Realistic Goals for an Adult Figure Skater

karne said:

Watching Adult Nationals it was inherently obvious which skaters had a) started younger and come back as Adults b) started older and focused on jumps and c) started older but focused on SS. Inevitably, skaters from brackets a) and c) scored higher and did better overall.

Perfectionism is not a dirty word, especially in this sport, but do be careful you don't go too far with it.

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Interesting observation from the adult nationals! I’m definitely more of a C skater, I love working on getting strong deep edges. This question was purely out of curiosity for my future bigger goals, I won’t be rushing into trying to get them anytime soon though!

jf12 said:

Normally I only take a jump lesson once a week, and I’m able to retain and improve my skills with it, but when I was first getting the hang of the axel I worked on it 6 days a week and took a 15-30m lesson on jumps specifically almost 4x a week, otherwise I would regress between lessons.

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6 days a week, wow! Props to you for sticking through it and achieving your goals What jumps are you working on these days?

hanyuufan5 said:

I'm quite a bit older than you are, and no one at my rink has said they don't think I'll be able to do Axels and doubles. I skated more than you did as a kid, but you're above my level now. Good luck!

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Good luck on your journey!

guitarist said:

I know quite a few people who have learned Axels and doubles in less than 3 years and started as adults. I've also seen a ridiculously talented guy who's been skating for around 3-4 years and started in his 20s, and is now seriously working on a 3A. Granted, he's a professional ballet dancer and a one-in-a-million case of true genius + hard worker, but it's definite proof that it's possible to learn jumps after puberty. It sounds to me like you're putting in the effort required to succeed. I've been skating for a year, and I am nowhere near the level you describe. Counters? I can't even do back 3-turns [emoji14]

If you keep it up, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to get an Axel and some doubles. Like some other people have said though, don't neglect SS!

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Wow that really does sound like a one in a million case!
How inspiring (and slightly irritating) [emoji23][emoji31][emoji23]!

Thank you! I promise you all I won’t neglect my SS on the journey to my bigger goals hahaha!

And yes I’ve recently starting working on all my turns (3’s, Brackets, rockers, counters) haven’t started choctaws and if there are others I don’t know about, then I haven’t started those. But for me personally it’s just a matter of doing rather than thinking, once you overthink it becomes scary and confusing and you start doubting yourself (I think as adults we naturally have more of a fear there) So yeah I try to just think like a kid would and go for it without being scared and I’ve progressed much faster

Well, just having come back from a freestyle session, I have some more encouragement!

Fear is perhaps one of the biggest challenges for many older-by-figure-skating-standards skaters. As a former cheerleader, I'm sure you're a whole lot less scared of falling than most adult skaters! So, that should help.

Yeah, I got some ankle pads for my cruddy recreational skates and was able to push myself much harder since I wasn't in constant pain. I made a good amount of progress that I probably wouldn't have if I were scared of falling. That made me think of this thread. (I wasn't a cheerleader, but I have other reasons for not being particularly scared of falling, which would sound like shameless bragging if I said what they are. )

cherryk said:

Good luck on your journey!

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Thank you very much!

cherryk said:

6 days a week, wow! Props to you for sticking through it and achieving your goals What jumps are you working on these days?

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Oh I do not jump 6 days a week anymore.. that was just my obsession to get the axel. At that time, I was coming from a mindset where I got the other singles in basically one lesson, so I needed to overcome my muscle memory block that I and most people have when it comes to learning that jump. Because it’s a huge proprioception challenge, I would find myself improving during the lesson and regressing whenever I worked on it myself - so I set it up with my coach to never practice the axel when she wasn’t there and to take a lot of frequent and short lessons. I would really recommend this lesson timing to anyone who is having some trouble getting the axel, I notice that the little kids who get it quickly often do this too.

3 years later and I have axel and double sal clean, and toe, loop, and flip consistent but usually it’s cheated. My technique is pretty good and my air position but I realize to get them all clean I have to work more off ice. I’m not as focused on jumps these days. My new obsession is novice moves and ice dance which takes a ton of time. I only jump for like 1 hour a week total now.

I started skating much older than you. My coach thinks it will be possible for me to get a double jump and a single axel. If this fat old lady can try for these, you most certainly can as well.

Our coaches in adult beginners aren't ruling out doubles for anyone, and all of us are older than 18 and skating far less than you do. (our "learn doubles"-timeframe is also more like: in 10 years... XD damn limited icetime with the outdoor rinks...)

I'm pretty sure ballet does help, though not in detail, only in overall matters and compared to people who are NOT trained at all or in sports that focus on very different things. ballet will give you fine motor control over different body parts, which is helpful for a sport like figure skating. also, having had to do a hip turnout before in your life also helps doing it on ice for mohawks and similar moves.
ballet jumps are utterly useless, and even spinning/turning technique is partially useless. I'm telling all my dance instructors that I just won't even try spotting any longer, since I always was bad at it and it's not doable on ice, so having the instincts for it is bad on the ice. they leave me be, I'm old enough, they accept me being stubborn.
the incredible back muscles of a ballet dancer will always be useful for figure skating. I don't have them, and returning to a ballet lesson after years of only doing jazz and modern taught me just how bad my posture was. I need those muscles, they stabilize so much, and that will of course help with posture and balance on the ice as well.

for people who have spent a long time trainng specific dance moves, it might be hard to unlearn some stuff, but that will always be the case when switching sports.

Arpakasso said:

Our coaches in adult beginners aren't ruling out doubles for anyone, and all of us are older than 18 and skating far less than you do. (our "learn doubles"-timeframe is also more like: in 10 years... XD damn limited icetime with the outdoor rinks...)

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It would be extremely difficult for any but the most talented children and adults to get doubles, under those conditions, and that super talented person would probably be able to get it in one or 2 winter seasons, and not 10 years.

Talking about your averagely talented, fairly fit adult (such as myself and most skaters), I would have to say if you're not taking a lot of private lessons and your rink is only open in the winter, and you're skating less than the OP, you're quite unlikely to get it, taking 10 years or not.

Talking about your averagely talented, fairly fit adult (such as myself and most skaters), I would have to say if you're not taking a lot of private lessons and your rink is only open in the winter, and you're skating less than the OP, you're quite unlikely to get it, taking 10 years or not.

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well, since kids in the club also manage to get doubles... also mostly on winter ice: I'd not be so fatalistic. yes, not everybody will get there, and to actually get it, it might be necessary to take a period of intensive individual lessons on top of the group lessons provided by the club. but there are enough people here (in the region) who can do doubles, and guess what: between april and august, it's pretty hard to get any ice outside of Oberstdorf (and there, haf of the nation's elite is training, so no ice for beginners there, either...). people manage.

our coaches said: it's possible to get doubles. nobody said it's a sure thing. this year, one woman from the adult beginner group who had NOT skated as a kid advanced to the intermediate group - this week, the group was working on getting an Axel, she was VERY out of her depht. still, the coach of the intermediate group says: eventually, as she's motivated and reasonably fit, she can get there. can. not will. but can.

which is all our coaches say: it's not an assured success, but it's possible, given motivation and work. they firmly draw the line at triples. that, they put in the realm of "highly improbable".

I get where people come from with all the demotivating speak n forums like this: you want to stop people from hurting themselves by trying things that are too difficult for them. but seriously, people who are training in a safe environment and want to know what might be realistic don't need to be put in their place.

I find it highly annoying that everyoneacts like if you start beyond the age of 10, you will never get anywhere in skating. Because, as I am seeing every week in training: it's utter momsense. we have grandmas at age 70+ who learn to jump a salchow. our adult groups have people who start out at 20+ and get to doubles. I can see, every week, how much we profit from every single session. I find it actually quite interesting just how fast the learning curve in this sport can be, given proper instruction. it's not the one-in-a-million talent who gets anywhere, it's the above-average-talented person who puts in a decent amount of focus and work. being talented above average is actually true of about 50% of the people: because statistically, the average is at 50%. just sayin.

Arpakasso said:

well, since kids in the club also manage to get doubles... also mostly on winter ice: I'd not be so fatalistic. yes, not everybody will get there, and to actually get it, it might be necessary to take a period of intensive individual lessons on top of the group lessons provided by the club.

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Why are you arguing with me when that's exactly what I said in my post? How is it not motivational, where I said if you max out lessons and practice, you get it very quickly, NOT in 10 years. Fit adults have better muscle control and strength in many cases than the typical little kid, but we have a lifetime of muscle memory to get over to do these very unnatural movements, which is why I think it takes a period of intense training. Since there are so many adults near you who learned doubles for the first time as an adult, it may be more useful for people if you were to ask what their training habits were when they got them.

Beginners are used to progressing fast, while not skating a ton, and from an outside perspective, it looks like adults that get doubles get them through a combination of decent talent and hard work, and it's the kind of thing that is vaguely possible. I'm just trying to add some insider details of my own experience. I am sure there are people who know me at the rink who have no idea that I used to take 6 lessons a week, and think I'm really talented (I'm not). I am putting this info out there to tell adults that if they want to (barring injury) nearly guarantee that they can be doing doubles, they have to plan to set aside significant time and money in future to train as much as they may have to. If you're in an expensive area it could cost 20,000 USD for a year of training that it might take, with 10 hours a week of ice time and 4 lessons a week. Elite coaches have to make that money somehow - in many cases by selling doubles to adults at 20k a piece....

Don't underestimate practice time though. I started taking lessons in October a year ago, I am 26 now and rotating my axel, not quite landing it. I started off in just group lessons. Now I am doing two group lessons a week which are basically an edge class, focusing on edges, steps, turns, and presentation. I just finished freeskate 6 in group lessons, but will go back to ice dance group lessons now (once a week). I do one 15 min private lesson a week. That's not a lot of lessons, but I skate at least 10 hours a week, usually more. At some point I want to increase private lesson time, but it's not feasible for me financially. I value practice time very highly and while of course, another lesson would be great, but if I had to lower practice time in order to afford it, I don't think that would help me. I practice a lot on public sessions to keep costs down, and practice basics and footwork a ton. I'm lucky that my rink lets me practice jumps and spins if it's not too crowded. So I feel like if you have the drive to do it, you don't need to be rich and do a bunch of lessons a week, but you do need a lot of practice time.
I will say I was a high level irish dancer, so I am stronger than the average 26-year-old off the street, and I know how to control my body especially my feet and legs. It's completely different technique to learn, but I think had a headstart on fitness level and control. People here say a lot of different things about what is possible for adults, but I feel it's definitely possible for me to land up to double lutz eventually. Beyond that I'm not so sure, but I don't want to completely rule it out until I've been skating a bit longer. I'm not the type to make long-term goals anyway, so for right now I just want to land the axel.

Anyway, that is my personal experience, but I don't see any reason why adults should be able to land axel and doubles if they put in enough time and work on it. I always thought the puberty thing was more aimed at double axel or triples, or people trying to get to the Olympics. Yes, it's too late for me to make the Olympics. But it's not too late for me to land a nice double salchow and do great footwork!

treblemakerem said:

Don't underestimate practice time though. I started taking lessons in October a year ago, I am 26 now and rotating my axel, not quite landing it. I started off in just group lessons. Now I am doing two group lessons a week which are basically an edge class, focusing on edges, steps, turns, and presentation. I just finished freeskate 6 in group lessons, but will go back to ice dance group lessons now (once a week). I do one 15 min private lesson a week. That's not a lot of lessons, but I skate at least 10 hours a week, usually more. At some point I want to increase private lesson time, but it's not feasible for me financially. I value practice time very highly and while of course, another lesson would be great, but if I had to lower practice time in order to afford it, I don't think that would help me. I

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I hope you get it soon! Practicing 10 hours a week is a great step, and congrats on starting the axel after so little time. A lot of people aren't rich, they budget and prioritize their goals and wants. If you can't afford to take a ton of lessons I wouldn't say to give up and not try... it can always happen for you! Just saying when you see other peoples' end results you don't always know what they had to do or spend to make it happen. Lots of people in the age range for doing adult doubles have either money or time, unfortunately.

Don’t underestimate genetics and the rotational speed you get off it. Why do you you think that two kids who start skating at the same age one ends up as quad king Nathan Chen and the other doesn’t. Even the most naturally skilled skaters who’ve been skating since they’re born don’t have the rotational speed to do the maximum that their age, experience allows. It comes down to genetics like in every other sport.

As for the original topic- I am a 31 year old adult skater, I started skating again seriously when I was 27. I skated as a kid but mostly in synchro. As a kid I didn’t have an axel, lutz or leveled spins all of which I can do now. I landed my axel just before I turned 30. I changed coaches about a year ago and my progress has been much more since then. I liked my first coach but she was very “that’s good for adults”. I understand I’m not going to do most things at the same level as the kids, but I wanted someone who would push me to be the best I could be. My second coach is also who helped me get the axel. So finding someone who is a good fit is really important too.

What I have started doing is making my goal for the year and working backwards. This year I want my program spins to be consistent, I want to pass Gold moves, cross my feet better on the axel and I want to make good progress on double salchow.

For these goals I need to work on edge quality, posture, form on singles, backspin, and holding spin positions longer.

I also make sure to have an A. B. And C. Goal. A is the most ambitious, B is the in between and C is the minimum I would be happy with. That keeps my goals realistic but also pushes me. I don’t see why you can’t meet your goals- but my suggestion would be to look at what you need to do to achieve those goals.

Good luck!!!!

Seren said:

I liked my first coach but she was very “that’s good for adults”. I understand I’m not going to do most things at the same level as the kids, but I wanted someone who would push me to be the best I could be. My second coach is also who helped me get the axel. So finding someone who is a good fit is really important too.

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Yes, this is a big one. Make sure you have a coach who respects your goals. For me, I want to go standard track or nothing. If my coach tried to encourage me to do the adult track, I would find someone else.

Seren said:

I also make sure to have an A. B. And C. Goal. A is the most ambitious, B is the in between and C is the minimum I would be happy with.

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And this, too! I make no secret of my A goal being a quad. It'll never happen, but... what if it does?