If I’m writing or skating “on the edge,” that groovy term mythologized in the Seventies, then I’m aiming to put it out there with maximally cool, technical style. A worthy goal, indeed, for this child of the Seventies whose jams are writing and figure skating.
Go figure: You can observe that a skater moves beautifully on the ice, or that a writer has written a beautiful novel, but to the untrained eye each appears to produce beauty mysteriously.
To analyze how writers and skaters achieve their effects requires some technical knowledge of the methods they use to perform their magic. In my book, writing technique mirrors figure skating technique. With writing, like figure skating, you can’t improve without knowledge of how to perform a technique.
A Skating Technique That Relates to Writing Technique
If you’ve watched figure skating on TV recently, you’ve probably heard Olympians Tara (Lipinski) and Johnny (Weir) mix it up and “ooh and ah” over a skater’s “deep edges.” Deep edges may not be readily apparent to the untrained eye, but require a high degree of technical ability, which judges factor into a skater’s component score to indicate the quality of his or her basic skating.
A skate blade has two edges, the outside and the inside, with a hollow down the middle. The blade is made of steel, and the edges can be sharpened, like a pair of scissors. From front to back, the blade is slightly bowed or curved, and that degree of curvature is called the rocker, which allows skaters to perform turns and spins by pressing on the blade’s “sweet spot.”
To use their edges, skaters bend their knees to push, leaning into the direction they want to go. This effort results in travel across the ice on a lobe—a sweeping curve—rather than on a straight line. Deeper knee-bend and greater lean into the edge produces a deeper curve, or more defined lobe, and is technically more difficult because of the strength and body control required.
Notice the deep knee bend and the “lean” of their bodies over their blades that ice dance champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto have as they perform a compulsory ice dance. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Watch for how much skaters bend their knees. Watch for their lean out over the edge. Those things are what generate the magnificent flow across the ice that great figure skaters have.
The Craft of Figure Skating and the Craft of Writing
I’ve been taking figure skating lessons every week for over fifteen years, so this stuff is edgy and cool to me, like Vanilla Ice eloquently wrote, “Ice, ice, baby!” During that time, I’ve also become intensely interested in learning techniques for beautiful writing.
Growing up, I had a thorough grounding in grammar and punctuation, parsing and diagramming sentences, and even required courses in Latin at Girls’ Preparatory School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I also earned a degree in English at Vanderbilt University.
But what I hadn’t studied when I first started writing fifteen years ago was the craft of producing fiction. When I’d hear an accomplished writer refer to his or her “craft,” I knew I had a lot more to learn.
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So stick around and subscribe to my mailing list at the top of my page. I’ll discuss craft topics on writing, figure skating, and/or life in each new “Writing on the Edge” post. This summer I’ll be starting an MFA program in the Sewanee School of Letters at the University of the South. I’ll post from there, too, and report on what goes on at a low-residency MFA program.
Thank you for reading!