HIS ‘SKATING THING’ IS PRETTY COOL by KIM NAVARRO


M


uch to my skating part- ner’s annoyance, I am not a very competitive person. I know that doesn’t exactly


fit into the whole competitive ice skating thing, but that is just the way it is. So when my skating partner,


Brent Bommentre, and I retired from competitive skating after the 2010 World Figure Skating Cham- pionships and transitioned into the professional skating world, I wasn’t sure how I would look upon the whole competitive ice skat- ing thing. I had no idea if I would want to follow along from afar or if I would cringe at the idea of seeing a competitive program. When my


own skating was taken out of com- petitive skating, I couldn’t guess what my feelings would be, and, more importantly, what my level of caring would be about the com- petitive skating world. One week after the 2010


World Championships, Brent and I were offered a principal role with the new Holiday On Ice produc- tion “Festival,” a show that would tour throughout Europe for nine months. It was a perfect fit: Brent wanted to travel; I wanted to per- form. It seemed there was an ex- press train leaving the country and competitive skating, and we jumped on it. So there we were in Europe


Kim Navarro enjoys her time on the ice with one of her adult students and his wife.


TSTAYING CONNECTED


— in Germany to be specific -— when the 2011 U.S. Figure Skating Championships rolled around, the first nationals Brent and I were not participating in since we teamed up in 2005. Here came the moment of


truth. Would I know it was nation- als? Would I care? Would I watch and be bitter? Would I watch and think everyone was terrible, in some kind of weird retrospective defense? Well, guess what?


Happily,


and much to my surprise, none of the above happened, except the caring. I found myself, along with many of my cast members, glued to the icenetwork.com feed, breaking all sorts of Holiday On Ice rules (such as “No Internet during the show”). We were cheering for skaters, getting excited for the people skating next, running out of the dressing room to quickly perform our solos, and then run- ning right back to the computer screen (breaking both the “No running backstage” and “No Inter- net during the show” rules. (Sorry, Holiday On Ice. I owe you many eu- ros in fines.) It was such a natural thing


that, oddly, I had not seen coming. I began to realize that whether we like competition or not, or wheth- er we compete or perform, at the most basic level, we really like this silly ice skating thing, and we just can’t help but want to stay in touch with it and see the sport thrive. I also began to realize, a bit


more slowly perhaps, the im- portance of staying involved in skating outside of the act of skat- ing itself (which I shamelessly


Kim Navarro helps a youngster learn to skate at the 2012 U.S. Championships in San Jose, Calif. PHOTO BY U.S. FIGURE SKATING


Kim Navarro and her skating partner, Brent Bommentre, perform at the


2010 U.S. Championships in Spokane, Wash.


do for purely selfish reasons). So now, back in the U.S., after two years of touring, I am still happi- ly perform. But I am also happily teaching skating, working with icenetwork.com, and serving on the Athlete Advisory Committee. Oh, and writing


this article for


SKATING. Here’s what I learned: If we


support skating, on any level, the whole of it continues. You will not find me on the ice at a compe- tition, because that is no longer where my heart is, but my hands sure will be there, in person or in spirit, clapping up a storm. Like I said, at that most basic


level, I really like this silly ice skat- ing thing and I want to support it however I can. And if we support it, we continue to give it life. And I think that is what it gave each of us in the first place, so it’s only a fair trade.


SKATING 41


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