How I Move Vanessa Bauer
The professional ice skater, acrobat and dancer explains how off-ice skates help her cope in lockdown and why she kept a childhood eating disorder a secret for 10 years
I am not usually a very emotional person, but at the start of lockdown I was crying a
lot. Ice rinks everywhere had closed and I usually skate every single day because I am so passionate about it. I headed home to Berlin and I was very depressed for at least the first two weeks or so of the lockdown. But then I got sent my new roller off-ice skates (boots that mimic ice-skating for off-ice use) and they feel so much like ice skating. It actually was such a cool side hobby to learn during this lockdown and now my off-ice skating looks just as graceful as my ice skating. I can do most of the things I would do on the ice outside on the street. The biggest difference between on and off-ice skating is the surface you land on if you fall. Overcoming the fear of falling on my off-ice skates was difficult as you are constantly aware that when you fall you will land on solid concrete and it would hurt a lot. I am so used to falling on the ice that it doesn’t hurt at all. Really, off-ice skating is just a mix of ice skating and inline skating.
I use my off-ice skates to get everywhere now – even to the
grocery store. It is the best way to get from A to B. I skate to the bus station because it is so easy to take them on and off. I find walking boring, so I just skate everywhere. I actually tried to go around the grocery shop in my skates to get my food, but I got told off for it.
I think any other ice-skaters missing their sport should get a pair of off-ice skates – they are
great fun. I got a pair of off-ice skates just because I am so obsessed with skating and I want to do it everyday. To be ready to get back on the ice after lockdown, skaters have to do a lot. You have to do home workouts and go running, because until you go back on the ice you do not realise how much of a workout ice skating
‘Although I was skinny and very fit, every day my coaches told me that I needed to weigh less’
actually is. The minute you are not skating anymore, you realise an hour on the ice just burns so much energy. I’m also a personal trainer and yoga teacher, so I do a lot of home workouts.
My coaches were quite brutal and I had an eating disorder, which marked my teenage
years. When I was younger I was never taught how to love skating as there was constant pressure. The coaches would make comments about my body all the time. It was just ridiculous because I was so young and I was constantly thinking about it. And then I started doing pairs skating, so obviously you
are being lifted all the time.
Although I was skinny and I was very fit, you could never be skinny enough. My coaches told me every day that I needed to weigh less, which means you are not being taught a healthy relationship with food from a very young age. It is so important young girls develop a healthy relationship with food and love their body. Girls need to understand everybody goes through puberty at some point. You will gain weight and you will gain all these beautiful features that a woman has. And it is nothing that you need to worry about; you are becoming a woman. It is nothing that you should let any coach or anybody else comment on in a negative way. My coach just told me to get skinny, but they never told me how to eat healthily. I think it is important that rather than trying to become skinny, girls and women should just try to eat healthily. For skaters especially, you need to be strong so you need nutrients. You need food.
Skaters like Gracie Gold speaking about their own struggles has helped open the conversation about eating
disorders. I know that when I was younger and I was struggling, there was no other person that was
openly talking about it and I felt completely alone. Nobody knew about my eating disorder for 10 years because I was just so ashamed of it. When I first opened up about it about a year ago, I got so many messages from former skating colleagues who said they had faced exactly the same problems and really never felt brave enough to talk about it. It is a very big issue because society makes us feel like you need to be embarrassed about developing an eating disorder, which should not be the case. We need to talk about it so that others do not feel alone.
Skating in shows such as
Dancing on Ice helped me
overcome this negativity. It opened up my eyes about what a wonderful sport it is and how beautiful it is. I have been on
Dancing on Ice three years in a row and my celebrities have been in the final three years in a row as well. Although Perri Kiely and I did not win this year, we were on top of the leaderboard almost every single week and he was brilliant. It is an amazing feeling because I trained him myself and do all the choreography myself. Everybody in the Dancing on Ice team sees me as the crazy person who is on the ice all hours of the day. I am the first person in the ice rink and I am the last person in the studio to leave because I just love it.