How many rehearsal hours go into a top tier synchro skating routine?

[Query]

I was looking at an online video of a (land dance) precision dance team performance, and was thinking about the number of hours it must have taken to get them all to move together so well. (I might be completely wrong, but it wouldn't have surprised me if they spent 1000 hours or more together rehearsing for a 2 minute performance.)

But ice rink time is more expensive than typical dance floor time, and is in scarcer supply, though perhaps some rehearsal time could be off-ice. How many joint rehearsal hours do you think goes into a top tier (e.g., Olympics or Worlds) Synchro routine?

Or into a professional level ice theater routine?

 

[Query]

It finally occurred to me that a lot of dance training is unison movement. So maybe they had trained that sort of thing for years, for other routines, and they didn't really spend 1000 hours or whatever it took just for the two minute performance. (The precision dance routine I was talking about was Mayyias' semifinal level competition for America's Got Talent TV show. Remarkable synchrony.)

But I still wonder - how many hours of rehearsal time do typical synchronized skating teams, and ice theater teams, spend on preparing each routine?

 

[amb]

How many joint rehearsal hours do you think goes into a top tier (e.g., Olympics or Worlds) Synchro routine?

I'm not a synchro skater but the answer I got on that from a Haydenette (top-tier US synchro team) was 4x / week, sometimes more. At two hours per practice figure they have at least several hundred hours on the ice together just on this season's program, and you can assume any Haydenette has been in one of the junior/developmental teams for years so has probably has thousands of hours on the ice with many of the same skaters.

I share a rink with them sometimes and see bits of their practices as the season progresses, and watching a program come together is amazing to watch. Perfection (or close to it) is a heck of a lot of work.

 

[Query]

I looked at the Haydenettes Zagreb 2024 free skate competition performance, on Youtube.

Their unison movements are extremely uniform by figure skating standards. It's extremely impressive. But I think not quite as uniform as top tier precision (land) dance teams - though I'm not an expert.

That might be partly because it is harder to precisely control motion on the ice than on a lower friction surface. But I suspect that a really top tier precision (land) dance team puts in at least 20-40 hours/week. In part because dance studio time is a lot easier and cheaper to get than well groomed skating rink time.

Also, precision dance teams don't need to cover as large a surface as figure skating teams should, so they aren't moving as fast, and can see each others' positions better. And because they are closer together, there is less of a potential problem due to the finite speed of sound coordinating their synchrony.

I believe the land dance community has more dancers to draw from than the figure skating community - because there are a lot more land dancers than figure skaters. So they can be more selective. And it might be easier to find local groups who can travel to the same places to rehearse, because the higher population density means many of them don't need to travel as far to get together.

But I might be wrong about all these things.