as you can probably guess, I'm new to all this, but what i wanted to ask is can you do ice dance by yourself?

When learning compulsary dances, you learn them first by skating them by yourself, then before you're ready to test them you either have your coach or another skater couple the dance with you. Most often when competing, dances are done as a couple. Freedance and OD's are done as dance couples. Creative Dances can be done by yourself or with a partner.

If you're just beginning dance don't worry about a partner until you're ready to test the last Prelim Compulsary Dance, if you wish to compete in ice dance.

singerskates

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Actually solo dance is becoming more & more popular, & there are more opportunities opening up for competition as well.

There is now a solo testing track, for those in areas where there is no partner/s even for testing.

Many competitions offer a solo compulsory dance event, and new this year, there are several offering solo Original Dance (where the style is set --this year it's tango--but you pick the music & do your own choreography--fun!). The Lake Placid Dance Championships started this, & several others followed suit. I'm doing Lake Placid next week, & it will be my 2nd solo competition of the summer. Indy Challenge is doing it too.

And, as singerskates said, you always start out learning the dances/steps by yourself before ever partnering them. So yes, definitely! The majority of female dancers out there don't have partners, but we still have a lot of fun!

ETA---you are lucky you're in England (just noticed that)---there, you have solo free dance competition as well!!

Yes we are lucky, click here http://www.iceskating.org.uk/adultskating/events.cfm
this is an example of the Adult British this year and elements required, also if you go into "Calendar" on the left of the screen it will give you an update of coming events for all ages.

Have fun

As others have said, yes, you can dance solo

My coach used to make us do the dances both solo and partnered even if we were testing with a partner, it's so much easier and less stressful if you know that you can stand up out there on your own without relying solely on your partner

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Here in Canada, I tried to have a dance test done as a solo but they would not let me. I asked this this past June because I wanted to get a few dances out of my way, since I couldn't really work on my freeskating or test it with a bum arm (crashed on to my left shoulder while avoiding a huge condensation bump while doing a change edge spiral in early June). My club checked for me and as far as Skate Canada test rules go, when you're in the prelim and intermediate ice dance test groups, you have to be partnered in order to test the dances.

singerskate

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

Yes, the solo test track is U.S.

I think it would be fun to watch solo ice dancing. Sometimes the "couple" feature distracts from the actual skating, ie.: "Are they in sync?" "Did he just smack her in the face?" "Is that a WARDROBE MALFUNCTION?" Just kidding - I think it's a great idea that demonstrates mastery of the dance.

Since so many dances have male and female parts, I wonder if you could test both solo?

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This is really good and I'm surprised that not all coaches appear to do this I have seen low level dancers in the past that look great and worse still think they are great because they are partnering and come very embarrasingly unstuck when testing, because they had to do a dance solo, which I'm sorry to say is the fault of the coach.

I was pretty sure there are certain dances you are allowed to solo, so I checked the online rulebook to verify. You're right, it looks like you can't do solos until you get past Sr. Bronze:

It looks like Prelim, Jr Bronze, and Sr Bronze must be partnered.

Jr. Silver: Harris and Rocker must be partnered. American and Keats can be skated solo or with a partner.

Sr. Silver: Paso, Starlight, and Cha Cha must be partnered. Blues and Kilian can be skated solo or with a partner.

Gold: Viennese, Westminster, and Argentine must be partnered. Quickstep and Silver Samba can be skated solo or with a partner.

Diamond: All must be partnered.

I don't keep current with dance rules since I'm done testing, but I could have sworn that a few years ago you COULD solo all the lower levels as well. I was just starting to take dance in 2003, and I thought I remembered thinking, "Hey, if I can't find a partner right away, I can still test some of the dances." Maybe they changed things within the last few years.

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Here in Canada, you may have to test your dances with a partner, but in some of the competitions, Solo Dance is becoming almost as popular as the dance pairs.

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

Thanks to everybody for your replies. this has really given me food for thought! As I said, i'm new to skating and love the dance aspect but I know I'll never be a jumper or a spinner but I used to do ballet and ballroom/latin dancing when I was younger, but I don't want to skate a part of a couple. I doubt I would ever compete either but I would love to learn the moves!

yes, in Canada anyways. Don't ask me where it is in the rulebook but it came up in one of my coaching courses. We're required to know both sets of steps on dances up to junior bronze for the first level, so I was practicing the mens steps to Willow and my coach said that I could test that if I wanted. "uh I already passed that test why would I want to do it again?! "

Are you at Telford? There is, or used to be, a very pleasant adult couple who skated there, really rather good - you could see what you aspire to!

Never say "never", when it comes to this sport.... you never know what might happen!

The first few dances are very easy to do badly, so once you are about level 4 or 5 on Skate-UK, you should be able to at least learn how they work. You do need to be able to do forward crossovers, though, and swing rolls.

And solo dance is pretty big here in the UK at every level. Time was, you had to solo at least one of the dances in every test bar the first, but they don't make you do that now - I've just been watching dance tests this morning and some skaters tested solo, others with their coach, and still others with a non-professional partner!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Yep, Im at telford, I have group lessons during which we have been learning some very basic moves, and having some fun with Russian style arms (with very English legs I might add!!!) and despite myself I've actually started to enjoy it! the crossovers are coming along, I've just started private lessons to concentrate on getting my edges right. I'm on level 8 skate uk and i could seriously use some help with getting the mohawk, mines still a bit 2 footed!