Skating clinic with Makarov and Selezneva

On 22 January one of my skating clubs had a clinic with Oleg Makarov and Larisa Selezneva, Olympic, World, and European Champion figure skaters. Oleg and Larisa were 1984 Olympic Pairs Bronze Medalists,1985 World Silver Medalists, 1987 & 1989 European Gold Medalists, and five-time Soviet National Gold Medalists. They now coach.

The clinic was fabulous and packed with skaters of all levels and ages. Oleg focused on moves, and so I stuck with him as we moved from beginner (well, what HE thinks of as beginner...whooh!) to intermediate moves, and Larisa focused on jumps and spins.

Oleg split the time in his clinics between those of us who had skating skills, and those who were at a more beginning level. He'd get us more advanced skaters working on something, then show something related, but more basic, to the beginners.

We did some fabulous new stuff that was very much related to compulsory figures, and some things I was familiar with (and yet can't yet do), like backwards crossrolls. A few times, Oleg took me by the hand and helped me through certain moves. Of course, things were a lot easier with him there!

Oleg told us stories of how his coach used to make him work on the basics even when he was training for Worlds - hours long sessions of just forward and backward crossovers, for example, in a quest for strength, power and flow. He also talked about the early-morning hours he spent doing patch practice for compulsory figures. He misses the figures, and gave examples of how their loss has impacted the skating of his students and his own coaching. He said that he now has to struggle to explain and teach things like edges to his students - things that used to simply become rote with the practice of figures.

At the end of the clinic, some of Oleg and Larisa's students did their programs. Then, as the piece de resistance, Oleg and Larisa did a pairs move - he picked her up and spun her, platter style, on top of his head. Her belly was on his head, she put her arms and legs out like a star, he spun her while he was spinning in the opposite direction below her. Not bad, as he said, for people "of our age" - and in my opinion, really fabulous.