Sophomore Reese Hinkle said she  has been participating in ice skating for a long time. 

      Hinkle has been ice skating for about 12 years now. “When my mom was little, she would go ice skating, then when I was little, we would go together, and I ended up loving it so much. And seeing people be good at it made me want to keep skating.” 

      Hinkle says ice skating can be either solo or with other people (synchronized skating) but “personally I do both, I skate for the team Delaware but also skate by myself with my coach… while skating by myself is fun, I would rather skate with others such as a team or partner and I feel like I have a good bond with them, so we work well together.” 

   She continues to explain that “they have systems, and it is all a base of points and GOE’S and there is a list of teams that we go against. Also, at the end of seasons, there are Easterns and that is a qualifying round to see if you can go to nationals and that could be anywhere.” 

      “Our coaches, Megan and Wendy, come up with our music and choreography; it takes about one to three weeks to memorize a choreography.” She said that “we have weeks where we go and we learn it part by part and really at the end of that, it just becomes muscle memory.” 

      Hinkle’s coaches also decide what they wear for their choreographies, and they are always based on the theme of their program. But during their practices they must wear black leggings and a black tank top, they also have jackets and parkas the coaches give them. 

      “My favorite outfit has to be Wicked the Musical or Welcome to New York. This year is different, but I like it.” 

Hinkle says the hardest part about skating is “they change it when you are learning it all and it can be hard to do it a different way when you already have it memorized and the original way.”

      Even though it can get hard, Hinkle always looks forward to the most fun part of skating for her which is when “we all usually hangout and just mess around. I know it might seem mean but when we all have silly falls we usually laugh a lot at each other.” 

Skating became recognized as a sport in 1876. In competition, skaters are marked for technical and artistic excellence in performing a series of prescribed patterns and free skating (figure skating) or a choreographed series of dance moves (ice dancing).