Ice in her veins: Sonoma's senior skater Robin Briskin

“I went to my first competition and just got hooked, and that was about seventeen years ago,” says Robin Briskin, 69.|

Robin Briskin originally took up ice skating “as a mid-life crisis.”

“I was a single parent of four kids living in Santa Rosa,” Briskin, 69, said. “I needed something that I could call all my own, where I could pursue a little dream that I had. I always, as a child, wished that I had been an ice skater.”

Briskin is originally from Los Angeles and has been back and forth between Sonoma County and Los Angeles for almost her whole life. She lives in Sonoma now, and raised her four children in Santa Rosa. At the time when she started skating, she was working at the preschool that she owned.

When her kids were teenagers, Briskin began taking adult skate classes at Snoopy’s Home Ice in Santa Rosa.

“It basically filled up my soul,” she said. Having had a background in dance, Briskin “always connected with music and movement. And then being able to combine it with athleticism, the combination just meshed with me and I became so passionate about it.”

Briskin began skating every day and made it work with her already hectic schedule. She went to the rink in the mornings, then got back in time to make breakfast for her kids and get them to school. After her workday was over, she went back to the rink, then picked up her kids up from dance lessons and soccer practices.

“My goal was that I was going to go to these adult classes and I was going to learn how to skate backward,” Briskin said. “And if I could skate backward, then I would be the coolest mom ever.”

Briskin was quickly able to skate backward, and after the group skating instructors saw her rapid progress, they told her that she was ready for a private coach. Shortly after she started lessons with a private coach, Briskin was told that she was ready for competition.

“I thought that I was too old for all of that,” Briskin said, but her coach, Choeleen Laundagin, told her about the adult track of competitive ice skating, encouraging her to compete just to see whether or not she liked it.

“I went to my first competition and just got hooked, and that was about 17 years ago,” Briskin said. “And I’m still competing.”

Most recently, Briskin competed in the ISI Championships in South Lake Tahoe, which was a national competition for adult skaters. Briskin said, “There were adult skaters from all over the nation – Florida, Connecticut, New York, Colorado, Texas – and it was wonderful. I skated so great and did my program better than I ever had.”

In 2016, despite having recently broken her ankle, Briskin competed in the ISU International Adult Competition in Vancouver with skaters from around the world. The event was broadcast on television in Canada. “I felt like a real big superstar,” Briskin said.

In her competitions, Briskin has used costumes as part of her program. During the South Lake Tahoe competition, she created a mannequin doll. Briskin said, “She was the lady in red. I created the mannequin from scratch. I skated as a man in a very beautiful and gorgeous sequined tux with tails.” Briskin skated with the mannequin, doing various maneuvers – including putting the mannequin on her shoulders – which the judges loved.

In addition to skating, Briskin also makes jewelry. During the Sonoma fires in 2017, Briskin assisted community member Marcie Waldron in making necklaces made of agate hearts with grape charms on them to raise money for the firefighters in Sonoma County who had lost their homes. Briskin and Waldron successfully raised $15,000, which the Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley matched two-to-one with a donation of $30,000. After the fundraiser, people continued making requests for more jewelry. Waldron suggested that Briskin take over the business, which Briskin named Charm My Heart Necklaces. Some of her necklaces include ice skating charms, which she has sold at some of her skating competitions.

Currently, Briskin has two coaches, Choeleen Laundagin and Tahlma Ahlers, and skates twice a week at Snoopy’s. Snoopy’s has coaching for all skating levels, general sessions, and even a class for toddlers, in addition to hockey.

For Briskin, skating continues to be an integral piece of her life.

“It’s a part of me that is just a way to rejuice my battery, to feed my soul, to honor a part of myself,” Briskin said. “And it doesn’t involve relying on anybody else. What’s good about skating is that you’re totally self-reliant. It’s just you out there on the ice – with about seven judges looking at you.”

Briskin doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. “I’m planning to keep skating until I can’t stand up anymore,” she said.

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