While other kids her age are playing video games or hanging out with friends, 11 year old Clearview fifth grader Kayli Clymer is doing what she loves, figure skating.

 

Clymer began skating when she was six years old after watching her babysitter participate in figure skating. Wanting to follow in her role model’s footsteps, she asked her mom to let her skate. Since she had already been in dance, her mom thought ice-skating would be a good fit for her daughter. She was right.

 

Clymer joined the St. Cloud Figure Skating Club and began learning the basics of figure skating. She enjoyed it so much she continued, and after two years she also joined a synchronized skating team with 11 other skaters, working on routines set to music.

 

Last year Clymer added figure skating competitions to her journey. She joined Learn to Skate Plus, where she learned two routines, one a compulsory, which is a routine without music, and one freestyle, which is a routine with music.

 

She competed at the St. Cloud Granite City Basic Skills Competition and placed fourth in both her routines. From there she competed at the Granite City Classic, a more advanced competition, where she placed fourth in compulsory and sixth in freestyle.

 

This year she competed at the St. Cloud Granite City Basic Skills again where she placed second in compulsory and third in freestyle. 

 

Clymer has also competed with her synchronized team at a competition in Fargo for the past two years, placing fourth and third respectively, and at the Mariucci Competition in St. Paul, where they placed second.

 

What Clymer has most enjoyed, however, is performing in ice shows. March 19 and 20, she performed in her fifth show at the MAC (St. Cloud Municipal Athletic Complex), themed “All the Places You Can Go.” Clearview sixth grader Ellie Oehrlein also performed. 

 

For each ice show, Clymer joins a group with other skaters at her skill level, and they have four practices and one dress rehearsal to learn their routine. Each of them also has a small featured part where they do tricks, such as a leg lift performed while skating.

 

Figure skating takes a lot of focus and discipline. A normal week for Clymer consists of three freestyle practices and one synchronized practice. When she’s performing in a show another one to two days a week practice is added in. 

 

During the summer months she has “land practice,” where her coach works on her core, has her use a spinner, which helps improve things like balance, turns and air position, and has her practice jumps into a pool.

 

Although she loves figure skating, some days it can be tough.

 

“My coach is constantly encouraging me to work on things that are hard for me, like my flip,” said Clymer. “I can’t jump high enough so it gets frustrating.”

 

Even so, for the most part she enjoys everything about figure skating. 

 

“My favorite thing to do is my spiral,” she said, “Mine is the highest on my synchronized team.”

 

Clymer plans on skating into the foreseeable future. Her current goals are to get into more competitions and land her flip, her loop and her lutz.

 

When asked what advice she would give to someone just starting out, Clymer said, “Be prepared to fail. It’s going to hurt for countless nights but you just have to get back up and keep going. If you fail and quit you won’t know what could happen after that.”

 

If you know of a student or sports team you would like to see featured, please contact Penny Leuthard at pleuthard@gmail.com or 320-493-6030.