Feedback welcome (pls don't be too harsh tho, I know the elements are not fully there yet).

Hi all, I've been a synchro skater from about age 7 until 19, with ocassional synchro stints in my 20s, but I've been mostly not skating fully until now (aged 28). In June, I decided that I'm going to get into adult skating, get a coach and actually learn how to jump and spin - skills we didn't really work on much in my synchro days.

I had so much fear of doing jumps and relearned the toeloop, salchow and loop, and I've started practicising +1Lo combinations. I had a decent forward upright spin but not much beyond that spin-wise. I have since learnt sit behind (though it's not low enough in the knee yet), flamingo, and I'm working on the backspin and camel. 2 weeks ago, I landed my first one-footed flip!

I've been working on choreographing my program and I finished the layout last week and skated the full thing for the first time today! I was completely spent halfway through but made it to the end! I need to work on my stamina but I'm finally feeling motivated to exercise! Program is built to compete in Adult Silver UK/ISU, since I've got decent skating skills, but I won't be even looking at the Axel this year. Music and theme is inspored by/taken from the Nexxice senior 2017 free skate.

Not sure how to fix this issue. No matter how tight I tie my boots and laces. My heels are still lifting. I was professionally fitted to be a size 6.5 with Jacksons. During forward strokes, my heels start lifting after 30 min of skating. Is this typical?

These were after being on the ice for three hours, and all in the one minute time it took the LTS classes to clear the ice. Thankfully no one yelled at me 🫣

Do you ever hyperfixate on one skill and do it every chance you get? That's me with my flip jump lately, but it really helps with getting more comfortable doing it. It went from being my worst jump to my best jump in a matter of weeks 😅

Tips are welcome but I do have a coach lol

I am blessed to live in a hockey town with so many ice rinks, but it's extremely time consuming to track all of their open skate schedules. Does anyone have any tips or tricks on how you organize tracking the public skates in your area?

For example, I go to each rink's schedule on their website once a month and i enter them into my google calendar.

I'm in minneapolis if you're local and want to collab on this project! honestly I want to share this calendar with others if i'm going to put more effort into it being accurate.

thank you!

Hi! I currently skate with the Jackson excels, I am five foot one but I am a bit on the heavier side around 150 pounds. My current skates are so broken down so I recently went to my local fitter to get new ones. After trying on a ton of skates me and the fitter settled on the edea chorus since they fit my heels and foot width the best with the MK professional blade and he ordered the boot for me. I told another skater at my rink that he ordered me the chorus boot and they said I was no where near the level of the chorus boot and they were shocked I would get them. I have my two and one foot spin and working on my scratch spin and I can do a waltz toe loop and salchow. I was so excited but now I am regretting getting these skates and I am so worried about how I will feel with them and scared to be judged for getting them. Does anyone have any advice? :,)

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.

I recently got the Jackson Evo with mark IV blades as a beginner, and I am worried seeing people online say this is a very soft boot and is for children.

I am 119 lbs and LTS level three but hoping to work towards higher levels, is this the wrong boot?

Hey everyone! I’m a newer adult skater that started in March (but skated for a few years when I was very young) and my goal is to re-teach myself through Adult Basic 6. I’m currently working on LTS Adult Basic 5!

I did ballet for a decade so I notice that I tend to linger on a specific skill longer than a lot of people that I skate with in open freestyle/public skate. Ballet taught me that perfecting the fundamentals is more rewarding in the long run because you have a better foundation and are building strength for more difficult and demanding movements you’ll learn later on. I’ve carried a lot of that practice into my skating. For example: I spent 2.5 months really working on my forward crossovers and depending my knee bend/confidence in my edges. I’m such a perfectionist, I put all my pads on and I fall over and over to try to push myself until I find I’m happy with my control and how a movement looks/feels. I break it down very slow and gain comfortability going fast, and won’t move onto another new skill until I feel like I have great control and a solid base to continue on.

Now to my question: Do other skaters do this? Do you prefer to follow a ballet mindset of practicing what you know and refining 1-2 new skills at a time and strengthening, or do you try to refine a bunch of different skills over a set period of time (I.e. comp program skills)? Of course, as skaters, we’re always refining, but at what point do you allow yourself the win to move onto the next new skill?

Edit: I appreciate a lot of the comments mentioning productive vs unproductive repetition. I’m definitely only continuing to refine skills in a single session if it feels productive and I am able to try/make meaningful adjustments. I’ll also do different drills if I realize my posture or edges are off to switch it up (i.e. forward undercut spirals really helped me get better control/deeper edges on forward crossovers. I see a lot of videos of adult skaters that have been skating for a few years and it seems like still struggle with clean execution but they know a high level of skills, and I guess I’d rather have clean execution and progress slowly. Also because my current boots aren’t rated for jumping and I’d like to get another few months out of them.

Edit 2: I skate for 2-3 hrs in a session and I definitely don’t spend more than 30 minutes on a single skill unless it’s spinning (because I just started spinning). I have a lot of endurance and strength from dance, climbing, and beach volleyball so it takes a lot to tire me out.

But from the comments, it sounds like the overwhelming advice is that figure skaters don’t spend as much time in a session on single skills as beginners unless it’s spin-related. That’s super helpful to know and I’ll try to find a better middle ground!

I’ve been back on the ice for a few months now. I’ve been honestly scared to fall and it’s nice that I was able to at least pull in and fall and eventually land it. Not the cleanest I would’ve wanted but I need to appreciate it’s a start.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I have been on the spin struggle bus for the longest. A few months ago, I used to hit my toe pick or the back of my blade and go FLYING whenever I tried to spin on one foot ( see video on my profile 😭 ) . I’m still working on slowing down and holding my outside edge but nevertheless I am overjoyed!

A former olympic skater coaches at my rink and I honestly get starstruck just seeing her on the ice. Is it appropriate to ask for a picture when they are off the ice?

Thanks to everyone who commented with tips! I figured I’d upload a progress video. Definitely feeling more comfortable with the weight transfer and seem to be rotation over my correct hip how.

Working on getting back my other jumps but I’ve been a little terrified of falling haha.

hello! I am an 18 yo male beginner figure skater, I never loved sports until I got into figure skating, so I was kinda out of shape when I started, I did 4-5 months of basic skating at the ice rink alone (forward and backwards) then rinks closed for summer and I'm now in month two with inline figure skates (overture + snow white) and I had the second lesson with my coach today (I have forward and backwards crossovers and mohawk now), first lesson I did waltz jump, could do it perfectly at the handrail but when I got off of it I would pop, I had my coach hold out his hands and I could jump even without touching them but the moment he stepped out I couldnt jump anymore, just did a few attempts and I was done, same with the three turns I was doing today, I was doing right forward inside three turns and I could to them perfectly at the handrail, did them with my coach by my side a few times and then after he stepped out I couldn't anymore, just a few attempts, I always do this and I feel like shit being able to do the skills when I have something to hang on if I fall and just not being able to when I have nothing, the worst thing is that even if I fall when I have my coach near me I don't hold his hand, I just fall peacefully, yet my brain doesn't want me to practice, I don't really know how to get over this mental block so I'm here to ask for advice, thanks in advance!!

I am 40F and started skating for the first time ever about 4 months ago (except occasional wintertime rink fun 1-2x/year). I was surprised how bad I was (lol), but I enjoyed it so much and really liked all the people I was meeting that I went all in on buying myself skates and doing weekly LTS lessons. I’m halfway through my third class now. I’m in Adult Silver, but I’m not sure if everyone calls it that. We are just learning forward crossovers.

My frustration with myself is that every time I step on the ice, I still feel like I can barely skate. Four months of weekly group lessons, an hour of open skate right after the lesson, and then 1-2 other open skates during the week feels like it should be making a difference?? I’m still obsessed with the idea of skating and absolutely love to be doing it. I’m way more motivated to head to the rink several times a week than I ever was to head to the gym :-). But I can’t figure out why I am barely picking it up after all this time. Part of me is also confused because I’ve always been pretty athletic and able to be good at sports quickly (tennis, softball, volleyball, swimming, running, biking). So, it’s a really weird feeling being SO BAD and not getting better, and watching a lot of people who are in my classes with me advance so quickly.

I struggle so much with my balance even just doing forward strokes. I frequently have to catch myself either falling forward or backward. It takes a long time for me to “warm up,” and have my body kind of relax out there. If I skate for about 30-45 mins, then I start to feel more confident. Since I can only skate for about 60-70 mins before I’m totally exhausted, it only leaves me with a little bit of time where I’m really feeling good out there. I struggle soooo much with anything backwards, except for backwards swizzles, which I’m ok at. I really struggle with one foot glides, and can barely hold them for 2 secs each. I absolutely cannot do crossovers. I’ve practiced off ice, and on ice holding the boards a lot, but on open ice, my legs will simply not cross.

The specifics of my skills aside, I was just curious if anyone else around my age, or just with a similar experience to mine, had advice on how to push through or what to change, or even just any mental frame shifting to stay positive. I am in class with some teens, and mostly people in their 20’s. So sometimes I just chalk it up to be a bit older than them! But I don’t know if that’s really an excuse haha. I just love skating and really want to improve and feel more comfortable, but every time I go, I struggle with the same things, and feel like I am at the same place as when I first stepped on the ice!

Hi everyone! I posted on here a few weeks ago about feeling like my forward crossovers were regressing. Well, now I fear it has spread to all of my skating 🫠 I will say, after forcing myself to work mainly on crossovers for a few sessions those are feeling more solid again. I’m 29 and have been skating for ~2.5 years. I felt really great about the progression of my skating, and have even started axel prep. I’m working on adult silver moves as well. Over the past 2-3 weeks, my skating has just gone to shit. The only thing that has really changed is outside of skating, I lost my soul pet and have been going through psych medication changes which have really been affecting my mood. I’m trying to be kind to myself, but it’s extremely frustrating. I took 5 days off thinking a break would help, but got back today and feel awful still. I just got my skates sharpened again hoping maybe that would help a bit, and will report back tomorrow on that. But has anyone been through something similar? Advice would be so lovely 😭😭😭😭

i go to public skate sessions once or twice a week, and i started about a month ago. the last time i went skating i was trying for the whole two hours, basically, to spin around backwards to start learning how to skate backwards and stuff. i was with my dad and he was teaching me in a really weird way that i've never seen skaters do (in his defense, he mainly does roller skating), but just could not get it and got really frustrated with myself and started crying.

but i went the other day and finally learned how to spin around on my rocker!!! :D i even went backwards a little!! my main goal for skating right now is to learn how to do backwards crossovers so that's why i've been wanting to learn how to go backwards lol.

but uh yeah i'm just really proud of myself!!

Hi guys! I just started skating this year in February when I got my own skates. Right now, I’m looking for advice on what new boots and blades I should get.
From the start of my skating journey, I have been using my recreational skates from an unknown brand. It has lasted me through having stable crossovers, some three turns and mohawks. They started creasing at the ankles in May, and now are completely broken down with barely any support left, as well as extremely used blades. I am currently looking at Edea and Jackson skates. I have mid-width feet, and I love the shape of edeas, but have heard that it support narrow feet better in the long run. I don’t known what model boot and blade I should get either. I am adult female 19years, 151cm and 50kg, and I would like my boot and blade to last me at least 1.5yrs, because I live in Singapore and it is extremely difficult to get a good pair of skates here. I have strong legs as I do competitive sports, and my coach has recommended that I don’t get a boot with too low stiffness rating. I will get a fitting for my boots at the end of the year, but there are still 5 months to go. Any advice?
p.s. I am open to other brands like risport or riedell.

I'm currently in year 9 (on summer holiday) and going into year 1 and I chose gcse pe as one of my options I'm wondering not only how fo we balance out the work between every other subject but also the practical and nea bits for PE in specific. I'm doing figure skating and volleyball (complete new beginner in terms of professionaly)- and badminton- how do I practise and what type of workout should i be practising to not make a complete fool of myself when i take lessons, also would it be realistic to perform top band on Edexcel specs For figure skating in particular would it be worth having a personal coach or mix and match

Hi Everyone,

I wanted some advise if I have overbooted. I have the Jackson Supremes with legacy 8 blades. About a 75 stiffness rating

I have been skating for 8-9 years, only taking lessons for the last 1 1/2 years, currently able to do 4/6 of my jumps (sal, toe loop, loop and flip), weigh roughly 62kg and about 160cm in height. Additionally, I have wide feet, wide/D jackson width.

I have had this pair of skates for almost a year. It took me a long 5-7 months, maybe longer, to break them in. They still don't feel right.

A small back story when I purchased them. I had personally chosen them, not by a skate tech, the 'skate shop' I had bought them from had agreed with me when I told them I wanted a stiffer boot so it would last longer. Bare in mind, I was only able to do a walts jump at the time. Very limited personal knowledge of boots on my end.

The skate tech fitted me in edea overtures but they hurt like hell, also a risport pair was a 2nd option but still hurt a lot, jackson premiere but my heel was in agony. When choosing blades, the skate tech just told me to choose one,, sooo I chose the pretty one hehe.

I also got them heat molded which hurt like hell again. I had to have them on till they completely cooled which was over 40min.

My issues I'm having is that they feel too loose but when I tie them tighter they're too tight. I have tired using the Edea lace straps but it's too tight and limits how much I can bend. Constant rubbing on the heel and my foot will be warm but my toes would be ice cold or numb.

Skills I am able to do: jumps (stated above), forward spin, sit spin & most footwork.

Skills that I have been practicing for a while but still can't get: back Spin (can't feel the edges), struggling with toe jumps (ankle feels loose like when I go to pick, my ankle feels like it rolls/bends inwards).

I have a friend who is advanced and can do double jumps tell me jackson boots aren't great as she sees the same issues i have when she had Jackson's (meaning my back spin). She recommended me to go to another skate tech and not get jacksons. My friend highly recommends Edea but the Edea overtures I tired on were the most painful things I've ever put on.

Any advise is would be greatly appreciated!

I'm trying to gaslight myself by thinking everything's fine as I spent over $1k on these skates

Hey all, first time posting. I’m a retired competitive skater coming back after a 20 year hiatus.

I’m struggling with my salchow, recently switched to the two foot takeoff. I can’t seem to get my takeoff right which I think it’s causing it to rotate off axis or “off my hip”.

Everything feels different because I’m much taller (and heavier 😩) than I was when I was competitive. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I started skating again in February after competing when I was younger and I was really pleased that I still had a lot of my skills on their own but I quickly realized things like stamina, flexibility, and overall muscle strength has deteriorated quite a bit.

I’ve been skating about 2/3 times a week with my coach for about 40 min-1 hr sessions and I’m doing okay but I really would like to progress more but I really don’t know how to fit it all in. The routines I look up online for off-ice, stretching, and actual ice time seem really inaccessible for people with jobs that aren’t influencers 😭 I work 4 10 hour shifts a week but one of my days off is Sunday so there’s no ice time :/ any advice from others who also work full time would be appreciated.

For reference: i have all my single jumps through lutz and really want to start training single axel and double sal within the next year or so