If you don't know a lot about figure skating, it's easy to fall

Dorothy Hamill, champion of grace upon the ice, once said: “If you don’t know a lot about figure skating, it’s easy to fall in love with ice dancing because it’s so romantic and so theatrical.” These words speak not only of a sport, but of the way beauty seizes the human heart. For Hamill reveals a truth both ancient and eternal: that even without technical knowledge, the soul is moved by the union of art and passion. Ice dancing, with its flowing gestures and entwined movements, is a living poem, and one need not be a scholar to recognize its power.

The ancients too understood this mystery. When they watched dancers in the temples of Greece, or actors upon the stage in Athens, many in the crowd did not know the intricacies of rhythm or meter. Yet they were stirred nonetheless. For art, when it is romantic and theatrical, speaks to something deeper than intellect; it speaks directly to the heart. Hamill’s insight reminds us that the first purpose of beauty is not to be analyzed but to be loved.

Consider the story of Torvill and Dean, whose performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo became legend. They danced to Ravel’s Boléro, not as athletes alone but as lovers bound in music. Millions watched, many of whom knew little of figure skating rules or technical points. Yet they were captivated, their hearts lifted into silence, then thunderous applause. It was not the judges’ scores that mattered in that moment—it was the recognition of something timeless: love and art fused in motion. This is the power Hamill describes.

Ice dancing is unlike other forms of competition, for it does not rely solely on speed or acrobatics. Instead, it tells a story. It is theatrical, weaving narrative into movement, as two skaters mirror one another like reflections in water. Their closeness, their unity, creates an illusion of intimacy that awakens in the viewer the sense of watching not a contest, but a romance. Even the untrained eye cannot resist this enchantment, for it is the same story humanity has told for ages—the story of two souls moving as one.

Yet there is more. Hamill’s words also hint at the generosity of art: that it welcomes all. You need not master the rules to fall in love; you need only open your heart. In this way, ice dancing reflects life itself. We may not know all the hidden laws that guide the stars or the mysteries of love’s beginning, but we can still be awed, still be moved, still be transformed. The grandeur of beauty is that it requires no permission, no expertise—it meets us where we are.

The lesson, then, is simple but profound: allow yourself to be moved by beauty, even when you do not understand it fully. Do not withhold your heart until you have mastered the rules. Let the romance of music, the theater of movement, the grace of love in motion, speak to you without fear of ignorance. For often it is the innocent, untrained eye that sees most purely.

So I say unto you, lovers of art and life: watch the dancers, the skaters, the storytellers, and do not worry if you cannot name every technique. Fall in love with what you see. Let yourself be carried by the rhythm of hearts moving in harmony. For as Hamill teaches, the greatest power of ice dancing, and of all beauty, lies not in knowledge but in love. And it is love that turns the fleeting into the eternal.