When sophomore Alex Aldridge skates, the fluidity of her motions conceals what has already been a tumultuous career.
After starting her skating career in Michigan, making the life-changing decision to move to Texas in the seventh grade, moving back two and a half years later and training with a new partner to prepare for the National Competition, Aldridge’s life has been anything but “smooth skating.”
The move
With partner Daniel Eaton, a senior at Lahser High School, the pair glides seemingly effortlessly across the ice, brought together by what Aldridge’s mother Janet, attributes to fate.
Aldridge began as a single skater in Birmingham at the age of three, moving later to the Detroit Skating Club, and transitioned into “ice dancing,” which involves skating with a partner. When she was in seventh grade, she uprooted her life and moved away from her family in order to be with a new partner in Dallas, Texas.
Aldridge spent her time in Dallas living with a host family for two and a half years.
“It was hard to leave my family behind here and everything, but it was a really great experience,” Aldridge said. “I’m really thankful that I got to do it. It changed me as a person.”
Allowing their young daughter to make such a huge transition was a difficult choice for the family.
Janet said it is the wonderful people in the skating world that allowed her to decide in favor of letting her daughter go to Texas.
After a little over two years, the Aldridge family decided it was time to bring their daughter home.
“Finally, her dad and I decided it was too hard having her gone,” Janet said. “So even though she was going to have to give up her partner, we decided we were going to leave it up to fate that she could come home and find a partner here.”
The history
Joining up with her current partner upon returning home was not a first meeting, but a reunion.
“Alex and Daniel were going to try and skate together before she went to Texas,” Janet said. “He had an ankle injury and had to have surgery, so he was off for a while.”
When Aldridge moved back home years later, the pieces started to fall into place.
“It was kind of fate,” Janet said. “We just let nature take its course and her and Daniel just found each other again.”
Janet said the two matched perfectly from the beginning.
“We had a tryout, and it ended out just working really well,” Aldridge said. “This is our first skating season together, and we have done pretty well.”
Eaton’s mother, Annemarie, said that besides skating well together, it is important that the couple gets along.
“I love the team,” Annemarie said. “Not only do Daniel and Alex get along fantastically, the families get along too. We are just so fortunate.”
The training
As Aldridge and Eaton move together in practically perfect unison, a certain fascination is held when taking in the melody of the music and the beauty of their skating.
It seems impossible to look away from the couple. Their coaches watch and critique on the side, and the rink’s bleachers remain empty aside from a few parents who are there to support not only their own children, but all of the skaters present.
Their trainers are a veritable “who’s who” of skating, with a range of experience including the Olympics.
People from as far as the Czech Republic have come to the club to have access to a coaching team of such high caliber.
The other skaters circle the perimeter of the rink, awaiting their turn to practice their own program, moving respectfully out of the way as Aldridge and Eaton twist, turn and “twizzle” across the ice.
Once the two are done running through their program, they too join the others in the continuous circling as the next pair rehearses their own. Then, they practice their routine in small sections, building endurance, and preparing for their next turn.
“I skate every day,” Aldridge said. “But only sometimes on Sundays.”
Aldridge has a reduced schedule at school, attending only three classes each day, then commits the rest of her afternoons to skating.
“I usually skate at 12 and get home around four,” Aldridge said.
Janet credits Seaholm for being one of the reasons Alex can successfully maintain this difficult schedule.
“Seaholm is one of the reasons she has been able to do this and fulfill her dreams,” Janet said. “We really wanted to try to give her as much of a normal lifestyle as possible and keep her in school.”
The competitions
Aldridge and Eaton competed in three different competitions in Witchita, Kansas, Lake Placid, New York, and Colorado Springs, Colorado earlier in the season.
“We have taken first in all three competitions that we have entered,” Aldridge said.
At their competition in Lake Placid, Aldridge and Eaton placed a whopping 22.1 points ahead of the second place team with a total of 116.69 points.
They perform three different routines consisting of two Compulsory and one Free Dance.
According to Eaton’s father Dennis, their selections include a Tango dance, a Kilian dance and a Free Dance which is to music from The Man in the Iron Mask.
Eaton speaks highly of his experience competing this season with Aldridge.
“When I competed with my older partners, I’ve never been this high up in the placement,” Eaton said. “So three for three first places at every competition we’ve been to has been pretty good.”
Aldridge and Eaton have trained together since the end of last May preparing for Nationals, the United States Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, Washington. The competition took place January 14 through January 24.
“[Nationals] was really exciting this year,” Aldridge said. “It was an Olympic year and everything, and it was so cool to be in the same locker room as all the champions going to the Olympics, and it really motivated me because I knew I wanted to be there someday like them."
The pair competed their routines, and as they had hoped, scored well.
“We got first,” Aldridge said. “We had one combined score and we got first overall.”
Aldridge said that winning first place was not a big surprise.
“Just from our recent competitions where we placed first, I was coming into it with lots of confidence,” Aldridge said. “I knew I wanted to do good, and we did.”
The future
While Aldridge and Eaton are not yet being considered for the Olympic team, their high placement at the National competition will bring them closer to achieving that dream.
The pair currently skates at what is called the “Novice level.” The next step up would be the “Junior” level, and after that, the “Senior” level.
“Once you’re in the junior level, you start accumulating points that [puts you on the radar of] the United States Figure Skating Association,” Janet said. “They begin to watch and monitor your progress, and eventually then, you can become a part of the Olympic development program where they [really] start to watch what you’re doing.”
Even at this point, making the Olympic team is not yet an option.
“Once you hit the senior level, that is when your Olympic eligible,” Janet said. “They have to be at the Senior level in order to make it to Nationals to compete at the Olympics.”
Janet tries to set reasonable goals for her daughter’s future.
“Everybody’s dream would be to make it to the Olympics,” Janet said. “But I think the first step is to set a goal at the junior level for Junior Worlds.”
The experience
Aldridge and Eaton glide, practically float, across the ice with hardship, change, and years of experience behind them, and the emotion Aldridge exudes through her facial expressions and movements is one of passion, never strife.
Janet is and always has been supportive of her hardworking daughter.
“I am just so proud of her,” Janet said.
Aldridge said everything she has been through up to this point has been worth it.
“I love skating,” Aldridge said. “It is basically my life. I have sacrificed so much to be able to achieve my goals so far, and my family has sacrificed a lot. They’ve been behind me the whole time.”
