Should More Singles Skaters Switch To Pairs?

do not forget that many skaters like ic3rabbit do both singles and dance/pairs competitively ...Paul Poirier, Duhamel, Seguin, many of the current juniors in Canada etc.... so it's not really switching but focusing at a later stage

I'd say that pairs is the hardest discipline to succeed in.

Yes, if you can succeed well enough to find a partner, learn all the pair skills, and stay together for at least a couple seasons, there will probably be less competition in your home country and therefore a higher likelihood of getting international assignments.

But there are so many obstacles to the above that most skaters who think they might like to try pairs will not make it that far.

Some of those obstacles include
Finding a partner who is a good match physically and that you get along with personally
Staying on the same page in terms of what your goals are and how to achieve them
Learning and mastering a bunch of challenging new skills
Actually enjoying those skills (e.g., some girls may find they don't actually like being lifted and thrown; either sex might find that they don't enjoy working as a team so much as working individually)
Staying uninjured (some pair moves are the most dangerous in the sport, for both partners)

Etc.

As fans we get to see the success stories. But we don't get to see the all the skaters who thought about trying pairs but either couldn't find a partner at all or couldn't make it work long enough or both stay healthy enough at the same time to compete publicly.

AshWagsFan said:

I may make myself look really dumb by saying this, but didn’t Savchenko/Massot get to compete in the olympics? Neither of them are from Germany!

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Ic3Rabbit mentioned Japanese lady and I was replying to him. The Japanese citizenship is very hard to obtain if you are not born into it, and if by any chance you get it, you have to give up any other citizenships you may have. Even the children who were born to one parent Japanese and the other parent a foreigner, and therefore have two citizenship from birth, can keep them only until certain age (18 or 21, don’t remember which) and then they have to give up one of them.

Savchenko and Massot competed for a country who gives citizenship and does not mind someone having several citizenship. Yuko Kavaguti, when she got Russian citizenship, had to give up her Japanese one.

When this thread start about whether it is worth changing discipline if in your field it is really crowded, it is really a problem only in a handful of countries. Russia, Japan, and maybe USA and Canada, but both USA and Canada the fields are not as packed that one would struggle to get through. So most relevant it is for Russian ladies, Japanese ladies and Japanese men. That’s why the discussion about Japanese ladies. In Russia, finding a partner for pairs is doable if one is a consistent with jumps. For ice dance, if one leaves it to late teenage years, it can be too late because the same age kids are already winning GPF and junior world championship. For Japanese lady or man, it can be hard to find a partner within their country, and their training rinks are much more crowded than in the Europe or USA/Canada. It can be 20-30 people on the ice. Doing pairs in that would be dangerous. So that means practising abroad, and someone needs to fund it...

hanca said:

Ic3Rabbit mentioned Japanese lady and I was replying to him. The Japanese citizenship is very hard to obtain if you are not born into it, and if by any chance you get it, you have to give up any other citizenships you may have. Even the children who were born to one parent Japanese and the other parent a foreigner, and therefore have two citizenship from birth, can keep them only until certain age (18 or 21, don’t remember which) and then they have to give up one of them.

Savchenko and Massot completed for a country who gives citizenship and does not mind someone having several citizenship. Yuko Kavaguti, when she got Russian citizenship, had to give up her Japanese one.

When this thread start about whether it is worth changing discipline if in your field it is really crowded, it is really a problem only in a handful of countries. Russia, Japan, and maybe USA and Canada, but both USA and Canada the fields are not as packed that one would struggle to get through. So most relevant it is for Russian ladies, Japanese ladies and Japanese men. That’s why the discussion about Japanese ladies. In Russia, finding a partner for pairs is doable if one is a consistent with jumps. For ice dance, if one leaves it to late teenage years, it can be too late because the same age kids are already winning GPF and junior world championship. For Japanese lady or man, it can be hard to find a partner within their country, and their training rinks are much more crowded than in the Europe or USA/Canada. It can be 20-30 people on the ice. Doing pairs in that would be dangerous. So that means practising abroad, and someone needs to fund it...

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Thanks for your useful perspective! Apart from Shingo/Utana, I also see online that some fans want Moa Iwano and some other junior girls to switch to Ice Dance - and yes they're aware of the requisites within the Japan Fed. With the skating skills they're taught from a young age, they can transition perhaps with a lower level of effort than elsewhere. It's definitely the male part of those teams that's usually a question mark.

AshWagsFan said:

I may make myself look really dumb by saying this, but didn’t Savchenko/Massot get to compete in the olympics? Neither of them are from Germany!

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Just remembered, another example. Do you remember Russian Tkachenko skating with US Tobias for Israel? They were not bad, but Tkachenko did not get citizenship so they eventually retired. When one is switching country, it is quite a risk because no one, neither the skater nor the federation, can influence whether the skater will get the citizenship or not. Even Massot got his one on several attempts. Apparently there is a language requirement and he kept failing that!

Skatesocs said:

Thanks for your useful perspective! Apart from Shingo/Utana, I also see online that some fans want Moa Iwano and some other junior girls to switch to Ice Dance - and yes they're aware of the requisites within the Japan Fed. With the skating skills they're taught from a young age, they can transition perhaps with a lower level of effort than elsewhere. It's definitely the male part of those teams that's usually a question mark.

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I think doing ice dance wouldn’t be as problematic for Japanese ladies as doing pairs. Japanese male skaters are not particularly tall and seem to be on the skinny side, which wouldn’t matter in ice dance as much, so finding a partner would not necessarily be so hard. In pairs, one needs also someone tall and really strong. It would be hard for someone as skinny as Hanyu to be lifting a girl, because the girl, even a light pair girl, may weight the same what he does. So it would need finding a well build muscular men, like Chinese Han. If I was a Japanese skating federation and wanted to do well in olympic team event, I would line the men skaters, pick up 5-10 with the best pair-suitable figure, line the ladies and pick up the ones who are the tiniest for their age group. Match them and send them to Russia for training. They may not like it, but if it was all expenses paid and they had one in five (or one in ten) chance to get to the Olympics, they may try their best. Based on probability, 2-3 from five (or five from ten) would work out and I would have a few pairs ready including having some spare, in case of injuries. But for individuals to find a decent pair partner in Japan, when there is no tradition in this, it can be very hard.

There are several reasons why Japan has been unsuccessful with pairs or ice dance

- Many young skaters consider switching to pairs or ice dance as giving up on jumps or some kind of easy way out because Japan has been so successful with singles. Even Kana Muramoto did so declining offers of try out, then realized how complex and difficult ice dance was after switching to ice dance. There are less male skaters switching to pairs or ice dance than female probably because boys are just too proud. Misato Komatsubara used to represent Italy, and now Yuka Orihara represents Finland.

- There are only a few ice dance coaches and probably no pairs coach. I've heard Yuko Kavaguchi wants to come home to Japan but there are no pair skaters to coach.

- Stupidity of the federation. There are many local competitions for single skaters, but practically no competitions for ice dance or pairs besides Sectionals and Nationals. South Korea, China and Australia try to use JGP and 4CC slots as many as possible to let their skaters have international experiences. But JSF does not send their skaters to international competitions unless they think the skaters are at an international level. They don't even give them a chance to get minimum TES at Senior B. Rikako Fukase and Aru Tateno finished 13th at Junior Worlds 2017 gaining 5 slots for JGP next season, but JSF used none.

I'm surprised tha the Japanese federation does not seem to have a long term strategy to develop the pairs discipline. The potential is huge for them. Why are they not trying to attract tall(ish) and strong young Japanese male skaters ? In my opinion they should work on finding these guys... because they are out there. Japan will improve so much their result in the team competitions with better pairs...

hanca said:

Ic3Rabbit mentioned Japanese lady and I was replying to him. The Japanese citizenship is very hard to obtain if you are not born into it, and if by any chance you get it, you have to give up any other citizenships you may have. Even the children who were born to one parent Japanese and the other parent a foreigner, and therefore have two citizenship from birth, can keep them only until certain age (18 or 21, don’t remember which) and then they have to give up one of them.

Savchenko and Massot competed for a country who gives citizenship and does not mind someone having several citizenship. Yuko Kavaguti, when she got Russian citizenship, had to give up her Japanese one.

When this thread start about whether it is worth changing discipline if in your field it is really crowded, it is really a problem only in a handful of countries. Russia, Japan, and maybe USA and Canada, but both USA and Canada the fields are not as packed that one would struggle to get through. So most relevant it is for Russian ladies, Japanese ladies and Japanese men. That’s why the discussion about Japanese ladies. In Russia, finding a partner for pairs is doable if one is a consistent with jumps. For ice dance, if one leaves it to late teenage years, it can be too late because the same age kids are already winning GPF and junior world championship. For Japanese lady or man, it can be hard to find a partner within their country, and their training rinks are much more crowded than in the Europe or USA/Canada. It can be 20-30 people on the ice. Doing pairs in that would be dangerous. So that means practising abroad, and someone needs to fund it...

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hanca said:

I think doing ice dance wouldn’t be as problematic for Japanese ladies as doing pairs. Japanese male skaters are not particularly tall and seem to be on the skinny side, which wouldn’t matter in ice dance as much, so finding a partner would not necessarily be so hard. In pairs, one needs also someone tall and really strong. It would be hard for someone as skinny as Hanyu to be lifting a girl, because the girl, even a light pair girl, may weight the same what he does. So it would need finding a well build muscular men, like Chinese Han. If I was a Japanese skating federation and wanted to do well in olympic team event, I would line the men skaters, pick up 5-10 with the best pair-suitable figure, line the ladies and pick up the ones who are the tiniest for their age group. Match them and send them to Russia for training. They may not like it, but if it was all expenses paid and they had one in five (or one in ten) chance to get to the Olympics, they may try their best. Based on probability, 2-3 from five (or five from ten) would work out and I would have a few pairs ready including having some spare, in case of injuries. But for individuals to find a decent pair partner in Japan, when there is no tradition in this, it can be very hard.

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First of all, I'm a she. Second of all, it's just as hard to find a partner for ice dance in North America. Many of us had to find a partner from another country to compete at the elite level, it's especially difficult to find male ice dancers.
Lastly, do not underestimate the strength and height that many of the male ice dancers have. Our lifts etc are no joke and take much strength on part of both partners, many of the men are quite fit and muscular as are the ladies.

Russia seems like the only country in the world, where the pairs field is so deep and so strong, that a skater could transition successfully from singles, and find that, despite being world class in the discipline, she was still not able to make the national team.

I have always thought the Pairs discipline is the most difficult of all. You've got to do the singles elements (jumps, spins) synchronised - perhaps not the most difficult ones but still, triple jumps are expected, and then there's the pairs elements where couples really have to trust each other - throw (assisted) jumps (don't forget: both a triple and quad throw demands a lot from any lady and for the man too though in a different way), twist lift, above the head lifts, and so on. You have to be able to do dance steps too (though any twizzles don't have to be as picture perfect as in ID). And Dance in my view is so different from either Single's or Pairs that 'switching' definitely is not for everyone. For many individuals it's got to be terribly difficult to switch over from a sport in which everything is attributed to you only to a discipline where edgework, synchronised twizzles and turns and intricate lifts in a togetherness with someone else will be awfully complex. True, there are of course examples where it worked well. And, I admit to admiring Ic3rabbit a lot in being able to do both singles and ID simultaneously (wow, just wow). There are also examples the other way round: Kristi Yamaguchi and Rudy Galindo were quite a successful Pairs team but Kristi got to be Olympic Champion in Singles, while Rudy got himself a bronze medal at Worlds some years later.

So, I don't know if more singles skaters should make the switch to one of the couple disciplines. For some it could be worthwhile trying out, for others it would maybe be a disaster because of the difficulty in accepting the necessary mutual interdependance (and of course trust). With regard to needing big, muscular men in pairs and tiny, petite women: neither Cong Han nor Yin Yang fit this particular bill, while Ashley Cain doesn't fit it on the women's side either. A big differential in height and weight might make it easier in Pairs but it definitely is possible to do well without it.

Ic3Rabbit said:

First of all, I'm a she. Second of all, it's just as hard to find a partner for ice dance in North America. Many of us had to find a partner from another country to compete at the elite level, it's especially difficult to find male ice dancers.
Lastly, do not underestimate the strength and height that many of the male ice dancers have. Our lifts etc are no joke and take much strength on part of both partners, many of the men are quite fit and muscular as are the ladies.

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Ok, I will reply with the same style as you do.
Firstly, I don’t really care who you are.
Secondly, it may be as hard to find a partner in North America, but your choice is still better than in Japan.
And thirdly, I don’t underestimate the strength male ice dancers have, but there is still difference between pair lifts and ice dance lifts. Pair lifts are about some serious strength. You don’t lift someone over your head in your hands without being strong enough. Ice dance lifts do need some strength, but many of them are more about balance than about brute strength of the male. For example, Virtue’s lift the goose - she is standing on Moir’s thigh, so it is his leg and his back supporting her weight, he doesn’t have to carry her over head in his arms. There are plenty of other lifts based on counterbalance. I have seen a seventy year old male ice dancer doing happily ice dance lifts, but there was no chance he would be able to left a ten year old girl over his head!

pesto said:

Russia seems like the only country in the world, where the pairs field is so deep and so strong, that a skater could transition successfully from singles, and find that, despite being world class in the discipline, she was still not able to make the national team.

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At this moment, the pair field in Russia is not as full as the ladies. Tarasova-Morozov has had their ups and downs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they finished after the Olympics. Boikova-Kozlovski look very strong at the moment, but the remaining spots are up for grab. Mishina-Galliamov and Pavliuschenko-Khodykin are doing fine, but not great. They can be beaten if someone really strong came. And last two pairs on their national team are just only coming to seniors - Panfilova-Rylov urgently need triples, and Pepeleva-Pleshkov managed only one decent competition last season. So at this moment, it is still worth switching because the chances in pairs are better than in ladies.

I absolutely adore pairs discipline, but I see a lot of difference between pairs who are excellent and who are not. Plus,I think it takes a rare male skater who can do what a male partner does in pairs. So does the lady. I remember reading the Russians’ interviews this year, and I gathered that they want to put them in a pair as early as possible. And in two cases, the ladies didn’t initially want to switch to pairs, Boykova and Pavlyuchenko... but the coaches who saw potential for success insisted (as far as I gathered from the interviews).

Fanou said:

I'm surprised tha the Japanese federation does not seem to have a long term strategy to develop the pairs discipline. The potential is huge for them. Why are they not trying to attract tall(ish) and strong young Japonese male skaters ? In my opinion they should work on finding these guys... because they are out there. Japan will improve so much their result in the team competitions with better pairs...

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Ultimately, I think it boils down to the fact that there aren't any successful dance or pair teams from Japan to inspire the young athletes to do those disciplines. Their women (Shizuka, Mao, Midori) and men (Yuzuru, Daisuke T) have made it to the top spot in major events and are role models for skaters there.

drivingmissdaisy said:

Ultimately, I think it boils down to the fact that there aren't any successful dance or pair teams from Japan to inspire the young athletes to do those disciplines. Their women (Shizuka, Mao, Midori) and men (Yuzuru, Daisuke T) have made it to the top spot in major events and are role models for skaters there.

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I don’t think that’s the whole story. In some other countries there is no successful single skater/pair/ice dance team and yet someone manages to get to the top. Yu-na Kim... Fernandes... I think the Japanese skating federation just doesn’t do enough to support pair and ice dance. They were willing to pay for Mao Asada to pay to train abroad, Takahashi, Hanyu and other skaters too. They could create a few pairs and send them to China or Russia. I understand that ice rinks in Japan are overcrowded and they don’t have the specialists to coach pairs and ice dance very well, so sending them abroad seems to be the most logical thing.

I tell you what, I'd like to interview some skaters who were successful singles who became successful in pairs. I wonder if having to worry about the mood and free time of my partner would get to me before we became successful. When I was dancing professionally, there were times when my partner and I did not get along. I had one partner who I only saw on stage even though we were on tour together. Unless there is a real chemistry, I'd imagine it's quite difficult to go from singles to pairs.

Many, many, many years ago, I thought about going from singles to pairs. Then I tried it. Ouch. I don't think there's any way of describing the terror or pain involved in pair skating - at least from a female perspective - unless you've tried it. I found it quite terrifying. There were parts that were exhilarating, until I landed and then I found it quite hard not to cry. Honestly, I'd lie in bed at night sobbing from the pain in my landing leg. Landing big jumps is one thing, landing from being literally hurled across the rink by a big brute with a lot more strength, creating more height and velocity that you could make by your own efforts - well, it's not to be sniffed at. Personally, whenever I hear somebody say, "Have you considered pairs?" I feel like screaming, "Noooooooooooo! Don't do it!"

Never mind, "Why don't more single skaters consider switching to pairs?" I'm always surprised when anybody gets through the first throws and doesn't take up tennis instead. I'm glad people do it, obviously, because it's a stunning discipline but... Yeah. No. Nope. Hell, no. Pass the Valium, I'm having flashbacks.

Pairs is HARD. I did it for a hot minute, and it takes dedication, bravery... and money. The trust and chemistry in a partnership can be a toss up (no pun intended).

I'd also think that while in the past it might be beneficial for pairs skaters to have switched from singles, these days it's about more than just "nailing the side-by-side jumps". In the past, that was the money element, but now the other elements are much more intricate and require better pairs fundamentals. A good triple twist for example is worth much more than a good SBS 3T.

While pairs doesn't adequately award high risk elements like quad throws, I do have to give it credit for balancing out the value of other elements like lifts, spins and death spirals which were often viewed as "side dishes" to the SBS jumps.

Quite a few posters pointed out that in the Japanese case it's also a height thing and I think that is unfair. Of course it is traditionally advantageous for the male partner to be tall.

Saying that it is a requirement however is totally ignoring the fact that the male partner of one of the best pair teams currently in existence is barely 5'7". In addition, not every Japanese man is short.

Japan doesn't have a pairs 'tradition' so to speak. As a nation and federation they are simply not that interested (currently) in the discipline. That's why you don't see many Japanese pairs, whilst you do see plenty in China for example. Even if youngsters in Japan switched to pairs, they'd struggle getting the right support. You can't just do a switcheroo.