Wilmar, MN show!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of performing in Wilmar, MN at the Diamond Edge FSC. It is a basic skills club that is surrounded by a really nice community. On Friday, I arrived at the MN airport. If you didn’t know by now, I’m sort of a technophile, and Dyson rules the vacuum cleaner world in my opinion. Well, the bathrooms here have the amazing Dyson Airblade Hand Dryer! It cleans the air before drying your hands and uses 80% less energy than warm hand dryers. Oh yeah....(the picture is a little fuzzy because someone was walking in as I was taking the picture...how embarrassing!)

I meet my fellow guest skaters, Madison and Keiffer Hubbell, at the luggage claim to start our weekend adventure. We had a police escort for our two hour drive to Wilmar.  Unfortunately, the police officer, Marilee, did not bring her cruiser so I could play with the loudspeaker and siren.  (mental note:  add police car transportation into next contract)  Her son, Mitchell (the link picture to this blog), skated well and is one talented kid!

We dropped our bags at the Holiday Inn and ran over to the rink to teach our three hour on and off ice seminar. Wilmar has a great group of skaters who are really eager to learn. Since this is a basic skills club, the high school skaters get the opportunity to teach the basic skills classes.

Saturday started at noon with a thirty minute group lesson followed by two hours of private lessons. I really enjoy having skater after skater absorb theory and technique quickly and show remarkable improvement. Thank you for the enjoyable experience skaters.

Next came the Saturday night and Sunday afternoon show. I skated to "Tappin' with Bob" and "So You Think you can Dance." The audience was very receptive which makes performing that much easier.

So what crazy side stories happened along the way?

Well, first I was asked to skate in the number “Hit the Road Jack,” with the older skaters. The storyline is the standard, "guy interested in girls, girls completely not interested in guy." In the number I skate towards the girls and get clotheslined and fall down. Well, in the first show I fall down and stupidly go straight back and get a nice “bonk” on the back of my head. BUT WAIT, there’s more! Now I get back to the locker room and start to change for my second number.  Hold on a second, what is right above the toilet in the locker room? Yep, a nice cabinet just waiting for a huge “BONK” to the forehead as I attempt to go.  Yep, I saw stars, and not the good kind either! I slowly regained my balance as I cursed the cabinet and the apparent three foot tall, 8 year old construction worker who installed it.

All in all, it was a fun show that also included pair skaters Olivia Oltmanns and Joshua Santillan. I hope to visit again some day soon. Thanks for a great time Wilmar!