Why can't men wear those ice skating pants like the women do?

thevaliantx · Feb 1, 2012

Sometimes I do not use the best choice of words, well really none of us do

What I meant to say is that most adults, along with the fear of getting hurt (and being out of work), stop trying to progress because they feel they don't fit that graceful, limber skater type of image that they feel winning skaters have. It is the institution, in my opinion, that does not want men dressing like women (or vice versa) because of the image that they (regardless of what you or I think) feel the public expects and wants to see. If this were not true, as it goes with any other field out there where image is important, then retailers WOULD be asking manufacturers to make more feminine clothing for men, and vice versa. Retailers are only going to try and sell what they think the figure skating industry is looking for, or if you're in the 'consumer' camp, what the majority of the figure skaters are looking to buy.

mskater93 said:
The issue was, quite frankly, that a certain high level skater wore a pair of tights so tight that his male parts were much too, um, "prominent" in said costume. That being said, I see many men skaters (adult men included) who wear running tights for practice, especially the UA cold gear type. I wear running tights/leggings as well (I am a woman) and if you buy them a size larger than you wear normally or the longer ones, you can pull the backs down over the heel of your boot without having to order a special pair.

Most adults I know will not learn to figure skate or stop progressing at a certain point due to fear (I am going to get hurt, I will be out of work and then who will pay the bills?) not because they don't look good in a dress or skating pants. Most people I know who DON'T watch figure skating don't watch because they feel the judging sucks/it's not really a sport/they already decided who the winner is weeks ago, etc.

Tangogirl · Feb 1, 2012

thevaliantx said:
Okay, lots of responses and I love to hear how others feel about topics that I am sensitive to. You see, in the past I enjoyed cross-dressing and expressing my feminine side (won't go into any more detail than that, and so I LOVE watching the likes of Johnny Weir who happens to like wearing feminine clothing...it brings out 'who he is', so to speak. Wearing 'under armor' isn't going to do it for me. Conversely, I don't think wearing tights would, either. Otherwise, I'd be living my life as Peter Pan (just kidding!!!) But, definitely, I think there is no reason why they can't make figure skating pants for men, where the bottoms of the pants cover the backs of the skates. It's the skating institution, in a secret fraternity sort of way (if I'm making any sense here), that wants to be able to distinguish men from women on the ice.

Some of the ice dance guys get that same look by wearing legs warmers, I don't like clothing bulk around my ankles since I have snagged the heel of my blade in it several time and taken myself down for a bad fall.

mskater93 · Feb 2, 2012

The quitting because they aren't graceful/don't fit the mold has not been my experience, but YMMV. Quitting because they have gotten injured, had children, something life changing, or stopped progressing due to fear HAS been my experience more than anything. I have experienced a LOT of adult skaters come and go in my time back on the ice.

Why NOT purchase running tights one size larger and just pull them down over the back of your boots and be done with this discussion? Other than my Flowerdaze pants which were designed that way, this is what I do with my $7/pair Danskin running tights and my $10/pair Balera dance leggings and it has the same effect as my Flowerdaze pants.

Violet Bliss · Feb 3, 2012

Do you like this look? (freeze it at 1m40s for a good look.) It looks like extra long pants with hems that come down lower on the heel. Pretty cool, eh?

antmanb · Feb 3, 2012

thevaliantx said:
Okay, lots of responses and I love to hear how others feel about topics that I am sensitive to. You see, in the past I enjoyed cross-dressing and expressing my feminine side (won't go into any more detail than that, and so I LOVE watching the likes of Johnny Weir who happens to like wearing feminine clothing...it brings out 'who he is', so to speak. Wearing 'under armor' isn't going to do it for me. Conversely, I don't think wearing tights would, either. Otherwise, I'd be living my life as Peter Pan (just kidding!!!) But, definitely, I think there is no reason why they can't make figure skating pants for men, where the bottoms of the pants cover the backs of the skates. It's the skating institution, in a secret fraternity sort of way (if I'm making any sense here), that wants to be able to distinguish men from women on the ice.

I don't get it though, do you compete? In practice you can wear whatever you want, none of the coaches in our group classes would ever tell us what to wear, and I'm sure if i turned up one week in a tutu nobody would tell me to take it off. I'd be laughed at, I'm sure, but i don't think that's a prejudiuce that you would find that is specific to the skating community, but one that you would encounter outside of the rink.

If you have the confidence to cross dress outside of the rink, then i don't see why it would be a problem doing so at the rink. While you may not be allowed to comete or test in female clothing, you certainly could enter artisitc events and cross dress. Isn't there a wellknown coach in the california area who once did an artisitc programme as Michelle Kwan?

I don't think there's a secret fraternity out there conspiring against men who want to wear trousers that cover the hell of the skate! Do you have pictures of the what you mean, by the way, because I can't think that i've ever seen these types of trousers. To be honest most of the girls I see at the rink wear tights with either a skirt/dress, or really short shorts (often the padded ones if they're training jumps). At the adult group I skate at the women are usually either in tights, leggings, or sweat pants, I've not seen any heel coverings other than leg warmers. And my feet get so hot in my skates I can't ever imagine needing leg warmers for them!

dorispulaski · Feb 3, 2012

thevaliantx, are you referring to the kind of practice outfits for ice dancers that Chock and Zuerlein used in the SD at Lake Placid IDC in 2010?

http://photography.ice-dance.com/2010-11/2010LakePlacidIDC/Senior/SD/10LPIDC-SrSD-7485-CZ-KW.jpg.php

C&Z hadn't planned to compete in the SD, but were asked to by USFS? LPID? their coach??? but in any case, they did compete in their practice clothes since they hadn't any competition costumes with them.

Tonichelle · Feb 3, 2012

I'm not a fan of seeing men's "junk" poking out in the fabric... the spandex looking pants that the women wear wouldn't hide a thing... no, it wouldn't endear me to the sport.

CdnSkateWatcher · Feb 3, 2012

Chloe Noel and Sixo make skating pants that pull down over the heel of the skates. Some girls like them; some don't. LuLulemon's loonngg yoga pants can do the same thing, if you want to stretch the bottom of a pair of yoga pants .... You could probably wear Chloe or Sixo pants as a guy, they're heavy spandex stuff and they would stretch, they seem to fit a wide range of figure types. One of the rationales is that the over the heel pants means that the heel part won't mark the white part of a skate where they come in contact, which isn't a problem for guys skates, of course.

There's not a lot of men's made-for-skating-wear pants out there in any styles. There's not much of a market; the company we had got stuff from went out of business recently due to lack of demand. Companies aren't going to make stuff unless there's a demand, so, if you want something unique - you're pretty much going to have to find someone who will make it, or figure out some way to create a demand.

CdnSkateWatcher · Feb 3, 2012

SkateFiguring said:
Do you like this look? (freeze it at 1m40s for a good look.) It looks like extra long pants with hems that come down lower on the heel. Pretty cool, eh?

This is a look that has been on again/off again "trendy" in the Toronto area, which is where this is filmed ... lulu or the like with slouchy woolen legwarmers - dangerous - seen skaters get their blades caught in the folds in a jump and have nasty falls.

backspin · Feb 9, 2012

thevaliantx said:
It is the institution, in my opinion, that does not want men dressing like women (or vice versa) because of the image that they (regardless of what you or I think) feel the public expects and wants to see. If this were not true, as it goes with any other field out there where image is important, then retailers WOULD be asking manufacturers to make more feminine clothing for men, and vice versa. Retailers are only going to try and sell what they think the figure skating industry is looking for, or if you're in the 'consumer' camp, what the majority of the figure skaters are looking to buy.

I think manufacturers make what they can sell. Regardless of what the "institution" says about costumes for competitions, if there were enough demand for the type of clothing you want, someone would make it, because as has been pointed out, you can wear whatever you want for practice. As you yourself must be aware, a cross dressing figure skating man is an extreme minority. Should manufacturers offer racks of varied clothes in multiple sizes of the type you want, which obviously would only sell to a very few people? I'm very tall--skating dresses rarely fit me off the rack, so I usually have to have something custom made. Should I rant about the fact that there isn't clothing out there that fits me, and blame the USFSA for promoting a sport that lends itself to shorter women?

I'm not really sure what your main issue is here--is it because men can't wear tights in competition? Or because you can't find the practice clothing you want off the rack? There seem to be some good suggestions here for you to get what you want for practice purposes.

thevaliantx · Mar 8, 2012

SkateFiguring said:
Do you like this look? (freeze it at 1m40s for a good look.) It looks like extra long pants with hems that come down lower on the heel. Pretty cool, eh?

No thanks. I don't want to look like Peter Pan. I'm not out to show how muscular my legs are (I do have a woman's butt, lol, and skinny legs), and I certainly don't want to wear a dress or skirt on the ice.

I just don't like it that men are expected to wear men's clothing, and women, well ... .they can wear whatever they want and no one will care. So, my problem might be more of one related to diversity or equality, than how (( I )) want to look on the ice. I hope that I haven't irritated anyone here, and I'm sure some will agree that personal issues are conflicting with issues on the ice

thevaliantx · Mar 8, 2012

Tonichelle said:
I'm not a fan of seeing men's "junk" poking out in the fabric... the spandex looking pants that the women wear wouldn't hide a thing... no, it wouldn't endear me to the sport.

Oh, I'm in agreement. Trust me. I just find that the kind of clothing that women skaters wear, such as what dorispulaski here posted a link of, are much sexier and well ... a whole lot less 'plain'. I've always had a very hard time expressing pretty much anything that I want (doctors get frustrated when I can't tell them on a scale of ten what my pain is like, my wife never knows what to cook for me because I never know what I want to eat, lol). I just don't like plain clothing, and maybe I'm projecting my feelings onto places where they shouldn't go when I say that men are restricted in what they can wear on the rink. Maybe they just WANT to wear tight fitting pants and tight shirts? Maybe in time I'll figure this out.

thevaliantx · Mar 8, 2012

dorispulaski said:
thevaliantx, are you referring to the kind of practice outfits for ice dancers that Chock and Zuerlein used in the SD at Lake Placid IDC in 2010?

http://photography.ice-dance.com/2010-11/2010LakePlacidIDC/Senior/SD/10LPIDC-SrSD-7485-CZ-KW.jpg.php

C&Z hadn't planned to compete in the SD, but were asked to by USFS? LPID? their coach??? but in any case, they did compete in their practice clothes since they hadn't any competition costumes with them.

Those are nice looking practice clothing! I'm not sure I would be interested in showing the world just how manly I am through my clothing. I remember reading the comments to a youtube video one time of Johhn Weir, where someone suggested that he wanted to skate like a girl. I feel like when I'm on the ice that I want to show the world my feminine side. I just don't want to look like a clown or deliberately cross-dress (save that for drag night at the bars, which I no longer do).

lcd · Mar 14, 2012

thevaliantx :laugh:

mskater93 · Mar 15, 2012

I saw running tights designed for MEN specifically on one of my last trips to either Target or Walmart when I was tooling around. Get THOSE in a size larger and pull them down over the back of your boots...

thevaliantx · Mar 15, 2012

mskater93 said:
I saw running tights designed for MEN specifically on one of my last trips to either Target or Walmart when I was tooling around. Get THOSE in a size larger and pull them down over the back of your boots...

I am going to take a look at that, thank you!

Dreaswi · Aug 4, 2012

I would also suggest going to or going online to REI and look at biking clothes. As for wanting to be yourself I totally understand. I tried the girly frilly thing and it wasn't me. Now my booty bike shorts have skulls and crossbones on them. I have also had my skates air brushed with skulls and crossbones. I am girly to the extent that my skulls and crossbones contain some pink.

Why can't men wear those ice skating pants like the women do?

thevaliantx

Tangogirl

mskater93

Violet Bliss

antmanb

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll

CdnSkateWatcher

CdnSkateWatcher

backspin

thevaliantx

thevaliantx

thevaliantx

lcd

Match Penalty

mskater93

thevaliantx

Dreaswi

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