Will (11) and Christina (6) in their first skating (including pairs skating) experience, 1996.
Anyone who’s involved in sports knows how easy it is to envy the top athletes’ talent and/or luck. Coach John Wooden didn’t forget to address that issue while he developed the character along with the skill of each of his athletes. There’s good reason the July 29, 2009, Sporting News Magazine declared Coach Wooden “the greatest coach ever.”
Coach Wooden was deeply religious. He had wonderful advice for all of us, not just athletes. He said simply:
“God made each of us unique.”
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes tribute book The Greatest Coach Ever goes on to give “Wooden’s Wisdom” regarding the topic of talent:
“Each one of us has a different mix of talents and a distinctive set of circumstances….If we refrain from comparing ourselves to others and stay off other people’s ladders of success, we will have peace of mind. If we put forward our best effort, we can consider ourselves to be successful.”
If we follow Coach Wooden’s advice, we will truly enjoy the journey rather than just waiting for a final goal. When I look back on my kids’ skating careers, it’s difficult to say which part was best. I loved when they first started skating, their first local competitions, their first Junior Nationals (then called Junior Olympics), later Junior Nationals, sectionals, “big” nationals, Will’s Junior Grand Prix internationals and Junior Grand Prix Finals, Chrissy’s senior internationals, Europeans, and Worlds.
There were good things about each part of my kids’ competitive journeys. And the painful times along the way, the times when they didn’t get the breaks, that was all part of their process, their “distinctive set of circumstances.” How can we compare their skating experiences with someone else’s?
Will’s competitive skating career was “perfect” for him, and Chrissy’s was “perfect” for her. I’m grateful for every opportunity we took to make competitions special at each level, for every opportunity we took to celebrate our kids’ achievements.
Let’s remember ThanksLiving. It applies to talents, too.
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Spiritual Steps on the Road to Success- Figure Skaters Need Patience to Create Excellence
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Hi Deb! Checking out your other site today. I love it and am now following it too! Great post, yes we should always give thanks to God for our talents. You are an inspiration the way you let your children find their talents and pursue them. I hope to be able to do the same with my two.
Hi Michelle! Thanks so much for following me here! I always love hearing from you and really appreciate your very kind comments.
LOVE that quote by Coach Wooden and the idea of ThanksLiving! I’m so glad you blog so I can learn from you as I parent my children… You’re a great example to follow! Thank you for sharing your experiences and words of wisdom (and others word as well)! 🙂
Thanks, SO MUCH, Michelle for your very sweet comment!
Thanks for stopping at my blog. Adorable picture of your little skaters. There’s a new TV show of skaters but I haven’t watched it. It must come on after Dancing With the Stars because that is where I see it advertised. Dancing was my thing. I too raised a skater. I know the earliy morning ice time before school, the dinner left on the stove when I brought my daughter home from the evening ice. Sitting on a wood bleacher, knitting sweater after sweater. Balancing the check book to make sure there was enough money for the extra skating lessons. Mine was a long time ago but it was a good time.
Manzanita
Wanna buy a duck
Thanks for your kind comment! There are so many great memories from figure skating, even with the challenges (such as balancing the checkbook), aren’t there?!
Because I live in tropical country, I love seeing someone skating on Ice or snow. Following you via FF 40 & over
Thanks for your comment, Amiko! I’ve typically lived where there’s some to a lot of snow, so it’s interesting to think about having a tropical climate year round. Thanks for following me!
I’m sure I could be proven wrong but I don’t think talent is even that much of a factor. It’s all about heart and PRACTICE.
I’m a bodybuilder and maybe MAYBE there might be people with better genes than me BUT I have heart and I will 100x harder than him every day. For me that hard work mentality is me being more talented in a mindset kind of way.
Does that make sense?
That’s very good advice, Deb, especially from the perspective of looking back at your kids’ skating careers. That’s when you see that what really mattered was how much did they enjoy the experience? Certainly there’s some stress involved in the preparation, the point is, once they’d had their performance, was it something positive for them to look back on and get satisfaction from? It is for me, I’m glad I’ve had the chance as an adult to really skate as I’ve wanted to.