It's the process, baby

One of the most remarkable people I've ever known in my life is a gentleman named Max Lopez-Cepero.



Max was the pastor of the last Protestant church I was a member of, in Berkeley, California. (It was mostly a positive church experience; my husband was on staff there for a time, and I was on their elder board for a few years.) Max and his wife Helen (another exceptional human being), are my son's godparents. They currently live in Chicago.

One of the things I remember Max saying quite a bit was that what's important in our Christian life is the process. In other words, the process in which we do things is more important than the end result. It's where we learn the most and where our integrity is most apparent.

I think that's been true about this blog. I'm still figuring out how to best do it, with my busy schedule and time limitations. I think that the way I've been analyzing the competitions this season isn't very productive. So far, I've been writing something about every performance in every competition, and I've had trouble keeping up. As a result, I'm rethinking the process of how I write this blog.

It's a work in progress. I'll keep trying things until I find the most effective way. How I've done it so far isn't very effective or productive. So I'm going to try writing short articles, like how I was forced to do after Cup of China, which suffered from technical difficulties. The article I wrote for Emily Hughes.com worked out well. The process in that is that I read everything out there on the web about the competition, viewed a few YouTube videos, found a slant that no one else had seen before, and wrote the article, without seeing much of the competition.

I think I'm going to do something similar from now on. I'll view the ABC/ESPN broadcasts, edit them for YouTube (because I think that downloading the American versions of competitions there is a way to serve the figure skating community) fill in what's missing with YouTube videos, do some additional research, and write articles about themes and issues. I'll start with NHK Trophy.

I've always wanted this blog to be different than other figure skating webpages already out there. I wanted it to have a personal bent, and to include the perspective of a normal figure skating fan. Plus, it's my intention to blog at the Nationals in Spokane next month.

So as my good friend Max would say, "Process, process, process!" Man, I miss that guy! We got to talk to him at Christmas, though, and he and his family are doing well.