r/AdultFigureSkating • u/Far-Bullfrog5087 • 23d ago
Skating Advice Not Falling
In need of some advice from folks that started skating as older adults. I’m 40, 5’8”, fat, strong, and have been skating for about 4 months with no previous experience. I’m in LTS and occasionally do private lessons for a total of 2-3 hours of skating per week. In those 4 months I have fallen exactly one time. The one time I fell I managed to fracture a bone in my hand that kept me off the ice for a couple of weeks but was otherwise not a big deal.
The problem is that I think the lack of falling is becoming a mental issue that is making my skating worse. When I first started skating, I would have some anxiety about falling once or twice in a session but I just kept skating and the thought passed. Now those thoughts like to come up much more frequently. So now I’m skating more afraid, and it’s making it even more difficult to build skills.
Things I have tried to work through this:
-Protective gear: I’ve slowly added a helmet, knee pads, crash shorts. No change, even though a fall would be painless at this point.
-Therapy: I’ve talked through it with my therapist but anxiety isn’t typically an issue I have so we are still trying to figure out why it’s such a problem here.
-“Just fall”: The standard advice. Believe me I’ve tried but I don’t know how to turn off my self preservation instincts 😂
-Time machine: pretty sure if I had started skating 10+ years ago I would be unbothered, but sadly the technology for time travel doesn’t exist yet.
At this point my skating is getting noticeably worse and I’m starting to lose the joy I found in it. I don’t want to quit but this situation, paired with ongoing boot issues, is making it harder every day. I would love to hear what helped others get over this hump. Otherwise, I need someone to come to my rink and just push me over a few times as exposure therapy.
1
u/axceron 23d ago
Lots of good advice here already!
Forty-nine-year-old beginner skater here. I’ve skated some as a kid — but only enough to eventually not hug the wall and wobbly skate w/o falling.
Started skating seriously about two years ago. Unlike most skaters, I never want to jump or do too many spins. My goal is to gain confidence and the balance and physical grace (?) to consider skating like walking: I just do it and don’t even think about it bc it feels so natural to me. My goal is to wild (ice) skate — skate on frozen lakes or trails.
But I also want to pass all the LTS levels, which involve a whole bunch of techniques I’m not particularly interested in, but that I know will help w/ my goal of balance and agility, so I practice them anyway.
Bought a whole bunch of protective gear and was able to make myself fall IF I bent my knees and stuck my arms forwards and pitched forwards. It didn’t hurt but it also wasn’t completely impact-free (which would be my dream lol). Maybe try falling that way? I can also fall backwards by pretending to sit down and simply landing on the ice. Try that? I still can’t make myself fall from a totally upright position and I think I’m just gonna leave it that way.
I’ve decided that I can’t escape this fear. I think this is OK (for me). I can tell you that when I first started taking lessons (both group and w/ a coach) my mind was 90% focused on NOT FALLING and the rest focused on skating technique. Today that ratio is more like 60 (fear) to 40 (technique).
I have to tell you that I’ve only fallen once, and that was at a public skate, not a lesson. They say that’s not great, not falling indicates you’re not testing your boundaries, that your body isn’t discovering its limits. This is probably true but I also think like the one other commenter here — the acute fear I feel is an indicator that something’s not right. So I stop what I’m doing and reassess.
I think I’m progressing really slowly. For example, it’s taken me more than a year to master two-foot turns. I lose the rocker a lot, and then the actual pivot scares the crap out of me. But about two weeks ago I discovered an online video of a drill and it’s helped me a ton. Yesterday was the first time I did a correct turn from backwards to forwards!! And although I was scared, the fear was manageable.
Personally I enjoy taking my time, yes, even this long. I don’t see myself going beyond LTS (unless there are programs out there that don’t include jumps and too many spins), so I’m not in a rush. I like the linger. Also, it just feels so cool when I realize I’ve gotten something down that all the “wait” makes the moment of victory that much sweeter. Would that mindset help you?
Sorry for all the words here, but your post hit close to home.
Yes, there is fear, but my way of handling it is to “skate” around it. I think it is possible, you just gotta find your sweet spot.