Watch the Northwestern University women's synchronized skating team practicing
Watch the Northwestern University women's synchronized skating team practicing
Synchronized team skating, a women's sport at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
Courtesy of Northwestern University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
EMILY MACARTHUR: The idea behind synchronized skating is that everyone's skating at the same time on the ice. But what's different is, instead of just doing the same move at the same time altogether, we're doing that as well as making different patterns, doing different types of moves like making a wheel, making a circle and traveling it. There's so many more different types of things to learn when you're skating with 15, 20 more people on the ice with you. And most of the girls on our team actually have never done synchro before so it's a new experience for most of them.
SAMANTHA STANKOWICZ: It was weird. I was skating and I realized that there were 12 other girls around me and that what I did really mattered because I could knock someone down on their feet. So it took some getting used to.
KATHY JANIK: They're used to having the ice to themselves so getting them together and skate within the arms length of each other is difficult and they freak out a lot. The intersections where they're passing through each other, those scare them a lot. But by now, this time in the season, they're pretty good.
Our season goes from about October to February. So it's just kind of an intense, grueling bunch of weeks right at the beginning and we're learning the program and then competition crunch time when they come back in January. We're in a non-qualifying division so it's-- there's smaller teams, a little less competitive, they don't go to nationals.
The thing that's great about college is that the girls aren't doing it because they have to, their parents aren't forcing them to do it. So they come and they do their classes all day, they're up early, and then they're still here on the ice until about 11:30 at night and they get up again at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning and go to class. They're real troopers to do it.
STANKOWICZ: I've met an amazing group of women that I would have never necessarily have met if I hadn't joined the team. And then they've showed me a whole bunch of different campus organizations, different classes that I can take. And it's really what I believe is the definition of a Northwestern community because everyone else is involved in a million different things but still finding the time to come to practice, still find the time to be excited about going out of town for competitions, and get amazing grades while coming home from practice at 11 PM to do their homework. It astonishes me every year.
SAMANTHA STANKOWICZ: It was weird. I was skating and I realized that there were 12 other girls around me and that what I did really mattered because I could knock someone down on their feet. So it took some getting used to.
KATHY JANIK: They're used to having the ice to themselves so getting them together and skate within the arms length of each other is difficult and they freak out a lot. The intersections where they're passing through each other, those scare them a lot. But by now, this time in the season, they're pretty good.
Our season goes from about October to February. So it's just kind of an intense, grueling bunch of weeks right at the beginning and we're learning the program and then competition crunch time when they come back in January. We're in a non-qualifying division so it's-- there's smaller teams, a little less competitive, they don't go to nationals.
The thing that's great about college is that the girls aren't doing it because they have to, their parents aren't forcing them to do it. So they come and they do their classes all day, they're up early, and then they're still here on the ice until about 11:30 at night and they get up again at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning and go to class. They're real troopers to do it.
STANKOWICZ: I've met an amazing group of women that I would have never necessarily have met if I hadn't joined the team. And then they've showed me a whole bunch of different campus organizations, different classes that I can take. And it's really what I believe is the definition of a Northwestern community because everyone else is involved in a million different things but still finding the time to come to practice, still find the time to be excited about going out of town for competitions, and get amazing grades while coming home from practice at 11 PM to do their homework. It astonishes me every year.