{"id":1892,"date":"2012-09-12T14:22:58","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T21:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2012-09-12T16:06:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T23:06:09","slug":"its-pronounced-sal-cow-a-guest-post-by-kelly-rand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/its-pronounced-sal-cow-a-guest-post-by-kelly-rand\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Pronounced “Sal-cow,” a guest post by Kelly Rand"},"content":{"rendered":"

My guest today is Canadian writer and editor Kelly Rand, author of\u00a0 “The Quad” in the Going For Gold<\/a> anthology. I was thrilled to include a Winter Games sport and “The Quad” the story of Kevin, a young figure skater from an impoverished background who has overcome steep odds to make the Canadian Olympic figure skating team. Read more about Kelly’s experiences with the sport.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Going<\/a>To say I have experience in figure skating in the same sentence as my Olympic contender, Kevin, in the Going For Gold<\/em><\/a> anthology is like saying I\u2019ve been a rock star because I had a few guitar lessons.<\/p>\n

But at some point in time \u2013 in a galaxy far, far away \u2013 I was a figure skater.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a hamlet in southern Ontario that had a church and a general store. The nearest urban area of any note was Burford, population 2,000, and this is where I figure skated.<\/p>\n

I started when I was about seven because my friend did it. My friend was two years older, so whatever she did, I did too. I gave up Saturday morning cartoons to spend a season with a kids\u2019 bowling league. She went to a Baptist Bible camp one summer, so I went to a Baptist Bible camp. She figure skated, so I figure skated.<\/p>\n

I am not athletic. I can still remember my meager sports accomplishments. I once caught a fly ball in a recess softball game. I once placed third in high jump during my grade school track and field day. I was about that successful at figure skating.<\/p>\n

I skated three evenings a week and got to leave school 10 minutes early because of it. For 15 minutes an evening, I had a private lesson with a coach named Sandy, who had better things to do.<\/p>\n

Some of Sandy’s rules seemed arbitrary. When we left the ice to use the washroom, she\u2019d bellow at us if we took too long. \u201cIf our parents are paying for our lessons,\u201d I told my friend, \u201cwhat difference does it make to her if we f*ck the dog?\u201d But this was a teachable moment \u2013 a way to turn us into responsible young adults \u2013 and I suppose I have figure skating in part to thank for that.<\/p>\n

\"figure

This is someone with a scribe, which we used for compulsory figures, also known as “patch.” You used it to make figure eights, although you could also swing it and knock over everyone in a seven-foot radius. Image: Jo Ann Schneider Farris, figureskating.about.com<\/p><\/div>\n

There were compulsory figures then. You were given a patch of ice and used an instrument called a scribe \u2013 or more ideally, your own God-given circle-making instincts \u2013 to make a figure eight. Then you started in the middle of the eight, pushed off and did things around the circles. Half turns. Quarter turns. Going from forward to backward on one foot, or backward to forward. Rows of youth lined the ice as they learned different ways to skate in circles. It was so quiet that you could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights. I\u2019d look up at the scoreboard clock and see the minutes drip past. I hated figures.<\/p>\n

The names of other jumps seemed strange to me. There was the salchow, which we pronounced sow-cow<\/em>, when there was no cow to be found. There was the flip, and its more complicated cousin the double flip, which caused the older girls to send dangerous chunks of ice flying as they chopped the slippery surface with their toe picks. Most boys who skated dropped off by puberty. The ones who didn\u2019t seemed sexless somehow, creatures of a sterile white world who had no girlfriends \u2013 or boyfriends \u2013 to speak of.<\/p>\n

Much like I described in \u201cThe Quad,\u201d there was a pecking order in our small-town skating club, and from what I have heard and experienced, there always is. Figure skating is not a sport for the hard-done-by. It\u2019s a sport of kids with money and doting parents, and like wanna-be rock stars, all of them hold that dream of stardom deep in their hearts. This dream exists for all Canadian parents who wake at the crack of dawn to drive their kids to rinks.<\/p>\n

Those who seem closer to the dream get the good solos in the winter carnival. They get the good bench space in the dressing room. They get more attention from the private coaches, and the ability to skate through the rest of us with a sense of entitlement and pride.<\/p>\n

Kevin has lived in my head for a few years, lodged in my cranium like an imaginary friend. I\u2019d hear an ornate piece of instrumental music and imagine it was Kevin\u2019s solo music, and daydreamed of him leaping and spinning in time. I liked the idea of someone unaffected stumbling into that world and kicking ass in spite of himself.<\/p>\n

This is not the end of Kevin\u2019s story. He grows stronger, leaner and meaner, and eventually prevails. I can\u2019t bear to think otherwise. I like the idea of world-class athlete who quietly gets on with it without realizing he\u2019s remarkable, even though he is.<\/p>\n

Kevin continues to be my imaginary friend. If you\u2019ve read the story, thanks for hanging out with us. It’s easy to tell us apart. He’s the one with the good bench space.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Get a copy of Going for Gold at Amazon<\/a> or at MLR Press<\/a><\/p>\n

Kelly Rand<\/a> | Goodreads<\/a> | Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My guest today is Canadian writer and editor Kelly Rand, author of\u00a0 “The Quad” in the Going For Gold anthology. I was thrilled to include a Winter Games sport and “The Quad” the story of Kevin, a young figure skater from an impoverished background who has overcome steep odds to make the Canadian Olympic figure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,63,102,323],"tags":[31,285,307,342,271,934],"class_list":["post-1892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event","category-guest-posting","category-new-release","category-olympics","tag-anthologies","tag-athletes","tag-going-for-gold","tag-kelly-rand","tag-mlr-press","tag-olympics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pzLgx-uw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}