In Golden Skate forums someone posted a question that went "I'm 20, is it too late to learn to figure skate?"
Honey, if you're reading this, I didn't start until I was 55. Why there is this perception that no one over the age of 6 can learn to figure skate, I don't know. Right, you can't compete internationally at the elite level, but really you can learn to skate and compete as an adult.
And the why it's important to skate and do exercise, rather than giving up is the following story.
A friend and I do some hard exercise videos 3 days a week. They're 60 minute vids that we squeeze into lunch. They're hard enough that we start them at the beginning of the week knowing we can't do all the exercises, so we repeat them throughout the week until we can do all the exercises.
So, today a woman at work asked if she could join us next week. She said she'd been falling, and her doctor had told her to get some exercise.
I'm going to use a picture as an illustration of the age she looks. This is not a picture of her:
She's 63, I'm 62.
So, really, don't let anyone tell you you can't skate because you're over 20.
Actually, there ARE international competitions for adult figure skaters! I think there's an ISI Worlds one, and I know that the ISU international competition just wrapped up over the weekend. And YAY for new adult figure skaters - doesn't matter what age you pick it up!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this. I'm 33 and just learning to skate now. I'm only a couple lessons in and can just about manage a two-foot glide and a small dip. I'm hoping that maybe I can start learning some figure skating once I've got the basics of just moving around on the ice down though.
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