On Falling

I was lucky enough to watch Pandora's Unforgettable Moments of Love on Ice live last night. There was some amazing skating with amazing spins, enormous jumps, and of course the requisite back flip. But because the show is meant for a TV audience, after everyone had performed their numbers, they had to go back and do retakes of jumps that hadn't worked so well, or to get the right camera angle on a move. Nancy Kerrigan was one of the performers to have to re-skate her jumps, having fallen on both of them in her program. The first one was a double axel. She tried it, sank down on the landing, and fell onto the ice. Getting up, she made some comment about it being way past her bedtime. No big deal. Then she tried it again. And fell. And tried again. And fell. On the third one, though, something was different. She fell hard, and stood up cradling her wrist. Skated around listlessly for a few seconds. Glided over to one of the camera men. You could hear her whimper a little from the pain, see the frustration on her face. Someone from the crowd shouted, "Go, Nancy!” Everyone joined in, shouting, "Nancy! Nancy! Nancy!" over and over. She skated out onto center ice. Tried it again. She fell, but this time, she had the crowd behind her. They kept screaming her name, wildly cheering her on as if their shouts would somehow make the jump easier. She tried again. And landed it.

You wouldn't believe how loud the crowd was after that. We'd all shared a little part in helping her land that jump, all seen a glimpse of the effort that it takes to land a jump. We'd seen past her as a performer, and saw emotion that was all too human. For me as a skater, it was humbling to know that even some of the best skaters in the world have off days or fall down sometimes. Maybe they're not so different from us, after all.

And that double flip? She nailed it on the second try.
=D