A New Adventure in Artistic Roller Skating
Let me tell you about the beauty and bewilderment of a sunny weekend in May. A weekend that was, at once, a culmination and a commencement, filled with rhinestones, tights, lashes and tears; of polkas and pop music, hugs and heartbreak. All with copious hairpins and wheels for feet. On this weekend, there was an artistic roller skating competition in Chico, California. But first, let me tell you how I got here.
I’m Char, an adult artistic roller skater, deep into her second year of competing. I’m not terribly good at it yet, but I work diligently and do my best. About once a month in the competitive season, I find myself at a given roller rink, almost always before dawn, and decked out in a drag queen’s ransom of hair, makeup, rhinestones and glitter to pick up a handful of safety pins, attach a tiny entry number on my dress and participate in an athletic competition. I see familiar faces, notably my fellow competitors who I’ve come to call the “Bronze Baddies”. The name is inspired by our skill division in USA Roller Sports, Bronze, the division for relative beginners in the sport. It’s always an early call time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yes. Adults skate, too. Some of the most interesting adults you’ll ever meet, actually. It takes a certain steely soul to participate in something outsiders think is just for kids, but skating truly is for all ages. If you think this sport is only for little ones, you are absolutely missing out. If you think you are too old to start, grab some skates and think again.
Within artistic roller skating, there’s myriad disciplines. For this year, I’m doing Figures (these use the large circles you see at the roller rink), Loops (these use the small circles with the curly-q in the middle), American style Compulsory Solo Dance (set pattern dances that use the whole rink in which skaters usually have their arms in a T-pose) and Team Dance (same as Compulsory Solo Dance, but with a partner; think ballroom dance on skates). I do not participate in Freestyle. At least not yet.
It’s a big jump for me. This time last year I was barely getting through my requirements in Figures and Solo Dance. Then again, I’ve always been a bit of a tenacious one. Oh, and for my dance events, I’m doing Original Compulsory Dance as well. Yeah, I wrote a pattern dance in an effort to learn more about how all these darn dances work.
Solo Dance wasn’t what brought me to the sport, actually. It was Team. All the way, 100%. My first exposure was in 2021, shortly after starting my skating journey anew like so many of the Pandemic skaters. Whilst working from home, I had the livestream of the USA Roller Sports Nationals on another monitor in the background. I was expecting a lot of teens and college aged folks doing impressive freestyle jumps and spins, which there were, but the adult events, notably team dance, left stars in my eyes. It was the grace and beauty of ballroom dance, but on wheels. The music was nostalgic, played by a live organist. The skaters, folks of all ages, sizes and abilities. I needed to learn more. No. I needed to join a club and work my way to being there with them!
And so it began. I called the rink closest to me that had an Artistic Club and called again and again until I could get answers. After a few weeks of that, I attended my first club practice and started to learn. There was one other adult in the club… who happened to be the most enchanting skater I’d spot during Adult Nights at the rink. Oh, and I recognized him from that very live stream! He’s an amazing skater and I still idolize him to this day.
About six months later, I had my first competition. Largely feral and only just starting my journey with my coach. Up to that point, I was existing purely on what I could read and overhear in the group lessons. I didn’t even know about opening steps, desperately copying my flight-mate in near real time! It wasn’t pretty. Okay, my costumes were lovely, having been a professional seamstress in a past life, but my skating… not so much. In fact, I’ll never forget one comment directed to another coach of my club, “She’s so beautiful out there, if only you can get her feet working”. That has to be the Artistic Roller Skating equivalent of “bless your heart”. Ouch.
The day before that contest, I went to the rink to check out the floor. It was the splendid wood floor of Sunrise Rollerland in Sacramento, CA. I wasn’t used to skating on wood and needed to get a feel for it. While shakily practicing my Figures on the large circles in the middle of the rink, I met another skater who would be at the contest. They were so cool and their skating so effortless compared to mine. Oh, and they were Bronze as well! Needless to say, Saturn and I quickly became close friends.
Flash forward to the next season. Saturn and I had kept in contact, realizing we are both similar flavors of nerdy. We also kept encouraging each other in our training. Admittedly, I was a bit jealous that Saturn had so much access to rink time whereas I had a nearly two-hour journey each way to practice, mostly at an outdoor rink, with precious little time indoors. My club would eventually lose their access to indoor rink time entirely, later moving to one day a week at a tiny, echo-y gymnasium. Such is life living in San Francisco and the Bay Area in general. It’s a beautiful place, but there isn’t exactly room for the kind of huge spaces you need for Artistic Roller Dance. As for Figure Circles, I grew to be so thankful for the ones at the Church of 8 Wheels, which the proprietor is so kind to let me use in quiet sessions. I’m thankful for every ounce of rink time I get and consider every moment a privilege to treasure.
For the Holidays, I wanted to do something nice for my dear friend, so I offered to make them a costume. At one of the first contests of the new season, I got some measurements and got to work. We both had new costumes to ring in the new year for the first contest of 2023!
Soon after, we began talking about Team Dance and how we both wanted to do it. One of the coaches in my club told me to be patient; there’s not a lot of Bronze boys. More important than that, as much as I wanted to do it, it had to be with someone I wanted to spend a lot of time with and was okay with the fact that I am, to put it mildly, a LOT. Still, Team Dance in competition was always traditionally a female and a male skater and in Artistic Roller Skating… there’s a lot more ladies than any other gender. For decades, training for Team Dance meant the femmes had to get together. Heck, I even saw it in some of the old timey skating literature I had found in my research!
On top of that, in 2023, Team Dance as a discipline is dying. This is such a shame because it is so heartbreakingly beautiful when done well. Among the skill levels of Bronze, Silver and Gold, there’s but a smattering of active teams. This makes sense because it is incredibly difficult and can be equally dangerous, even with proper training. For those willing, there’s few coaches. In fact, many of the active teams have partners quite a distance away, which means a lot of traveling to train. For anyone wanting to pursue Team Dance, it’s going to be a difficult battle just to get a partner, let alone making sure you and your partner have the actual chemistry enough to perform and succeed!
Flash forward to Saturn and I sharing some nerdery with each other. You may have guessed, I get a lot of costume inspiration from the all-female theatre company, Takarazuka Revue. If you’re not familiar, think of it as Kabuki in reverse, with all the roles played by women. It is incredibly enchanting and sparkly. I showed my favorite revue, Moon Troupe’s Misty Station, to Saturn when we were out at a contest and their eyes sparkled just like mine. Another shared fandom! Let’s just say, more and more things came together and thoughts aligned.
We should be a team! It makes too much sense. Chico and San Francisco are closer than a lot of teams have to travel. We are relatively close in skill level (Saturn is better, this is a hill I will die on). We are friends. We are similarly tenacious. We have a calming effect on each other…
But, you can’t have two girls COMPETE in Team Dance?!?!? I disagree, but for the sake of argument, we aren’t two girls. I am female and Saturn is Non-Binary. More than that, we are two SKATERS, committed to the sport, wanting to learn and grow and help keep Team Dance alive and thriving.
I asked my coach, the lovely Stephanie Boggs, about it. She was cautiously intrigued. She told her husband and he was not just intrigued, he wanted to help! We could try some lessons and see if we had the skill, chemistry and tenacity to attempt it. And with that, Stephanie and Logan Boggs became our Team Dance coaches, with copious support and co-coaching from the Chico Artistic Skating Club.
Let’s just say those first practices went quite well. Difficult and rather different from Solo Dance, but well. We wanted to compete. We were going to be a real Bronze Team and learn those Bronze dances we had been doing solo together. We were going to DO THE DANG THING. We would travel and train with each other as much as we could. Saturn would visit SF to train outside and Char would go out to Chico and get as many practices in as humanly possible. In any spare moment outside of practicing and work, Char would be sewing. It goes without saying, our costumes would take heavy inspiration from Takarazuka.
As fate would have it, the first contest since forming our team would be at Saturn’s home rink in Chico! We would have to make it extra special. Our coaches put in all our requisite entries plus a couple more; Bronze Team Dance and Original Compulsory Team Dance. Not only would we do our Bronze dances, we would do a team version of my Original Compulsory Dance, the Hikari Foxtrot, inspired by one of my favorite anime series, Revue Starlight and it’s ending song, Fly Me To The Star, adapted to be a 92 Foxtrot.
Our entries were in and we were training feverishly for the big debut. However, when we saw the final schedule, our Bronze Team Dance entry was changed. Changed to “Introductory Team Dance”. Oh. This kind of seemingly innocuous change is a feeling we know well. We asked the reasons and were terribly sad and frustrated by what we learned. Our coaches did their best to cheer us up and implored us to keep the faith. Our job was to show what we have learned and sparkle as best we can. Perhaps B R O N Z E is a difficult word to spell and typos happen? We had a great lesson on the day before with Logan, where we went over many scenarios, including what to do if we happen to fall during the scoring, and Stephanie would join us on Sunday for the contest itself.
Mis-titling aside, it felt amazing to take the floor with Saturn. It felt like flying; the most graceful dream come true. A Takarazuka Duet Dance on wheels where time just stopped. The applause and smiles from the crowd were intoxicating. Though Team Dance can be terrifying, I always feel safe with Saturn as my partner. After the scoring of our second dance and after the Silver teams completed theirs, the most amazing thing happened. All the adult dance teams sought us out and asked us to join their picture! In that moment, with all these skaters we look up to, it felt all the more real. I was utterly screaming on the inside with delight!
After our first Team Dance event, Saturn and I changed outfits and competed in Figures where Saturn got 5th and I got 10th. I was feeling pretty confident after getting a couple good practice sessions in that week and hoping to do a bit better, but I’m not let down. Progress is progress and Saturn is SO GOOD! We are in quite a competitive region and I love a challenge.
Next up would be Original Compulsory Dance; I’d do Hikari Foxtrot as a solo and then, after another event, we would do our team version. For the first time, I’m sharing the full dance. Let’s just say we are both thankful for such a thorough lesson the day before. Even though this is the dance we are most comfortable with, we definitely needed that PARTICULAR lesson!
What a shock indeed! Everyone is fine, but definitely bruised. The jolt I took actually caused a little inflammation in my eyes, but thanks to my wonderful ophthalmologist, I’m fully on the mend. Back to the contest, right after this event, it was quick change time, including ripping a pair of fancy Italian tights, to get back into my Figures dress and changing my skates. With nary a moment to spare, I did my Loops event for the first time. It was pretty close to a disaster, but I’m happy I tried. My right knee wasn’t so happy that I tried, but I was! One can only go up from here.
After this, there was a hefty break before Saturn and I did our solo dance events. We were quite tired and hungry at this point, but these were fun. I am forever in awe of Saturn’s back crosses. Seriously. Their back crosses are my favorite thing and I never tire of them. This move remains my white whale, no matter how much I practice. Just look at them! Marvel in their splendor!
I’m not pleased about my scoring for Solo Dance, to say the least, but I always just lick my wounds and work to improve. Being still early in my Artistic Roller Skating journey, the whole “feel like you’re flying, look like you’re flailing” thing is all too real. For me, I just need more time to practice and space to do so. Speaking of scoring, here’s a handy guide to roughly what the scores mean.
I actually treasure that little chart as well as the Facebook group for one of the skating leagues I compete in. Honestly, it has been so difficult getting answers to basic things and it seems like so much of this sport’s information is hidden like ancient runes. Can you imagine my terror when, as someone who has always done well in school, I saw scores in the 50’s 60’s or worse? It utterly devastated me and I feared I had shamed my club, my friends and even myself. Fortunately, thanks to that group and their knowledge sharing, I stopped beating myself up so much. The self- flagellation hasn’t fully stopped, but it is less of a neurosis. Saturn also does a lot of talking sense into me and keeping my spirits up. I just never want to be a burden or a drag on those I care about.
After the scoring was posted (and discussing some strong opinions on the opening steps and start of the Rhythm Blues), we went back to the photo area to take a couple more pics of our costumes and medals. We got to talk a bit more with our fellow athletes and it warmed my heart to get a lovely stream of praise for our team. I’ll say it again and again; you’ll meet some of the most fascinating people in this sport and it’s always a joy to talk to fellow skaters. It takes a rare creature to spend any given Sunday resplendent in sparkle and clashing with roller rink carpet. Truly no one involved is garden variety!
After the contest, I’m pretty sure Saturn and I ate our weight in enchiladas from a cute Mexican restaurant nearby before crashing hard. Ahh, the sweet sweet post-event exhaustion!
And now, the march to USARS Regionals begins. After taking a couple days to heal, we are back at it working on our solo events and looking forward to our next team practice very soon. Doing Team Dance has made us both better skaters and from everything I’ve heard, that’s the entire point. Every movement needs care and thought because it’s more than our solo work; we have the other to consider at every moment! Truthfully, we are both still tender about things like last-minute name changes and the cold shoulders mixed in the crowd. Not everyone has to understand and that’s okay. The applause and warm welcomes, especially from our fellow Bronze Baddies, more than makes up for it.
What has surprised me the most is learning where the allies and antagonists are. Honestly, that is a life lesson that bears repeating, even when painful. Some of the folks I least expected have turned out to be the ones who are most supportive. They go out of their way to share advice and friendly smiles that speak louder than words. Sadly, the inverse has also proven true. Whereas I have been welcomed with open, loving arms and positive reinforcement when I train in Saturn’s neck of the woods (and other rinks which have been so kind to let me practice during Club time), with the distinct exceptions of my primary coach and a few of the skaters I’ve grown closer to, the love has not been mutual. To the point of not even acknowledging my partner’s existence, has it not been remotely mutual. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. If I were weaker of will, it would be enough for me to leave the sport entirely.
In more than just Northern California weather patterns, I feel warmth when training in Chico and chills when down here. It’s not sustainable, certainly not for my comparatively exorbitant club dues. Nearly a week after the contest, there’s not so much as an acknowledgement there even was an event! That’s okay. I know where I’m not wanted and just like after any bad performance, we lick our wounds, smile through the tears and carry on. It’s time for a reset. It’s probably no shock what I’m about to say; this week, with the support of my coach and those closest to me, I submitted the paperwork to leave my club and become officially Unattached. I’m a roller skating Ronin for the rest of the season.
Jump and the net will appear.
I don’t fully know where I will end up. My dream is to land at a club that will love and accept me as I continue to grow into a better skater. One thing is crystal clear- I’m here to keep working my hardest, learn all I can, be thankful with every moment of wheels on my feet and continue on this fabulous journey with my darling partner, Saturn. To regionals and beyond, we will sparkle, shine and do our best to make even a polka look cool. After all, back cross aside, the Denver Shuffle has not defeated me yet! As for our budding Bronze team, we just want to skate and be a part of keeping this discipline alive.
This is my first post on Medium, so please let me know if you like what you’ve read and any feedback or questions you may have. Will do my best to respond. I’m still feeling out the platform and hope to write more if folks are interested. Thank you for sticking around to the end!
If you are interested in Artistic Roller Skating and live in the United States, here’s some helpful links to get you started on your journey:
USA Roller Sports list of active clubs
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