Technology & My Passion: Bonnie Tinder and Figure Skating

Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.

This time it is Bonnie Tinder, who is the Founder & CEO of Raven Intel, a peer review site (similar to Yelp! or Glassdoor) for Enterprise Software Consulting.  After spending the past 2 decades in the HR Technology space, she started her business in 2018 to give software customers a way to make a well-informed decision in an implementation partner.  She lives in Chicago with her husband, 14-year-old son and dog, Grommet. (Yes, Bonnie is a repeat contributor - a few weeks ago she wrote about Grommet. I am convinced Grommet coerced her to write that, so I invited her to write another.)  Her hobbies include traveling, music and figure-skating—which she started taking lessons at age 40, and writes about here:

When I was 10 years old, my parents took me to a production of Ice Capades.  Ice Capades was big in the 70s and 80s and the predecessor to today’s modern events like “Disney on Ice”.  Part ice show, part circus - it mesmerized me.  Maybe it was the amazing sequin costumes or the theatrics or the graceful, athletic nature of the ballet on ice, but I left that night wanting to be a figure skater. It is a dream that has stuck with me to this day.  Spoiler alert: I did not become a professional figure skater, but skating has been something that has brought a tremendous amount of joy and importance to my life journey—even now in my mid-40s. 

Early Years

Growing up in a family that highly valued classical music, skating wasn’t a hobby my parents were keen on investing in. My mom was (and is still) a piano teacher and each one of us had their musical instrument—one sister played the violin, another the piano and I played the flute.  Both flute and skating require a tremendous amount of time and money, and music won out.  My parents would say, “music is something you can do your whole life.  You can’t skate when you’re old.” (As a parent now, their rationale makes sense.) 

But skating was something I could do ‘on my own’, which translated to saving up my allowance money to skate at open public sessions (and learning from friends who took lessons), reading books on skating and watching my idols Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas on NBC Sports.  Skating, while it looks effortless when done by a pro, is not something you can learn well DIY or from how-to books.  I came home from the rink with many bruises and while I loved every minute of skating, I never felt like I got very good at it—certainly not good enough to join Ice Capades.  After high school, I put my skates away where they collected dust for the next 20 years.

Happy 40th Birthday: Figure Skating Lessons

Things changed when I turned 40.  I now had a great job where I was working from home with a son that was in school full time.  Coincidentally, the ice rink in my neighborhood had public ice hours at noon on weekdays.  On a whim one lunch break, I dusted off my old skates and found that I could get some exercise in and had a near-empty rink to practice in.  That year for my birthday I gave myself a great gift—I hired a skating coach like I had always wanted and started taking lessons.  I also bought myself some decent skates, which is important.

Skating mid-point in my life was an amazing discovery.  I found I could ‘change the channel’ and have a great stress break in the middle of my day, while learning something I love and had forgotten. The start was humbling—I was worse than the 9-year-olds, and just as I had when I was young, I came home with many bruises.  But, now 6 years later, I am stronger and finally have learned to do the tricks that I had dreamed about. 

If you’re going to start a new hobby, here are my top (3) pieces of advice:

1. Be patient with yourself. As a skater, the first thing you need to do is learn how to fall (I got great at that.)  Early on it probably won’t feel good and you’ll want to quit—don’t.  Keep getting up and focus on the goal you’ve set for yourself.  Nobody cares that you look like a beginner except you.

2. Get the right tools. For years I skated with dull blades and as a result struggled with some basic techniques.  It wasn’t until I got my blades sharpened correctly that things changed almost overnight.  You don’t need the top-of-the-line stuff from the get-go, but invest in decent equipment so you’re not fighting with the tools while trying to learn at the same time.

3. Just do it. Don’t wait.  Sign up for that ‘stretch’ event / put a date on the calendar, then go for it.  There’s not going to be ‘the right’ time. 

Technology and Skating

There have been several technological advances over the past 20 years that have made skating easier and moved the sport forward.  One of the tools I didn’t have when I skated when I was young was an iPhone--which makes it incredibly easy to record video and analyze it later.  So much of skating is about core balance and precision of the skate blade, and you can’t truly judge what a move is looking like while you’re doing it.  There have been many times that I hadn’t realized that my shoulder position was off, or I was on the wrong edge of the blade, until I was able to zoom in and analyze from a different perspective.  It’s not easy to watch yourself on film (I always think I’m going a whole bunch faster than the video shows), but it’s been a great way to address errors and make changes.  Digital video and replay has also made skating competition / judging far more precise and improved the technical nature of jumps as every turn and landing can be easily analyzed.

Another improvement has been with the ice quality itself.  Back when I was young, having the ice cleared before skating sessions took a full 30 minutes and the result was still inconsistent and choppy.  The Zamboni machines of today work in 10 minutes and resurface the ice more efficiently.  It makes it easier for ice rinks to provide skaters with maximum ice time but still guarantee a perfect sheet of ice for the next session—and as a skater there’s nothing better than stepping out on ‘fresh glass.’

The COVID19 pause

A few weeks ago I went to the rink to find this sign posted on the front door:

While this is a minor inconvenience in light of the severity of the larger situation, it’s been sad to not have skating to turn to as a source of stress-relief.  There’s many off-ice exercises that can be done, sure, but it doesn’t replace the joy of gliding on fresh ice.  Going to the rink will be one of the first things I do when this quarantine period is over--and I’ll be smiling ear to ear.

Comments

[Joy]

Lovely, Bonnie! Very nice indeed.

[Gary Martin]

We both miss skating!! Such a great article.