Episode 23: Unlaced Season 2!

[Music] Hello and welcome to Unlaced with Trock and Bates. Season 2. I'm Madison Trock. And I'm Evan Bates. And we're Olympic Ice Dancers for Team USA. I'm Rusty. That's right though, we are Olympic Ice Dancers for Team USA. If you're into sports betting, bet online is the fastest and easiest way to bet all your favorite sports. Head to their new updated desktop or mobile website to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code "Believe 50" to receive your bonus. Well, well, well. Welcome to a brand new season of Unlaced with Trock and Bates. It's been a while, Maddie. It's been a while since we've done a podcast. It feels good to be back. Oh, I'm so excited. What a thrill. I've really missed this. I've missed it too. You know, it's been a lot of time has passed since anyone has heard from us on this year podcast and a lot of life has happened. So much life. So many exciting events. But I think we'll get to all of it, right? Eventually. But yes, first though, let's maybe just say thank you. Thank you so much everyone for following along with us on our journey so far. I know it's been a long one, but we've had some of the most incredible experiences of our lives just this summer. I know. It's spring and summer, really. It's really hard to believe that it was already a year ago that we were sitting in that hotel room in Finland trying to figure out how to record a podcast. We had no idea what we were doing. And we really didn't know what the podcast would entail, but we were like excited and hopeful that it would be something fun. And it has turned out to be very fun and a great way to connect with all the fans and we're back. We're back for season two and we're very, very excited. Look at us. Here we are. Look at us, Maddie. Still amateur podcasters. Yeah, very amateur. Very amateur in the podcasting, but you know, at least we're throwing our hat in the ring. It's just for fun. Anyways, it's just for fun. And it's honestly just a treat. And we love sharing our journey and hope that you guys get a kick out of listening to what we've been up to. So what have we been up to? What are, where are we? Well, currently we are in Boston, Massachusetts. Well, not exactly Boston. We're in the greater Boston area. Yes, a suburb I suppose of Boston called Norwood, Massachusetts, where US figure skating is hosting the very first Grand Prix skate America. Skate America. Yeah, that's right. So we were in Norwood, Massachusetts. We're kicking off skate America this week. It's our first competition in since March of last year. What a thrill. It's really exciting because we have new programs, new music, new costumes. We've been hard at work since the summer. And you know, this is the weekend that we get to debut. All of that hard work. Well, since mid-summer because we were traveling all the way up through what July through mid-July. Yeah, I think you got, we kind of got started on in July, which maybe is a little later than we would normally, but. It was a big year. It was a big year. Had a lot to come down from, a lot to celebrate. And yeah, but we're so happy to be here at Skate America. And just out of curiosity, before we go any further Evan, how many Skate America have you done or how many Grand Prix seasons have you done? I don't know. I have no idea. Oh, okay. I'm just curious. You might know that because you're so good with numbers and you're remembering dates. I can't count that high. It's many. Okay, two shake two shake. We're still we're still skating. Yeah. And so this year we have some new music, new programs, new costumes. The rhythm dance is Latin. Everyone in the Ice Dance event will be skating to Latin rhythms. And we have chosen to skate to a David Bowie remixes. Whoa, I thought he was a rocker, Maddie. Oh my gosh. Well, Evan, you might want to check your facts before you get it twisted because there are some very sick Latin remixes of David Bowie's. There are. Let's dance. And it's super Latin in my opinion. It comes on and at first I'm surprised that it's David Bowie. Yeah, I mean, it's a full-fledged Latin. Like it's David Bowie, but it's definitely Latin. There's a Latin B in its Samba Rumba Samba. Samba out, babe. Samba Rumba Samba. Those are our rhythms. We're really trying to like go for a ballroom feel, a ballroom vibe on the ice. We've been working hard on our ballroom skills. Hopefully that will come across in the program. Basically, Latin has been kind of done before in Ice Dance. We wanted to find a fresh take, a fresh song, which is kind of hard because a lot of songs have already been skated to. So this piece of music I feel like is kind of fresh. Yeah, it feels very unique. I don't think anyone's used it before and great. Great. Right up our alley. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. And a might I say you are an excellent Latin dancer. No, you're an excellent. No, you're crazy good Latin dancer. Okay, calm down. No, you're a great Latin dancer because we're just building each other out. You're awesome. You're good. No, but you know what else is really fun as your dress. It's like exquisite this year. I do love my dress. I will say every time I put it on, I do a couple extra shimmies just to hear the fringe. Multi-colored, there's fringe. I mean, that's got to be a world record for most rhinestones on a dress. What is the, I mean, you've always had a lot of rhinestones. This is like you've done yourself with the rhinestones. Well, I think Matthew and his wonderful team have outdone themselves because I didn't personally beat each one of those on the list. And he's like, yes, brainchild and you're like, let's just wear rhinestones this year. For them, when they saw the sketch, I'm sure they're like, oh boy, what are we waiting for? Nobody came out so nice. It looks really, really good. And it feels good to wear. I don't know, like put it on and just we feel like. Oh, I put it on. I put those arm bands on and I just feel like I'm a ballroom dancer. It's remarkable. You're a ballroomized dancer. Thank you. Yes. I'm very inspired by the wonderful ballroom dancers and they're so fierce. And those arm bands, I think really helped me channel that true ballroom diva kind of person. Definitely. I feel like it's fun for the audience too. You know, like everything is up tempo, kind of like clap along music. They made some rule changes this year. So we kind of axed the pattern dance. It's a pretty big deal in the ice dance world. We're no longer doing the pattern dances or compulsory dances that they used to be called. And all on and steady. We have a choreo step sequence. Yes. I don't miss them. I don't miss them either. Shh. Don't tell anyone. But the juniors are still doing the pattern dance, which is great because it's a good for skating skills, good for development. But the seniors are not doing it anymore. The seniors are just giving the people what they want, which is just full-fledged, Latin fun. Oh, yes. In the form of three minutes of remarkable ice dancing and the choreo step, which I love. It's so fun. Okay. How many times have we said fun? Okay. Anyways. Well, it's fun. Let's be honest. We maybe we should think of a different word. Yeah. Synonym. All right. I'll think on that. So, okay. Yeah. And we'll debut at this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it. You're going to be great. All right. So how about the free dance? Good psychology. Yeah. No. We're definitely pumping ourselves up in a great way. And yeah. So tell me about the free dance, Evan. You want me to tell you about the free dance? Okay. So the free dance is, you know, we really, we got engaged this summer. What? Yes, we did. That was that was a big life of fans. Don't don't don't. Is that the great? No, that's the wedding song, right? Yeah. Okay. That was the graduation. I get those confused. Maybe that was the great. I don't know. Anyways. The graduation song goes, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I had a right. I had a right. So enough of my singing. I promise I won't do it again. It was good. It was good. We got engaged. That was sort of like a big deal for us. And we wanted to, you know, share that big life event in our skating somehow. So we were inspired by the ring that I gave Maddie. Yes. Very or just ring what lovely taste of ring from 1920. And it really kind of got us thinking about like whose finger the ring was on before what love story this ring was a part of. And, you know, it started going deeper into like how beyond. Yeah. Love can transcend like the physical and go into eternal love. I love to spend transcends space and time. And I think that's kind of the feeling that we were playing with maybe your your souls or spirits are connected through many lifetimes through spiritual and physical worlds. And they kind of maybe dance in and out of those as they weave through the fabric of time to be really. It's deep. It's deep. It's a feeling. But I guess that's kind of the inspiration. Yeah. That's where our inspiration is. Well, we were thinking of it's not like the most literal thing. We're definitely not doing character. We're not doing story. It's more of a feeling. We're just. being ourselves, we're just telling kind of our chapter of our love story and this ring story and that's that's kind of the free dance story. It's just about love, it's about love and we're in love and we feel the love and we hope that people are moved in some way when they see it. And the music? Yes, the music is by an incredibly talented artist from Montreal named Doran. And we cannot wait for everyone to hear it. She's an unbelievable vocalist and her arrangements are so cool in my opinion. Yeah, the really is really different. It's like we feel like it's romantic but it's also like haunting and it's ethereal, spiritual and intense and it's just kind of different a little bit like romantic but off-center, a little edgy and we just were really inspired by it. I feel like it's really fun to kind of get into the mood of the program and let ourselves go on a journey with the music. Anyways, I love it. Also great costumes. Yes, the dress again. Thank you. It came out so so so nice but I think maybe we'll talk about costumes another. Yeah, definitely need a separate episode for costumes I think. So this weekend is the big show and we'll get to debut these two programs and you know we wanted to share a little bit about the background story of each program before they're seen and yeah. Yeah, and we're at a beautiful new rink here, the skating club of Boston's new home in Norwood. It's honestly one of the most beautiful rings I've been in. I don't know the architecture, the wood, the intimacy of it but yet it still holds people a lot of people. Yeah, the Tenley Albright Performance Center. Yes. Named for obviously Tenley Albright but like she is such a legend. She's so incredible and just first day at the rink today the impression was was amazing. It was really really nice. It's getting club of Boston. They always do a great job hosting. We were here 2016 for Worlds and in 2014 for Nationals and both times were some of the best competitions honestly. They are great hosts. I cannot wait to see what they do with the World Championships in 2025. But yeah, yeah, I mean that's sort of where we are. I mean that's literally where we are. We're in Boston. We're in Norwood. We're at Skate America. We're back with Unlaced Podcast season two and we just hope everyone enjoys some great skating this weekend. Yeah, it's going to be a good kick off to the Grand Prix circuit. And we hope everybody all the skating fans out there enjoy a great weekend of skating and we hope to contribute to the great skating. Yeah, you're going to be great. Oh, Maddie's. This has been an episode of Unlaced with Chalkin Bates presented by Bet Online. Make sure you subscribe for future episodes. You can follow us on social media at Chalk Bates. We'll talk to you soon. Bye! [Music]