Vinyasa~BLISS – Kamila Valieva:

Figure skater Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee competes on February 6^th, 2022, at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Image credit: VCG.

Tonight – Friday, May 30^th, we kickstart the latest iteration of our Vinyasa~BLISS endeavor with a sublime appreciation of the Russian world champion ice skater Kamila Valeryevna Valieva.

Kamila Valieva is a nineteen-year-old former 2019 and 2020 Junior Grand Prix and Junior World champion, 2021 Skate Canada champion, 2021 Rostelecom Cup champion, and 2021 Russian national silver medalist. Unfortunately, her amateur championship career ended in 2022 after her drug test sample tested positive for a banned substance during the 2022 Winter Olympics.

However, Ms. Valieva’s positive drug test does not diminish her status as the current world record holder in the women’s ice competition for the short program, free skating, and total scores.

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Kamila Valieva at the 2018 Rostelecom Cup gala. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Kamila Valieva is the second woman to land the quadruple toe loop, the fourth to land a quadruple jump, the sixteenth to land a triple axel, and the third to land a triple axel and quadruple jump in the same performance.

Miss Valieva is also the first female skater to land a quadruple jump in an Olympic competition. In the video compilation that opens tonight’s essay, I created a shortened montage of Kamila Valieva’s ice skating jumps from her remarkable performances as a novice skater throughout the years.

While certified as a yoga instructor, I do not actively teach yoga or fitness. Additionally, although I enjoy ice skating, I confess that my knowledge of the sport is limited.

While I may feel unqualified to analyze and explain the physical dynamics of athletes as they perform, I will endeavor to describe how Kamila Valieva is a superior ice performer, athlete, dancer, gymnast, and contortionist.

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Kamila Valieva in 2022. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Suppose you have spent extensive time studying or training with professional dancers and contortionists, as I have.

In that case, you quickly realize that ice dancers like Ms. Valieva are physical contortionists who perform their art on ice skates. Contortion is a form of performance art in which performers display their extraordinary physical flexibility.

Kamila Valieva skillfully utilizes her core strength, back flexibility, agility, contortion abilities, and physics to become one of the best technical jump performers in ice skating history. Ice dancing requires significant core strength and spine flexibility, providing ice skaters with a level of strength and agility surpassing that of other athletes and performers.

Core strength refers to the ability of the muscles in the abdomen, back, and around the pelvis to stabilize the middle section of the body sufficiently to perform complex physical movements.

Spinal mobility refers to the ability of the spinal column to articulate and the back muscles to move, twist, bend forward, and backward without restriction, muscle stiffness, or pain.

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The article writer, center-left, with the “Show Girls” of Las Vegas, Nevada, or “Sin City.”

Despite attending numerous martial arts classes and expert yoga seminars over the years, my knowledge of kinesiology and advanced fitness comes primarily from the girls and women I practiced dance and contortion alongside in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

I did not really learn and begin to understand how to move my body in space until I started training with all the showgirls, erotic dancers, pole dancers, and contortionists in Las Vegas–also known as “Sin City.”

Erotic dancers and pole dancers are among the most athletically talented, physically fit, and healthy people I have ever been around. Dance, in all its forms, elevates the conversation around female body autonomy.

Whether it’s the elegance of ballet, the electrifying expression of contemporary dance, or the mesmerizing feats of athleticism displayed by pole dancers, professional contortionists, or ice dancers like Kamila Valieva, female performers and athletes embody autonomy in the most visceral way—challenging societal norms, reclaiming narratives around physicality, and redefining what it means to own one's body.

Kamila Valieva. Image Credit: Andrew Milligan and PA Images via Getty Images.