Ok..this is my second draft... I actually wanted to put down something like...( Figure skating is a sport that has tremendous grace, power, flexibility and speed, and everything about it looks simple like you can do everything overnight like the movie, Ice Princess. But the real skating is all about how you can survive in this sport like the exhausting training......) I don't know if I should put this in and where.
Any Ideas? Much Appreciated :)
Exhausting training, mastering of body positions such as ballet and strength training, falling over and over until you're bruised all over: Figure skating requires preservation and your undying determination to reach your highest potential. You have to give your full focus in your training as one little mistake could put you off an entire season.
Being a professional figure skater, especially in pair skating, I have had an extremely hard time not getting injured and went through many difficulties and pain to reach where I am today. I even had to go to the emergency hospital twice in my career; one from a broken metatarsal in my right foot and the other, for needing stitches in my head from being accidently kicked by my partner's blade while doing one of our dangerous elements. However, these injuries never decreased my love for the sport. Rather, it taught my partner and I to push through our obstacles and continue training to reach our highest potentials. Our efforts paid off when we earned the spot to compete in our first 2007 Junior Worlds Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany and placed a respectable 12th place among the top juniors of the world. We moved up to the Senior level the year after and placed 10th in the 2009 Four Continents Championships.
With that positive outlook, we trained harder hoping to reach our goal, the 2010 Winter Olympics. The 2009 Worlds Figure Skating Championships was held in the Staples Center of Los Angeles and I was really excited to compete at my hometown where many of my friends and family were living. This competition is considered one of the biggest competitions next to Olympics as it is the first tryouts for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. However, during one of the charity exhibitions we were doing in between our training, a skater collided with me and my ankle was sprained severely. I was determined to skate no matter what so my doctors gave me lidocain injections to numb my leg. This really affected my performance in competition and we failed to qualify for the 2010 Olympics. We were really disappointed that we couldn't show the results of our training and improvement but after weeks of rest and recovery, we went back on track again to train for the last Olympic Qualifying competition, the Nebelhorn Trophy, in Germany held in September. At that competition, we managed to earn a spot as an alternate for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
Figure skating has taught me many life lessons including focus, determination, and passion, all lessons applicable to life. Besides that, figure skating taught me to be discipline in what I chose to do and that passed on to my studies as well. I had the opportunity to use my passion for figure skating to help the Cerritos community by volunteering to teach the figure skating classes held by the city and also volunteered to assist skaters with special needs (formerly known as the Figure Skating Special Olympics). Figure skating taught me to apply my skills from this sport to my life and use it to help others. I am proud that I have gone so far to achieve where I am now and I hope to continue to work hard achieving my Olympic Dream and use my skills to help the world
Amanda Sunyoto
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