Has ice dance helped your freeskating significantly? Should I bother with ice dance and just do skills? When you watch a freeskater, can you tell whether they have some icedancing training when you watch the way they glide on the ice?

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It helped me big time!!!

After taking Ice Dancing a couple of months when I was 19yrs.old my posture dramatically improved, my glide, flow and it increased my speed.

It also gives you neat excercises on the ice. (Till today I still do them)

Yes sometimes you can tell who has an ice dance coach, bc with all the footwork and posture.

But I will be honest, Im not too thrilled with the music selections for the tests, like canasta, hickory and so forth. I still roll my eyes whenever I hear them, it makes me cringe

I highly reccomend it

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It helped me a great deal, it made my stroking more efficent and helped my edge quality a great deal. It's also excellent for posture and knee bend.

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At our rink, almost every coach requires that students at least learn and pass their preliminary dance test. The theory behind this is ice dancing teaches you how to use your edges, get speed and flow, betters posture, and helps with learning how to listen to music for tempos and beats. All of these strengthen freeskating skills. Footwork and posture are generally the things that improve the most, however general flow over the ice and the elusive "musicality" can also change.

One of the 11-year-olds at my rink has been ice dancing for about a year now. The change in her speed in her freeskate programs is amazing! She's off her toepicks and is more comfortable with edge changes, etc. While this has to do with the fact that she has been on the ice for an extra year, you can tell the difference in her moves tests the most. She's passed three tests in 5 months partially due to the fact she now understands how to use her edges from dancing correctly.

Personally, it's helped me pick up my programs faster, put more speed in my programs, and helped my posture tremendously. Plus, dancing is just fun!

And yes, many times you can tell those who have had ice dancing versus those who don't.

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Freestylers tend to lean forward and really pump when they are stroking. Dance teaches you how to really stroke and to use your edges.

Even though I'm not really skating very well these days (old age and stiffness is really taking it's toll ) people still remark about me being an ice-dancer -- I guess it's all about control... (I wonder most of the time these days how can they tell?)

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When I skated as a teenager, dancing really helped me learn how to bend my knees and not be afraid of holding a deep edge. Because of that, my jumps became much higher and flowed much better.

If I had the time & money, I'd be working on my Pre-Bronze dances right now...

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I've got mad salchow disease!

I started doing ice dance rather than free skating because I was scared to jump. (I'm an adult learner who started age 36). i never particularly enjoyed the compulsories and the music is dire. I really enjoyed doing OD's and free dances though ( we have solo dance comps in UK). When I eventually switched to freeskating a couple of years back I think the benefits of spending several years ice dancing were obvious. I think dancers definitly have better posture (mine's not great but better than if i 'd never done dance!). I had good speed over the ice and was able to express the music in the programmes with arms and body movements better than those who only freeskated. I think I found it easier to put together more interesting programmes with good linking moves since in dance linking moves is all you have and these are even more important under the new judging system.

I certainly think the ice dancing I did was very valuable and would say that in my free skating I have been able to catch up in terms of elements with people who have skated the same length of time as me but only ever did freeskating.

Looking at the kids comps over a number of years I have noticed that those who do well in freeskating comps nearly always have done dance too so it certainly pays off.

It definitely has! I have no problem with my footwork (COP level 3...well everything for level 4 except for the over-the-top upper body movement) mainly because of dance. I figure if I can get through the Yankee Polka, freestyle footwork should be a piece of cake! It also helps your edge quality (good for spirals), control/posture (good for everything), and stroking. And field moves are about 10X easier for people who have significant dance experience.

In answer to your questions:

Yes. Yes. YES.

Although I love free skating I hate the way that some, even elite, free skaters actually skate. I've got a background in dance (ballet, jazz etc) so grace and fluidity mean a lot to me, the 'art' in skating is as important to me as the sport aspect.

I actually took up ice dance specifically to help my free skating ... then got hooked

Although I do believe that Field Moves do help to a certain extent you don't learn the poise, the edges, the steps or the flow as well as you do doing dance.

I say give it a try. Don't give up too soon, though, I found the 'baby' dances pretty mind numbing, once you get past those, though, it's great fun and you start to appreciate how difficult it really is

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The best whisper is a click

At the lower level of free skating competitions, if a higher level dancer competes against you, you know she will win despite not having the jumps spins etc, the only reason I can think of is because the overall effect of good basic skills sees them through.

I really should have kept up my dance along side the free because now I have far too many bad habits and its so hard teaching an old dog new tricks, I used to love the Samba and my goal is to get it back without looking like a free skater dancing.

Not only does ice dance help your skating, ballroom dancing does too! I am getting ready to take (off-ice of course) ballroom dancing in order to help me with counting, grace, poise, and all the other things I lack on ice.....

Hey, any excuse to get out of the house!!!

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

Definitely go for dance, at least the first couple of levels. It can only improve your free skating.

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Mrs Redboots
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Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

It really helps with learning how to use the full ice. Many times you may see some kid out there setting up a lutz in the corner, but they don't even get near the corner! Ice dance helps you to be able to adjust things in a FS program so that if the lutz was meant to be in the corner, it will GO in the corner and you can make it happen. That's just one example, but it helps teach much stronger edging with solid gliding as well and this can make a program look really lovely.

Many times in dance you may only have 3-4 REAL pushes to get to the other end of the ice. This really makes you use the pushes you have more effectively.

And yes, as a judge, many times you can see who took ice dance and who hasn't. For some kids it doesn't matter since they know how to use up the full ice. For others, it is a necessity. And it really shows in terms of flow & can give you an edge when you are doing your FS program & have a couple of falls. If you can make the program look really good on the "inbetweens" you have a better chance of getting a higher placement if you have little mistakes here and there. Keep in mind that you may not see too much improvement in your FS after only taking the first level or two of dances. I didn't see a huge improvement in my flow till after I passed the 3rd level & started on the 4th level. It makes a difference.....don't count dance out!

Learning dance (and figures) definately makes you a better freeskater. Helps you learn control in a way that nothing else can, and gives you a larger 'inventory' of moves and connecting steps to add to your choreography.

We won't talk about the evil mohawk from the Keats Foxtrot..... lets not go there today... bad, bad evil mohawk....

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If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

Personally, ice dance hasn't made a huge difference in my overall skating YET, but I'm sticking with it because it's fun and I think as the dances get harder it will help me a lot. I started ice dance in December, right around the time I passed my Novice moves. I take a group class once a week, and I've passed the prelim and pre-bronze tests. I was a bit rushed through the tests and probably could have spent more time refining them, but I passed no problem so clearly I was meeting the judges' expectations. I think, and I've been told, that the harder bronze dances and really the pre-silvers is where I'll really start to be challenged and see a bigger benefit in my skating.

I will say that taking the dance class and working with dance coaches has made me more aware of my upper body, especially my arms - I carry them too high, particularly when I'm focusing on the rest of my body.

For me: yes, tremendously.

I didn't notice the improvements until I started working on the Willow Waltz, though, although I suppose I was making improvements all along.

When I finally got to the point of testing the Willow & Ten Fox, though, I noticed three things that have really helped my skating in general:

1) I became really aware of how to not cut off lobes. This was huge. My footwork started to move quickly and cover the ice better--to the point where my 3/4 straightline sequence started to fill out the entire length of the rink easily. In addition, I'm picking up more speed in between all of my elements throughout my program, and I feel like I'm working less hard. I also think that my footwork has gotten neater--I widestep less, and I think more carefully about pointing my toes and extending through my entire body.

2) I've become aware of the importance of setting consistent patterns on the ice. Dance is all about getting the patterns to match exactly, every single time. There is a lot more leeway in freestyling, but I find that the more I treat my transitions and stroking in my freestyle program like the dance patterns, the more consistent my jumps and spins are.

3) Learning to re-bend and weight the free foot before each stroke has given me more power in my overall stroking (without looking like I'm pushing). I still can't do this as well as I should, but it's really helped.

So, yep, dance has been worth every penny. It took patience in the beginning before I started to see the effects, but now that I do see the effects, I doubt that I would have made these improvements by just working on freestyle and moves alone.

Thanks for the great responses everyone! Well, I've pretty much made up my mind to take up ice dance and get serious about it.

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Where there's a will, there's a way.

I agree w/ the above positive comments for dance. It has improved my speed, posture, edges, footwork, etc. It is also a great workout. Skate a dance around the rink a couple of times at speed. Your heartrate will be elevated. Go for the dance lessons. I wish I had taken up dance earlier.

Kay

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As an ex-ballroomer (social only, not very good but had a lot of fun) and would-be-if-I-could-be-wannabe learner ice dancer, I completely agree. The only issue I've had so far swapping from ballroom to ice dance is that the partner position in ballroom is just about opposite to that in ice dance, as I'm finding out...especially the waltz hold!

On the floor, the hold requires the lady to be offset to the man's right so that her right foot would always stay between his feet; on the ice I'm pretty much squarely at DH's chest and Coach tells me to skate to his sternum as it's his responsibility to get out of my way (I like Coach when she says it's his fault!! )

Problem is that even after more than a decade away from the dance floor, it's very hard to not automatically offset myself, and even harder to skate my *left* foot between his legs!!

But dancing's a blast...and boy, your quads will get such a good workout! ("Bend your knees! Both of you! More! More!! MORE!!!" Sound familar, anyone?)

The tracking on some of the higher level dances has the woman's right foot through the man's.

Ok I have dabbled in dance a coupla times but the thing I will tell you, my coach was originally a Freestyle Skater and changed over to Dance. But the cool thing is that he shows me all of the footwork for edges and stuff and I believe it does make you look like a better and stronger skated, especially for the foot work.

it is a great help!!
it improves your edges and you are able to hear beats to music better.
~Cutie

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Aargh, no, please no - I'm just getting used to "left foot between"! Oh, well, it'll be a l-o-n-g time before I'm up to them...plenty long enough to get used to "left foot between" and then get double-confused when I try to change !!