Ok, what I want to know from all of my fellow Skaters today is...what inspired you to do the Discipline you do? If you do more then one,please say for all. Please check all that apply to you. If you mark Sibling,please say what Discipline.

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FSWer

Not sure if it's elite level performance TV that influenced me, I just like skating in general, and the lessons are freestyle-oriented. (not if I ever considered hockey or speed skating...)

I can't skate with a partner (extremely afraid of lifts / throws), hence only have singles freestyle left. I do consider to add some beginner ice dance lessons to improve edges

I started as a freestyle skater because pretty much everybody starts that way. You can't do the other disciplines until you know how to skate in the first place. Granted, if you want to be an ice dancer you don't need to be able to jump, but I did want to do that, so I worked on freestyle skills with a coach after I took some sessions of learn-to-skate.

Eventually, I decided to do some ice dance to improve edging and found that I really liked it. I now consider dance to be my primary discipline. I'm not getting any younger, either, so it's likely I've maxed out my jump potential anyway. I compete in dance with a partner, and we're having a great time.

jjane, if you do start dance, you could certainly consider skating with a partner. Dancers never do throws, and lifts show up only in free dance, which you are never required to do (and even then the lifts don't go above the shoulders). The compulsory dances are really fun to do partnered. If you learn them solo, and learn the partnering with your coach, you'd be able to participate at dance weekends, which are a blast!

I didn't vote in the poll, FSWer, because none of the options fit me. I didn't decide to do a particular discipline because I saw it live or on TV or wanted to be like my idols. I took my daughter to the rink for learn-to-skate classes and decided to sign up myself, too. The rest just sort of happened on its own.

Though, once upon a time, two years ago, I hated my school system to the very core for forcing me into homeschooling due to their inability to let me go to the school that's 10 min away.. I now thank that flaw in the school system every time I skate!- as a result of my beginning homeschool, my mom was trying to find extracurricular things for me to do so I could- socialize- and found these nice discounted homeschool lessons at the nearby rink.

She thought I'd eventually get bored of it and move on to something else like piano or dance. Hah- here she is two years later, freezing her butt off two times a week and paying for private lessons every week. Funny how these things creep up on the poor unsuspecting parent.

I actually didn't become obsessed with it until I had been skating for about a year and a quarter. Then.. yeah. Everyone's been through it. It jumped from $40/month group lessons to ice time cards and private lessons.

I love ice dance, but I am extremely distrustful and hate working in teams. So there goes pairs and dance, out the window. I hate spinning, but I love jumping, and since the two are kind of a package deal.. freestyle! I would like to do ice dance one day, should I ever get over my trust issues.

I had never watched a figure skating event before and thought, "Oh, I'd liked to do that." I had absolutely no want to figure skate before my mom suggested the lessons. I had no clue what a triple axel was, or what the spinny things were called, or who the heck Mirai Nagasu was. Nobody I knew skated. I have no memory of the one public skate I'd ever been to, except brief flashes of pulling myself along the wall, as most 6 year olds do. This proves that I am meant to skate my whole life.. because nothing inspired me to skate! I fell in love with it all on my own!

Sorry, long-winded

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Right Brain: In the distant future, I will land all of the doubles.
Left Brain: HAHAHAHAHA
Left Brain: You can't even do a backspin.
Right Brain: ...

figurekb on YouTube.

My Dad took me skating for the first time when I was 15. It irritated me so much that I couldn't do it that when I started at the U of Minnesota the next year I spent hours every day at the rink and studying books to master it. It somehow got into my head that I wanted to be the first African American male Olympic freestyle figure skater. I saw some of the collegiate (women) skaters doing their thing, but they never even seemed to know I was on the ice.

That continued for about a year-and-a-half and I was actually offered a pairs opportunity that I turned down because I wanted to go to medical school - ah, the confusion of adolescence. Foolish choice because I never did go for MD and they were going to pay for school and everything in CT. Then my life changed and I skated maybe once or twice a year for the next several decades until last fall. There was even a period of almost 5 years where I never got on the ice once.

So, freestyle because I have never been confident of my upper body strength. At 6'2", my partner would definitely weigh more than 90 or 100 lbs. I am learning Dance also for my waning years...