https://www.facebook.com/groups/1503550726620855/permalink/3957480411227862
Thank you for an interesting post that requires a serious response. Here is mine.
First of all, ballet / contemporary dance is NOT a sport, rather it’s an athletic art (and chess is a non-athletic sport). The distinction may seem academic, but it results in world of difference in the social communities. That said, much of what you wrote would apply to ballet.
Although I danced as a child, I began my professional ballet training as an adult at age 28, and subsequently danced for a professional ballet company. In that training — actually a ballet education — I learned how to think about my body and human movement and technique, and how to build the technique step by step. It’s a very adult way to go about things, and different from how children learn. After all, children don’t have functioning fully developed cerebral cortexes. One common problem for adults trying to learn how to skate, I believe, is the teachers learned as children and work with children, and they just have no idea how to teach adults effectively. I have written about my process here:
https://www.artofskating.org/how-to-train-your-body-to-do-anything-within-its-physical-capabilities/
https://www.artofskating.org/form-movement-quality-and-the-ultimate-waltz-jump/
I began skating two years ago. I am now the two-time winner of the World Figure Sport Figure & Fancy Skating International Open competition. I hope the result speaks for itself, I wrote the articles above in hopes that other adults will find them useful in their training.
I agree 100% that adult training in figure skating (FS) needs to look very different from how children are trained today, i.e. jump first and figure out the technique later. This is baked into the curriculum; for example in the USFSA Skating Skills tests, FO3 and waltz jump are sequenced before students can hold a back inside and outside edge, respectively. That may work for (some) children because they can afford to fall and they don’t have the patience to develop technique methodically, step by step. But it is a terrible approach for adults, and in my training I had to make a choice, at least in the early stages: either stay on a sane training path, or pause it all to enter a USFSA competition that sequenced skills in the wrong order. I chose the former.
We must never forget that FS began as an adult activity, and that the fundamental technique of figure skating — balancing on a blade on one foot while controlling edges — are well suited to adult bodies (in fact, the best people in the world at that are all adults). And we have a proven training program that does just that with almost zero risk of falling: it’s called “figures.” Not to belabor the point… but the figures training program addresses the “impunity towards skill” issue. That is how the sport trained its skaters for almost 100 years, and almost nobody believes the curriculum that replaced it is better (most believe it’s worse). With solid foundational skills, I have had no problem moving toward effective and SAFE Axel jumps, step by step. Falling really is NOT required.
Luckily, we have bodily autonomy and we train as we wish, regardless of what a committee in Switzerland says. Keep in mind that adult beginners with zero body training experience face a dual challenge: training their bodies, and making it all work on ice. My recommendation is absolute beginners spend at least 2/3 of their time in ballet class, rather than on the ice. Here’s a bit more on how I train, based on well established principles put forth by a legendary skating coach:
And here is how any adult can enter into the study of figures:
These two articles by Janet Lynn explain it better than I ever could. She is 100% right. I spent the first 18 months just on figures; and then one day spontaneously began free skating once my body felt secure enough to do so safely:
https://iceskatingintnl.com/archive/features/janet%20lynn%20speach.htm
https://iceskatingintnl.com/archive/features/A%20measured%20fall%20from%20freedom.htm
Yes, adult programs need to address different goals, progressions and pathways. But motivations and goals vary more for adults than children, and leaders need to be willing to think outside of the sports box. Some adults want to participate in a sport, others want to make art. FS was originally an art before the ISU formed to make a sport out of it. The sport existed as balance between art and sport through most of the 20th century, a balance that has been lost in favor of sport in the last 30 years. Arts-oriented adults might find the sports-centered approach of ISU to be shallow and constraining. Luckily there are other skating communities that are more arts-focused, namely World Figure Sport.
In my experience, public skating offers a great way to train: an environment where you can work on figures in the middle while “plain skaters” circle around the outside. World Figure Sport offers instruction via Zoom from a world-class expert, which is how I began for the first 18 months:
Returning skaters may come with muscle memory. But as adults, they need to learn how to use their thinking brain to direct and manage their training. See artice(s) above. It is not surprising if this process requires skaters take apart and rebuilt their technique from the ground up as adults.
Yes, adults should not be treated like children, but the coach-centered system infantalizes skaters. This is where the chasm between art and sport opens up. Somebody figured out that if you place a child under near-constant supervision for a decade, they will progress further within a compressed time window. Contrast to ballet education, with its focus on dancers becoming responsible for themselves in the upper levels. The goal is not to win competitions; but rather, to perform well enough, consistently, night after night, without having to hire a coach to hover over each dancer. That is what it means to be a professional.
I build my FS training around the model of serious musical study: one 1-hour lesson per week, and then I practice that every day on my own. It is almost scandalously under-coached in the FS world, but pretty standard in arts. My teacher (not my “coach” in my book) is responsible for helping me develop my technique. She is not responsible for any free skate choreography, or any competitions or other events I might participate in. That is what it means to not act like a child, and not be treated like a child.
I hope this was helpful.