Thursday, March 27 - Ice Dance Original Dance Practice
Kind Words and Bright Smiles
This time I had no reasons, no excuses. I was just late to dance practice. It's quite possible that I was intentionally late and allowed myself some extra time to sleep in after the eventful Wednesday night. I arrived at the beginning of the third of six dance groups. Groupings were again by the start order of the next competitive phase - the original dance. This was a dress rehearsal. Costumery appeared to be largely the same as what would be worn for the original dance competition.
Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletski of Israel had a cool ending lift to their program.
Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali practiced their straight line sequence. Federica tripped a little during this sequence. Her coach kept fixing her costume's shoulder straps whenever they skated over to the boards for advice as the straps kept slipping down.
Nora Hoffmann and Attila Elek were back on the ice skating fine after yesterday's accident on the ice.
Weina Zhang and Xiangming Cao almost collided with Julia Golovina and Oleg Voiko in their group. Usually what happens is a member of either couple or one of their coaches will yell out when it appears that a collision might take place. It is an alert signal, so the couples will check their positions and surroundings and try to escape mishap.
Victor Kraatz shared a laugh and some words with Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon as they assembled in waiting to take the ice before their group.
Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh fell on each other while they were on the ice. They were in an area by themselves, so no other couples prompted the fall. Ilia gave 100 percent in energy and the expression of their original dance during their run-through while Irina just smiled uniformly throughout.
I sat in the section directly to the left of the autograph wall section during practice today. I was in the second row behind the barricade that separated the boards from the stands near the skaters' warm up area. This fifth group was exiting the ice, when I heard a lady's voice calling out to me, 'Thank you, I read your book.' It was Marie-France Dubreuil before she had even exited the ice from the end of their practice. Marie-France is speaking to me. What is this? I thought. I rose up quickly from my seat and walked two rows to the front to rest my arms on the barricade. Patrice Lauzon was not far behind her, with a big smile on his face, also looking over at my direction. Patrice is a self-proclaimed shy person. He also seemed happy that Marie-France was happy. 'I read your book, and it was what I really needed,' she added. 'I'm glad you liked it,' I managed weakly. She continued to describe to me more on what it had meant to her. I was shocked - that they had enjoyed the book so much, and that they were taking the time to tell me about. For I realized that they did not have to do this, but I was very glad that they had. I meant everything I had wrote in the book, but I didn't know it would matter that much. I just continued smiling over at them. I became a bumbling idiot and had nothing intelligent to say that I could put into words. I tried to wish them well for the original dance, but I was taking too long to formulate my sentences and not projecting my voice loud enough to be heard or understood. I truly write with a higher comfort level than I speak or hold conversations, and this translates also into encounters with non-skaters outside of this skating world I was absorbed in for one week.
Marie-France and Patrice began signing autographs along the autograph wall. A young lady whom I had seen at the dance practice in the Convention Center the day before, functioning normally around the skaters, came up to me and asked if I wanted to have a picture taken with them. 'Sure,' I said. I walked over to the front where they were finishing autograph signing near the corner of the wall. Marie-France looked over at my direction, with a smile. 'Marie-France, can I take a picture?' I asked. 'Yes, but can we take it in this corner? Patrice doesn't have his skate guards on,' she replied. I looked down at where Patrice was standing, so I could see where I needed to position so that he could still stand on the green felt carpet and not the neighboring section of cement. He was just smiling up at me (and looking cute). 'Sure, ' I answered. I found an empty chair toward the aisle of that front row and began peeling off my layers - coat, cardigan and scarf, dropped any booklets and adjusted my camera as I handed it to the lady. Instantly, the inhabitants of the seats near the corner cleared a space for me to crouch, so the picture could be taken. Patrice was putting his arm around the section of the gate where I would crouch. The picture was snapped, and I thanked Marie-France and Patrice and also the kind picture taker. A big thanks to her. She was very nice to think to do that for me. After she handed the camera back to me, she asked, 'What did you give them?' as they had heard Marie-France talking to me. I answered that it was a booklet on how I came to like their skating, qualities of their skating, and thoughts on different programs they had done.
Practice group 6 was a preview of mishaps to come later that afternoon. A red piece of costume came off of Tanith Belbin while she was on the ice rehearsing with Benjamin Agosto. None of the skaters noticed it for a while. Later, near the same area, Maxim Staviyski bent down and scraped up something else from the ice surface and shook it off over the side of the boards. We in the stands were pointing and directing him to Tanith's piece of costume to remove as well, but Maxim did not see us. Instead, Albena Denkova saw us pointing, and she directed Maxim to pick it up. He did, and we clapped.
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