Hello everybody. Welcome, welcome. I’m just letting everybody get settled as All these screens load up and we watch the number climb. Amazing. Welcome to all these classes joining in and welcome if you’re watching the recording at some later date as well.
My name is Stephanie and I’m the program manager at Take Me Outside. This is Take Me Outside Week and this is our This is our final presentation of Take Me Outside Week, which is really exciting.
It’s been a fantastic week so far if you have, been following along and if you have been, part of any of the presentations yet so far. Welcome. And if this is your first one, then you’re in for a treat and we’re so happy to have you here.
It’s yeah, it’s such a fun week. Take me outside week is all about Spending more time outside playing and learning and making that a part of every day so take what you’re doing this week and keep that going throughout the whole school year throughout your whole life.
That’s what we’re trying to do here. And we’re doing that through. Featuring different speakers like the lash here and doing different activities and hopefully there’s something for everybody that gets them inspired and stoked to head right back out side after this.
So. I mean, that’s all our mission. And we’ve been if you’ve missed anything from this week, we have all the recordings up so far. Nicholas is here working behind the scenes putting stuff in the chat. So if you need any of links and things I mentioned today, you’ll find them in the chat.
Please feel free to use the chat to say hello to ask questions and all of that stuff the chat is open. The QA box is open. Because it’s webinar style, we can’t see your beautiful faces, but we know you’re there and you can use the reaction button.
And do all of that to engage and we have prizes at the end so that’s through the questions that are asked that’s how we choose the prize winners so make sure you’re thinking of some questions to ask and I see some people saying hello.
Hello, hello, hello. If you know, the traditional territory, which you’re joining in from, please feel free to add that in the chat and anything you want to share, you know, what grade you’re in, all of those things.
So I’m joining in from Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. That’s the traditional territory of the Kowatzan people, the Cowichan tribes and the whole Camino speaking people. And right now it is October Huiseleno in Hulkamina which means the times when the leaves are falling from the trees.
And because we are, because I’m in. Vancouver Island, we don’t really get much snow here, so there’s not a ton of skating to be had, so I’m excited to learn a whole bunch from Lodge here today.
And if you are heading outside today and after this, take some photos and share what you’re doing. We have a hashtag and we have different accounts on social media that you can tag or get involved that way.
Yesterday was take me outside day the official taking outside day so we were doing nature art, we were gonna make a huge mural mosaic out of all the art we received. So if you haven’t had a chance yet, you also have the rest of the week to send in your photos.
Anything else you need to know about Zoom before we get started? We have close captions enabled if that’s something that is useful to you.
You can, turn that off and on using the more button on your zoom screen. You’re all automatically muted and everything like that so you don’t have to worry about accidentally make noise or anything like that.
And you can, we’ll see how it goes at the end with questions and things like that. There might be an opportunity to you could be able to raise your hand in Zoom and unmute and ask your questions.
We’ll see. We usually have tons in the chat and have no lack of questions. So, stay to the end. And as I said, we’ll draw prizes from those who, send in their questions.
And anything else that comes up. Whether if you just have sort of a technical question, do type that in the chat as well and Nicholas will help you.
And if you have to leave early, the recording will be up shortly after this. Alright, so that’s enough of the housekeeping and the intro and all of that.
We’re so, so happy to have Lodge here today. Wow, yeah, I’m so excited for this conversation and I’ll give I’ll give you a quick intro and then we can kind of get into it. So. Elijah is the Canadian figure skating veteran over 15 years of competitive experiences 15 still the right number Okay.
Yeah, yeah, cause I retired from competition in 2018, so I think that number will stay until I maybe want to start competing again, which probably won’t happen. Yes.
Fair enough, yeah, bad knee club. I feel that. Yeah, so yeah, so fair enough that 15 is a competitive experience, but, is now a professional figure skater and then you can see some of his amazing videos online now. Holy, they’re great.
So of all day is now one of the most sought after professional skaters in the world today renowned for his innovative and soulful approach to his craft dynamic infusion of dance and his innate musicality and charisma both on and off.
The ice, so born in Moscow, and raised in Montreal with strong roots in Russia and Guinea. And I’m so excited to chat here today and also you’ve started a whole nonprofit. And you’ve co-founded Skate Global Foundation.
We have tons to chat about and we kind of direct the conversation based on. Questions that are coming through in the chat. So whenever those come up for you for folks watching, please send them in and and we’ll be watching those and and answering as many as we can.
And so just to finish my intro here, having begun skating at the age of 6, ball day remains an inspiration to young boys and girls around the world hoping to bring figure skating the figure skating sport back into mainstream culture, to inspire young boys to pursue their passion and not be afraid to tap into their artistic emotional personalities.
Well, more importantly, Balday hopes young bypox skaters can look to him to feel like there’s a place for them in this sport. A logical day is fluent in 3 languages, English, French, and Russian. So you can ask questions in any 3 of those today. And hopefully only these 3, cause, my limit is.
Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, yeah, we tried to enable the live translations into Zoom for these for people watching in other languages, but Zoom has not caught up. Yes. So we are restricted to English, French, and Russian today. That’s amazing. So yeah, folks, I’m gonna start the conversation, but send your questions.
As you wish. Okay, so I’m gonna bring the lodge onto the screen here. There we go. Welcome to you do you want to start off with anything or do you want to just jump right into the questions?
Yeah, I just wanna start off by acknowledging that I am calling from, the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the, the, the Dakota Nation and the METI nations. And other people who make their home, in the Treaty 7 region of southern Alberta. And I am in Calgary.
Perfect. Thank you so much. We often have a lot of folks who participate, take my side week who are in that area as well. So I think, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s. Some of the most beautiful nature we have in a country is right here in our backyard.
So I can imagine that there’s a lot of people from here that you would be connected with. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, starting on that note, do you have a favorite place around around there that you like to head outside? I mean, skating or otherwise?
Yeah, yeah, I mean You know the entirety of the Canadian Rockies. Is just probably one of the most majestic, natural environment I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been around the world. I’ve been, I’ve visited so many places and still to this day every time I enter those first ranges of mountains in the Rockies.
I’m just my breath is gets taken away, you know, between Canon Naskis, BANFLICK, Louise, Kenmore, you know, all of these areas and then obviously going further deep into BC. There’s just magic everywhere. In terms of skating, I mean, I’ve obviously skated on Lake Louise.
I’ve skated on Lake Minnowanka. I’ve skated on Lake Abraham. I’d say my favorite is probably Lake Abraham. And Lake Mini Walker. Oh, cool. Oh man.
I think those 2 are so incredible. Lake Abraham has those. Really cool like bubble formations, you know, that you can see the layers too like sometimes it’s like a foot of like bubbles and it creates this like really cool like 3D kind of like shape it’s it’s it’s really cool to see And then Mini Wanka was my first time skating on wild ice ever.
And so that one will stay close to my heart. I think. For the rest of my life. Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. Oh my goodness. Yeah, what was it like? Transitioning into skating on? Yeah. Yeah.
Did you call it wild ice? Oh, I love that. Yeah, what was the transition like? I mean, maybe we’ll start the one working backwards into where you where you started.
Sure. Yeah, no, the transition was actually It took a while because as a professional figure skater I’ve only really skated indoors and That’s all I knew and to be quite honest when I’m training for competition and spending 4 or 5 h on the ice.
The last thing that I want to do is go and skate outside, especially in the middle of the winter when it’s so cold and I’ve been cold all day already, right?
So there’s kind of this notion where like I’m skating indoors and that’s the only thing that I’m gonna do and because it’s the best place to train my jumps and prepare for competition.
I don’t need anything else, but in 2,015, I really started diving deeper into my connection to myself to nature i started really just diving deeper into who I was as a human being and that’s where I really bound my connection to nature and and we can go into more details about it later but I remember at that time thinking how incredible would it be to do what I love most, which is
Skate, perform, be connected to music, and move on the ice and tell a story. But do that in.
The environment I feel the most connected and in nature on ice. That is formed by mother nature like there’s no there’s nothing more epic than being able to experience something like that, but I didn’t know where to start.
And so I knew a couple friends of mine who like would travel in in the US in Colorado who would skate on wild ice and I kind of message them to ask if they knew anyone in in Calgary area or in the Rockies and they connected me with Paul, Paul Ziska and he’s been my mountain guide ever since we connect on a deep level and he’s taken me on some really wild adventures, but it’s
Been so beautiful and so meaningful and Yeah, and so that transition was a long one, but a really beautiful one. And it really allowed me to, yeah, to just connect on a, on such a deeper level with what I do.
Yeah, that’s yeah, that really spoke to you could really feel that when you were saying that story. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it’s I know I know you probably spend a lot of time in nature and like I don’t know how many people get the opportunity to like take their work.
And do that in in that environment and that being their office in a way it’s like the wild is is my office during the winter and I I’m just so grateful and and and blessed to feel like I have the opportunity to Yeah, to experience that for.
6 or 4 or 5 months out of the year. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, what a beautiful but chilly office, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, sometimes when it’s minus 40 outside. I’ve had I’ve had days where I’m out on Lake Louise or Lake Midawanka and it’s windy and it’s minus 42 and I’m just like, why am I here? Yeah. Yeah.
This is really painful, but I’m also enjoying it because it’s really beautiful. But like, I, it’s conflicting definitely.
Yeah, fair enough. And it seems like, and just, from reading about your journey and in your career, it seems like you weren’t always this passionate or this, I guess, excited about maybe finding the good and when you’re cold and uncomfortable and you weren’t always yeah you didn’t always feel the same way.
Can you speak a little bit more about that? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think my relationship with the cold in general has shifted drastically because I used to hate winter. Okay. Completely like I would because I grew up in Montreal, right? And for anyone who’s been in Montreal. Yeah.
In the winter. It’s miserable. It’s gray every single day. It snows, it dumps snow every other day like inches, it’s humid. And so when it’s like minus 15 It feels like minus 30 and you can’t shelter yourself from it.
It goes through your clothes. So and then in the winter all the rings in Montreal are cold.
So like I wake up and I’m already cold. I go to the rink and I’m cold all day and then I leave the rink go outside and I’m even more cold and I’m just I just end up being cold all day and I I always I was like complained about that but It’s not till I moved here to Calgary that I started to fall in love with the winter.
One because of the mountains, because of being able to you know, skate outside, but the reason why it’s so pleasurable also to scale outside is because it’s sunny all the time. Hmm.
You know, there’s so much sun up here. The climate is super dry. And so when it’s minus 15 and I put a jacket on, it feels like 0 or it feels like plus 5.
And I can deal with that. No problem. So I feel like this this city and this environment has changed my relationship.
With winter and with the cold and now I’m actually excited and I look forward to the winter season it’s one of my favorite seasons in the year so I never thought I would be able to say that few years ago. Hmm.
If someone would have told me that this is what I would be saying. I’d be like, that’s a lie. You’re lying to me. But here I am. Yeah. Yeah, here we are, yeah. And it’s, it seems like your relationship, I mean. Yeah. Yeah.
To figure standing itself has also changed a lot for you over the years and you know there’s sort of other questions coming through about like sort of how old were you when you started and why did you start how old were you when you started and why did you start and that kind of thing.
So I feel like that’s something that would be worth talking about too.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean. I can speak a little bit on my relationship with skating, you know, I grew up which will also take me to I guess the beginning of my career but you know I started skating at the age of 6 and and my first memories of skating was fun and exciting and I remember my mom would just take me outside.
In an outdoor rink and just teach me a couple things here and there and I was having a lot of fun and that was something that I really enjoyed but so I started at 6 by the age of 6 and a half.
I was already competing. I was already like. Full on in the sport, you know, trying to win competitions.
And I think that jump that how quick it got there was really hard for me and one of the reasons why is because growing up, you know, my mom being Russian, figure skating is huge in Russia.
It’s a really popular sport and it’s something that people do. That not just for fun. You do it to be the best. And if your goal is not to be the best, then you’re kind of wasting your time.
And so that conditioning that idea was instilled in me at a very young age and I felt a lot of pressure and I didn’t really enjoy that kind of that kind of narrative, but that’s just what my mind was.
Consumed by for the majority of my career. And it wasn’t until yeah, it wasn’t until I wanna say in my mid twenties, when I started to you know, question my path and when I started to, you know, want to connect deeper to myself and to my art, that’s when I started shifting my relationship with skating and it became less of needing to achieve and needing
To be the very best, but what is my gift and what can I share with the world and and I have an ability to be able to tell my story through movement and so being able to make people feel something is something that’s really powerful and that’s when I really started to fall in love with that side of things and that started to heal my relationship with skating because for a lot of my years in figure skating, I I wasn’t
Enjoying myself when I was When I was still a kid, I remember telling my mom that I would lose my skates and that in my skates are gone and but. Okay.
Reality they were just hidden in my closet and my mom would find them and obviously take me to the rink and you know make me skate but I’m also grateful that she did that because it now allowed me to live the way that I live and it’s a really beautiful gift that I’ve been given but but the frame work that the state of mind that I was in for most of my career was, was a lot
Of pressure and, and really intense. Yeah, that sounds really intense and Yeah. Yeah.
And yeah, and you did compete a lot and you. You know, you both accomplished a lot through your career and also had to sacrifice probably quite a lot too both in terms of like your physicality and injuries but also probably time and the constraints or the demands that were called upon for you.
Absolutely. Yeah, it’s, you know, being an athlete. Requires a lot of sacrifices of course because you’re you know whether you want to be the best in the world or you’re just doing it you know because you love the sport and you want to see how far you can go within it. It requires discipline.
It requires hard work. It requires being able to face challenges. It requires, you know, there’s a lot of obstacles that are going to come along the way, but all of these things are actually incredible life lessons that you learn throughout your your sport or your career that you can then apply in so many areas of your life and I believe that I wouldn’t be.
Who I am today without, you know, my journey as as an athlete, but Just to give you a couple of examples of like what my day to day was like when I was competing.
You know i would probably wake up and eat some breakfast obviously when i was in school so there’s 2 areas there’s one when I was still the student and then one when I was just full time, full time and athlete.
But obviously when I was in elementary school and high school I would then go to school and in Montreal we have these programs called sports study programs where we do school in the morning till noon and then the afternoon we get to do our sport.
And so I would go to school from 8 to 12 and then from there I’d go to the rink and skate from one to 4 or 5. And then from there I would go to the gym for maybe an hour or 2 and then from that point on I would go home. Well.
Eat dinner and then obviously would have to study do homework and then go to bed. And then that’s the same and then you kind of restart the next day.
And so it’s a commitment. It’s something that you know you you you know, I didn’t have a lot of time to hang out with friends, but I would make a lot of friends within the skating community.
So throughout the day while we’re at the rink, you know, we would hang out and and there was a lot of really amazing social social qualities and social moments within that but you know I couldn’t necessarily always go to a friend’s birthday or things like that because of because of the sport.
But I’m, I wouldn’t change anything. Because it’s, it’s something that I really wanted to do and I was really passionate about and, and I wanted to, prove to myself that I could, you know, put in some the work and, and, and reap the benefits of, you know, all the work that I’m putting into into this
Port. Yeah, well, that’s sounds really, But I’m glad to hear both sides of that of the the time and effort you had to put in but also to pay off and where it’s gotten you now and yeah. Absolutely.
And I mean, there’s tons of students, watching and, you know, if they’re they’re doing their own sport whatever it may be.
Now the for you looking back what would you say to kind of a student that’s trying to do something similar or they found a sport they’re really passionate about what have you what would you say to them? Sure. Yeah, that’s I think the most important thing would be to
Remind yourself of why you do the sport and why you love the sport because oftentimes I found myself being
What’s the word I’m looking for? Being almost enveloped by the pressure of performing, you know, I need to, you know, I need to go to this competition and I need to make sure that I perform well so that like I can get the scores or I can get the marks or I can, you know, get approval from my, you know, all these, all these external.
Factors sometimes weigh a lot on our shoulders and it makes the performances a lot harder or it makes the journey less enjoyable.
And so I think for me where I really where I really was able to thrive is when I felt like I was just having so much fun and I was really enjoying what I was doing and that I was only doing it because I loved doing it and because I wanted to do it and regardless of outcome, what I’m gonna focus on is like my performance because if you focus on your performance, then you’re focusing on what you can
Control. And I think that’s one thing that we we all feel at certain times in our lives, we feel like. We want to control things that we don’t have any control over and that can be really, really hard at times.
And so being able to focus on the things that you can control. And let go of the things that you can’t.
Then you’re allowing yourself to have a much easier experience and and a more enjoyable experience but that took me a while to to understand of course but I think it’s such an important way of operating, in order to allow yourself to really enjoy it.
Yeah, that’s really good advice. And right when I was asking that the question came up in the chat so that was good timing. Oh nice.
Yeah, people are definitely interested and No, do you have a time 6 out in your mind of where you were able to tap into that and really just feel like you were embodying the performance that you wanted to and it came out really well on the other side.
Yeah, yeah, I’ve had a few moments like that. I wanna say my very my most memorable one was my very last competition national, Canadian national championships in 2,018, you know, I was coming in from an injury.
I had a concussion and I was really struggling. With being able to train for about 3 months.
But within those 3 months, I really had to learn how to let go of control and really just look at what can I do in this moment right now and one of them was was just that being able to let go and allow myself to.
Except where I’m at right now because I was resisting, I was trying to get better, faster.
I wasn’t really. Present with my experience right now. And so that was a big moment for me that allowed me then to once I did start healing, I showed up at Nationals and the only thing that I wanted to do at Nationals was to perform for myself and perform for the audience that has been supported me.
For my entire career and just have this one last moment of exchange. You know, where I get to perform for them and they get to receive it and then they get to give me back some energy and just this kind of conversation that we have while we perform is so beautiful.
And so just wanting to have that as a last moment, this is something I could control because I’m in control of my body. I’m in control of what I’m able to do and so being able to give myself that opportunity to do that in that moment was, really beautiful and really powerful.
And I think that competition will stay with me. For the rest of my life. Well, yeah, we’ll have to try and find it. Is it on the internet somewhere? We will have to try and find it and link it to people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you just Google my name and then 2,018 at some point probably you’ll see like national championships or something like that. But yeah, it was a really, it was a really, really. Powerful and beautiful and magical moment in in every way. So yeah.
I’m so glad to be able to hear the story behind that too because you know when you’re watching competitions and sports you don’t often see that whole other side of things and the journey that someone might have been on. Exactly. Yeah.
And you’re talking a lot about also the mental side of things. It’s not just the training every afternoon. It’s also the mental side of things, a. Hmm.
Which I think is probably even more important than the physical training, you know, because especially when you start, you know, competing at a higher level, you know, everyone pretty much can do the same tricks.
You know, everyone’s on the same level of of a physical ability. And obviously the people who train more will probably be more prepared, but what determines whether you’re gonna be able to do it. Hmm. On that day at that time it’s all in the mind. It’s all in your mental preparation.
And I think that’s. You know, towards the end of my career, I wanna say it was probably my strongest. Skill, if you want to call it, because I understood that if I was able to keep my mind clear and I was able to stay.
Healthy and happy in my mind i would be able i’m giving myself a better chance to be able to do what I want to do, right?
There’s a lot of times where we can you know, we can almost sabotage ourselves or like we can take ourselves out of the competition before we’ve even entered. Right? Because of, you know, the way that we’re perceiving the situation or the way that we’re experiencing it. Yeah.
So the mental side of things is probably the most important, I think, and and also just in in life in general.
I think mental health is is so important to look after and it’s so important to take care of that part of our of ourselves because we can experience, I’ve seen so many people experience so much success externally, but internally they’re not really happy, they’re not really enjoying any of these things because they’re struggling with their mental health.
And so I think the mental health comes first. If you have that, then everything else that you experience is bonus. Because it gets actually Enjoy and and and experience and experience a depth. Of the moment in the way that you you want to experience it.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. That’s, I mean, that advice goes far beyond the just figure skating. Okay. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, and yeah, you’re working it out. It’s like a muscle. Just like the rest of your body. Yeah, you gotta put, you have to put work into it and not every practice works for everyone.
Some people really love journaling some people you know really like meditating some people like exercising running walking you know, talking to someone, there’s so many ways where you can support yourself.
In that way for me you know, some of the things that have helped me in my life. If, I’m able to share, obviously journaling has been an important one. I think being able to put what’s in here on paper and creating that. That distance allows for sometimes a more objective.
Point of view of the actual situation. Oftentimes I would be writing things that have been in my mind and I’m trying to solve it or I can’t figure it out but writing them down all of a sudden takes away some of that some of that in internal turmoil and so I think journaling has been an important part.
Meditation has been a really, really, really, really important one in my life. Probably the most important in my life has been meditation and there’s so many ways that you can practice meditation and Not every kind of practice will work for everyone, but I found practices for me that were really helpful and that allowed me to, you know, when I did feel.
Right before competition right before stepping onto the ice and I’m feeling so overwhelmed and anxious and stressed and just to be able to sit down for 15 s, 30 s, and reconnect to my breathing and reconnect to the present moment just allows me to Remember why I’m here.
Remember what’s important and remember that, you know, first of all, this is not the end of the world. If I have a bad competition or if, you know, if I don’t perform well, it’s not the end of the world.
You know, I still have people that love me and I’m still here and I still get to do the things that I love and so taking away that that ultimatum you know that like if I don’t perform well I am so bad or so unworthy.
Breaking that connection, I think is really important. Meditation has helped me with that in a lot of ways.
Other things are obviously you know, talking to people, but also, I think yoga is a really important practice for me to not only physically but this one is a really important practice for me too not only physically but this one is one that’s really cool.
I think yoga is a really important practice for me too, not only physically, but this one is one that’s really cool because physically you’re giving your body some really important tools to be healthy and be mobile and be strong.
But then you’re also, you know, working on your connection to yourself and your mind and so those 3 I think are probably some of the most important ones that I’ve incorporated in my athletic life but then that I still incorporate in my personal life because it has such an important, role in my life.
Yeah. Nice. Yeah, thank you so much. And we had, Sarah and, on Monday, let us in a yoga practice that was really grounding and she was outside when she was doing it and it was, yeah, it was beautiful. Yeah, so.
Yeah, yeah, I would have loved to take part in that. That sounds quite amazing.
Yeah, yeah, it was, oh, it was great. And, I mean, and when you were talking about yoga or meditation and also journaling before too, we some of the activities we’ve talked about in the past and in the resource guide and things like because we put together the resource guide for folks to get inspired this week and you know sit spots outside in nature where you just are sitting and observing something and
Yes. just sitting there in the city you might visit that same spot throughout the whole year or something like that and maybe you’re also journaling about that afterwards and just also taking those things outside.
We always hear feedback about how impactful those practices can be. And then take them outside and then It’s incredible. It just elevates, it elevates everything. Yeah, one thing that I that I wanted to add to that is just being in nature.
Nature is extremely healing and nature is extremely grounding and just being in nature and observing just watching nature you know there’s so much that happens within the stillness of nature.
You can watch you know, animals, you can watch trees, you can watch plants, you know, there’s so many things you can look at and just it can take you back to the present.
But also just Just the energy of nature and how that, you know, we are so connected to it, we’re made of the same things. We are the same as nature and so us being in nature it’s almost like us going back to our home.
You know where we’re the most at home. Yes, in the city. Obviously we have our house and all that and that’s obviously a safe space and it’s home but but I think physiologically our bodies, you know, feel even more at home when we’re in nature.
And so that is an extremely important component. And you can do all of these things in nature or you could just walk in nature and and be with it and it’s it’s so beautiful and so magical and the older I’m getting the more I’m I’m noticing and the more I’m able to be present with nature in a really, intimate way.
Yeah, it seems like it’s been a really big and important shift in your career once you started skating more outside and really putting that as in the forefront, I mean so many of the videos that you put out like on Instagram and TikTok you’re outside and it’s And it’s hard to imagine it if you were doing it inside, it would be totally different.
Yeah, yeah, it’s a different it’s a different experience and we even have to you know, cause my wife and I, we work together on all of these videos and she choreographs and creative directs, you know, all the things that we do on social media and we have to approach choreographing indoor a little bit differently than when we do outdoors because outdoors there’s so
Much There’s so much more going on. You know, visually, than indoors. And so sometimes indoors we have to find a way to, you know, keep people more engaged potentially than when we would have to outdoors because outdoors just the nature and the environment is engaging in itself.
And so, you know, We don’t have to be as. You know, I don’t say not as engaged, but we don’t have to put in as much energy in that space just because the nature around us is so. So engaging in itself. Yeah.
Yeah. Do, do you have, does the time stick out to you of something that’s happened in nature, or skating in nature that’s memorable.
Yeah, I mean one time I was skating and I had music in one ear and you know, I was really connecting to the music connecting to my movement and I was looking around while I was skating and while we were shooting and looking at nature in and all of a sudden I look at the side of the mountain.
Watching you? Yeah. Yeah.
And there is a whole family of mountain goats just like laying on the side of the mountain while I’m skating like and they were it’s almost like they were all watching me yeah It’s like I had an audience of, just like watching me and they were just laying just chilling and just like staring and I was like That’s cool, you know, like I performed for human beings so many times, but now I can
Yeah. say I’ve performed for Mellon Goats and I think that’s pretty special. And that was probably their first time seeing a figure skating performance too. Okay. I would think so. Yeah. Especially on, yeah, especially on that part of the late because we went pretty deep.
Into the lake where not a lot of people venture to so yeah no it was It was an interesting one. Yes. That’s really cool. And has your have your movements and things like that changed as you’ve gone outside?
And I mean, as sort of part of that question too, people are asking about the kind of movements that you really enjoy and also the tricks you do in the back flips and you know what’s all that about? How do you even do it?
Yeah. Yeah, so the back flips I’ve been doing for a very long time, that I think I learned when I was maybe 15 or 16. So I’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing backflips. Yeah. Yeah.
For longer than when i wasn’t doing back like if you take my career i’ve been back flipping for way longer in my career than not back flipping which is kind of Good to say, but, yeah, I’ve been doing it for a long time and that’s something that I’ve always been interested in learning.
And the way we learned it was a little bit. How do I say it? Okay. It was not the most efficient. Way? Because there’s all these technological harness that you can wear that like help you like learn how to do it on the ice.
But I won’t say how I did it. Just because I don’t wanna give ideas to anyone in terms of learning how to do it, but I did have some safety mechanism and we kind of improvised it and I learned how to do it while people were able to like support me.
But after doing it a few times i i started to feel comfortable with it and Once you’re comfortable with it. It’s big step.
With support, what’s left is just for you to do it without anyone supporting you, which is like diving, diving off a cliff, you know, you don’t know where you’re gonna land, but you’re hoping that you will end and and I did on my first one I was really nervous I like.
Hipping yourself up. Skated in circles like probably for like half an hour. Yeah, yeah, no, I would go round of like, okay, let’s go. All right, let’s go. Okay, next one. Next one. Alright, let’s do this. Okay.
No, not yet. And so I did that for a while and then eventually I was like, you know what? Okay.
I’m just gonna do that for a while and then eventually I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna do it and just kinda threw myself and land it and And it was all good. And I landed and I was like, okay, I’m done for today. I’m going home.
You know, I’m safe. Now let’s, let’s see if we can do it the next day. And then I just kind of kept practicing it every day. And now it’s become probably one of my easiest tricks that I do.
Because it’s so It’s so simple in terms of the technique compared to like doing a triple axle or compared to doing a quad like those technically are so much more intricate and it takes so much more finesse and precision to be able to do these kinds of jumps where I was a backflip all I have to do is make sure that I have enough speed.
Make sure I plant my toe in the ice and then just chuck myself backwards and it happens. Just check yourself backwards and happens a hundred percent of the time. You just chuck yourself backwards. Yeah. Yeah.
Which is a pretty good person which is a, you know, it’s a good percentage. So it’s quite easy to do now. But in terms of my movement. I want to say that in conjunction with obviously starting to skate more in nature because I was diving deeper into who I was as an artist.
That started expanding. Expanding my, vocabulary for movement. I started to try things that had never tried before and a big reason for that is my wife.
She’s a professional dancer and choreographer. And so working with her has been really transformative because I’m I was so used to up until a certain point, you know, working with skating, choreographers and even myself when I was choreographed something you know I’m limited by my lens of figure skating choreography.
That’s all I’ve seen. That’s all I’ve known. And so Whereas working with my wife, she doesn’t have the lens of a figure skater. She’s a dancer and so a lot of times she would tell me like, okay, let’s try, let’s do this.
And I’d be like, I don’t think we could do that. Like, I don’t think that’s possible. Okay. Hello.
And then we would get on the ice. And we would try it and it would work out and be like, oh, okay, so we’ve just found you know, a pattern of choreography or move that like No one has really done before because You know, we tried something that we didn’t think was possible, but then we realized it isn’t.
And so we’ve been able to develop this new way. Of moving on the ice and this new way of connecting in this new way of telling a story through movement. And I think that’s what people are so excited about on social media is just how different everything looks than traditional figure skating. Yeah.
That’s a big mission of mine is to try and introduce figure skating to people in a way they haven’t seen it before. Because a lot of times figure skating is still stuck in, you know, few decades in the past.
You know, few decades before and I, I want to, I want to find a way to modernize it and find a way to, you know, bring in hip hop music, you know, do use music that normally wouldn’t typically be used because it’s just not part of you know figure skating culture and I wanna kind of break that mold and and break that box to be able to show that figure skating is an
Yes.
Art. An art form doesn’t have boundaries and we should be able to do whatever we want on the ice and really encourage other skaters to do that, especially the next generation of skaters, you know, to understand that if They can then take that and approach it in a way that, you know, they’re finding their own attempt, authentic way of moving.
Then they’re bringing something completely unique to the sport and completely unique to them. And I think that’s a beautiful gift that I think anyone, you know, should be able to experience. My gosh, yes, yes, exactly. And yeah, shout out to Michelle. Your wife. That sounds like an awesome duo. Yeah, she’s amazing.
Okay. And I mean, you 2 are working together on, you know, you’re doing your videos and your skating and choreographing and you started a whole nonprofit together so you took your passion and then you took a cause that you really cared about and you you did something totally different.
It started a whole new organization. Which is, I mean, yeah, tell us more about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that’s something that’s thank you. Yeah, that’s something that’s really important to us.
Because we could see especially in figure skating you know you can see clearly where are some of the issues that lay in the sport and you know one of them is a massive lack of representation in in figure skating and There’s a lot of reasons for that, you know, but one of them is lack of access in underserved communities.
A lot of people get priced out. Of the sport because it’s so expensive. And so When we start looking at these things, you know, and then. With in conjunction with, you know, the big following we’ve been able to build on social media and the connections that we’ve been able to create.
You know, we wanna use that to leverage. We want to leverage that to be able to then help, you know, skaters of color or skate, you know, or people in communities that maybe are interested in skating but don’t know where to start because they don’t necessarily have a rink.
And their community. So one of the first things we did is we kind of refurbished a rink in the Northeast in Calgary, which is an underserved community. I think.
And we’ve been able to donate, I think it was 50, 50 pairs, 50 pairs of skates for the community to use for free and so just that alone, you know, having the opportunity for kids to be able to go out there and skate for free.
And maybe that’s all that they do, then it’s amazing, but maybe that’ll spark. You know, someone’s love. For skating, whether it’s hockey or speed skating or figure skating, but you know, giving giving these kids the opportunity to be able to to experience some of these things I think is really important.
And then another thing that we’re in the process of doing right now is raising funds to be able to help.
You know give out grants to skaters skaters of color who might be struggling with paying their bills my parents struggled a lot you know if it wasn’t for My whole life pretty much I had coaches who were really understanding the situation and you know basically didn’t charge me for coaching you know which which doesn’t happen and I don’t know how I got that lucky but you know if it wasn’t
Yeah, well. for that I probably wouldn’t be here now you know and and and I wouldn’t be a figure skater. And so knowing that, I’m like, if I can help try to alleviate the burden. The financial burden that some of these skaters have then maybe it’s giving them a chance to you know.
Achieve success in whatever success means to them. We want to be part of part of that journey so Yeah, it’s, it’s, important work and, you know, we believe that it’s, it’s something that will help, you know, the next generation of black indigenous and people of color.
Yeah, that’s incredible. And it it must feel like you know both at the same time sort of a lot of pressure and sort of challenging because you know it’s there’s a lot to do but I hope it also feels like a really rewarding part of your work.
It does. Yeah, it really does. I think when I see you know, even just even just, you know, being the representation for the next generation of Bipox cators is huge, you know, getting messages from.
Parents, you know, saying, you know, my kid is mixed as well and never was interested in skating, but after seeing your videos now.
You know, he’s obsessed and or she and they they want to you know they want to skate and that’s that’s their passion you know hearing things like that really show me the importance of the work that we do.
And that alone, I think, is enough fulfillment for you know for this for this journey to be fueled by, you know? So, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And through see, you know, they’re seeing someone who looks similar to them or at least is challenging the idea they have in their head of what a figure skater could look like or you know a professional athlete in general and yeah it’s huge.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, and I didn’t grow up with any representation really in a sport and so it forced me to you know, Believe that who I was and and what I wanted to be on the ice was not what the sport wanted.
And it kind of put me in a place where I could see who was successful in sport. And so I then started to change the way that I operated. You know, and what kind of clothes I wore, what kind of music I’d listen to in order to fit that mold.
But that mold wasn’t necessarily authentic to me and so I kind of sacrificed. My relationship with myself in order to find that Success, which I then later realized that it was not worth it.
You know, and I wanted to find my authentic voice and and be able to be myself and then find a way to be celebrated for it.
And I think what happened with social media was exactly that is I was able to fully be myself where would I want to wear skate to what I want to skate to skate the way that I want to skate to and be celebrated for it and I think that was a really really powerful moment for me to realize that I am enough as I am I don’t have to try to be something else or someone else.
Yeah. And getting so much good feedback and becoming, you know, gaining such a large audience of people who are saying, yes, we see you and yeah. Hmm. We see you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and we support you. And yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, thank you for sharing that.
And there was there was someone in the chat who saying that they use heavy metal in their figure skating so Yeah. That’s it. That’s sick. You know what? Like, oh man, and that’s what I mean. Okay.
Like. Because it’s an art form, there’s no boundaries like I would love to see have a heavy metal performed on the ice like that would be I would be so, intrigued by that. So wherever that person is, I would love to see them at. I’d love to see video of that.
That would be really cool. Yeah. Right, so cool. Yeah, and I mean I feel like there and there’s a bunch of questions that have come through as we’ve been talking and some of them we’ve kind of touched on but I feel like I should, give some time to those questions too.
Sure, yeah. Yeah, let’s fire them. Well, do someone’s, I mean, there’s tons. So thank you, everyone, who’s been in the chat. And sending their questions in much more than we have time for but What is oh there’s so many what is your favorite thing to do outside other than skating
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Obviously spending time in nature just in general. In the summer we go hiking a lot and just being in nature is, is, something that really enjoy. I really love video games. And so I enjoy playing video games. I am a avid manga reader.
I love Japanese manga and and watching anime it’s something that just fills my heart with excitement. Yeah, and then I think just spending time with, you know, my dog and my wife and going out on walks and just, yeah, continuing to kind of deep in our relationship.
Yeah, thank you. That was from Mrs. Graham’s grade 3, 4 class just to give them a shout out. Thank you for your question. Yeah, from a grade 5 6 class, what is your favorite part about skating hands down? We talked about a lot of different things, but if you had to choose. Yeah.
Okay. That’s a tough one. I’m toying between back flipping and Just being able to like. Hmm. Skate freely, just like put music on, just like. Just like lose myself in the speed of the movement and connecting to the music and just like.
Being so, present with art. You know, I think that is probably I would say that outweighs backclips now for the longest time back flipping was my favorite thing to do. Oh. But now I really believe that, yeah, connecting to the art form and just like freely skating.
And yeah, it’s probably my favorite part. Hmm. Yeah. Oh, that’s lovely. And people were wondering about, you know, are, are you skating when you’re off the ice? Are, are you doing stuff in the summer? You rollerblading or you roller skating? Are you? You’re doing other stuff. Yeah.
No. I mean, there’s a lot of indoor rings, you know, and so I do train like when I need to, you know, keep my jumps up or try to choreograph something over the summer, even shoot some videos. We do go, indoors. But I used to roll a blade as a kid. Okay.
I used to go to like the skate parks and I had these We called them blades at the time, but they were like these roller blades that have like really wide. Oh cool. 3.
Platforms on the side and you can like Jump on rails and like, you know, grind down rails or like, and stuff like that. Like that was that’s something that I used to love to do. But I saw one of my friends get injured and then I was like, I’m.
I’m gonna pass. I’m good. I like skiing. Yeah. Fair enough, yeah. Which gives you your fair share of injuries. Okay. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Even more so probably, but yeah. Yeah, as it goes. Someone asked, which I think is a really nice question from Miss Lister’s great 3 class.
How does skating make you feel? That’s a great question. 3. Yeah. Hmm. It makes me feel free, makes me feel like I am enough as I am. And I can be Who I am in this moment and . That is All that is needed.
The freedom of it is just Such a. Something that I had never I had never really experienced before and so I think that’s why it’s so it has such an impact on me now because I was so restricted.
For so many years and trying to fit into a mold for so many years that now since I started skating outside in nature and started, you know, diving deeper into this artist artistry, like I just feel this amount of freedom that I’d never felt before and and it’s so powerful that it takes over.
Everything. So yeah, I think freedom. Great question. Yeah. That is a great question. And I mean, you can see if you See a video like when you’re watching a video of you, it comes through.
Yeah, it’s just like this. There’s like this connection to myself that I don’t often that I don’t feel in any other part of my life. You know, and I think that that connection is what fuels this, this freedom. Of course.
Yeah. Thank you. I think that’s a really, really good place to actually end on. Rapid. I think that’s a beautiful place to wrap it and I mean yeah it’s already 3 min to the top of the hour here. Gone on for a long time. Yeah.
And so I mean, I feel like we could have probably talked for a while, especially with like, yeah, we got dozens of questions too, so I’m sorry to, we didn’t get to everybody’s, but I thank you so much. That was really fantastic to chat.
Of course. It’s my pleasure and I really thank you everyone for. Tuning in and for asking questions and and I feel I can feel the engagement and to me.
It just, yeah, it makes me really excited and happy. So I appreciate it. I appreciate you Stephanie for you know talking to me and having this really great conversation and yeah it’s it’s been a pleasure.
Hmm, likewise. Thank you so much. And I mean, and there’ll be folks watching the recording too and who didn’t get a chance to ask a question but they can follow along and they can find you on social media, right? Yeah. And Instagram and that’s where that’s where you’ll find me.
Amazing. Thank you so much. I’m gonna announce prize winners from those who ask questions and I’m gonna shift so shift gears just for a moment here in our last couple minutes. And So we, we give prizes away every time we do a presentation and we always want to show appreciation for everyone participating.
So. We have prizes today from the outdoor learning store. So thanks to the outdoor learning store. They support us today. They support us this week. They support us all year. They’re great.
Go check them out. So they’re donating $25 today to a winner. A mountain equipment company also supports us and helps keeps the keep this event free for everybody participating and they’re giving away $50 to spend at MECH.
And, we’re also giving away $25 to take me outside store. I have my shirt, says ask your teacher to take you outside today. And so we’re gonna give away one of those and Ocean Wise also donated a free OCO class virtual program, which is very cool.
And we’re also donated a free Aqua Class virtual program, which is very cool. And we’re gonna throw that in there too. And Nick plus is putting links in the chat. Thank you so much Nicholas. So I’ll ask the winners.
If your name is announced and you hear it, then just type your email in the chat to us or, you can also email us.
Our email is in the chat there. If you also, if you have photos from this week, if you want to send us anything or send us activities what you’re doing, anything like that, stand touch we always love to hear from you.
So the 4 winners today are Mrs. Kerr’s grade 3 class. Congratulations. Madam, was, mgregor. Congratulations. Emma. Sort of a mysterious handle, so Emma, please reach out so we can find you. And Cindy’s Intel, thank you so much. All 4 of you are winners today and.
With that, because this is the last presentation of the week, the recording will be up soon on YouTube. But the information for the rest of the week, with there’s a day of reflection and celebration tomorrow, but also if you’re looking for any of the other recordings or information, anything like that.
It’s all on our website. Nicholas is gonna put that in the chat there now, but I know you can all find us if you need to. So with that, only 1 min late. That’s, that’s our presentation for today. Thank you so much, Laj. Oh my gosh.
Thank you. Thank you. And, yeah, anytime I would love to do this again one day. AmazingBye
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