I was just wondering, as an adult skater like ourselves, at what age did you start taking lessons seriously? I think we all skated before at some point when we were younger or whatever but when did you start dreaming about being able to do the axel?
Let's share!

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** Skate 'til You Drop **

Fun question!

I started 6 years ago at age 52.

Working on figures, moves and got my sal.

Axel maybe a stretch. The mind can see it, the 58 year old frame doesn't!!

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

I'm impressed figureskates
I myself skated occasionally but decided to seriously take lessons almost 2 years ago because I wanted to do more than just gliding about the rink. Now, I'm 22 and pretty satisfied with my progress. Mind you, I'd never thought I could do sit or back spin!

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** Skate 'til You Drop **

Starting in your twenties is great! Who knows how far you will progress if you love it and stick with it.

I started at age 42....almost 43. At 44 I started private lessons, and started competing. It was a blast! I haven't competed in some time, but am still enjoying my skating.

I did think an axel was in my future, but don't have that ambition anymore. That's OK. Maybe in the next life?

Not too long after my 30th birthday.

Uh, no. Why would you assume that? See above.

Never skated as a kid, not even pond or public skating.

Started skating at age 23, skated consistently until age 28. Took almost 12 years off between work and injuries. Started back again a couple years ago. Passed European Waltz, working on Bronze MIF, occasionally USFS Silver Dances and right now Paso and Blues.

I may go back and re-test my EW standard track.

My goal is to get my Gold medal in dance.

I first laced up skates when I was just shy of 39. I really didn't enjoy it for the first six months or so, because I just wasn't comfortable on the ice. My initial goal was just to do laps for exercise. How boring, huh? I changed my mind about a year out, and started learning other things, including going back and relearning some skills we just kind of skimmed over.

I started taking privates about a year ago, after about a year and a half of group, and I still take group lessons. I am currently 41.

42

"I'd like to hire you for a dance lesson". What took me so long?

I've skated for years, in the Canadian recreational way (forwards, scratchily). Now I can jump and spin and dance thanks to lessons. My goal is the Killian. I could probably do an axel if I trained(says coach) but I'm obsessed with dance at the moment.

Started at 27, never skated before. My goal is to get my gold dances (standard), senior moves, & probably will try to get through silver adult free, just so I can coach it a little. Yikes, that looks like a lot, when looking at it in black & white!!!

AXEL!!!!!

How about a triple waltz jump / double bunny hop combo.

I started at age 47 when I got tired of sitting in a cold hockey box watching my girlfriend skate.

I don't think I have the knees to jump. Especially since I'm sitting in a wheel chair recouping from my knee surgery last Friday.

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Hi all!
I skated for the first time in my life at 25. I had two years of skating (less than one of real lessons) and I managed to succeed many spins, got some axels and some doubles - neither my coach, myself or other people could believe my progress! Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to skate for the last 13 months. Probably I am skating again, after this long period on Monday. I am so worried that I won't remember anything and will have to learn everything from scratch :-(.

Way to go everybody
Well, axel might not be the ultimate goal for some but I think it is for me. I think it's a grand jump and it looks beautiful (when correctly done, of course). Anyway, triple waltz and double bunny hop combo sound equally grand, don't it?
Verena,
Good luck on your comeback!! land some axels for me huh.

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** Skate 'til You Drop **

I did the public session thing when I was young. I took one group lesson when I was around 10 yrs old and then Mom said that was enough..."you took a class, now you know how to skate" Very similar to Kay's (skatejournal) story. I learned a waltz jump and one foot spin by watching other skaters and then gave up.

I started again as an adult at the age of 34 and signed up for level 2 (only 24 years in between level 1 & 2 ). I started private lessons just one month after that, I was totally hooked right away. Landing an axel was my ultimate goal, I achieved that and I'm now working on my doubles at 41! Progress is slow, but I'm still hopeful!

PattyP

I started at 37, never having skated as a kid. I'm now 46 and have landed (on a REALLY, REALLY good day) a lutz/loop combination. Can't spin to save my life, but I'm working on it. Axel? Maybe, someday, if my coach takes his valium and I lose 10 pounds

Whoa! You're in a wheelchair?! I guess asking if I will see you guys in stroking class is out of the question.

BTW, I think you and Sue should ice dance.

Oh, and I started at 28.

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Champagne in 2005, 2008, 2009 - who's next out of the pre-bronze club...?

Wang chung!

I put skates on for the first time in my life at age 45. Got a few lessons over the next year but a bad fall kept me off the ice for another year. So finally started a LTS program Sept '93. Have been with my coach now for over 9 years. Have survived a dislocated tibia (and nerve damage), a medial menisectomy on each knee, and a cervical disc and fusion. I'm now 57 and back to doing my simple half jumps and loving it. I also took off 9 months from burn-out and found eventually that I really missed skating (and my hips and thighs were very grateful to get back on the ice so I could wear jeans again without the horrible bulges!)

Yes, there are many of us who truly did not learn to skate until our adult years! We are the original "Adult Skater."

I started at age 28, with group lessons. I eventually wanted to take privates, but the only rink in town didn't offer freestyle sessions conducive to the schedule of a working adult,. Another rink, a portable one opened in the area, and I finally got to take privates and compete at age 34.
Five years later, another rink and my second coach, and all I want to do is get the !@#$ Bronze MIF and Free passed (I've failed the Free 4 times prior to the Adult MIF tests being implemented ).

I skated once on a disco session at the age of 14 (the rink was a two hour coach trip away), then once again at the age of 35 on a public session -those hire skates nearly killed my feet but I knew I wanted to do it again. then joy of joys we moved near a town with a rink. I started group lessons at the age of 37 (had one lesson then had flu with respiratory complications and was off for 3 weeks and was quite weak and wheezy when I went back). Spent a year in group lessons (huge groups unfortunately 20+ mixed adults and kids so progress was pretty slow) before plucking up courage to ask for a private lesson. Been skating now about 4 years but only started to dream of jumping less than two years ago (I started with dance and swore I would never have both feet off the ice at the same time). However I am pretty useless at compulsory dances and while I enjoy Free dance and OD's I eventually found I really wanted to jump. I don't think there's an axel in my future but you never know

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'skating is not just a sport - it is an obsession'

I started on the pond as a kid in my "cool" Sears skates with fur around the top.

Took one session of LTS at 16.

Back on the ice at 24 where I completed basic skills, pre-bronze dance and preliminary fs before quiting at 26 due to a hip injury.

Back on the ice again at 45 (immediately into private lessons this time), and competed at my first AN at 46. I think an axel was a definite possibility for me at one time.....but a back injury killed that dream. I'm now 50 and have skated twice since my surgery. I'm allowed to go round and round at public sessions until July............then I'm hoping to get the backspin go-ahead.

32 (didn't skate 'properly' as a kid, slid around eyeing up the 'totty' when I was 16ish but that's about it). Skated (Dance, Free and a far too brief foray into Pairs) for almost 7 years, landed a 2Flip ONCE by accident .... was going for a 2Toe and got my feet mixed up (always did find Flip easier than Toe) and have tried all doubles up to and including Lutz BUT haven't EVER landed the b***** axel Broke my wrist doing a BO3 on my GOOD side (watching my coach watching me, I was rotated the wrong way, fell over and sat on my own hand ......), got back and coach had given my lesson time away Dance coach was having personal problems so didn't turn up for my lessons ...... I got frustrated because I wasn't learning and didn't want to go to another coach ...... and haven't really skated properly since (about 2 years ago). Am starting back again in a couple of weeks time!

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The best whisper is a click

My story is similar to PattyP, except MY PARENTS wouldn't even let me take group lessons, much less get my own skates. I skated every weekend at our neighborhood rink for about 3 hours starting when I was 10 and ended it when I was 13. (A small break for pizza/coke, video games the Hooky-Pooky and the occasional MENS ONLY or COUPLES ONLY times.) I'm lucky my home was a very short walk from the rink. (Irony is that had I have gone on a Sat. night session instead of a Sat. AFTERNOON session, I might have met my future primary coach as a kid, since he also started off at the same rink too.) After a couple of waltz jumps, one foot spins and shoot the ducks, I had to give it up "so I can concentrate on school, get good grades, go to a nice college, meet someone rich, get married, etc." I intended on going back when I was an older teenager, but they tore down the only rink in the city at the time.

I started back as an adult at age 31. I found out from a coworker that there is a new rink in my home city. I started skating around the rink on rental skates and quickly got my ice legs back! A fellow ice monitor befriended me and suggested at first to take group lessons. Then when he saw that I was trying to do 3turns on rental skates, it got too ugly for him to watch. He HIGHLY suggested my own skates. Eventually, the group lessons became private lessons, then two lessons, then testing, then competition... you get the deal... I became a Class II (age 36) skater back last November! I intend on becoming good enough to give a young Class I skater a run for her $$$.

My ultimate goal:

• To pass Bronze Moves and FS and go to Adult Nationals as a Bronze lady.
• To land my first axels before I turn 40.
• To land my first double axel before I turn 50.

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

I signed up for learn to skate classes at the age of 24, started having a weekly 15 minute private lesson two years later, but it's only been the last four years since I was 32, that I consider myself to have really got into skating seriously. It took a broken ankle and everyone writing me off to make me want to get out there and prove them all wrong, plus by then I had one child at school and my second had finally started at nursery so I had time when I could get up to the rink. I now have two half-hour private lessons and three half-hour classes per week.

Nicki

I did a little bit of "pond skating" as a kid (they used to flood the local park in the wintertime), wearing old hand-me-down skates of my mother's. Never took any lessons or anything, though my sister took group lessons for awhile as a teenager (and embarrassed me beyond belief at music camp that summer by clomping around our dormitory in her skates and guards, even though there was no ice to be had for about 100 miles - NOW I understand why she did it!). I took up skating again at age 37, when my then 5-year-old daughter began lessons. I used to follow her around on public sessions and pick her up when she fell. Thing was, after a couple of weeks, she didn't fall very much, so I started trying the things she was learning on my own. After a couple of sessions, I joined the adult class, and 6 months later was taking private lessons. That was 9 years ago - now I'm Silver level (though not a very competitive Silver), working on Gold Moves, starting my axel, and taking 2 lessons a week. I skate every day when my daughter does (beats gossiping in the bleachers!), and teach Basic Skills classes. She's now an Intermediate competitor, has passed Senior Moves, and is working on triples. We've come a long way (and spent a lot of money)!

I skated a few times at public sessions over the years, but started lessons just over 3 years ago when I was 17 (I'm now 20). The axel is definitely a dream goal of mine. In an ideal world, I'd be able to do an axel, some doubles, a layback, a flying camel, a blur spin... you get the point. I'd love to be able to do an axel before I leave university (in 2 years).

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

I started ice skating when I was 27 11 years ago but I did muck about on roller skates when I was a kid.

Have never really dreamed about getting an axel - my knees and ankles could not handle it. But have thought about it and have had dreams that I have done them.

I have a thought for a new topic.

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