Dancing… or Not
Way back in the early 1990s, I took ice dance as part of my weekly Learn to Skate lessons. My curriculum was offered through ISI (Ice Skating Institute of America), so it wasn’t affiliated with the US Figure Skating structure that I am a part of today. At that time, I had passed through Ice Dance 3 before I took a long hiatus from the sport.
Much to my disappointment, I learned that these passed tests did not transfer to the USFS structure. I would have to re-test my dances from the very beginning. This was so disheartening to hear since they are the same exact dances, but under a different figure skating organization.
I was in no rush to re-test these dances. I thought about possibly doing more ice dance once my body decided that free skate was enough. At this point in time, my body is able to endure the jumps and spins that free skate requires, but I know that one day, it will be more difficult to execute.
Finally, I decided to go ahead and start working on these beginner dances. I could either attempt to test them solo or do them partnered. Since we no longer have a male dance coach at our rink, my other option was to have a female dance coach take me through. I eventually came up with a third option, which was to leverage my pairs partner. He has passed these preliminary dances and should be able to skate alongside me as I test these patterns.
We attempted skating through the very first dance, the Dutch Waltz, during public skating one day. It started off well, until it didn’t. Here’s what happened!
I’m not sure when I will actually test these dances, but hopefully it won’t take me too long to get them test-ready!