Am I too late to become professional?

briipop · Dec 29, 2016

Hello everyone,

I've been interested in figure skating for a very long time. I've attempted to learn but I've dealt with depression and anxiety that I could never be good enough, so I've never tried. I'm in college now, have a job, and considering it again. I know it would take a long time to become a professional, if at all possible at my age, and on top of it I have hip problems from being in a serious car accident last year..

I feel as though my dreams of becoming a figure skater and potentially a really good one has gone out the door for me..

Would it be possible to consider beginning skating and working at it to get good for people my age who have been skating since they were little kids? Or is my hip injury and doubt just the ticket to no success?

Thank you for reading this very depressing post.

karne · Dec 29, 2016

It's nothing to do with the hip injury (though that won't help) or the doubt. It's your age. You are simply too old to start now and become one of those skaters you see on TV (who, by the way, aren't professionals; they are required to keep amateur status to be considered Olympic-eligible).

There's no need to get depressed about that; it's a fact of life. Not all of the kids who start at 4 will make it, either. It takes a special kind of person to reach that top level, and a lot, lot, lot of training. Years. Decades. I think about Jason Brown; he turned 22 a couple of weeks ago. But that means he has been on the ice taking lessons for 19 years.

Now, with all of this said and done: that doesn't mean you can't start skating. There are plenty of people who start skating at your age or later. I was one of them. However, if you have serious hip problems, it may preclude you from jumping. You should probably consult your doctor before you start lessons, and when you do start them, make sure your coach is informed of your limitations. In my experience coaches are only too happy to work around problems if you keep them informed.

treesprite · Dec 29, 2016

Someone could be a beginner and still be a "professional skater" if he or she got paid to skate.

Aside from that, there are people who started skating as adults and got good enough to teach Learn to Skate classes for which they get paid, so they are considered professional skaters, even without ever doing double/triple jumps and without having been in major competitions. You are young enough that you could still get all of your double jumps, if the physical problem does not turn out to limit you from working on them, but probably not triples.

jf12 · Dec 29, 2016

A couple things, first, the tough part. You probably won't become an elite senior level skater, and neither will most of the really good skaters you see at the rink who have been skating since they were little. The biggest thing that will hold you back seems like your anxiety and comparing yourself to others. At any age, even supposing it's possible, you cannot even begin to think you might be a national level skater without a double axel. For anyone to be contemplating this as a major part of their decision process before they even started skating at all is way early, and it's not honestly a good reason to start skating in your late teens or 20's.

However, if you've had this dream of skating, you should certainly start skating. Don't be embarassed about being a beginner, everyone had to start the same way. It will probably also be a great way to exercise and some skating exercises involving edges and your core might actually help rehab your hip, and improve alignment and posture. You might find the act of getting out there, and starting as a beginner and slowly but surely get better, will help with the depression and anxiety as well.

gkelly · Dec 29, 2016

There have been many threads lately about older teens or young or not-so-young adults asking whether they can become elite skaters.

And the answer is consistently: No, it is not realistic for you to expect to reach an elite level. You will probably never land a triple jump. If you're young, and naturally small and athletic, and especially if you're male, double jumps will be a reasonable goal.

Why not read all the other threads before posting a new one?

We don't get a lot of young kids on this board asking that question, not even many parents. But even if they did, the answer would still be "They/you are probably never going to land a triple jump."

And then those cautions are usually accompanied by "But you can learn some good skating skills and have a lot of fun and compete at an appropriate level if you want to, so go ahead and get started and see how you like it."

Once you start skating and paying attention to the other skaters training at your rink, you'll see the WIDE range of skill levels between beginner and elite, and figure out where you fit in now and what you can realistically aspire to in the future.

If your goal is to become a professional skating coach or to get paid to perform in a skating show, possibly wearing Disney costumes in the background behind former elite competitors, the answer may very well be Yes -- but it will take years of hard work to get there.

If your goal is to become an elite competitor yourself, the answer is No, that's not a realistic goal. Even if you're 7 years old and wealthy and live near a rink with lots of ice time and good coaching available, it's highly unlikely you'll reach that level. But parents and coaches allow 7-year-olds to dream much bigger than is realistic. Teenagers and certainly adults are able to understand the constraints of reality.

jf12 · Dec 29, 2016

It's interesting how so many questions are similar in the skating world - people wondering if they can be elite skaters without having really skated before. I know many adults who don't have a background in running, who know they will likely never be an elite marathon runner, but they still do it and feel a great sense of accomplishment, as they should.

skatemomoftwo · Dec 29, 2016

You are too old to do such things as the Olys.
Howevr you arent too old for solo ice dance, working your way up the tests, and even teaching. If those are your goals, then why not. I know alot of adults who jump and compete in their 40s 50s and 60s. Adult Nationals is open for you.
Just know that this is a time intensive sport. My kids have skated since they were 3 and have spent hours and hours at the rink.

karne · Dec 29, 2016

treesprite said:
Someone could be a beginner and still be a "professional skater" if he or she got paid to skate.

Well, this is true, but generally when rank beginners ask this question, they do mean the international skaters, who they assume are professionals and not amateurs.

fullmetalflamingo said:
With all due respect, everyone who has commented here so far is absolutely wrong. It has nothing to do with age, no matter how much people say that. What it has to do with is your innate skill, adaptability, work ethic, and mentality.

What? No. I will not accept this. Telling someone who is now perhaps 18-19, or even in their 20s, that they could start and go on to be an elite Senior skater is not just wrong, it is downright cruel. Nobody here who has said it is too late was wrong.

fullmetalflamingo said:
I was in the same boat as you when I first started skating about 4 years ago. After struggling to get past everyone's preconceived notion that I was too old to start skating, I've made opportunities for myself, connected with the right coaches, and just this past year I passed 3 pattern dance tests and my first moves-in-the-field test in the USFSA normal testing structure. It may take me longer to learn things, since I was never that coordinated to begin with, but I keep steadily improving.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, in this thread has said the OP cannot start skating. In fact I think all of us have encouraged it. What we are trying to do is get the OP to be realistic about her goals. She's too old to become an elite Senior skater. That's the long and the short of it.

gkelly said:
There have been many threads lately about older teens or young or not-so-young adults asking whether they can become elite skaters.

At this point I generally blame Yuri on Ice. These questions usually float around, but from the recent influx I'm guessing that YoI is to blame. Which is daft, because YoI is actually one of the few pop-culture representations of figure skating that depicts how difficult the sport is and how many years it takes to get good at it. It doesn't hide that Victor has been skating for 20 years, for example.

loopy · Dec 29, 2016

My advice: if you have never skated, sign up for classes and see if you like it.

There are only a handful of skaters at the national level do frankly, that cannot be your goal.

Make realistic goals like taking a session of lessons and not missing a class. Then add a day of skating. Familiarize yourself with the skating curriculum. Work up to private lessons. Then testing.

It's like saying, I'm applying for my first job stocking at walmart, do you think in 10 years I can own a store?

If you dream to skate, learn to skate. If you dream for the Olympics, you need to pick a different sport.

But nothing will happen unless you move from the dream to taking the first step.

yuzushenko · Dec 30, 2016

fullmetalflamingo said:
With all due respect, everyone who has commented here so far is absolutely wrong. It has nothing to do with age, no matter how much people say that. What it has to do with is your innate skill, adaptability, work ethic, and mentality.

I was in the same boat as you when I first started skating about 4 years ago. After struggling to get past everyone's preconceived notion that I was too old to start skating, I've made opportunities for myself, connected with the right coaches, and just this past year I passed 3 pattern dance tests and my first moves-in-the-field test in the USFSA normal testing structure. It may take me longer to learn things, since I was never that coordinated to begin with, but I keep steadily improving.

I think that something that would help you is to find a rink or club with a good adult skating community. Being around kids who are landing triples is not going to help you feel good about your decision. Being within an adult group while you learn to skate is something that will give you a lot of support and help you with your confidence.

When I started skating, I didn't improve much because I was always learning with kids and feeling very down about how slow I was to catch on to things. However, when I moved to Toronto last fall and started skating with the adult group at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club, I began to improve very quickly, landed singles jumps for the first time, and finally started getting to a level where I could pass those tests that I mentioned. Your environment and the people around you have everything to do with how successful you'll be in your skating journey.

All that being said, I wish you much luck. Try not to let people cause you to second guess yourself. It's none of their business what you do in your life unless they are there to cheer you on and support you. Just because it's not usual for a skater to start learning as an adult and be very successful, doesn't mean it can't be done. There's always a first for everything.

no offense but everyone passes that test. like, legit,it's impossible to fail. everyone passes that test because usfs knows it will encourage ppl to keep testing. but wait like 3 tests later and the curve ranks up a lot. the fact that you're using this as proof about how you've "made it big" (that was OP's original question) is naive.

though your story does show proof of what others in this thread are saying, you can still learn. but you won't be landing triples and competing in grand prix events. they said she could probably land her singles and maybe even some doubles, and you said "they're wrong" while providing an exact example of what others said she could accomplish despite perhaps never being able to become a top skater.

btw congrats on your accomplishments it must be very cool to train with the cricket club. did you move there specifically to train or did you have other jobs lined up there or something?

yuzushenko · Dec 30, 2016

jf12 said:
It's interesting how so many questions are similar in the skating world - people wondering if they can be elite skaters without having really skated before. I know many adults who don't have a background in running, who know they will likely never be an elite marathon runner, but they still do it and feel a great sense of accomplishment, as they should.

i think the fame attracts many of us
i admit i was like that too at first

i wish i could be like the shibsibs and travel the world to compete and i get to stay at fancy hotels and receive gifts from fans and you have dreams of saying some snarky cool stuff to the press that will get you some RTs about how "real" she is and your sponsors hook you up with free nike shoes and you get to perform in front of fans and have that heart stopping performance and all of that cool drama

i mean im sure we all wish we could do that but unfortunately some of us didn't even know about figure skating til we were adults.. and how could a child just know they want to become that if they were never even acquainted with the possibilities? anyways, that shouldn't limit you from wanting to learn. it's still a great joy learning to skate. but i think the fame really attracts a lot of people at first. skaters at the elite level make it look so easy and beautiful, so of course we think it's easy to learn to skate like that. but even getting to that level takes more than a decade of elite training to get to that flawless graceful skating. it can take months to get to solid stroking and some basic (laughable) crossovers. but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying skating even if you can't land a triple or do a really intricate step sequence or flying camel spin. it's different from what you see on TV, but learning to skate as an adult is its own world of wonders and learning.

Seren · Dec 30, 2016

There is no reason you can't become a good skater with hard work and dediction. I skate with a lot of adults who are great skaters who all started as adults. Some of them skate singles, some of them do dance and a few have even done adult synchro. While it is true that age is a factor- you are not going to be an elite skater like you see on TV, in fact, most of the kids you see zipping around on freestyles aren't either so this shouldn't make you feel badly. But you can learn at any age and skating is a wonderful sport. If you are in the US we have adult sectionals and adult nationals. The Championship Gold even at Adult Nationals is the highest level event in the adult testing structure (not counting Masters levels past that) and being able to compete there someday is a great goal. There are even international adult competitions in Germany and Vancouver BC.

I would suggest signing up for some group lessons and seeing how you like it. If you really love it then keep at it! I know if I didn't love skating I wouldn't be up at 5 am to practice before work, I wouldn't be able to tolerate the frustration of working on the same things for months, and I wouldn't spend so much money on this one thing. But I also wouldn't be as happy.

Try not to compare yourself to other people. If you set yourself the goal of trying to catch the people your age who have been skating since childhood you will just end up frustrated and disappointed. Skate for yourself!

treesprite · Dec 30, 2016

loopy said:
But nothing will happen unless you move from the dream to taking the first step.

Best comment in this thread so far!

shiroKJ · Dec 30, 2016

The problem is that elite skaters make everything look too easy, too pretty, and too cool.

fullmetalflamingo said:
I'm an eternal optimist, and I think that if someone has a dream and wants to go for it, it's not up to anyone else to tell them it is unreasonable or that they can't. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it isn't impossible, and that's the key here.

I also wasn't trying to use my own experiences as proof of having "made it." I know I've still got at least a decade or two until I get to a point where I am fully satisfied with my skating (I'm hoping to get at least to double jumps and pass all of the dance tests before deciding if I want to push it even further). I was just trying to point out that I was stuck in a rut for a few years in terms of improvement because of a bad learning environment, but once I found a group of people who supported me and my goals, my skills kind of skyrocketed upwards comparatively.

Thanks, though, yuzushenko. I moved up there from Ohio to go to grad school. I just knew that I wanted to continue learning to skate, so I looked around for the best adult program I could find that worked with my schedule, and somehow I was able to be accepted as a member at the club. It's quite a humbling experience to be sure, but so inspiring at the same time. And it's nice to have teammates to cheer for at big competitions. After Alissa Czisny retired, nobody from my home club in the states has really gotten very far. ;P

I think there's a difference between telling people they should go for their dreams and giving people false hope, especially if what they’re asking for is a realistic answer. Developing good skating skills, learning spins, doing singles/doubles and even a triple or two is well within the realm of possibility for many starting in their early twenties and up but telling people they can begin at such a late age and still make it to the elite competitive world is giving people false hope (since most actually retire at that age) and they'll only be discourage from continuing once they realize the reality of it, if that is their only goal, and what they’ll take away from the experience is simply frustration and anger.

Its an expensive sport and just getting started with the right equipment can set you back 4 figures. It'd be wrong to not tell people the harsh realities before they invest their time and money. If it were me, I'd want people to tell me up front about what I can reasonably expect, so I know what I'm getting myself into. IMO it's why people ask on the boards, otherwise they'd just go for it without any research.

concorde · Dec 30, 2016

shiroKJ said:
Developing good skating skills, learning spins, doing singles/doubles and even a triple or two is well within the realm of possibility for many starting in their early twenties and up

I would agree with what skiroKJ said with the except of what I quoted regarding jumps. I think a realistic goal maybe getting all your singles and an optimistic goal is getting some doubles. No way should you expect more.

Remember that only about ~2% of all skaters will ever get their double axel and that includes those that start at an early age. The first triples come about the same time as the double axel.

Personally I would be happy being able to do any single jump!

skatemomoftwo · Dec 30, 2016

shiroKJ said:
The problem is that elite skaters make everything look too easy, too pretty, and too cool.

I think there's a difference between telling people they should go for their dreams and giving people false hope, especially if what they’re asking for is a realistic answer. Developing good skating skills, learning spins, doing singles/doubles and even a triple or two is well within the realm of possibility for many starting in their early twenties and up but telling people they can begin at such a late age and still make it to the elite competitive world is giving people false hope (since most actually retire at that age) and they'll only be discourage from continuing once they realize the reality of it, if that is their only goal, and what they’ll take away from the experience is simply frustration and anger.

Its an expensive sport and just getting started with the right equipment can set you back 4 figures. It'd be wrong to not tell people the harsh realities before they invest their time and money. If it were me, I'd want people to tell me up front about what I can reasonably expect, so I know what I'm getting myself into. IMO it's why people ask on the boards, otherwise they'd just go for it without any research.

I agree with you 100 percent. Its great to want to skate, and there is no reason someone in their 20s cant get doubles. Its in an insanely expensive sport which no one ever discusses, and takes alot of time. Its hard as adults to find either the money or the time. But I support adults skating and there is ALOT you can do within the sport do matter what age or level.Its not just talent, its money time and dedication. My daughter has been skating almost 15 years and my son a little less. At least I know where they are !

jf12 · Dec 30, 2016

skatemomoftwo said:
I agree with you 100 percent. Its great to want to skate, and there is no reason someone in their 20s cant get doubles. Its in an insanely expensive sport which no one ever discusses, and takes alot of time. Its hard as adults to find either the money or the time. But I support adults skating and there is ALOT you can do within the sport do matter what age or level.Its not just talent, its money time and dedication. My daughter has been skating almost 15 years and my son a little less. At least I know where they are !

Agree that money and time has a lot to do with it. I am an adult starter doing doubles, and I have seen other adults who I feel have more natural talent and physical fitness than I do not be able to get them - the difference being how many times a a week you're able to skate and how many lessons you're able to afford.

RoaringMice · Dec 30, 2016

Yes; my coach told me that it's entirely possible for someone who starts as an adult, even past their 20's, to get most of the single jumps and perhaps even some doubles.

karne · Dec 30, 2016

Agreed that time and money are heavy factors, particularly for adults who have to work.

I think it should also be pointed out that OP explicitly said they had significant hip problems because of a car accident, which depending on the problem, may preclude jumping at all.

posha · Dec 31, 2016

I began taking private lessons at age 18 and was basically a beginner. ( I had only taught myself to do crossovers, waltz jump and a few single jumps by copying other skaters on public skate sessions).

I just turned 31 and became a Senior Gold Medalist in Moves-in- the-Field, and aim aiming to pass my Senior Free skate test in a month or so (just passed Junior Free this summer).

I currently have all double jumps including consistent double axel -and just landed triple loop last week for the first time. I do have a small body type and people get confused about my age, but I wanted to post to let people know it's possible to learn all this as an older beginner.

It's taken 12 years of hard work and many failures and a lot of$$$$$ to get this far. I get to train with elite skaters and I will tell you now-- Even the most talented have to pay their dues in time, commitment and finance. Nothing learned quickly is done well. And just because you are talented doesn't mean you will get a medal or become a champion. There is some luck, timing, and Providence involved in getting to the top along with everything else.

Can you become a professional skater? Most skaters don't. Doesn't matter your age, ability, or wealth.

Can you become a professional skater learning as an adult? No one has done this yet.

Don't let this information stop you! If you have a dream, go ahead and start where you are with what you have and let's see what you can do!!! A lot of things we thought were impossible became possible because someone was crazy enough to try.

Consult your doctor, find a good coach that you like, and GO SKATE! We are all a little crazy here

Am I too late to become professional?

briipop

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode

treesprite

jf12

gkelly

jf12

skatemomoftwo

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode

loopy

yuzushenko

yuzushenko

Seren

Wakabond Forever

treesprite

shiroKJ

Back to the forest you go.

concorde

skatemomoftwo

jf12

RoaringMice

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode

posha

Similar threads

Connect with us