Ok all you On Ice Skaters!!!! It's time to now tell the story of how you BECAME a skater. I'll go first. For me I got adited to skating from watching skaters on TV. and as a true fan I just felt I wanted to learn to skate and go to a Rink like all skaters. So I arranged with my staff to take lessons at Learn to Skate,and started out by renting my skates at the Rink. I now own 2 pairs of skates and go either every other week,or when I can. I now even feel like I belong with skaters. So that's me. I know not too an exciting one. But now I'd love to hear from the rest of you. So, ok,your turn. GO!!!!!!

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FSWer

I had roller skated fairly regularly until I was 14. When someone gave my mother a pair of ice skates, my brother and I took them to the frozen river to try out - white skates and all. Mother wasn't interested in trying to skate herself.

Shortly after that, we moved away from the city and the roller rink, and I switched to ice skating on frozen ponds. (And finally in my own pair of black skates!)

Then it happened...Peggy Fleming skated in the Olympics!

She was GORGEOUS! I was a smitten teenager and somehow I thought that if I could skate really well, I might meet her someday.

Well, I'm still skating but I've never met Peggy Fleming. (Hey, maybe if I pass Gold Moves...)

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Bill Schneider

I was always a massive fan of two sports: gymnastics and ice skating.

My mother and I were always glued to the set for every Olympic Games and any and all stuff they showed on television (this was before cable - I was really little when I could recognize Jim McKay's voice; I've always known "Mr. Olympics"!). I was about the only little girl I knew who could recite broadcast times for ABC's Wide World of Sports.

In 1984, when the Olympics were in Sarajevo in then Yugoslavia, and the broadcast times were screwy because of the time difference and the fact that only ONE CHANNEL was showing the Games (and ABC used to do such a great job of showing as much as they could), my mother let me stay up and watch the ice skating even if it were on a school night. 1988 was the last Olympics when I was in grade school, and again - we were up late, though not so late with them being in Calgary. (Ah, the Saddledome...)

And oh yeah - we never missed an ice show at the Norfolk Scope or Hampton Coliseum. Mama and I even went to a few together after I graduated from college!

As a kid, ice skating was not feasible - we lived in NE NC, my father was retired Navy (so we weren't exactly affluent!) - and we didn't even have a roller rink in the area to speak of. I used to roller skate in my aunt's driveway with skates Mama bought at yard sales. And I LOVED it. I'd walk down there with my 1980s "boom box" and my skates, and I felt like Rosalynn Sumners.

I dabbled in gymnastics and took the requisite ballet (eight years' worth), but because NE NC wasn't exactly a sports mecca (and I doubt it is now!) - I soon outgrew the constraints and resources of the area. I turned to music and singing instead.

I ice skated a couple of times as a kid, once my sister moved to the Raleigh area, and I went in Washington, DC a few times at the outdoor rink they'd have in front of the National Archives (do they still do that?). I think I can count on one hand the number of times I was on ice before this year. But when I found out about my now local rink this past April, and that I could get a discounted membership based on my employment - I was on it. I can't explain why. That little kid who used to watch the television in awe and wonder was desperate to give it a shot. I skated there once with a pair of skates I found in a thrift store for a buck - because I knew anything was better than rentals! - and I was hooked. I didn't go through the usual clinging to the wall phase; a few minutes and I was doing fine - even resurrected my front crossovers from my days in the driveway. DH (who's a hockey player) even told me he'd expected me to spend more time on my duff than on the blade; I really think he was surprised!

Now I'm fortunate to have a good pair of boots and blades, a DH who supports me, private lessons, and a goofy work schedule as a nurse that gives me a lot of ice time! I have a long way to go, but I'm looking forward to the "glide".

Just me again - apologizing for waxing so nostalgic - and so LENGTHY...

i liked hearing your story!
Good for you! =)

I grew up in the southwest, and there was no ice where we lived. I always skated on the sidewalk with the clamp-on skates that needed a key. When I was 12, roller skating birthday parties at rinks were very popular and I went to several of them and wanted to skate more. There was a rink not too far from my house, that I could go to on the bus by myself, and there was a couple teaching roller dance and figures there. I was totally smitten with the music and with skating. Although they could barely afford it, my parents paid for me to have lessons - group at first, and private later. My mom let me take my savings out of my plastic bank to buy my first pair of skates. I was fanatical from the ages of 12 to 18. By the time I was in high school, I realized there was no future in roller skating, and although I kept skating every day, I was headed for college. I came to NYC for college and completely gave up skating - never even thought once of switching to ice. My passion was just completely gone. Many years later, I had two girls and had gotten very fat and out of shape. My DD's were taking figure skating lessons, and one day I realized that while I was watching them, I was wasting valuable time. The first time I got on the ice, I only made it halfway around before I had to get off and rest. After I had been skating for a year, I began to lose weight, and have taken off a total of 60 pounds. I began coaching a year before my job moved to FL, and left me behind with a great severance package and early retirement. Now I have my dream job of teaching ice skating, and getting to skate as much as I want for free.

I met Peggy Fleming a few years ago, when women skaters over the age of 40 were asked to skate at Rockefeller Center for the filming of a commercial with her! We each got a blue fleece scarf to wear on the ice, an autographed photo of Peggy, hot chocolate, and Pillsbury rolls (which was the product being advertised). Peggy was very nice and even signed skates that some of the women brought with them. If you pass Gold Moves, you'll be way ahead of me. Can we trade? I would rather have the Gold Moves than have met Peggy Fleming .

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Let's see... when I was about 9 years old, my family moved to a house that was ONE BLOCK away from (then) the only rink in San Francisco. My oldest sister went skating with her (then) bf and took me along. After a month or so, her and bf stopped coming after a while (her and bf also didn't last long, either...) but I continued on the ice until I had to give it up for swimming requirements in high school.

So anyway, by the time I took care of the swimming requirements, that rink was shut down. (From what I had heard, it was b/c of very HIGH insurance cost for a very old building that was literrally falling apart.) I went on with my life, finished high school and college, worked a few years, got married... blah blah....

One day a coworker had mentioned about a rink in San Francisco and he said it's NOT at 48th Ave. It was also not the holiday rink either. A BRAND NEW RINK!?!?! Sure enough, I checked it out. There IS a new rink! I decided to try my hand at skating again just to see if I still have the old legs. (I did... but not much else. Ha ha..) I came back again and again. Then an ice guard suggested I take group lessons. I said "Why not? I have the money for it." Then said ice guard said "You should get your own skates so the other ice guards would let you stay in the middle." So I got my own skates. Then my group coach said that I should consider getting a private coach. Eventually I settled on my current primary coach. Everything else just snowballed from there!!!

I swear if you had told me WAAAAAY back when I strapped on those blue ski rental booties that someday I would own a pair of custom purple figure skates and compete at Adults National at a REAL competition, I would have laughed in your face and said "Yeah, riiiiight! And I got a bridge to sell 'ya too!!! ) JUST ABSOLUTELY AMAZING how things turned out, huh?

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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!!!

It seems like quite a few here developed the desire to skate early, but couldn't chase the dream for various reasons. That's the way it was for me too.

Now we're back with renewed determination.

It's funny how things sometimes come full circle.

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Bill Schneider

I really like this thread Anyway, I fell in love with skating when I was 6 years old watching the 1994 Olympics. I can still remember being allowed to stay up late to watch skating on TV. After that my parents signed me up for group lessons. I did groups for 3-4 years, but never really progressed very far. I think I took basic 1 like 3 times. I switched rinks and started taking lessons with my cousin and we wanted to be in the same class.

By about 5th-6th grade, I started with privates. It was pretty limited. I think I skated once maybe twice a week. My first coach lasted about a year before he moved to do an ice show in Las Vegas. I switched to a second coach which also lasted for about a year. She was actually more of a pairs coach and had a team that competed at 4 Continents, Worlds, Olympics. After that year, my club switched to a brand new skating facility, 2 ice surfaces, locker rooms, pro shop, the works. However, at the time it was very much dominated by hockey and both my parents worked at the time. So the only time I could go was Sunday nights. Pretty soon that time slot was phased out and I was left with nothing, plus my boots were a mess. I was also about to start high school and was much more interested in music. Skating just took a backseat for 4-5 years.

Once I started college, I knew I had to get back into skating. The school I was going to has a rink on campus. As a way to get back into it, I signed myself up for LTS. I was on the ugly brown rental skates. I couldn't jump or hardly spin at all, but the passion was back. I even did the Christmas show with all the little kids. The choreographer for our group number also happened to be the coach of the collegiate skating team. She kind of took me under her wing and convinced me to take a chance. I went to some of the collegiate competitions, mainly as a cheerleader, but I was completely sold. I wanted that thrill of competition and the support of a team. That summer I had contacted the pairs team that I used to work with many moons ago. I guess you could say the rest is history. I have performed in 2 collegiate shows, passed pre-pre moves and free, competed in my first competition, and I am getting ready to test preliminary in a couple months. I almost prefer skating as an adult because I can do things my way. I can take as many lessons as I want, test whenever I want, and compete whenever I want without parents getting in the way.

I think this quote pretty much sums everything up for me. Without dreaming, would any of us be where we are right now.

"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives." William Dement

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~Always Dream!~

Check my progress at www.freewebs.com/sk8tegirl06

I was another early fan of skating, but was never allowed to go to the rink when I was little because my mother had had a sprained ankle from rentals as a teenager. Richmond rink was closed down and I thought nothing more of it. They then opened a local rink to where we moved to and Torville and Dean had their come back in 1994. My sister and I badgered our mother to let us go down the rink an go skate then. So we were taken down one school holiday to a public session and our mother sat and watched.
In the space of an hour we'd both worked out how to skate forwards and let go of the barrier. My mother was so impressed she then came down later on her own and signed herself up for lessons. We were both fuming at this, and eventually after a lot of persuasion we were signed into learn to skate classes in lieu of a christmas present.
Unfortunately for me, I had less than two years left of high school at this point, and had to give up to go to university (although it did mean that we both started getting christmas presents again as they were unable to use that excuse on me anymore, and gave up on my sister much to my annoyance!).
My sister carried on whilst I was at uni and ended up with boots one birthday, which inspired me to buy my own whilst a poor student.
First thing I did when I graduated, had a job and a car was to sign up for learn to skate again. Now several years later, I'm well and truely hooked and can't quite believe that I've finally got a program and am doing REAL competitions.
And there's this little bit of me, which goes, what if I'd been allowed to go when I was younger. But then knowing my mother I'd still only be getting to where I am now, because she'd have never gotten out of bed for the early mornings.

Could not be more true! I skated for one year when I was 15 and then never skated again till I was almost 30 (not much encouraged). After I was married and we moved to the Northeast I didn't know anyone and decided to take lessons in the old Skate with US program for exercise--I never expected to do much more as I was always bad at dance, gymnastics, etc. and was never encouraged to exercise much, although I had started to lift weights (free weights, fairly seriously) and run in college. I had the same skates I had when I was 15--NO ankle support at all--and went on using them for the next 2 years!! Didn't know any better. After a couple years, the director, a wonderful woman who was SO encouraging, asked if I wanted to help coach the adult beginners, and then I took over coaching them. There were no private coaches available--most of the other coaches were college students--so I coached for free and went on taking the highest level classes, and the instructors were supposed to work with me separately on the Freestyle levels (they didn't!). After a year of this, they found an instructor for a Freestyle class who had never coached before but began giving me private lessons as well. She was quite elderly and could not travel in bad weather so my lessons for the next 2 years only went from October to December and then I was done for the year. Finally she told me that she couldn't teach me any more (she couldn't do jumps other than a waltz) and I found a coach who was quite good but stopped coaching after a year...then I found another coach, but she wouldn't go to tests or competitions, so I found another coach...and now finally I'm skating the way I always wanted to!

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

DBNY, I also had clamp-on skates! I "graduated" to roller-derby boot skates (still with metal wheels) that killed me when we moved out to the sticks-the road was AWFUL!!! I saved my birthday $$$$ and swapped them out for the poly wheels that just came out (they were red). Man, they were smooth!!! Went to the roller rink up until I graduated from high school.

But for ice, i bought some ice skates at a thrift shop and my dad sharpened them. I plunked around a bit on the frozen ditch across the street and at a cow pond 1 mile away (drove there) when it was cold enough (which wasn't very often here in Delaware, I'm talking 70's).

Fast forward to years later, when I was signing up my kids for skating: the girl for figure, the boy for hockey. The lady asked if I wanted to take lessons. I was like, "You teach grown ups?" she said, Yeah! I thought it would be cool to learn to skate backwards and not look so unsteady and unsure out there.

So, here it is years later and I can do all this cool stuff!!!! And the whole family skates which is really nice!

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

Me too. Went round and round the furnace in the basement. The basement floor was concrete. We weren't allowed on the hardwood floors upstairs in them.

The song by Melanie comes to mind -- "I've got a pair of brand new roller skates, you've got a brand new key..."

They still play that song at the roller rink from time to time.

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Bill Schneider

I began skating at 8 years old in USFS group lessons. One of my mom's friends was enrolling her son in Learn to Skate classes because he wanted to play hockey and needed to learn basic skating skills, so I went with him just for fun. That, and I think my parents were trying to discourage me from horseback riding, which was becoming way expensive. (They thought skating would be cheaper. ROTFL! ) Anyway, I stuck with it and nearly 14 years later, I'm still at it!

In the 5th grade, my mom signed me up for LTS lessons at the local rink...she had been signing me up for different things so that I could find something that I really enjoyed, swimming, tumbling, etc. Well, I loved skating! Plus, I couldn't get my own pair of skates until I finished all of the LTS levels (at the time it was 6 basic levels and 4 freestyle levels). After that, I went on the skate with a private coach and skated and competed through freshman year in high school, then my coach up and moved to Hawaii, so I switched coaches and decided not to compete any more and only test...I test through my Preliminary FS and Juvenile MIF prior to 1998. Then I went away to college and didn't skate a lot, which I really regret...we went a couple of times and my friends always said, "You haven't seen Kim truly free until you see her on the ice." But...school was more important... Since I graduated from grad school in '05, I had been talking about skating again, and this past year in '07 I decided to do it, no matter what the cost...and I've been at it since then again...everything came back pretty quickly and I passed my Intermediate and pre-juv freestyle tests in April...I am hoping to test my Novice moves sometime during '08 (if they are ready...I don't want to push it) and if I can land that dang axel, my juv freestyle... That way I will be able to teach at my rink (and get the $5 package price! woot for ulterior motives...)...

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Love everyone's stories! I started skating as an adult after being diagnosed with cancer. I was going through chemo and very tired and discouraged. Once I was in remission, I made one of those lists of things to do before you die - it was very short but for some reason I put 'Learn to ice skate' on it. I was still going through maintenance chemo when a neighbor told me the rink in town had adult classes and did I want to try? I was depressed but she really needed to get out of the house so I said yes for her. Well she lasted 2 weeks but I was hooked from the first class! I made it through the entire Learn to Skate curriculum, most of it while still going through maintenance chemo, then 'graduated' to private lessons last Aug. I have skated in a couple holiday shows, passed my PreBronze tests this year and I skated in my first competition recently! I truly love it. I loved to watch skating on TV as a kid and an adult but I never dreamed I would be out there one day, too. Skating gives me hope, encouragement and a feeling of accomplishment (and those bad days of 'I will never learn this skill' as well). I hope to make it to Adult Nationals some day but it will be awhile - struggling with Bronze moves, especially the back power crossovers, and my sit spin may never be low enough to pass Bronze free skate. I am a volunteer peer counselor for people newly diagnosed with cancer and I try to give them hope that they can live out their dreams someday too. Life can be very hard but I am always happy when I am at the rink. I can skate away all my worries...

Your story about surviving cancer is truly inspirational.

My first coach, a college student here at Ohio University, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was 19 or 20 years old. She had to leave for a year, but came back to school and finished. To be so young with cancer must have been devastating. It would be devastating at ANY age!

She was talented not just as a coach here but as an accomplished skater in the USFSA structure. She graduated from college in 2001. I read a blog somewhere on the web that the cancer returned and she went for more treatments. I've lost contact with Emily since and have always wondered how she's doing.

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Bill Schneider

Livestrong, that is so inspiring--I love that learning to skate was on your list of things to do before you die!! It certainly puts all my whining about not having my loop into perspective! Thanks for sharing your story.
(And remember, your sit spin just needs to be in a recognizable sit position--no IJS standard for us yet!!!

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

Most definitely! It's especially inspiring to hear that you not only stuck with it despite your cancer, but that you're coming along quite nicely with it.

As mentioned on another thread I'm a bit of a geek. Before skating I was majorly into computer stuff, I mean really into it. Well Christmas 2005 I had shut myself away to work on a seemingly impossible cryptoanalysis project and it wasn't going very well at all.

While waiting for my computer to complete something I started thinking that I ought to "get out more" and made a list of activities that I would like to do; they included stuff like rock climbing, Tai Chi, swimming and ice skating. If you asked me why ice skating, I couldn't say, but something felt right about it even though I had never done it before.

So I made some inquiries and discovered that there was a rink not too far away and they did adult learn-to-skate lessons. Unfortunately Dancing on Ice had just started and the courses were all booked out, but I got my name on the waiting list. In the meantime I did some rock climbing and mentioned about the skating to a friend at work who was also interested.

6th March 2006 we both went along after work. My friend dropped out part way through the course, a couple others from work gave it a try briefly too; but for me all I could think about was when I was next going to skate - I loved it

What can I say, it went from there ...and the crypto problem? - I figured it out

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Skate Free

I was fifty five, having hot flashes, wanted a sport where I could be cool AND get some exercise at the same time.

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

When I was little, the Mothers' Guild at our school would coordinate a carpool convoy to take the students to our local outdoor rink on Wednesday afternoons. (Catholic schools had half-days for Release Time, aka: Religious Ed for the public school kids.) I liked it, but wasn't particularly good; I went mostly for the social aspect.

When I was in high school, I started dating a guy who wanted to play hockey. Going skating on Friday and Saturday night was a cheap date for us, lol. I found I liked skating so much that I decided to quit competitive swimming and take skating lessons. That took about two years, but I finally started taking semi-privates with my niece, who's about eight years younger than I am. I only skated in the winter because the outdoor rink closed from April to October.

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http://www.skatewilm.com/ProgDanceX-...Dance%2047.JPG

http://www.skatewilm.com/ProgDanceX-...Dance%2042.JPG

I can't remember not being aware of ice skating. I'm originally from Michigan, and in the 1960s even the Detroit area had winters cold enough that my parents could easily set up a little rink in the back yard, which was my first experience of skating. I don't remember much about Peggy Fleming competing--being a few years younger, the girl I wanted meet was Dorothy Hamill.* When I went off to college at the University of Michigan, I occasionally did a little public session skating as a stress reliever, and my parents got me a pair of skates (men's figure skates, of course--I've never tried hockey skates) one Christmas.

Fast forward to 2004. To make a long story short, I dusted off the skates after 22 years and went to a public session with both my sons (then 10 and 13) with a church group. The younger one took to it like a duck to water, and I eventually suggested that we sign up for some group lessons. There were three main reasons for this, and I vary the emphasis depending on why I am telling the story. They are: 1) I felt that I hadn't been spending enough time with the younger son and I wanted to find something we could do together; 2) I needed to increase exercise to lose more weight and wanted to find something I liked; and 3) I thought of myself as someone who could skate, and it disturbed me to find that mental picture no longer consistent with reality.

The results in 2008? 1) We spend a lot of time together--see the pictures linked above from the ice dance Christmas party last year, for example. 2) My weight is down to something in the middle of the "normal" BMI range and has stayed there for several years. 3) Well, let's just say my idea of what it means to be able to skate keeps getting more demanding.

Rob

*My coach, a former national level competitor with at least one Grand Prix medal, wryly tells the story that her father says his greatest moment in skating was when he got to meet Dorothy Hamill (rather than any of her accomplishments...)

I remember the clamp-on roller skates - there was a set of those in the neighbourhood. Since we lived on a paved road ON A HILL those things were FAR too exciting!

I grew up (as much as I ever "grew up") in the country in the 1950s. Nobody had television and I had never seen figure skating. "Skating" is what folks did on the farm pond with whatever ancient dilapidated equipment was available, usually some pair of hockey skates that were older than my grandfather and had never seen a sharpener. They were usually as stiff as an oak board and smelled like an old horse harness! "Skating" was an excuse for a social gathering outside in the winter with a fire and marshmallows.

When I was 13 we were annexed into the adjacent town and I had to change schools and made new friends. The town kids tended to congregate at the rink (with REAL ARTIFICIAL ICE - WOW!) and that was the first time I saw anybody figure skate.

It was SO BEAUTIFUL! The flowing movement, the pretty dresses, the grace ...... I was in awe!

I wanted to skate but Mom thought skating was a waste of time and money so I skated on a crappy pair of skates as much as I could on my allowance. I ended up working in a store owned by the president of the figure skating club and that gave me enough money to skate and to buy proper figure skates. But, starting at 14, I was always trying to catch up to my peers and never quite making it. At 19 I wrecked really bad and screwed up my knees.

I went off to college, married, developed a career, and didn't even think about skating again for 36 years until I got the foolish idea to skate 'for exercise' at the age of 56.

Well, for me, starting over after 36 years was starting with NOTHING! I thought, foolishly, that given a couple of hours on the ice, I would be right back to the double jumps and great spins ...... but I couldn't even stand up on skates! Talk about a lesson in humility!!!

I am nothing if not STUBBORN to the extreme so I stuck with it. I'm still not "any good" but I keep truckin!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

I always loved watching figure skating on TV. I never thought that I would skate since I grew up in warm climates and never anywhere near an ice rink. I roller skated alot though, either at the local roller rink or in my neighborhood.

The first time I ever skated was on my 16th birthday. My parents drove me 2 1/2 hours to the nearest ice rink. I loved it. I was just happy that I was able to stay on my feet for the entire public session. That was the one and only time I skated as a kid.

I went away to college and then returned to my hometown where I got a job and started a family. Several years later I was looking online for ideas for my daughter's birthday party (I believe it was her 7th birthday) when I see there is now an ice rink about 45 minutes away. Turns out they built it right after I went away to college. We had her birthday there and I was once again excited to just be able to stay on my feet. She wanted to do it again on her 10th birthday, so I looked into it again. This time I found out that they actually offered classes, for both kids and adults. I signed both of us up immediately. I originally did it for her, but figured since I was going to have to drive her and then wait for her, I mind as well do it too. It looked like fun and I thought it would be good exercise. That was a year and a half ago. I am now in LTS Free Skate 4 and lovin every minute of it