Almost 2 years ago I acquired an Occupational Overuse Syndrome (RSI) injury through office work. In the first 18 months of struggling to become pain free, I would often say to my Doctor & others that one of the few things that helped was skating because of the posture & large arm movements. This was met with howls of; "ooh, that's so dangerous", "that can't be good for you", "what if you fall", etc. At that time I was totally obsessed with skating and didn't care what they said anyway.

Roll on to the last 6 months, during which I almost totally lost interest in skating. I no longer take lessons, I was really forcing myself to go once a fortnight for exercise because I hadn't taken up anything else.

Now suddenly doctor & specialists are telling me; "You need to take time off work to get better. Go skating, it's good for you, those large arm movements & good posture will really help" !!!

So, being school holidays at the moment, the rink is open every morning and I have been going 3-4 times per week. Yeah, I'm sort of enjoying it, though can't imagine ever being as obsessed as I was. Maybe one day I'll take lessons again, but right now I'll just have fun, and focus on our newly formed Adult Synchro team.

I just think it's so ironic that when I was passionate about skating I was told it was bad for me, once I lost that passion I was told I must do it.

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

Were you discouraged by the neg comments? Maybe even subconsciously it turned you off and caused you to lose interest. Also if now skating is something you "have to" do for your health, you may also be turned off kind of like going to the gym. Maybe skating also ran its course for you and you are ready to try something new. Or try something new in skating such as ice dance or inline picskates.

Kay

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It is ironic! Welcome back!

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Yeah, I think it just ran its course. Realised I'd spent 5 years trying to get back to where I was 20+ years ago and was probably never going further. Coach attitude also involved in how I feel.

Anyway, as I said, enjoying the challenge of sort of coaching our new adult synchro team, and just have fun

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Katz

Saved by Synchro!
I was over it, now I'm into it again !

Well I don't have the goal of getting back to where I was 20+ years ago (as I never skated then), but I understand your frustration. Perhaps you need to find the change in skating to find the fun things. If synchro is working stick with it.
I realised last night, that I've been so test focussed recently I've not had any of those fun lessons where you just do new and different footwork exercises. I miss doing that as it meant that when I came to doing the next moves test exercises, all the turns i'd already played around with and weren't new to me. I love moves and I want to test, but sometimes I need a break and just to mess around as i'm still learning when I'm playing.
I hope you find those fun things which kept you going to the rink when you were obsessed. But I agree with you on the irony. I've just been told by the doctors that I need to keep active with my bad back (whiplash). I want to be active and to skate, but skating involves rotation which makes the back painful, which then frustrates me and makes me want to quit.

Maybe it's the opposite, you get passionate about stuff people say is bad for you?

In that case, try "extreme ice skating" Not sure how the rink will feel about you parking burning cars on the middle of the ice but hey.

Or go find an indoor skiing range and take a few skiing lessons, see how you like that...