24 Ways to Move More. Nicole Tsong

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СКАЧАТЬ dresses with shimmery sequins for competitions and the annual ice show. But I didn’t want to compete, not really. Skate alone in front of an audience, with people watching me? I squirmed inside.

      “Okay,” I answered, obedient to my coach.

      Yvonne wanted me to compete in freestyle solo and also in compulsory skills, showcasing technique. She asked if I also wanted to do interpretive figure skating, a free-form event where skaters are given an unknown song and don’t have a routine.

      “No,” I said. I had some limits back then.

      Yvonne didn’t push. She shuffled through her tapes.

      “First, we have to figure out a song. Then we can create a program,” she said. “Do you want fast music or slow?”

      Fast meant I would have to skate faster and jump higher. Fast would push me. Fast sounded terrifying.

      “Slow,” I answered.

      She chose “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie. I practiced my routine until I could do it without thinking, the jumps and the spins ingrained, timed to match every swell of Kermit’s voice.

      At my first competition, I thought I might throw up waiting for my name to be called. I stood, shaking, at the side of rink. Yvonne rubbed my arms as I waited. Once I was on the ice, posing in my starting position in a new blue dress adorned with white and maroon sequins, the familiar strains of the song floated toward me. I moved, extending my arms side to side and following the program stamped into my muscles.

      It took me years to understand the gift of my early years of ice skating and competition. I was much older before I appreciated how it cultivated balance and strength, how I learned discipline from the early morning practices, how the challenge of performing in front of people was my first step to rising into something bigger than myself.

      Later, I was grateful for those seminal years of skating, for the ease I still have on the ice, for the discipline I learned working on my jumps and spins, for understanding what it’s like to feel scared and skate out on the ice anyway, and for learning to leave the sport at the end of eighth grade when I was done.

      I’M NOT AN ATHLETE

      By junior high, my timid kid-self turned opinionated. I didn’t want to skate anymore. It wasn’t cool. Cool kids played soccer or soft-ball. I silently resented my mom for choosing sports for us—we also took ballet—with zero social cachet. I wished she had put me in grittier ones with practical skills, ones that would be social capital in high school.

      It felt too late to learn soccer or other team sports, but as I looked ahead to high school, I thought I might be able to catch up with tennis. Our girls’ varsity team had recently won the state competition for large high schools. I had watched the players, admiring their strength on the court, their physicality as they ran after shots and fired hard returns. I wanted to be part of it all. I hoped playing on a high-level team would help me get into college.

      My friend Sue had started playing, so I asked my mom to sign me up for tennis lessons at our local raquet club, with the goal of making the freshman tennis team. Sue and I entered tournaments in the summer to get ready to play competitively, and I managed to win a game. I left with a T-shirt and a twinge of pride from the proof that I was better than one other player.

      The day of the freshman team tryouts, I clung to Sue’s side. I didn’t know how I would stack up. We lined up against the fence, watching as, one by one, girls went to the baseline and hit ground strokes with the coach.

      “Next!” I felt sick, my stomach bottoming out, just like at an ice skating competition.

      On the court, I told myself to move my feet, to watch the ball—all of my tennis coach’s instructions. I felt crushed when I hit the ball into the net or out of bounds. I worried my serves wouldn’t go in.

      When I got word I’d made it onto the team, relief swept over me. Sue made it, too. When they handed out uniforms, I couldn’t wait to wear the white pleated skirt that signified I was a real tennis player. I had done it; I had made it onto a high school sports team.

      I grew into a solid player, in part because I was dedicated, practicing outside on humid, hot weekends during the off-season. I could hit hard when pressed. By my junior year, I made it onto the vaunted varsity team.

      I also fell in love with the sport. I felt strong on the green-and-blue courts with white lines, hitting deep forehands into the precise corner I intended or returning a serve with a fiery backhand, sending opponents scrambling around the court. I felt part of something, hanging out on the bus with my friends and cheering on my teammates during long tournament weekends. I felt cool, wearing the bulky red team sweatpants, then heading out to the court to warm up.

      I didn’t dare call myself an athlete, however. In my mind, the real athletes ran up and down the basketball court, scored on the field hockey team, or blasted down the track in sprint relays. They owned the hallways with their long, lanky strides. I was a not-so-sporty, school-focused Chinese-American girl, who also played tennis.

      “I’m not an athlete,” I whispered to myself, even when our tennis team won third place in the state competition.

      I didn’t know it would be one of the most active periods of my life. Once I moved on to college, the strength I had built over years of tennis retreated. I walked a lot; dabbled in tap dance, rock climbing, kayaking, and yoga; and pushed myself into feats like a 50-mile hike. But stress and all-nighters ate away at my strength.

      As an adult, any lingering athleticism disappeared into the keyboard at work, where I looked at a screen and wrote story after story at the former Anchorage Daily News. It vanished into the couch as I sighed and watched television after a long day of writing on deadline. It faded into the elliptical at the gym, where my half-hearted 20-minute sessions were dedicated to preventing additional post-college weight gain.

      I will give myself credit for the desire to move. I loved hiking, and I chose jobs near the mountains. I lived in Anchorage for a few years, hiking several times a week in the summer and skate skiing two to three times a week during cold, dark winters to keep my energy and spirits up. I pushed my body because I loved the rush of accomplishment at the summit of a mountain, the connection to mental peace brought on by a 360-degree view, a full day of effort rewarded with pizza and a beer.

      I asked a boyfriend once if he thought I was an athlete.

      “Not really,” he said, shrugging. “Athletic, maybe, but not an athlete.”

      The comment stung, but he was saying something I already felt inside.

      At that time, I worked out primarily to control my weight. I hoped hiking regularly or skiing would drop the fluffy extra pounds that had accumulated after college. Weight loss was the only goal that kept me going to the gym during the spring and fall, transition seasons when I waited until it was time for my favorite outdoor activities again.

      LEARNING FROM YOGA

      Weight loss was also my underlying driver to do yoga. When I moved to Seattle to work for The Seattle Times, I needed a consistent way to move that didn’t include the humdrum gym or the traffic battle to hike.

      The first time I took a power yoga class, СКАЧАТЬ