December 13, 2000

Staying in synch total team effort for Twin Bays skaters

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
      Combining teamwork, precision timing and grace, synchronized skaters make the difficult look easy.
      As the 16 members of the Northern Lights Junior Classics team rocketed around the rink at Center ICE Monday night, they practiced their moves with a military exactness - with a dancer's flair added for good measure. As lines spun into pinwheels and pinwheels dissolved into spirals, each skater matched her moves with her teammates' moves while never letting her smile fade.
      "Synchronized skating is the only part of figure skating that is a team effort," said Callie Gaines, team captain and a senior at Traverse City Central High School who has been skating with Northern Lights for four years. "It is totally different that individual skating, it doesn't involve jumps."
      Timing is the key, both to keep everybody in synch and to prevent high-speed collisions. This is especially important when performing trickier moves that merge lines or have some skaters ducking under the linked arms of others.
      Potential crash aside, it is jarring to the watcher, and judges, if all skaters are not moving precisely the same.
      "You see a whole group of skaters and if one has her feet off that is what you notice," said Gaines, a 10-year skating veteran. "You are constantly striving for more difficult footwork and the precision of the movements is very important."
      The Junior Classics team is one of four synchronized skating teams fielded by the Twin Bays Skating Club, including adult, teen and a youth introductory teams. The teams began four years ago and are coached this year by Stephanie Miller, a veteran skater, coach and costume designer.
      Bringing Miller on board has given the teams a new excitement as they learn new moves and the ins and outs of synchronized skating. All teams except the adult one are heading to Plymouth this Friday evening for their performance debut of the season.
      Being out there with a group, instead of having all eyes in the arena focused only on the solo figure skater, is a great relief to the junior team's youngest member.
      "In my last competition, I kind of forgot my program because I was out there all alone," said Kelsey Walukonis, a sixth grader at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Middle School. "I had decided to quit freestyle skating, then I heard about this."
      "I just like being on a team."
      Coach Miller also likes being on a team.
      After skating for many years in Detroit, both in single figure skating and as part of a synchronized team, she enjoys sharing her love of the sport with her team. Working with each team for three hours a week on the ice and a half-hour off, she guides them to make the whole better than its parts.
      "Every person in line has a part to do," Miller said. "The ends skate faster and the centers slow down. The trick is to make one transition to another without being obvious and to keep the lines straight."
      "In synchronized skating, you're only as strong as your weakest skater."
      Miller makes sure that her skaters remember that everyone is there because they love skating and she tells them to leave their ego at home. Although they came together because of their love of skating, members spent years as solo figure skaters and may have to adjust to skating and thinking as a team.
      "Team skating is a little bit more precise because everyone has to be in synch," said Lauren Griggs, a seventh grader at East Junior High. "With individual skating, you can do it your way."
      Griggs sees a huge upside to teamwork, too.
      "It's cool when you're gaining something as a team because then everybody can be happy."
      Miller emphasizes to the girls and their families that synchronized skaters can go farther than individual skaters, where competition is intense. Because synchronized skating is a lesser known sport- thought that may change if it is included in the next Winter Olympics in 2002- there is more room to be noticed.
      Skaters part of a team have a chance to go to national or even world competitions, while the odds of a solo skater making it that far are astronomical. College opportunities are another bonus for synchronized skaters, as senior Gaines found out.
      "I might go to Western because they are the only school that has synchronized skating as a Division I varsity sport," she noted. "MSU and U of M have it as a club sport."