How reasonable is the chance of a single skater switching to ice dance?

blue_idealist said:

Czisny should do ice dance, the only thing is, she might be too tall for a lot of guys.

Click to expand...

She really should have. Maybe it would have brought her out of her shell more and there would be no jumps to worry about.

I took ice dance basics and tested the first few levels while I was learning freestyle simultaneously (as an adult). I noticed that all the kids coming up in freestyle that also were doing the same, had much better skating skills and sense of music/rhythm than the ones doing just freestyle and moves in the field. And some (around juvie/intermediate level and early teens) did switch over to ice dance. I would strongly advocate for any skater who thinks they want to focus on freestyle, to also parallel with the compulsory dance sequence and get them to test standard, even if only up through the Silver Level is very beneficial. You don't necessarily need to master the Tango Romantica. Then if you ever want to switch, you've got some strong basics to build on.

For the record, my worst head-cracking falls were NEVER when trying freestyle jumps, but happened when I got my feet tangled up learning dances. (To this day, I truly despise the TenFox open mohawk ) And dance always did much more for my stamina and sculpting my butt nicely, than freestyle ever did.

Tracy Wilson was also a singles skater before switching to dance.

John Curry and Toller Cranston could likely have been good ice dancers.

Also, as weird as it sounds, Peter Carruthers was a junior level ice dancer with a different partner along with doing pairs.