I dunno, I’ve demonstrated plenty of ability to master motor skills as an adult. I did professional ballet training at age 28 and made it into the professional company. More recently (many years later), I won the World Figure Sport Figure & Fancy Skating International Open after only 5 months on the ice. I have a system for training my body, which I explain in these articles. Briefly, the answer Jaime Masiello Roche gave is correct: “Try → fail → adjust → repeat”:
https://www.artofskating.org/how-to-train-your-body-to-do-anything-within-its-physical-capabilities/
https://www.artofskating.org/i-train-like-an-olympic-figure-skater/
In the context of figure skating, I will add this: the dominant training methods today are completely inappropriate for adults because they require high energy expenditures and frequent falling. This is BIG way the system fails adults, and I am planning on going into more specifics on my blog. But basically… the system of figures (the origin of the term “figure” skating), in which you carefully trace circles on the ice, is still the best way to train figure skaters, and it requires / trains extreme control while involving *no falling at all*. It is tailor-made for adult minds, and was abandoned in part because many/most children do not have the patience to work carefully in that way (they want to go out on the ice and throw their bodies around). Janet Lynn said it best in 2008, how figures create a “muscle map” on your body that enables you to skate securely and safely.
I spend at least 2/3 of my time on the ice practicing figures, and I have been making incredible progress over the last 2 years. I didn’t free skate really at all for the first 18 months, I just focused on tracing figures. Then I naturally began free skating when my body felt secure and soon after began doing reasonable single jumps after only minimal instruction specifically in free skating (because my body was already trined from the figures). Figure skating relies on balancing your entire mass over a thin blade, and tiny movements or mis-placement of your body parts can throw you off. Either you learn this and fix it while gliding slowly on the ice; or you learn it and fix it while flying through the air just before you crash land. Your choice.
If you want to begin training in figures, World Figure Sport is the place to start today, with their affordable / accessible Zoom class: