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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Tuesday!
For those of you in the United States Armed Forces, I want to send you a belated “thank you.”
For those of you in America, I hope you had a good holiday, if you’re in a place that does, in fact, take a holiday on Memorial day.
Anywho. So, last night, I spent a fair bit of time procrastinating by watching YouTube videos of ice skating.
Seriously, I love it. I enjoy skating, too, but I’m not very good. (Yet.)
And I think I’ve found some of what makes ice skating fun to watch, for me.
1) The music is often beautiful. Certainly, beautiful music as the background for the skating makes the routine much more fun to watch.
2) The people I watch are really talented. It’s easy to find YouTube videos of the best skates in history, after all. And the most spectacular fails. But that’s beside the point.
3) Most importantly, the two previous aspects can combine to bring visuals to the music. Basically, when an ice skating routine is done well, it is almost as though you’re watching a personification of the music.
For example, this one was making the rounds shortly before the Winter Olympics of 2014:
But his combination of choreography and music selection do, in fact, bring the music to life. I think that at least in theory dance can also do things like that, but it’s so much harder to find good dance that does so. One of the advantages that ice skating has that dancing doesn’t, is that ice skating can be naturally smoother and flowing. Any stops also become that much more dramatic. And that’s also part of the way music works. It normally flows. Even the silences are frequently, well, flowing. And when they’re not, it requires attention.
And it’s hard to keep that type of constant movement on land. But on ice, with reduced friction, you just glide along. It’s a very natural movement.
Those are definitely part of why I enjoy ice skating and watching ice skating.