexettes on their great performances! After posing for pictures, we were given our worlds jackets, which was an awesome surprise. We are honored to be representing the USA in Finland with the Lexettes in March. As of now we are working hard and getting excited for the French Cup which is just 2 weeks away!

Well that’s all to report for now, until next time!

Dana 

Cup of Berlin: Part 1

Hallo von Berlin!! 

California Gold spent our second day in Berlin practicing and touring and are very excited to compete our short program tomorrow. Hockettes junior are here with us, which is particularly exciting for me as I skated with the Hockettes for ten years before I came to Cal Gold. I love seeing my old coaches and former teammates and our teams have been getting along beautifully. 

CalGold and Hockettes meet up in the hotel

CalGold Captains Brittany and Emmy on a Berlin street corner 

We got a chance to see some of historical Berlin today, including the Brandenburg gates. We also spent time purchasing fine German chocolate and learning about life in East Berlin behind the iron curtain. 

California Gold in front of one of Berlin's beautiful cathedrals

California Gold's pregnant coaches in front of the Brandenburg Gate

Looking forward to the next few days. Go Team USA! 

Mit Lieber, 

Emmy 

Happy New Year and "all that jazz"!

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we started the new school year and the skating season began? And now here we are in January, with two competitions already under our belt for the 2012-2013 season.

After a successful weekend for Miami at the Dr. Porter Classic, with a first place finish for the senior team, we headed back to school to wind down the semester and finish strong on our final exams. Mid-December, the Miami skaters headed to their hometowns across the country for a relaxing 2-week break from school. This was definitely much needed, as balancing 18 credits with skating season in full swing is not an easy task. I enjoyed spending time in Michigan with my family, catching up with friends, and of course skating some sessions back at my old stomping grounds at the Ann Arbor Ice Cube.

After the New Year, my teammates and I returned to campus fired up to begin training for our next event. We had a lot of fun enjoying an empty campus to ourselves, with no classes…or lines at Starbucks! But most of our days were spent inside the rink, energized through long practices due to the excitement in seeing and feeling our programs grow.

This past weekend, all three Miami teams competed at the Mid-America Classic and World Junior Team Selection Competition in Fraser, MI. We were extremely amped to show off our polished programs to everyone. The senior team finished second in the short program and edged out the competition by a slim margin to win the long program on Sunday. We were also able to cheer on our Junior and Collegiate teammates and see some awesome skating throughout the weekend. It was a definitely a golden weekend for Miami. Our coaches even let us watch our favorite movie, Pitch Perfect, on the bus ride home for a second time that trip (we had already watched it on the trip up). I think they enjoyed it, too ;)

Back in the beautiful Oxford, OH, the new semester has begun and campus is once again bustling. It won’t be long though until we head out to our next event in Gothenburg, Sweden at the end of the month. Until then…we’re back to the grind! Go Miami!

Love and Honor,

Ashleigh