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I began the day working at this cute cafe nearby the campground. The log cabin look is all fake, and the backs of the buildings don’t even have cladding. But it was a nice enough place and great Wi-Fi! The breakfast sandwich was ok I guess. Bella stayed in her crate just outside the door … Read more

I left my cousins place today headed north through Detroit, mackinaw City and back into Canada at Sault St Marie. Although it took a few rounds to explain, the US border agent in Detroit wished me well on my new life… Michigan is still a little ways from Alaska… Michigan is, of course shapes like … Read more

My last week in the Lower 48 was a whirlwind of good-byes and taking care of Maggie things for college. Then I spent all day Friday and Saturday packing. I figured I would work (do my job) Saturday morning, but packed then to avoid the heat. And once I was packed… I didn’t want to … Read more

It’s now or never, a beautiful Sunday, so let’s see this local natural wonder! Me and Bella of course… After a long “delay” taking a nap and hanging out with a friend, we made it to the park! I haven’t found the natural bridge, in general this is an old marble quarry. Yea, the mountains … Read more

Figure skating for fun was developed by 19th century English people, who had a background in Figure Dancing going back to Louis XIV and the Baroque era. A figure was (and still is) a named pattern of movement, usually involving more than one person. Everybody knows the common figures within the genre, and often a … Read more

Human beings have skated for millennia, but our history begins when people began skating for leisure in the 1700’s as documented by Robert Jones.1. Notably the books is a treatise on skating, not figure skating. In fact, the word “figure” in that sense only occurs once, in describing how “to cut the Figure of a … Read more

Someone wrote recently about her experience figure skating growing up. She took lessons until the age of 12 but stopped because it was stressful, she was disillusioned trying to find a healthy balance of enjoyment and competition. This story is so common, are we surprised? At its core, figure skating is a movement language built … Read more

The removal of figures from ISU competition in 1990 goes back to the early 20th century and the creation of the ISU, which was created to promote the International Style of skating (see “Figure Skating History: The Evolution of Dance on Ice” by Lynn Copley-Graves). The English Style of skating was developed in the Victorian … Read more

Here I will write about how to warm up. This is based on decades of experience in ballet, how we practice meticulously every day, how we warm up before performances to avoid injury, and also how I warm up skating. First off, I would not think of a “warm up,” but rather of an entire … Read more