Missing in Action

Yesterday I spent a lot of time that should have been dedicated to writing an essay for one of my classes to talking to an old friend from skating. It sounds really weird saying 'old' friend when I'm only 18. This former skater, was a great one. One that I personally loved lining up next to because I knew that we were going to bring the best out of each other. I have many fond memories racing this person and it coming down to a hawk at the line. Most of my memories from ODN involve him for the better and the worse.

During our conversational I realized a lot of things. One, our sport is growing a little boring in the sense that where are all the new talent? Obviously we are a declining sport but even so you expect some up and coming skater right? Or am I and my generation that up and coming skater(s) so it only feels that way to me? I don't know but it seems like we have the same personalities and nothing is changing. We need excitement or something. In my generation a lot of the people that were suppose to bring the excitement vanished from the skating scene and its sad. Now you are left with a few of us diehards who are great skaters but don't have that outgoing expressive personality. I want it back.

Next we were talking about the work ethic and talent pool in the US and how both are dwindling. We talked about how the rest of the world and the US are growing apart rather quickly in terms of talent. Yes we have Joey, but without him the rest of the world wouldn't know who the United States was and that's the bitter truth. Most of all we talked about work ethic. We shared some time on a world team and it was a terrific team in terms of work ethic. It got me thinking what happened? Where did the want for training and to be the best and to just flat out work hard go? And then I realized it didn't leave everyone. What I realized was old faces leaving. So many people that were common faces on the world team moved on and left us in a bit of array. I'm talking about Sebastian, Jonathon, Josh the three of them had a run of world teams that made everything flow. And I'm being serious. In 2007 when I made the world team everyone worked hard and I mean literally everyone. I don't remember anyone taking extended time off or complaining about every single drill like we have now. I realized it was the continuity. It became habit to them, they came to residency worked their tail off and went to worlds. Josh especially, he was so outspoken when it came to calling out a group of skaters or the entire team on giving 100% and that's what is missing. He was so common on the world team year after year that everyone respected him and if you didn't you kept it to yourself and listened to what he had to say.

In 2007 we had a group of skaters that competed against each other at residency for the better of themselves. If we did a distance drill there was 12 guys out there finishing the drill and competing with one another whether that skater was junior or senior was irrelevant they were racing as one group of guys. The seniors all got a long for the most part and the juniors all skated like they had to prove they belonged with the older guys. The egos got checked at the door and I honestly believe that.

That's what we need, is the ego's to be dropped when the plane lands in Colorado Springs. That's the only way. Instead a lot of skaters have a particular training method and feel that deviating from said method is always going to be for the worse and that causes a lot of problems. For me it was always 'tell me what to do and I'm going to do it.' But the only way that works is if you trust who is talking to you. I don't always like who is telling me something but I trust what they can bring to the table.

I don't know what happened to the work ethic but I can only hope that I will be on another world team that gave as much effort as the one is 2007 did. It is extremely difficult for me to think of a single person that showed up out of shape to residency.

Now that we don't do racing for races at residency like we once did I think it still has a negative impact. Everyone is racing in drills now trying to figure out if they do better in this drill or that drill if it will earn them a race. The idea of a race at worlds occupies the mind throughout residency rather then the prospect of training our ass' off. That's another thing, when Sebastian, Jonathon, and Josh came to residency they thought about training not about winning races and that's what made them successful.

Another thing was in 2007 when it was my first year on team I never spoke up about anything because I didn't feel like I had earned the right to speak. I was one of maybe 3 first time world team members and we kept our mouths shut and listened to the veterans.