Posner Skates In New Sport to Stardom

When she was in eighth grade, Alyssa Posner was diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis, a condition in which a bone [vertebra] in the lower part of the spine slips out of the proper position onto the bone below it.

The injury could have potentially derailed Posner's skating career. But after wearing a back brace for several months, and even more months of physical therapy, she was back on the ice.

Fast forward five years, and Posner, who recently graduated from , has become an accomplished synchronized ice skater as a member of the Precisely Right Skating Team in New Jersey. Posner, 18, was also recently named to the NJ Council of Figure Skating Club’s Academic Honors Team and received the US Figure Skating Platinum Level Graduating Senior Award, an honor bestowed based on skating achievements in high school.

Posner, who began figure skating at the age of six and also ran track at the high school, took up synchronized skating after much prodding by a friend and her mother.

“I finally went to a tryout and ended up loving it,” Posner said. “I was a singles skater and thought initially I wouldn’t enjoy [synchronized] ice skating, but I realized how hard it was and actually enjoyed it."

“At first, I was lost and didn’t know what they were talking about, the terminology is different and it was kind of hard,” she added.

Now Posner is moving to Boston this fall where she will be attending Northeastern University and plans to study physical therapy. She also tried out for, and successfully made, the junior team for the Skating Club of Boston’s Team Excel.

“It was nerve-wracking,” Posner said of her tryouts in Boston. “There was more than one tryout and 30 to 40 girls were in my tryout."

“They have two teams that I was eligible for, and 10 to 15 open spots on the team,” she added.

Posner said she enjoys the new sport she took up because of between eight and 20 skaters moving at one time at a high rate of speed—the team she currently competes for has 16 on the ice. The sport requires precision footwork, speed and discipline.

“I tell people its 16 girls on the ice doing the same thing in synchronization,” she said of synchronized ice skating, which exploded onto the scene in the 1970s. “You can compare it to synchronized swimming on ice. Sometimes you’re connected and sometimes you’re not connected but really tight."

“There’s turns and spins,” she added.

Posner practices with the Precisely Right team three times a week and, overall, five times a week. The team competes against another in New Jersey and others on the east coast, and Posner has been to Minnesota to compete as well.

“It’s really different working with a team than doing whatever I wanted to as a figure skater,” she said. “It’s a big family and I love that I can share what I do with a whole bunch of girls.

“It’s my favorite thing to do," she added. "I love going to practice.”

Over the summer, Posner will be traveling to Boston to practice with her new team in time for the season that begins this fall and concludes in the springtime.

“I’m going to have boot camp sessions with the team and just go to practice on my own and improve,” she said. “I’m going to work on stamina, speed and edge-quality.”

Posner said she is grateful that her family and friends convinced her to take up the sport. And in just two short years, she’s gone from a newbie in her sport to becoming one of the state’s best.

“I am thankful to them because I love the sport,” she said. “My only regret is I didn’t start sooner.”