Dance career path?

[fluorescein]

The discussion about the youngest age for pairs got me thinking about dance. Dancers seem to be older and a lot of them started out competing in freestyle. Do they switch to dance when it becomes clear their freestyle career is going nowhere? How late in the game is that really possible? (I guess Hillary Gibbons would be pretty darn late. I wonder how she'll do next year.) Are there examples of successful dancers who knew from the beginning that's what they wanted to do?

And what's the youngest age a skater can really dance? I've seen some 8-10 year olds who looked pretty respectable, but I don't know how long they had been dancing.

[Trillian]

I would guess skaters are actually more inclined to choose dance for reasons other than failure in singles, as opposed to pairs. Off-ice dance background can be a factor, since a skater with strong training in ballet or deep interest in it might be more inclined to be interested in dance. And with a lot of skaters it's obvious early that they won't do much in terms of the jumps. Height can also be a factor, as dance tends to be the discipline where very tall skaters are most successful.

Plus, dance is even less likely than pairs to prove successful for those who are all-around poor singles skaters; aside from the jumps, a dancer needs to have extremely advanced individual skills to do well. A failed singles skater is only likely to be successful in dance if the jumps were the only major problem with their singles skating.

For this exact reason, skaters who start dance at very, very young ages are pretty rare. I would guess 10-11 is the absolute youngest age at which they could hope to be able to do much. In fact, in most countries outside North America, skaters don't even begin training in dance below the novice level.

A female skater who switches over as late as Hilary Gibbons is an exception; I would say most successful senior dancers were training in dance by around 16, if not much earlier.

[tdnuva]

Originally posted by fluorescein
Are there examples of successful dancers who knew from the beginning that's what they wanted to do?

Christopher Dean started with ice dance - but he started skating in general at the age of 10. (Jayne Torvill was pair and single skater before they teamed up.) Chris Dean wrote in their autobio that it wasn't his idea exactly - his mother decided when the questions of lessons arouse...

[CanAmSk8ter]

I know two girls in my region who are I think ten (maybe 11 by now), and one competes Novice dance and one Junior. I think- not positive- that one is on her Silver dances and the other is on Pre-Gold. Both compete solo, though, neither had a partner last I knew. Their older sister is a very talented dancer; she does have a partner and some of you from New England probably know who I'm talking about. Some clubs do put kids in dance young; the club where I started had several coaches who required their students to do dance as soon as they finished learn-to-skate because it's good for their freestyle skills too. They were allowed to stop dance after they passed their Bronze, and unfortunately most of them did. I think practicing dances takes more sustained attention, and that it's harder to correct yourself. Obviously if you're falling or two-footing a jump, you know it, but it's harder to tell when you're practicing a dance by yourself whether you're doing something that would be screwing up the other person if you were partnering.

The other issue with dance is that you have to be able to count music and some people cannot do that easily or at all. I had had four years of piano, a year of violin and two years of clarinet before I started skating, so I never had a problem with it, but I've been to competitions where I seen girls who have beautiful posture, extension, edges, etc. but were consistantly off time. At the lower levels, that's not always a big deal; I watched a group of five skaters do the Hickory Hoedown at a competition a few years ago, and it was clear which little girl was the best *skater*, but she started the dance on the weak beat and stayed there for all three patterns. She did win, though, and I couldn't totally disagree with it, because she was a far better skater and dancer than any of the other kids in her group.