It's refreshing to see a skating film that covers the nasty, competitive side of figure skating. It is a sport where one slip of the blade for one split-second can destroy years of training and its competitors do play mind games on each other to try to make that happen. Looking pretty on the ice does not necessarily mean that these skaters behave well off the ice.
I laughed at the way skaters hiss menacingly off-camera but present the standard frozen smile and simper to the camera. I always thought those smiles and those "I just wanted to skate my best" lines sounded fake and canned.
This film also looks at the stereotype of "dumb jock" and only partially succeeds at breaking it. It's been criticized for elevating sports above studying, so I'd like to address that.
It is completely possible to go to Harvard AND skate at the highest levels. Examples abound. Debi Thomas won Olympic bronze in 1988 while studying engineering at Stanford. Paul Wylie won silver in 92 and went to Harvard undergrad and law school. Sarah Hughes won gold in 2002 and went to Yale. And today, 2018 World Champ Nathan Chen is going to Yale.
So there was no real reason to make Casey turn down a physics scholarship to Harvard in order to skate. One can pursue both.
(Anyway, Harvard guarantees full financial aid to any student accepted there. There is no need to apply for special scholarships. You can tell that no one involved in making this film knew that or bothered to research it. Besides, girls who are good at physics would be courted by nearby MIT.)
I'm a girl who is very good at math and went to an elite college, so I'm going to throw out some numbers:
Every year, 1600 new students enroll at Harvard.
This year, 18 young ladies competed at the US national figure skating championships, senior level, and 12 at the junior level.
So it is actually easier to get into Harvard than it is to even compete as a skater at the national level, much less win. And that doesn't even include the thousands of students who go to Yale, Stanford, and other elite schools like Harvard.
Conclusion: If you have skating talent and ambition, go for it. It is a much more rare quality than merely going to Harvard.
But it is also a much more risky path. What if your blade slips for that one split-second and you wind up in the dreaded 4th or 5th place, just off the podium? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? I've always wondered what happens to the 2nd tier of skaters, who work just as hard as 1-3 but don't quite make it there.
So, it would be smart to have a backup plan. This is what Casey decides to do at the end, take a few college courses per term while prioritizing her skating. Michelle Kwan seemed to do this, postpone college until after her competitive skating years were over.
This film shows that physics can be integrated into skating, but this is hardly a new idea. Any good coach should know this. It is a nice way of showing that studying can complement and even enhance sports, however, as opposed to competing against it.
Yes, the physics shown are faulty, but that's been well covered elsewhere. Confirms that the filmmakers weren't very smart. Casey never said that physics was her passion, anyway; her teacher said it. Casey was good at physics but that doesn't mean she was especially dedicated to it. I was good at math-calculus in 11th grade and part of my school's championship math team-but my passion was literature, so that's what I majored in. One more note: that physics book Casey carries everywhere is a simple "conceptual physics" book. Casey would be carrying a much thicker and heavier "physics for scientists" textbook that uses calculus or trig, at the very least.
Gen's story shows the flip side of Casey's. Gen chooses school over sports. Not necessarily because she is particularly good at either, but because she wants what Casey has, a "normal" teen life of going to school, hanging out with friends, watching tv, and eating what she wants. And maybe if she has the time to learn and pass math, she can go to college.
Oh yes, let's see a figure skating film that covers eating disorders. A recent US champion stepped away from skating to deal with her eating disorders-good for her for placing her long-term health as a higher priority than skating. I wish someone had done the same for a particular Russian champion who looked anorexic. Every time I saw her on the ice, including in person at the 2016 World Championships in Boston, I wanted to pull her off the ice and feed her a hearty meal. She's been looking better this last year, however, since moving to a new country.
I laughed at the way skaters hiss menacingly off-camera but present the standard frozen smile and simper to the camera. I always thought those smiles and those "I just wanted to skate my best" lines sounded fake and canned.
This film also looks at the stereotype of "dumb jock" and only partially succeeds at breaking it. It's been criticized for elevating sports above studying, so I'd like to address that.
It is completely possible to go to Harvard AND skate at the highest levels. Examples abound. Debi Thomas won Olympic bronze in 1988 while studying engineering at Stanford. Paul Wylie won silver in 92 and went to Harvard undergrad and law school. Sarah Hughes won gold in 2002 and went to Yale. And today, 2018 World Champ Nathan Chen is going to Yale.
So there was no real reason to make Casey turn down a physics scholarship to Harvard in order to skate. One can pursue both.
(Anyway, Harvard guarantees full financial aid to any student accepted there. There is no need to apply for special scholarships. You can tell that no one involved in making this film knew that or bothered to research it. Besides, girls who are good at physics would be courted by nearby MIT.)
I'm a girl who is very good at math and went to an elite college, so I'm going to throw out some numbers:
Every year, 1600 new students enroll at Harvard.
This year, 18 young ladies competed at the US national figure skating championships, senior level, and 12 at the junior level.
So it is actually easier to get into Harvard than it is to even compete as a skater at the national level, much less win. And that doesn't even include the thousands of students who go to Yale, Stanford, and other elite schools like Harvard.
Conclusion: If you have skating talent and ambition, go for it. It is a much more rare quality than merely going to Harvard.
But it is also a much more risky path. What if your blade slips for that one split-second and you wind up in the dreaded 4th or 5th place, just off the podium? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? I've always wondered what happens to the 2nd tier of skaters, who work just as hard as 1-3 but don't quite make it there.
So, it would be smart to have a backup plan. This is what Casey decides to do at the end, take a few college courses per term while prioritizing her skating. Michelle Kwan seemed to do this, postpone college until after her competitive skating years were over.
This film shows that physics can be integrated into skating, but this is hardly a new idea. Any good coach should know this. It is a nice way of showing that studying can complement and even enhance sports, however, as opposed to competing against it.
Yes, the physics shown are faulty, but that's been well covered elsewhere. Confirms that the filmmakers weren't very smart. Casey never said that physics was her passion, anyway; her teacher said it. Casey was good at physics but that doesn't mean she was especially dedicated to it. I was good at math-calculus in 11th grade and part of my school's championship math team-but my passion was literature, so that's what I majored in. One more note: that physics book Casey carries everywhere is a simple "conceptual physics" book. Casey would be carrying a much thicker and heavier "physics for scientists" textbook that uses calculus or trig, at the very least.
Gen's story shows the flip side of Casey's. Gen chooses school over sports. Not necessarily because she is particularly good at either, but because she wants what Casey has, a "normal" teen life of going to school, hanging out with friends, watching tv, and eating what she wants. And maybe if she has the time to learn and pass math, she can go to college.
Oh yes, let's see a figure skating film that covers eating disorders. A recent US champion stepped away from skating to deal with her eating disorders-good for her for placing her long-term health as a higher priority than skating. I wish someone had done the same for a particular Russian champion who looked anorexic. Every time I saw her on the ice, including in person at the 2016 World Championships in Boston, I wanted to pull her off the ice and feed her a hearty meal. She's been looking better this last year, however, since moving to a new country.