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A podcast from the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University about play and pop culture. Professors Haeny Yoon and Nathan Holbert talk with educators, parents and kids about how they play in their work and their lives, and why play and pop culture matter.
The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the speaker to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, staff or Trustees either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.
Nathan Holbert:
Welcome to Pop and Play, the podcast all about play and pop culture and how it shapes our lives. I'm Nathan Holbert, and with me as always is Haeny, I ain't No Kristi Yamaguchi, Yoon.
Haeny Yoon:
I always look forward to these little nicknames that you give me. I'm Haeny Yoon, and today we've got another play date Pop and Play. An episode where I invite you to play along with each of us. And now we're at the cusp a little bit where it's cold and maybe hot, but maybe cold again. So who knows? By the time you listen to this episode, it might be time to be cold again. I don't know.
Nathan Holbert:
It could be 90 degrees. Who knows?
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. So each play date we'll choose a play experience, let you know in advance what we're up to, and then invite a guest to help us reflect on why this particular form of play really matters.
Nathan Holbert:
And for this play date, I hope you have stretched because we've got twizzles, we got salchow, we got triple lutzes. That's right. We're going ice skating.
Haeny Yoon:
Despite Nathan's knowledge of figure skating, our guest just looked at us and is like, "What?" And ice dancing, which is his personal favorite. Let's just say the judges and you were not impressed by your ice dancing skills. And so we needed a true expert to guide us in our ice skating play. So thankfully, I actually know a brilliant ice skater who happens to be my niece as well. Emily. Hi. Hey.
Nathan Holbert:
Welcome Emily.
Haeny Yoon:
Emily is a fourth grader from the Midwest, a member of the ice skating team Starlights. Fan of the incomparable Alysa Liu, who is basically now the coolest person on the planet. And besides ice skating, she actually loves playing with her little brother Max in her free time. Shout out to Max.
Nathan Holbert:
Shout out to Max.
Emily:
Hi, Max.
Haeny Yoon:
Good one.
Nathan Holbert:
Hey, Max. And though Max, I got to say, if you guys are getting along well, I think you need to step up the little brother work and be a little more annoying as a little brother to another little brother.
Haeny Yoon:
I'm going to say Emily has immense amounts of patience though.
Emily:
I do.
Haeny Yoon:
Yes, you definitely do.
Nathan Holbert:
Well, we were super lucky to have Emily along for our play date to teach us some new moves.
How's it going, Haeny?
Haeny Yoon:
I'm still sore.
Nathan Holbert:
It's understandable after the double to triple lutz combo that you got yourself into that you're a little sore. And I knew Emily was good, but I'm still a little surprised that you were able to lift Haeny over your head and skate backwards. That was really impressive. Well done.
Haeny Yoon:
We're almost the same size.
Nathan Holbert:
I know. That's why it's so impressive.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Wasn't that hard.
Nathan Holbert:
Well, okay. Emily, before we get into all your expertise about ice skating, and you can tell us about what your experiences are with that. We do like to start with a game.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
You ready?
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay. Here's what we're going to do. You know a lot about ice skating-
Emily:
Yeah. Kind of.
Nathan Holbert:
But I thought maybe for our game ... No. You're the expert. Don't say kind of.
Haeny Yoon:
Out of three of us, you are the expert.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
But I wanted to talk about another kind of ice, my favorite kind of ice, ice cream. What's your knowledge on ice cream? Is it pretty good?
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay.
Emily:
I like it.
Haeny Yoon:
What's your favorite ice cream?
Emily:
Mint chocolate chip.
Haeny Yoon:
Ooh, I used to love that too when I was little.
Nathan Holbert:
Nice. Yeah, but that's a very sophisticated ice cream flavor. Wow. Very well done. Okay. So here's what we're going to propose. I'm going to give you a person who's going to be eating the ice cream.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
And you and Haeny are going to be designing the ice cream that they're going to eat. You can design something that will be delicious or you can design something that may be-
Emily:
Gross.
Nathan Holbert:
... gross if you want. Yeah. But there's a twist here. I'm going to tell you the kind of ice cream and I'm going to give you two collections of toppings.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay. One topping which maybe are more standard normal toppings and another maybe a little strange and crazy.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
But you have to choose one from each.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay.
Haeny Yoon:
You got this. Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay. So we're going to start with ... Let me see if I can do this right.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
Gwi-Ma, the villain from K-Pop Demon Hunters. Who's the bad guy in K-pop demon hunters?
Emily:
I don't remember-
Haeny Yoon:
Gwi-Ma.
Emily:
Gwi-Ma.
Nathan Holbert:
Is it Gwi-Ma?
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Thank you for correcting me. Gwi-Ma. I haven't seen it yet. This is a-
Emily:
What?
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, my God. Embarrassing.
Nathan Holbert:
That's the big reveal for this episode.
Haeny Yoon:
And you call yourself a host of pop culture.
Nathan Holbert:
I've seen the songs.
Emily:
You have to watch it.
Nathan Holbert:
I know. I really need to watch it. The problem is that my kids have reached an age where they don't obsessively watch-
Emily:
You can watch it alone.
Haeny Yoon:
Exactly.
Nathan Holbert:
I could watch it alone. That'd be very normal.
Haeny Yoon:
Going to be, going to be golden.
Nathan Holbert:
Know what's interesting is for Gwi-Ma, I was going to have-
Haeny Yoon:
Gwi-Ma.
Nathan Holbert:
Gwi-Ma.
Emily:
Gwi-Ma.
Nathan Holbert:
I was going to have-
Emily:
Stop pronouncing it wrong.
Nathan Holbert:
Well, let me fix my ... There. Now I'll say it right next time. Gwi-Ma, I was going to have them eating mint and chocolate chip, which it turns out your favorite ice cream flavor. Why don't you, Emily, choose a good topping to go with that chocolate chip.
Emily:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
And keep in mind who this is for.
Haeny Yoon:
The demon.
Emily:
Pretzels.
Nathan Holbert:
Pretzels.
Haeny Yoon:
Ooh.
Nathan Holbert:
Does that sound good to you? Pretzels plus ...
Emily:
No.
Nathan Holbert:
No. Okay.
Haeny Yoon:
But we know who it's for.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
That's why I was wondering if you were trying to get them or not. Okay. So that seems like maybe not the ideal topping. And Haeny, how would you ...
Haeny Yoon:
Well, I'm just going to ride this train and make it taste bad, so I'm going to go with sardines.
Emily:
Yeah. Make it taste bad.
Nathan Holbert:
Got to be sardines, right?
Haeny Yoon:
Sardines. Tinned fish.
Nathan Holbert:
That sounds disgusting. Mint and tinned fish.
Emily:
Sorry.
Nathan Holbert:
There's got to be a song about that.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Is there a song for Gwi-Ma?
Emily:
No.
Nathan Holbert:
No.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Whatever that take down song is. I forgot how it goes.
Emily:
Take down.
Haeny Yoon:
... take down.
Emily:
... take down.
Nathan Holbert:
Nailed it.
Haeny Yoon:
Nailed it. Call us.
Nathan Holbert:
Ready for our record deal. Okay. Well, thank you so much for playing that game with us.
Emily:
It was fun.
Nathan Holbert:
That was a lot of fun. I'm excited about it. I might have to go get some ice cream later too.
Haeny Yoon:
Now I'm thinking about me might do too too.
Emily:
Yeah. Let's go to an ice cream shop to get chocolate chip.
Haeny Yoon:
To get mint chocolate chip. So we just talked about ice cream. We're going to keep on our little ice capades here. And we thought because you are on a semi-professional team called ... What's it called again?
Emily:
Starlights.
Haeny Yoon:
Starlights. Yes. And I'm assuming that Starlights is like a traveling team right.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
What are some places that you guys have gone to?
Emily:
We haven't went anywhere really far. We just drove to a couple of places that were like 30 minutes. But there was one where we went ... I don't really remember where it was, but we had to take a bus for four hours to get there and we stayed overnight.
Nathan Holbert:
That's fun.
Emily:
And we practiced the day we got there, we slept and then we did the competition and drove back.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, wow.
Nathan Holbert:
Nice.
Emily:
Yeah. So that was really fun.
Haeny Yoon:
So how many people are actually on this team?
Emily:
Maybe like 14 or 15.
Haeny Yoon:
Great. Okay. And then you all get on a bus and you travel to a hotel and you sleep over together and stay there.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay.
Emily:
We only did that for one competition though. The other ones, we just went there, did the competition and went back.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay. Okay. So how long is a competition? Is it like the whole day? Is it a couple of days?
Emily:
So one was two days. The other ones were just like the morning and then lunch and then we went back home. So it was like probably like a few hours.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay. Okay. So Nathan and I know nothing about competitive ice skating. I've actually never been on a competitive sports or traveling-ish team. Have you?
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. I used to play basketball and I used to run track and those would be ... Those weren't like-
Emily:
Did you travel?
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. Not like super far, but yeah, I lived in the Midwest, so you had to travel to the other teams, the other towns that they were in, so it was sometimes cool, but not four hours usually.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. So because it's been a while then, I guess. It's been a minute since we traveled with sports.
Nathan Holbert:
It's been a minute.
Haeny Yoon:
Walk us through a typical competition day. What time are you getting up and what's happening as you start?
Emily:
We usually get up in the morning. One time we have to get up at four.
Haeny Yoon:
Four?
Emily:
Yes. But somewhere during the morning, one time we had to go at 8:00 PM.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay.
Emily:
But it's usually we get there, we do off ice warm up, like we exercise.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, off the ice.
Nathan Holbert:
Off ice.
Emily:
If it's in the morning, we usually eat lunch or dinner. Sometimes we don't. And then we will watch the team's practice, walk around, explore, do another off ice and just change into makeup. We do change, makeup, hair. And then we usually sit and wait for us to be called to get ready to put our skates on. And then we go to our locker room and put our skates on. We go out to perform and then we go back in. We go and change out of our skates and then we get what place we got for, second, third, fourth, or fifth later.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow. None of the sports I've ever done before had a phase that involved hair and makeup.
Haeny Yoon:
I knew you were going to say that.
Nathan Holbert:
How's that go down? Do you have a standard look that you prepare each time or do you look different every time?
Emily:
Yes. So we usually do glitter eyeshadow, like silver because our theme was Back to the Future. Yeah, with blush and red lipstick.
Nathan Holbert:
So you also have a puffy jacket, puffy vest jacket too?
Emily:
No. Just a dress.
Nathan Holbert:
Oh, okay.
Emily:
Silver dress.
Nathan Holbert:
I'm thinking like Marty McFly.
Haeny Yoon:
Have you watched Back to the Future?
Emily:
No.
Nathan Holbert:
That joke didn't land.
Haeny Yoon:
It landed for me.
Nathan Holbert:
Good.
Emily:
But then we usually slick back all our hairless hairspray and tie it into a bun because they don't want any hair falling into your face. They want it all slicked back with no hairlines.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. So do you use wax ... What's that thing called?
Emily:
Yeah. We use wax sticks, hair spray.
Haeny Yoon:
You know what a wax stick is?
Nathan Holbert:
No.
Emily:
It pushes back the little things that pop off on the top of your hair.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I don't have much popping off the top of my hair, so it's not an issue. Wow. That's a lot. That's a whole thing.
Emily:
Yeah. And then when you get home, you have to wash off all of the spray, take out everything.
Haeny Yoon:
That probably takes a long time.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
That's a full day. If you imagine waking up at four in the morning, then you have to do all this stuff and then you have to come home and you can't even plop down or relax.
Emily:
Yeah. You have to take a shower, brush your teeth.
Nathan Holbert:
Get the wax out of your head.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Wax out of your head.
Emily:
I want to lay down, but I can't because there's all this stuff on my head and my face.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. So are you guys all 14 of you doing a routine basically that you try to synchronize? Is it synchronized?
Emily:
Yeah. The coaches teach us the routine and try to get it as synchronized. We did pretty good. We got second place all year.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow. Congratulations.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, congratulations.
Nathan Holbert:
That's great.
Haeny Yoon:
What did you guys do to celebrate? Have mint chocolate chip with ants?
Emily:
No. I don't know. We just cheered. We can't really ... We didn't do much.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. You guys didn't have a pizza party or something afterwards?
Emily:
No.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh my gosh.
Nathan Holbert:
Sounds like you're owed a pizza party.
Emily:
Some people have to go somewhere after that.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh. So you can't really do anything?
Emily:
Some people are busy.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I'm curious about what kind of skills you do in your routine. Are there particular kinds of moves that you ...
Emily:
We don't really do many complicated. We do moves. We do lunges where you go down on one foot and slide across the ice. And we do stroking, which is just chassés which is where you stroke. You put your other foot up and push again. We do crossovers where you're just crossing your feet. Pumps. Just pumping your foot out.
Nathan Holbert:
I don't think I can do anything smooth. Despite what I said in the intro. What about twizzles? Do you twizzle?
Emily:
Not really that much. There's one part where me and a couple other girls, we were spinning at the end.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow. That's really cool.
Haeny Yoon:
That is pretty cool. You said that it's not very complicated, but it sounds pretty complicated now to me.
Emily:
There weren't many jumps, not really many jumps.
Haeny Yoon:
But you did some?
Emily:
Yeah. Maybe.
Haeny Yoon:
Can you do that thing where you skate on one leg?
Emily:
Oh, spiral? Where you lift your foot up?
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Emily:
We did. I think we did. I don't know if we did that in our routine, but I can do that.
Haeny Yoon:
But you can do it?
Emily:
Yeah. I can do that.
Haeny Yoon:
That takes a lot of strength. A lot of core strength.
Emily:
Your core strength.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. A lot of core strength, which I need work on. That's why I go to Pilates. Can you tell us what's something that was really hard to learn that you were happy with when you finally learned it?
Emily:
One foot spin was really hard. It took me a few months to do it, but when I finally did it in the end, I was feeling good about it.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Emily:
Yeah. I was feeling good about it.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. So is it like you spin on one foot?
Emily:
You go into a spin and then put your foot next to your ankle and spin with your arms in.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, yeah. Alyssa Lou energy.
Nathan Holbert:
Stick your arms up.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Oh, that's really fun.
Nathan Holbert:
That's cool.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Do you remember what actually made you get that skill? Is it just you just practiced and practiced and tried and tried and fell and fell and ...
Emily:
Yeah. I was practicing it a lot. Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Emily:
At first it didn't look good. It looked probably bad, but later I just kept practicing it and then it's good.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. I love that. I love the it didn't look good at first because I think you have to be okay with that.
Emily:
Obviously, nothing really looks good at first.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. You're right. I think we have to all get over the fact that it doesn't have to be perfect the first time.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. That's how you execute, right?
Emily:
Sometimes when I'm trying a new skill, some of me feels like it's not good and this is really hard and I'm frustrated, but when I finally get it's like I feel proud about it.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
I want to ask a question about, why did you start competitions? You had ice skated before, I'm assuming, and you enjoyed it.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Why shifting to competitions?
Emily:
My mom told me about the synchronized skating team, synchro, and I wanted to do it. So we tried out for tryouts, and I got on a team. Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
What is synchronized ice skating? I don't think I know that. Is it all of you at the same time?
Emily:
There's like 15 people and you're supposed to try to do the moves at the same exact time. It looks like one person, but they're doing it multiple. If there was one person of 15 of them, they were doing the same move.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow. I've never seen that before. That sounds awesome.
Emily:
You should go to one of the shows.
Nathan Holbert:
I should.
Haeny Yoon:
You should go to one of the shows.
Nathan Holbert:
I should. Next play date I'm going to ... So you guys could be skating around 15 of you in a line.
Emily:
Circles, lines.
Nathan Holbert:
And then a jump. You all jump at the same time. Well, maybe not jump, but maybe go down one knee, like a leg out. Wow.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
That's really impressive.
Haeny Yoon:
That is really impressive.
Emily:
There was one thing that was a little hard for us to do was intersection where there were two lines on either side and you hold your arms out and there's little holes in between your arms and people go through.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, that's fun.
Nathan Holbert:
It's like a red rover on ice.
Emily:
Yeah. We did it forwards, but some teams do it backwards.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, wow. Can you skate backwards?
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
That's an easy thing, right for skaters?
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay.
Nathan Holbert:
I can't do it. It barely skate forward.
Emily:
I'm working on trying to spin backwards.
Haeny Yoon:
I imagine that doing all these skills is hard.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
I think the hard part is maybe the fear.
Emily:
Yeah. For my spins, I feel like I'm not really doing it tight enough because I'm worried I'm going to fall backwards and land on my head or something.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. And part of it though is trying to get over that fear, right?
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
And trusting your body and yourself.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
That takes some work.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. Speaking of, if you were trying to teach me, you said skating backwards is easy and I cannot skate backwards. What would you tell me? How would you coach me to learn how to skate backwards?
Emily:
I would probably try to help you at first.
Haeny Yoon:
So like stand in front of him or something?
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Uh-huh.
Emily:
And tell him to push. Try to push with your feet backwards, but don't go to your toes because then that slows you down. You have to sit in the middle of the blade.
Nathan Holbert:
Of the blade.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay. And so you' hold my hand.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Keep me from falling.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
And then would you advise that people should look behind them?
Emily:
Oh yeah. When you're doing stuff on the circle backwards, like crossovers, crossing your feet while moving, you have to look behind your shoulder so you don't bump into anybody. If you did, that would be bad.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. Especially in the synchronized ice skating.
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
You ever get synchronized crashes?
Emily:
Yes. During the intersection, people went through the wrong holes and someone crashed into someone else and fell on their butt.
Nathan Holbert:
Oh no.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh no. I could see how synchronized competition can get very unsynchronized.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. Yeah. Like dominos.
Emily:
Yeah. Sometimes we were doing like a wheel, like a three spoke where there's three lines and there's a middle. It's like a snowflake. There's three lines that they go ... It looks like a Y. And I was with my friend and ... No. It was not me, but one of the people on my team, they were on the outside. That inside goes really slow and the outside goes really fast and she flew off and slid on her butt.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh no.
Nathan Holbert:
Nothing worse than a cold, wet butt.
Haeny Yoon:
I know. I like that line of questioning though. So let's say I, since I already know how to skate backwards, let's say I want to do a jump.
Emily:
Backward?
Haeny Yoon:
No, just a jump. I can't jump really.
Nathan Holbert:
Back flip.
Emily:
Okay.
Haeny Yoon:
Let me tell you why.
Emily:
I can't do a back flip.
Haeny Yoon:
Let me tell you why jumping is hard because it's the fear. If I jump, am I going to land on my ankle? Am I going to fall on my butt? Am I going to land on my knees or something like that? So I think that's the scary part of it. So what if I wanted to perform like a basic jump, even if it's forward? What advice would you give me?
Emily:
Well, when I was doing it, my coach helped me. She was holding my hand and she helped me, lifted me a little to get what it feels like.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay.
Emily:
And then later on I started to do ... At first I started to do it with her holding my hand and helping me spring up. But then as it went on, I started to slowly be able to do it by myself.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay.
Emily:
So I learned with someone helping me.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay. So Emily, what you're trying to tell us is that ice skating requires a lot of handholding.
Emily:
But if you want to learn something, you should probably have a coach. I feel like I would learn slower if I didn't have a coach and I was like just doing it by myself.
Haeny Yoon:
So you feel like the coach really helped you a lot?
Emily:
Yeah. Because they know a lot of stuff. They know skills to help or something.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Do you have several coaches or just one?
Emily:
For private lessons, I have one. For synchro, I had like two, but season's over right now, so I only have one private coach.
Haeny Yoon:
Oh, wow.
Nathan Holbert:
What about, have you learned from any of your other fellow skaters? I know coaches are certainly really helpful, like teachers can be helpful too, but sometimes you learn from someone else that's maybe also learning ice skating like you are, but they're maybe just a little further along than you, and they can give you some tips about how they overcame that barrier that you've run into. Has that ever happened?
Emily:
I don't remember it. I don't think so.
Nathan Holbert:
Okay.
Emily:
I don't think so.
Haeny Yoon:
But I do feel like ... Okay. Is there a reason why ... Because you were doing private individual skating, and then you moved into something that's a little bit more like community and collective and a lot of other-
Emily:
So on the weekends I used to do classes with other people, like sign up classes and then slowly as I got better and better, my mom thought it would be like ... I don't know. My mom or one of the coaches said that it would be better for me to take private lessons. And then after that, yeah, my mom found out about the synchronized skating, so she asked if I wanted to do it and I said, "Sure."
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Do you like the team part of it?
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Emily:
You don't have to do like hard skills. You don't have to do really hard skills. They're simple, but you have to perfect them.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. I like the idea that you are doing it not just for yourself, but to not let the team down, right? And to help each other out and to do it together, right?
Emily:
Yeah. Because if you're like not listening to the music, then you're going at a totally different time than everyone else is. It's also like you have to listen to the music and what time this move is or this move. Because our coach for synchro, she was saying like, "You have to step forward on this word in the music."
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. Definitely. Okay. Let's shift gears a little bit.
Emily:
Okay.
Haeny Yoon:
So my favorite part of anything is the dressing up part. Okay. Because that's what I like to do even when I come to work. I'm like, am I going to work or am I trying to dress up for a fashion show? Who knows? Okay. So anything, I like to plan my outfits. I totally digress a little bit. I was like trying to plan my outfits for the week. I would go into my phone and I would write-
Emily:
Me too.
Haeny Yoon:
You plan your outfits for the week too?
Emily:
I packed to come here a few days before it even happened, so I know what clothes to put aside, so I wouldn't need to wash them a lot.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. And I like the idea of just like planning things together. So the great thing about ice-
Nathan Holbert:
I don't.
Haeny Yoon:
Okay. That's why I knew you're going to wear a t-shirt and jeans today. Okay. So I feel like ice skating is like the ultimate fashion show of all fashion shows of just wearing all this stuff that you would never wear out on the streets, but it's so much fun. Is there a particular outfit that you remember that you just loved so much?
Emily:
So when I was doing classes, there were classes there's classes where you work on skills and power where you exercise the muscles, but power turned into practicing for an ice skating show. So we were doing this one ice skating show and there was this pink dress with flowers all over it that I got to wear with gold and I really liked that one. It had glitter all over it and it poofed out.
Haeny Yoon:
That seems great. That seems like such the ice skating aesthetic that I love.
Nathan Holbert:
It does. Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
It's very extra.
Nathan Holbert:
Poofy and glitter seems to be a core feature of ...
Emily:
I also liked the one I wore this season, the Back to the Future one, because it looks simple like a silver dress with black buttons, but I also liked it because the skirt ... It was a dress, so my legs were showing, but it was a long sleeve, so like it covered my arms so I wasn't that cold.
Nathan Holbert:
Oh, good. Yeah. Cold out there on the ice.
Emily:
All the other dresses I wore are like short-sleeved up to here and my hands were cold.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. So it is cold out there.
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. We forgot to mention that the outfit that she's wearing today is her ice skating team sweatshirt.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah.
Emily:
Yeah. I got it-
Nathan Holbert:
Starlights.
Haeny Yoon:
Very good. Go Starlights.
Nathan Holbert:
Go Starlights. Are there times where ice skating isn't fun?
Emily:
Yeah. When I was doing private lessons, I was practicing spinning, but I felt like I wasn't improving it, so that was frustrating.
Nathan Holbert:
How'd you work through that because it's hard to want to keep practicing if it feels like it's not ...
Emily:
My mom, she said ... I wanted to stop doing it and she said, "I think you want to stop doing it because you're not having fun." She said, "If you want to quit, you should want to quit on a day that you thought your practice was okay, but like that you ..." Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
That's great advice because usually you just want to quit something because it's hard and you don't want to do it.
Emily:
Yeah. Because I wanted to quit because it was hard and I felt like I wasn't improving and I was getting frustrated. Then my mom said like, "You have to quit on a day that you're feeling good about it, but you're still not having fun so you want to quit."
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. That's tricky.
Haeny Yoon:
That is tricky.
Nathan Holbert:
That's real tricky
Haeny Yoon:
There something that you wish that you stayed doing because you quit too early like that, Nathan?
Nathan Holbert:
No.
Haeny Yoon:
What? You're not a quitter?
Nathan Holbert:
No. No. Well, to a fault probably, I think my parents were similar. They gave me similar advice. So it wasn't so much only quit when you're having fun and it was more that you made a commitment to this sport, you're going to see it through to the end. And so I would always finish whatever season or whatever I was doing. I think I've maybe told this story on the podcast before, but I played football once. You can imagine how good I was-
Haeny Yoon:
He's joking.
Nathan Holbert:
... in sixth grade. I really did, but I wasn't good in sixth grade. I remember we had a game where it was very cold. It was like 40 degrees and rainy and I was freezing my butt off and you have to run into people and it feels bad to touch someone to run into someone when you're cold. And I was like, "I want to quit." And my dad was like, "You have to play to the end of the season." So I did. I played to the end of the season. I was like, "Okay, now I'm quitting." And I don't regret that to answer your actual question, I don't regret it at all.
Haeny Yoon:
At least you tried. That's great.
I'm more of a quitter. I'm like, "Forget this. I don't want to do this."
Nathan Holbert:
I'm out.
Haeny Yoon:
I'm out .yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
It's a miracle. We've made it six seasons here.
Haeny Yoon:
I know.
Nathan Holbert:
Can you imagine? This is our sixth season.
Emily:
Oh, wow.
Nathan Holbert:
Emily, this is super great. I feel like I've learned a lot about what ice skating is. Like I said, I can go forward. I mean, you've seen me, right? I can go forward. I can't go backwards. No tricks or anything like that. Though perhaps if we held hands more, I'd be better. But it's very cool to hear about how you've improved and more details about the sport.
Haeny Yoon:
I love the idea too that sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's not fun and it's really about enjoying what it is that you're doing. And you would say you're enjoying it, right?
Emily:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. So we have one last thing we like to do in each episode with our guests.
Haeny Yoon:
It's a surprise.
Nathan Holbert:
It's a big deal. I hope you're ready for it. And that's to find out from you what's poppin.
Haeny Yoon:
So explain what what's poppin is because obviously we have like a Gen Z ... I don't know. Are you Gen Z?
Emily:
What?
Nathan Holbert:
Gen alpha maybe.
Haeny Yoon:
Gen alpha. I don't know. Somebody's much, much younger than us. And what's poppin is the '90s relic.
Nathan Holbert:
She's not that much younger than me. What's poppin? What are you into? What kind of movies do you like? Is there a book you like? Is there a game you like? Is there a ice skating superstar or routine that we should check out? Like what is a thing that you're really into and excited about right now?
Haeny Yoon:
And it could be anything. It could be a TV show. Just something that you want other people that are listening to the podcast to be like, "You have to check this out because it's so cool."
Emily:
There's this TV show called Sam & Cat and I really like it.
Haeny Yoon:
What is Sam & Cat about?
Emily:
It's two teenage girls that are living together, just living life together.
Haeny Yoon:
What? By themselves?
Emily:
Yeah.
Haeny Yoon:
Two teenage girls living by themselves together?
Emily:
Babysitting.
Nathan Holbert:
Wow.
Haeny Yoon:
Lucrative.
Nathan Holbert:
You got to pay rent. So maybe not so lucrative.
Haeny Yoon:
Maybe. Maybe.
Nathan Holbert:
That sounds awesome. Sam & Cat. Where can people find it? Is it like on Netflix or something?
Emily:
Yeah. It's on Netflix.
Nathan Holbert:
Netflix. Okay. So sorry you have to get a Netflix subscription, but check it out. Sam & Cat.
Haeny Yoon:
Sounds good. Nathan will be checking out right after he runs with K-Pop Demon Hunters.
Emily:
Oh yeah, watch K-Pop Demon Hunters.
Nathan Holbert:
I got to watch K-Pop Demon hunters. All right. Maybe I can sit my kids down to watch it with me and we can have a sing fest.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah. A sing fest. Yes. You guys are very late to the game, but I think your kids have actually watched it.
Nathan Holbert:
Maisie has definitely seen it.
Haeny Yoon:
Yeah.
Nathan Holbert:
She just didn't watch it with me. I don't know why she didn't invite me.
Haeny Yoon:
Sorry.
Nathan Holbert:
All right. Well, Emily, thanks again for being here with us and thanks everybody as always.
Emily:
It was fun.
Nathan Holbert:
Yeah. We had a blast with you. Thanks for being here.
Haeny Yoon:
Thank you.
Nathan Holbert:
And we'll see you next time. Bye.
Emily:
Bye.
Haeny Yoon:
Bye.