I once met a lady - looked about 30, but I have a lot of trouble estimating the ages of athletic ladies. I don't know her name.
She was practicing triple axels - and this was when that was the hardest jump the best ladies were doing. She said she'd been skating for 10 months.
I asked her if she had done other sports, she said she had never gone out for a sport. By which I guess she meant she had never been a part of a school sports team.
But she was using a very narrow definition of "sport". She said Ballet was an art, not a sport. And that skating was only a sport, not an art. (Which apparently didn't prevent her from participating in a mere "sport" - and taking lessons from a former Olympic gold medalist freestyle skater.)
But she had danced with the Canadian National Ballet for 20 years. I don't know if she had been a prima. She said some things that implied she had used Ballet triple jumps while dancing principle roles. Which implies she was probably quite a bit better than the average ballerina at most local dance schools.)
She did claim that jumping was completely different in Ballet and Figure Skating, and that she had to start all over learning jumps. (She mostly mentioned timing, in terms of when the torso rotation starts, but also a matter of learning to glide through jumps rather than jump from one standing position from another. She didn't even mention that Ballet jumps included spots. She considered Ballet technique more difficult.) But she couldn't have done professional Ballet without balance, strength, an unusually good ability to imitate movement, and an extremely competitive personality.
She also said that she had never had a serious injury dancing, which other dancers have told me is extremely unusual. But maybe it is one of the selection criteria for dancing principle roles in a major league dance troupe?
Likewise, I used to know an adult gymnastics coach, late 20s or early 30s, who was doing double jumps on ice after maybe a year or less, using rental skates (but he made a point of always using the same rental skate pair).
I had a coach (Caitlin Obremski) who switched from freestyle, to pairs, and then to ice dance, in pursuit of Olympic dreams. I'm sure she started skating early, but does switching skating disciplines count as starting late? If I remember right, she told me she tested and passed the first 12 ice dances the first time she tested ice dance. She had Olympic dreams, and I think she and her dance partner once took 2nd place at US junior championships, and once took either 4th or 7th place (I don't remember) at a US senior championship, but may have that wrong.
I knew a speed skater (Don Giese) who I think started inline and ice speed skating as an adult. He held some of the "masters" category (which I think means age 25 and above) US speed skating records in both for a fair number of years. (He also coached speed, figure and hockey skating, and ran a pro shop that I used.)
I saw some remarkable progress among some whitewater boaters too. Like a young kid - maybe 10 or 12 - who did a kayak roll on his first attempt. (I wonder if he had diving, martial arts or gymnastics experience, all of which I was told involve some of the same movements.) (I was also really impressed by how clearly his coach taught it too.) I saw an adult do a kayak roll on his first attempt too, in his first time in a kayak - but I think he had already done canoe rolls, and may have been a member of the US National canoe team. And I saw a number of other-sport athletes-turned-newbie-kayakers go from no whitewater boating experience to teaching, for a paddling school that expected instructors to paddle over the Great Falls of the Potomac (class 5 whitewater), in less than a year.
I know some athletes who are trying to get into a Navy Seal officer training program. (The overwhelming majority of the people who try fail.) One of them took off from work for over a year (I think he said 1.5 years) to train. He had once been a division 1 school track and field athlete, then had worked in an academic field until his late 20s. He has recently been accepted into the next step - i.e., he will go into the Navy Seal officer training program. Which doesn't necessarily mean he will succeed in becoming an officer. If he fails (and he believes he won't), he will have to join the Seals as an "enlisted" member, not an officer, which he doesn't want. He spends most of his weekdays training hard. They incidentally mostly won't accept anyone who has ever had a serious injury.
I used to know a former Navy seal who retired, got into whitewater boating, and became a whitewater boating and rafting instructor.
So, some very athletic people are able to carry over some of their athletic training and skills from one athletic activity to another much more quickly than the average adult newbie skater who starts from nothing. Good genes, good prior relevant training, good coaching, dedication, etc., can do wonders.
But I'm not like any of these people.
I was a complete nerd when young, and still have trouble doing basic athletic skills.
Sigh.
and which was she used to with previous partners), and other technical points that may need to be worked on before they gel as a pair "two skating as one". Then there's work ethic, the attitude towards practice and competition, and music preferences.... if you're lucky and are compatible, and the technical match is already there from the start, then progress will be faster than another pair who may be great down the line but had to go through a longer adjustment period.
