I didn't want to hijack the original post, so thought I would ask you & other skaters here.

Skate@Delaware - curious to find out what your impression of the good points vs bad points are....

also in your specific situation, I'm curious as to how the team performed if most were not able to do backwards crossovers. I for example, can do them one way, but not the other

Good Points:
-It pushes your comfort level up a notch or two, by forcing you to skate closer, faster, backwards, etc. which makes you a better skater
-You learn new skills that you might not have learned before; pinwheels, intersecting lines, etc.
-You become more aware of other skaters on the ice with you and how far apart you are and how close you can skate without catching blades
-teaches you good sportsmanship
-teaches you to "let go" really, because if you don't and they fall, you go down too!

Bad Points:
-Ok, tacky costumes! I've worn things that were pretty bad!!!
-going too far beyond my comfort level (when I first started)
-having someone change a routine during a show because she decided she never did like the original routine (caused a collision and a fall)
-skating with all those people, you have to deal with "prima donna" attitudes of the better skaters who feel they are better than everyone else and don't want to "dumb down" the routine (i.e. no back crossovers, no back spirals, etc)

When you skate synchro (not a team) with all skill levels, it's really hard to come up with good routines that take into account everyone's skill level. If people can't do back crossovers, then you don't put those in, you put in back swizzles or pumps. We had a "prima donna" complain about having to do those, saying they were dumb and looked stupid. Well, 1/2 the girls couldn't do the back crossovers (they could barely do front crossovers). OTOH, I was in a show routine where I was the only one that couldn't do power 3's (my lament on another thread). That was something that I ended up working on and got to the point where I could do them passably but not greatly. Oh well.

I like synchro, but our rink is so small and the number of skaters on the synchro numbers about 6-8 not counting the little girls (about another 4-6). That's not a lot. So we never had any great routines with the large numbers.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Synchro can be very good for your basic skating. I have a friend who took a year off from singles (she's a Bronze FS skater) and skated with Team Elan Adult (National Champs for the last several years including the year she skated with them). She returned to singles this year and her basic skills are much stronger (speed, turns and edges) and her ability to present a program is really *there* now. She also knows how to cover a mistake and work with her coach to play to her strengths in a program which are good skills to master. I'm not saying she was a *bad* skater before, just a much better one now! Just my $0.02

I'd do synchro again if:

-we had more people sign up (maybe 15-20 total or more)
-it was on a different night than dance and had the rink by itself (hard to do synchro with other stuff going on)
-the routines were more challenging, or the group was split into levels based on skill

I know there are no plans right now to have a competitive team at our rink. There were invitations from U of Delaware adult team for some of us but I didn't like the thought of driving 4 times a week (at 1.5 hours each way). I'm spoiled at 15 minutes now, plus my hubby works 2 nights and it would mess up our evenings.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!