The Ice Storm

The session finally ends, to my disappointment and relief, and it’s then that we are rewarded with a demonstration. Honestly, I want to scream, she is so amazing; instead, I stand silently mouthing “holy shit” as Ruh strikes one impossible whirling pose after another. It’s not hard to believe her when she says that she sometimes gets broken blood vessels in her eyes when she spins. She drops her head back at the speeding crescendo of her scratch spin, and the effect is of a gracefully shaped creature from another world. On her layback, Ruh, arms to her sides rather than traditionally rounded overhead, bends so far back that her torso is parallel to the ice. She looks as if she’s receiving a blessing from heaven. Her final move is a “Lucinda spin” into a catch foot. The “Lucinda” is her trademark, and she does it by tucking her free leg onto to her thigh and flattening herself over it, spinning all the while — it’s astounding, like a cross between a horizontal yo-yo and one of those aliens from War of the Worlds. From there, she straightens out, picks up speed, grasps the heel of her boot and stretches her leg up over her head, pulling it in so close to her body that the line from foot to sky is arrow-straight. We cheer wildly, then gather for photos. Ruh walks off, and I want to follow her to tell her how much her skating has meant to me. But this would mean running after her in my skates and I’ve looked dumb enough tonight. So I watch her go, promising myself that next time I’ll have something to show her.

—Hazel-Dawn Dumpert