Skater Stories: Eileen O'Brien
Eileen is a skater and coach who has been in the sport for 11 years, and is unapologetic about their identity, even when the comments fill up with haters.
One of the wonders of the internet is you can feel like you know someone without actually ever having met them. That was certainly the case when I had the pleasure of chatting with Eileen O’Brien last week. Both of us expressed how we felt like we’d gotten to know each other pretty well just from our Instagram presence and our shared love of figure skating. But it was so enjoyable getting to know them better and getting to know their story, and I’m excited to share it with you.
Q: I always like to start at the beginning. You started skating when you were 14, which is late for a skater. What made you want to take up the sport then?
A: Honestly, I don’t remember. I’m from Charlottesville, Virginia, and there was a rink there, but it was seasonal, and it was also not even like a full size, not even NHL rink, and it was near my grandparents’ apartment building. I was always like skating growing up, like going to the camps and stuff like that. So, I didn’t ever have a time where I hadn’t ever been on the ice that I remember. But I didn’t start actually skating until 14 and what was happening was I was an Irish step dancer before that. And I was sort of having an identity crisis and I was like, ‘I don’t think I like Irish dance anymore. Like, I don’t want to do this. I’ve always wanted to be a figure skater.’ My parents were like, ‘what? We didn’t even know that. Like, what are you talking about? We’ve never heard you say you just always wanted to be a figure skater. Like, where is this coming from?’ And it probably had something to do with the Olympics. I remember watching the Olympics and having this weird existential mortality crisis. I was like, oh my god, if I don’t start now, I’m never going to be able to do that. It’s kind of strange. I just sort of decided one day I’ve always wanted to do this and now I’m going to try.
Q: You mentioned being involved in Irish stepdance. Did you play any other sports growing up?
A: No, I was always terrifyingly unsporty. In middle school when I started skating, I remember I had to come to school in my skating clothes and one of my friends was like, ‘I’ve never seen you in athletic clothing.’ And I was like, ‘good point.’ So it’s really funny because I feel like all my people who know me now kind of see me as like the gym rat skating athlete person that I am and then back then, I was the homebody, don’t throw a ball at me, don’t make me run type of kid.
Q: What do you remember about those early days on the ice?
A: I remember how incredibly scary it was. When you’re 14, that’s like peak anxiety about people looking at you and figure skating is exceptionally visible. The rink I skated at had huge windows, and so there would always be people watching. And that rink was where everyone went on first dates and stuff in my town. And so I just felt like I would see everybody all the time. And before I got to a level that I considered at the time ‘good enough’ to be a skater (that was in air quotes), I was embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to see me in my unfinished form, I guess. But I remember a lot of the basics coming pretty easily to me, which was really exciting, and I was really excited because I was pretty flexible. I could do spirals, and I was like, ‘wow, that’s like a real skating thing, and I can do it.’ wanted to compete immediately. I was like, ‘I’m ready to do it.’ I’m still a little bit confused about my timeline of it, but I definitely was competing in just a couple of months of starting. Because that was like my main goal was to have a program.
Q: Were there any, any skaters that you particularly liked watching at that time or modeled your style after?
A: That’s a good question. I have a very vivid memory of being in my bedroom probably a year after I started skating and looking up on the US figure skating website all of the best women skaters, because I was like, ‘I need to pick a favorite. I need to have a favorite skater because you’re supposed to have one of those.’ And I picked Ashley Wagner. So, she was my favorite for a while. She’s not my favorite now, but I always really liked her and my grandma is huge into watching skating and she really liked Ashley Wagner and so that was helpful. But I felt like for a very long time, I didn’t really watch skating. I only did skating. I didn’t watch worlds or anything like that until the last several years. I was very much like a doer and not a watcher, I guess. And so I was more inspired by other skaters at my rink, rather than like famous ones at the time.
Q: So who are your favorite skaters now?
A: Well, I have to say, Kevin Aymoz is my favorite skater in this moment. His Lady Gaga program, I go back and watch it all the time. I think it’s so fun and interesting, and I feel like it’s a very queer program, which is really fun. There’s so many skaters from around my area, because I’m in Northern Virginia, and so Ilia [Malinin] is around here and Sarah Everhardt is from around here, and skates around here, and so I feel like they have to be in my favorites too.
Q: This is probably an impossible question to answer, but I’m going to ask, what do you enjoy most about skating?
A: You know, the other day when I saw Jimmy Morgan in person, that was what he asked me and honestly, the thing that I always think of first is that every day that I go skating, it’s different. And I love that so much. I am always so confused by people who do a sport that’s not like that. Everyone thinks their sport is different every day, so whatever, but like people who play soccer. I’m like, you’re playing soccer every single day, it’s soccer. How different can it be? But skating for me, it feels like it’s so different every day. You don’t even have to jump at all. You don’t even have to spin at all. Or you could jump the whole time. You can pick all these different ways to move depending on how you feel or like what you’re dealing with. So yeah, I would say my favorite thing is just that it’s so unpredictable and because I’m a very medium level skater, it’s very unstructured, which is fun.
Q: You mentioned meeting Jimmy and you participated in the recent American Ice Theatre seminar. Do you see theatre on ice as part of a future part of your future as a skater?
A: I’ve always wanted to do theatre on ice. My primary coach is also the head coach of the adult theatre on ice team that’s around my area and I wanted to do it, but man, it’s so expensive. So I haven’t made it to that yet, but I definitely think that’s in my future. And then definitely more American Ice Theatre, like contemporary skating stuff is definitely in my future as well.
Q: You’ve also competed in some adult competitions. I’m curious, what does the term adult skater mean to you?
A: It’s so weird because 14 is almost an adult skater to some people, so I kind of feel like I’ve identified with adult skaters pretty much my entire skating career. It has definitely changed, especially since I passed 21, I feel like my body is a very different body than it was. I feel like for me, adult skaters are the most pure form of skating. I always say that I love teaching adults the most because they’re in it for the love of it, and they’re uninhibited by a lot of things that kids are inhibited by. The only real barriers that they have are money and their body. And I just love that when you’re an adult skater, it’s all about what you want.
Q: You mentioned the teaching, you’ve taken up coaching. What is that like? That experience of coaching other people in their introduction to this sport?
A: Oh my gosh. It’s been fascinating. One of my coaches just the other day was saying that ever since I started coaching, I’m able to take her corrections so much better, and I think that is so true. Coaching has made me a much better skater and also has been an extremely fun job. I really am very grateful for everything that I’ve learned from my coaching so far. I don’t think that it’s necessarily my calling, but I feel that I do a good job and I feel that it’s really valuable.
Q: What gives you more joy? Landing a new skill for yourself or helping one of your students land a new skill.
A: Wow, that’s so hard. They feel kind of the same. I have one student who has been making so much progress recently, and she just got a couple revolutions in a camel catch position, and I was like, goosebumps, you know, jumping up and down type of excited for her. I don’t necessarily feel those exact feelings for myself. I’m more like satisfied when I do my own thing and I’m so proud and excited when my students do them.
Q: Speaking of your own thing, what are you currently working on as a skater?
A: As a skater, I am always trying to decenter jumps and spins but I do love jumps and spins. So I do work on them still, but I try to make sure that I do other things also. So, my recent focuses have been my double jumps, of course. I’m right now I’m so close to my double toe, double loop, and double flip, and I will be so excited when I get those. And I’ve been working on my second-to-last skating skills/moves in the field test. And I’m hoping to test that by the end of the year. And I also kind of want to do the adult New Year’s invitational competition in January. So I have a lot of things I’m working on. My doubles, my second-to-last test. I’m always trying to work on funky spin positions and new tricks. Because I did not work on tricks like at all when I was a teenager. I never bothered, and now it’s like my favorite thing.
Q: Now, one of the things that I’ve come to appreciate most about you and Instagram account is your authenticity and how upfront you are about your identity. And I’m curious how skating has helped you in that journey.
A: I think, in a lot of ways, it’s so hard to be yourself in skating. I think that’s why I started posting. I don’t necessarily feel like skating supported my personal growth and development as much as I would have wanted it to. I always say this about skating: it doesn’t really come that naturally to me. I know I said that some of the basic skills came naturally to me, but my brain does not comprehend choreography and skating skills patterns very well at all. And I think it’s really good for a person to have something like that because now I’m not really scared in everyday life of being bad at something because I have spent so long not necessarily being bad at my activity, at my favorite activity, but feeling bad at it or just allowing myself to just be the level that I am instead of trying to be like a different level. And I feel like that personal growth of accepting where I am with things and trying to not worry about being bad at stuff definitely helped me come to the realization that I was non-binary and that I was gay and things like that. I feel like a really common thing that happens is people feel like they’re not gay enough or they’re bad at it or something and I was never scared of that. And I think that’s probably partially due to skating.
Q: I recently read Johnny Weir’s memoir and he writes in there that figure skating from the outside has a reputation as a quote unquote gay sport, but inside the sport, there’s a lot of pushback on that. And that if anything the gatekeepers of the sport try hard to go in the opposite direction. And I’m curious if you’ve had to face any of that as you’ve gone through this process of discovering who you are.
A: I think it’s very different when you’re not a gay man in the skating space because, as you were saying, everyone says skating is a gay sport, but they don’t mean people like me, they mean people like Johnny Weir. I don’t know if this exactly answers the question, but often if I say something about skating, every single time someone assumes that I’m talking about skateboarding. People who don’t know me, they just always assume that that’s what I mean. Even if I say something about the rink, just offhandedly, they assume it’s a skateboarding rink, which I don’t think is what they call it. That’s a skate park, right? I feel like I’m the wrong kind of gay for the gayest sport.
I also think -- this is a departure from the question -- that we’re seeing this weird hyper masculinization of particularly men’s skating. I’m always into new things in skating. And so for example, Ilia, his programs are weird and very boi, if you know what I mean. And I think that’s cool because that’s probably more who he is and that’s great. But I do think it’s kind of becoming the trend. Skating isn’t for gay boys, it’s for manly men-boys, and I don’t think that’s a good change necessarily. There needs to be space for both.
Q: Obviously, because the internet is the internet, you receive your fair share of negative comments when you post. How do you handle that?
A: It’s tough when people say things particularly about my skill as a skater. I am really quite good at compartmentalizing or just letting it roll off my shoulders when it’s someone being like, ‘people like you should die.’ People say crazy things, they really do. So that kind of thing, I kind of like, ‘oh god, like whatever. We have so little in common. How can I ever respect your opinion?’
But then when someone is like, ‘You’re never going to land a double with singles like that,’ that really hurts. And I think that really speaks to the parts of me that are more secure versus the ones that aren’t. I’m pretty secure and like myself as a person, but then because the skating world is so judgmental and starting late and all of those things, I feel like I’m actually less confident as a skater than I am as a person.
Q: Your content, I personally find it to be so enjoyable. So I’m curious, how much planning do you put into what you’re posting on Instagram?
A: Oh my gosh, almost none. I truly, I almost never film. Well, maybe not almost never, but, more than half the time, I’m not making a video on purpose. I’m just taking videos for looking at them later. Because of that, I have just ungodly amounts of footage, and so I can easily edit together compilations of stuff to explain skating skills or whatever. I do not often have a plan, though I am trying to change that a little bit. I would love to go to the rink on purpose to film something, but I also don’t want to be disrespectful to other people who are on the ice and take up a bunch of space doing something that isn’t even practicing, if that makes sense. I try really hard to only film videos on purpose on extremely empty sessions or just use content and footage that I already have. I often practice without taking any videos because I still want skating to be for me too.
Q: I love that. And I also, I particularly love the ‘my girlfriend reacts to my Instagram comments’ series. We’ve had two parts so far. Are we going to see a Part 3 of that?
A: Maybe. I feel like those are one of the ones where I think they’re hysterical and obviously I think my girlfriend is hysterical. So I love making those, but it sometimes feels like not very many other people do. But then sometimes I just make videos because I just want to. So maybe there’ll be another part. I’ll have to film another or edit together another really risqué thirst trap so that I can get some crazy comments again. Because I’m, you know, they’re all getting kind of the same. People need to step up their game and be more creative. There’s only so many ‘skate on me’ comments that I can have her react to.
Q: If you’re up for it, I want to wrap this up with a little lightning round. What is your favorite move to perform on the ice?
A: My instinct was to say really fast backward crossovers.
Q: What is your favorite song that you’ve ever done a program too?
A: The one I have right now, it’s called ‘Sleep Talking’ by a band called Good Rzn.
Q: What is your favorite costume that you’ve ever worn for a program?
A: My one from last season. It was a black dress that I turned into a singlet unitard situation and it was just so sparkly and it was so pretty.
Q: What is your favorite figure skating movie of all time?
A: The Cutting Edge.
Q: If you could share the ice with one skater, past or present, who would it be and why?
A: Jason Brown, because I love him. And I think we would get along.
Q: There are six basic types of jumps in figure skating: loop, toe loop, flip, Salchow, Lutz and Axel. Which one is your most hated?
A: I got to go basic on this. Toe loop.
Q: And last but not least, one piece of advice you would give to anyone starting out in skating?
A: Just skate as much as you can and everything else is gonna come. The more you skate, the better everything gets, and if you are like, ‘I’m not making progress,’ just skate. Go skate with your friends, go skate by yourself. Just be on the ice and you’re just going to get so much more comfortable and that is really what so much of it is about, like almost everything in skating. You can do it. You just have to have the confidence.
Be sure to follow Eileen on Instagram @eileenskating. And you can support them by purchasing their “Can’t Even Skate Straight” shirt.