Project Points #ProjectPoints in Zagreb Croatia

Emme “Emanuela” and Bruce Porter Jr earn points in free dance to qualify for European Championships at Golden Spin of Zagreb, Croatia (Project Points)

We arrived in Zagreb, Croatia to find it covered with at least a foot of snow.  We took a taxi to the Sheraton Zagreb to work staffing a promotion with models in NYC.  We just finished managing two ultra luxury holiday parties in Washington, DC before we left staffing and producing over 30 different acts and party rentals including magicians in DC, photo booth, casino tables and dealers, Las Vegas show girls, stilt walkers, body painters, impersonators, and more!  We finished our work and had some lunch before going to the Four Points Hotel and checked into the competition.  Golden Spin of Zagreb was a bit more high profile and our federation president was already on the ground and I had hired my old teammate, two time Olympian Igor Lukanin to come as our coach.

Emme and I have been going to see Igor and his wife/skating partner Kristin Fraser as much as possible over the last couple of weeks to prepare for the event.  Golden spin is a high profile competition that has been used in previous years as an Olympic qualifying event.  The press is always on hand and the events are televised throughout Europe.  When I saw the competitors list I didn’t tell Emme but this was going to be just like a European Championship minus the top 4 teams.

Emme and I settled into our hotel room and decided to go out to dinner in one of Zagreb’s many exquisite restaurants.  This is my 3rd trip to Croatia and Emme’s first and the only time it has been covered in snow.  Note to self; go the the Croatian coast, everyone raves about it…  We had a wonderful dinner and went back to the hotel to try and get some sleep for tomorrows skating.  Poor Igor’s flight was diverted but he did manage to make it and was there for our first practice at 6am!

One of the hardest things about doing these competitions for skaters based in the United States is the jet lag once you arrive in Europe.  I slept maybe two hours and the alarm went off at 4:30am… As we have learned the official practices at these events are basically part of the competition.  Everyone shows up in full hair and makeup with costumes and all of the judges, callers, and technical specialist are there to watch and start to form their opinions about your skating on these practices.  The official practices are usually about 40 minutes and you share the ice with 4-5 teams.  They play your music in the order you skate in the competition and most people perform an abridged run through of their program leaving out certain parts and performing others.

We were a much more organised ice dancing team at this competition thanks largely to working with Igor Lukanin who spent some much needed time showing us how to look and act on the official practices.  I only wish we could have seen more of him before this competition as his coaching made us a much more polished team.  Our music played and we ran through the abridged short dance then worked on some of the elements of our free dance.  After the practice we went back to the hotel, got some breakfast, and went to sleep for a few hours before we competed around noon.

The short dance performance didn’t go that badly although

we made a few mistakes including messing up the twizzles and the second side of the Yankee Polka.  We also didn’t get our level called by the technical specialists for our one foot split lift for some reason but we finished up and decided to concentrate on the free dance.  Emme and I went to dinner again in wonderful Zagreb at a quaint little restaurant at the top of the town called Pod Grickim Topom which we highly recommend.  After dinner we went to bed to try and get some sleep for our 6am free dance practice.

We woke up at 4:30am again and got ourselves into our competition costumes and headed over to the Dom Sportova sports complex right across the square from the Four Points Hotel.  Thank God for our neighbor Brandon who runs a few Starbucks shops back in DC as he hooked us up with those instant coffee packets which we made using hot tap water…It was great…  With our hour warm up we were ready to take the ice at 6am and had a great practice.  We went back to the hotel had the European sportsman breakfast of eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes, lunch meat, and cheese then went to bed to rest for our 12 noon free dance competition.

We arrived at the Dom Sportova at 11am to warm up got to watch Carolina Kostner in her official practice.  The media was everywhere and we just kept our heads down and focused on our performance.  We took the ice and the music started to play, first

element was our level 4 twizzles and we nailed them!  Ok I thought, flip Emme over my shoulder and then down in a deep crouch and the first lift went no problem.  Here we go into the diagonal footwork, one foot sequence, then round the corner and lift again.  The second lift was a bit hairy as Emme began to slide on my leg but I tightened my grip, changed the

position as planned, put my other hand in the air, and it was barely noticeable.  Great, I thought, then Emme had a little bobble as we headed into the circular footwork.  I held her up and we started the circular footwork on time executing all of our elements.

One thing at a time I told myself, here comes the rotational lift which we fell on in Olomouc… Rotational lift executed, and now the one foot split lift.  After not getting the level called on our short dance I lifted my free foot even higher than normal to show I was on one foot.  I held Emme in her split position 1001, 1002, 1003, I counted to myself and now onto the spin!  Alright, I’m thinking to myself, now relax and execute

this spin just like you do in practice.  The beginning of the spin started out a bit far apart but I pulled Emme in close and we executed a good spin with three different positions.  Holy smokes, almost a clean skate, I’m thinking with excitement as we rounded the corner and went into our choreography lift!

We finished the free dance at center ice, bowed, and headed over to meet Igor in the kiss and cry.  It seemed like eternity for our scores to come out but we scored the highest marks we had received all season.  It wasn’t until we saw our friends from Slovenia in the hotel lobby that we realized we had scored enough points in the free dance to qualify for the European Championships!

That evening Emme and I met with Igor and our federation president to decide our next plan of action.  We still need to obtain qualifying scores in the short dance to skate at the European Championships and we decided to go to two more competitions in hopes of achieving this.  Emme, our daughter Bella, and I will spend January in Italy traveling to Bratislava, Slovenia for the New Year’s Cup 2013 and Lyon, France for the International Trophy of Lyon 2013.  We hope to gain our qualifying scores in the short dance and compete at the European Championships January 21-27 here in Zagreb, Croatia.

Golden Spin was a special competition for us for a variety of reasons.  We finally had a performance that we were proud of, we scored enough points to qualify for the European Championships in free dance, and because the press was on hand we were able to get skating photos from professional photographers!  We are still working on getting the video from the TV production company…Stay tuned as Emme, Bella, and I come to you with regular updates in January following us through Italy, Bratislava, France, and Croatia as we try to achieve our goal of competing in the European Championships.

As usual we will be running our businesses while we are in Europe managing our social media marketing clients, modeling agencies, the new event equipment rentals in NYC and the infamous DC Party Rentals.

Call today NYC to Amsterdam +1 202 436 5114 ask for Emme! 

About EmmeGirls

EmmeGirls is a hybrid modeling agency led by long time professional NHL cheerleader and coach of the award winning Red Rockers, CEO Emme Porter and social media guru, COO Bruce Porter Jr . Since it’s inception EmmeGirls has leveraged their extensive experience to stay on top of the ever changing staffing and social media marketing world. Whether you need party planner, social media marketing, trade show models staffing, modeling agent, or event management EmmeGirls delivers exciting captivating events!

Call today NYC to Amsterdam +1 202 436 5114 ask for Emme! 

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Bruce Porter Jr is the Social Networks Manager™

Email Bruce@EmmeGirls.com 202 436 6577

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