Interview with Barbara Standke, adult skater and much more
Barbara Standke is an adult skater much committed to the sport. She skates in the public sessions of the ice rink in Villard-de-Lans, France due to the fact that she cannot become a member of the local skating club because she is an adult. She organises the “Mountain Cup” competition which takes place once a year at the end of May/beginning of June and she also competes in this competition. Barbara is a member of the ISU working group for adult skating led by Rhea Schwartz.
Barbara Standke is an adult skater much committed to the sport. She skates in the public sessions of the ice rink in Villard-de-Lans, France due to the fact that she cannot become a member of the local skating club because she is an adult. She organises the “Mountain Cup” competition which takes place once a year at the end of May/beginning of June and she also competes in this competition. Barbara is a member of the ISU working group for adult skating led by Rhea Schwartz.
Who are you?
Barbara Standke, 55 years, a born Berliner; I work as tri-lingual secretary in a large research facility (the « Polygone Scientifique ») in Grenoble, France since 1986.
When, how and why did you start skating? And adult skating?
I started skating in « my first life » from 7 to 14 years. After this time, I did not skate for 30 years. When I took up skating again, I had to start from the beginning. After such a long break, and particularly as an adult skater over 45 years, there is a deplorable lack of flexibility and also less courage to go for certain “dangerous” moves in skating compared to young skaters. On the other hand, as an adult skater you can work on artistry and presentation of your programmes and reinforce this side of your skating.
In which club/ice rink do you skate? What is it like?
As stated above, there is no possibility for adults to become members of the skating club in Villard and this is why I applied for “Individual Membership” with the USFSA in 1997. Up till now, I am skating as an individual member and I am very pleased to do so. My membership enables me to take skating tests in the USA and to participate in adult “Open” competitions. I try to travel to the USA at least once a year for either testing or competing in one of the numerous adult competitions which are being organised there. I have already been round once all the big adult competitions. My first trip took me to Wilmington, near Philadelphia in 1998. In 1999, I tried my luck in California where I passed my pre-bronze and bronze free skating tests before participating in the « West Coast Adult Open » in Los Angeles. The following year, I went to Wyandotte, near Detroit to skate in the “North American Adult Invitational”, the only big adult competition I had not yet been to. As I had been able to win my freestyle category (bronze ladies III) in Wilmington and Los Angeles, I wanted to complete my medal set by adding a third gold from Wyandotte which I did. Only three weeks before I had already won « bronze ladies III » at the New York Winter Classic.
Between 1998 and 2000 I had won my personal bet and taken top spot in my category in the three most important adult competitions (East, West and Mid-West) with the bonus point of winning in New York, too. Interested in my further skating career? Then please move on to the next question.
Could you please give a summary of your career as an adult skater?
I have added my « curriculum vitae » below.
Curriculum vitae
Figure Skating
Barbara Margrit Standke, Individual Member of US Figure Skating
TESTS
| 07/04/1994 | French club tests PN1, PN2 taken in Grenoble, France |
| 24/07/1997 | French club test PN3 taken in Grenoble, France |
| 24/02/1999 | “Adult Pre-Bronze Free Skating” and “Adult Bronze Free Skating” taken at the South Bay Figure Skating Club, CA, USA |
| 11/02/2004 | “Adult Pre-bronze Moves-in-the-Field” and “Adult Bronze Moves-in-the-Field” taken at Sky Rink, New York, USA |
COMPETITIONS
| Date | Competition | Category | Place |
| 16/03/1996 | Coupe Axel, Grenoble, France | 2B (PN2) | 1st |
| 24/03/1996 | Coupe Vétérans, Alpe d’Huez, France | Ladies III | 1st |
| 02/03/1997 | Coupe Vétérans, Alpe d’Huez, France | Ladies > 25 ans | 2nd |
| 15/03/1997 | Coupe Axel, Grenoble, France | Cat. 6 (adults) | 1st |
| 07/03/1998 | Adult Open Competition, Wilmington, Delaware, USA | Free skate* bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Interpretive**ladies III | 1st | ||
| 27/02/1999 | West Coast Adult Open Championships, Los Angeles, USA | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Interpretive ladies III | 2nd | ||
| 04/04/1999 | Coupe Vétérans, Alpe d’Huez, France | Ladies > 25 ans | 1st |
| 29/05/1999 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| 19/02/2000 | New York Winter Classic, New York, USA | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Interpretive ladies III | 1st | ||
| 11/03/2000 | North American Adult Invitational, Wyandotte, Michigan, USA | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Interpretive ladies III | 1st | ||
| 20/05/2000 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | Bronze compulsory figs | 1st |
| FS Bronze ladies III | 1st | ||
| 01/06/2001 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | Bronze compulsory figs | 1st |
| FS Bronze ladies III | 1st | ||
| 08/12/2001 | Dune of Flanders Cup, Dunkerque, France | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Interpretive ladies III | 2nd | ||
| 17/05/2002 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | Silver compulsory figs | 1st |
| FS Bronze ladies III | 1st | ||
| 18/05/2002 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | Pairs with Guy Moritz | 1st |
| 07/09/2002 | World Ice Challenge, Bordeaux, France | FS Silver ladies III | 1st |
| 08/09/2002 | Interpretive ladies III | 1st | |
| 06/12/2002 | Dune of Flanders Cup, Dunkerque, France | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Improvisation ladies III+IV | 1st | ||
| 14/03/2003 | West Coast Adult Open Competition, San Francisco, USA | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| Interpretive ladies III | 1st | ||
| 30/05/2003 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | Silver compulsory figs | 2nd |
| FS Bronze ladies III | 1st | ||
| 14/02/2004 | New York Winter Classic, New York, USA | FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
| 28/05/2004 | Coupe de la Montagne, Villard, France | Open compulsory figs | 1st |
| Improvisation bronzeladies III | 1st | ||
| FS Bronze ladies III | 1st |
What do you like about (adult) skating?
The conviviality and camaraderie as well as the fact to meet many interesting people of different nationalities with whom you can make friends and exchange ideas about skating and life in general.
In skating, what do you need to work on as a priority?
Still on my basic skating. I am much surprised to find that I took up practising - with joy! - compulsory figures which had been abandoned at elite level years ago. As far as adult skating is concerned, I am convinced that figures help very much in developing good edges. It is true that figures require a lot of patience and a certain love of perfection but you also get a good feed-back on the state-of-the-art of your edges by practising figures. Many adults who have tried to skate figures are utterly surprised how difficult it is to complete a “round” on one foot and make it look like a circle. However, all the elements that we need later in a freestyle programme, for example in a step sequence, have their origins in figures. And not only in step sequences. How can you properly check your three turn which is the entry to the Salchow or the flip without having worked on it in figures before? It is also not surprising to see that some skaters have difficulties with back outside spins (in particular sit spins). Many of them spin on the forward inside edge instead of the back outside edge as they never worked on back outside loops in figures. Of course I am not pleading for a re-introduction of figures but I am convinced that some basic practice of figures before taking up free skating would be beneficial for adult skaters. Field Moves are also a very good exercise but, unfortunately, they are widely neglected in the training sessions of European skating clubs.
What « material » are you working with? Why?
Concerning compulsory figures, I still work with my old books from the years 1950/60 and re-read certain chapters. But this doesn’t replace advice from coaches. As in Villard-de-Lans there is no freestyle coach, I travel in my holidays and try to take lessons elsewhere. In February, I worked with Kenny Moir in New York, in Berlin I take lessons from Heidemarie Walther-Steiner and in Lausanne from Lionel Delieutraz. Although I don’t see him more than once a year at the “Mountain Cup” competition I still consider Xavier Debernis to be my coach. He had worked with me at the beginning of my adult skater’s career and I owe him a lot. I was also very lucky to take some lessons from Frank Carroll when he still worked at Ice Castle, Lake Arrowhead in 1996 and I will never forget this experience. I was really impressed by the way he gave advice to students at all levels, from adult beginners to top-level skaters. He made no difference between skaters and was always trying to find solutions for their problems (whether the problem was the triple flip or the single).
What represents adult skating for you?
First of all a new experience, particularly since I started pair skating. At the 2001 “Mountain Cup” competition I met Guy Moritz from the Besançon Skating Club. Already during the competition I had asked him whether he would like to skate pairs with me. Our first practice sessions - which were pretty catastrophic - took place in the rinks of Mulhouse and Besançon. We soon realized that we wouldn’t learn pair moves without a coach. We decided to ask Lionel Delieutraz in Lausanne to coach us during the 2001/2002 season. He set up our pairs routine - in the public sessions of the Lausanne ice rinks. It goes without saying that we couldn’t practice the programme with music in Lausanne and back in Besançon, we didn’t have the coach! But we were still motivated in spite of the distance between Villard and Besançon (4:30 hrs) and we entered the pairs competition at the 2002 “Mountain Cup” which we were lucky to win.
What is missing in adult skating?
In Europe, adult skating is far from being recognised as a serious sport. Federations, clubs and certain coaches have not yet realized that they could all benefit from supporting adult skating. Membership numbers would go up in clubs and also in the respective federations. For coaches, adult skaters represent a highly-motivated group of students because they really want to practise this sport. Even shops selling skating equipment would benefit from adults who all need to buy equipment. In the USA, on the other hand, adults are a well-recognized group within the skating community and are represented in committees of US Figure Skating. Not only adult skating tests have been put in place, but numerous competitions for adults in nearly all regions of the country and an Adult National Championship take place since 10 years! Articles on adult skating can be found in nearly every issue of the prestigious SKATING magazine which helps enormously to publicize and promote adult skating. Top-class coaches like Frank Carroll in California, Oleg Vassiliev in Chicago, and Ron Ludington in Delaware, to cite only three from a large number, give advice to adult skaters. There are also adult training camps organised in the USA in which coaches of international reputation teach adult students.
What is your personal commitment to adult skating?
After having skated in my first adult competition in the USA in 1998, I came back to France with the firm decision to organise such an event in Villard. Together with Xavier Debernis, my coach at this time with whom I worked in the public sessions of the Villard rink, we created the first “Mountain Cup” competition in May 1999. Many skaters, in particular those from the USA, followed our invitation and we were very happy to have started this international adult competition in France. Since 1999, the “Mountain Cup” has continued to develop and this year we organised the 6th edition, the largest ever with 140 skaters from 12 countries. For information on the “Mountain Cup” competition would you please send an e-mail to Barbara Standke (standke@ill.fr).
How do you see the future of adult skating?
At the moment adult competitions in Europe are developing. After the “Mountain Cup” competition which usually takes place in May, the “Dune of Flanders Cup” at Dunkerque, France has found its place on the agenda at the beginning of December. The “Deutschlandpokal” is organised in mid-April at Grimma, near Leipzig, Germany. The British adult skating community has already set up a fair number of adult competitions plus a National Adult Championship and only this year a new adult open competition was born in Tallinn, Estonia which took place the weekend before the “Mountain Cup” in May.
With the creation of the ISU working group on adult skating of which I am a member we look into the possibility of organising a first ISU international adult competition in June 2005. For the moment, we are still very much in the project phase. I think that we will only be able to make concrete plans once we know what the financial contribution of the ISU will be to the organisation of such an event. Meanwhile the working group is looking into the rules for this competition. The task of comparing different figure skating and ice dance tests of different countries is particularly difficult and time-consuming.
Which question is missing in this mini interview?
I think I did already write quite a lot and I don’t want to take up more time of the readers. Thank you very much for your attention. I am pleased that I could share my ideas with you.