A helicopter ride to Boston.

Competing with the National Development Team.

Boarding a flight to Chicago in the middle of the week.

This is just a small glimpse into sophomore Mike Weng’s life since he entered the figure skating world.

Weng began skating at the age of 6. He was introduced to the sport by his older sister who skated at the Galleria with her friends.

“I wanted to try [it],” Weng said. “So my mom signed up for classes and I enjoyed them. After that, I kept taking lessons.”

Weng started competing at the age of 10. He now practices every day after school for two hours, Monday through Friday, as well as on Sunday mornings.

For some athletes, juggling school and sports can be difficult. For Weng, he can manage the balance.

“I’ve been friends with Mike since middle school,” sophomore Skylar Yuen said. “I’ve seen him leave for many competitions during the school day. It’s really surprising to see how a person can manage both competitions and school work because there aren’t a lot of people that can handle that kind of pressure.”

Weng trains constantly to prepare for the annual competitions that occur around September and October. Weng’s three coaches, Val Prudsky, Elenea Prudsky and Roman Zaretsky, help him prepare for these competitions.

“The two Prudsky’s are for general purpose of skating as a whole, and Roman is focused more on skating skills, like rockers, counters, and twizzles,” Weng said. “[My coaches] definitely push me a lot to help me grow. I also view them as role model[s] and can talk to them as a mentor or friend instead of just a coach.”

Weng’s competitions consist of multiple rounds that span over a few days. Qualifying rounds occur first, where Weng skates towards what is hopefully a good score. If Weng gets past that level, he advances to another competition, where success will lead to additional contests or events.

The preparation process for a competition is straightforward.

“You pick your music before the contest or before the season starts,” Weng said, “and you make a program with all the elements you want to include. Then you buy a costume, and from there, it’s just practice.”

Weng has competed with teammates before, but most of the time he competes alone.

“I think team events are more fun than individual events,” Weng said. “But I still prefer competing alone because it’s more competitive.”

Weng tries to keep a positive and direct mindset going into competitions. In the qualifying rounds, he usually earns enough points to get him into the next level where Weng tries equally as hard to obtain a high score.

“In preliminaries, my goal is to land elements I’d normally not perform to push my limits since most likely I will have a good enough score to go to the next level,” Weng said. “But once I’m at that competition, I stay within my limits to be on the safer side.”

Weng’s skating career has not always flown smoothly. For a while, he struggled to maintain a jump called the double axle. “It’s a very important checkpoint in figure skating, and there was a time when I could land it, but then I lost my ability to do it for a year,” Weng said.

But his performance during practice is not always the same in the rink at competitions.

“The toughest part of skating in general is having your practice correlate to competition. A lot of times I might get nervous or something goes wrong, and I only have one chance to do everything,” Weng said. “The entire competition itself is only two minutes, so it’s very difficult to make sure every part of my practice correlates with competing.”

Weng keeps skating through any setback.

“I think I’ve gotten more confident in both regular life and skating,” Weng said. “I definitely don’t stress as much as in previous years.”