Hi all. So, I’m a late in life skater and back in April, I fell really hard doing crossovers (left over right). I didn’t go to the doctor for 2 months thinking it would heal itself, but when I did, I ended up having a hairline fracture of my patella and torn meniscus. So, I did PT and am back to skating. Except, when I do left over right crossovers, my legs literally tremble. I can do a few, and I push myself and it’s awful. The coaches are super supportive. I even got my husband to enroll with me (he’s a lifelong hockey player and while they offered him the chance to move up, he’s sticking with me). I got knee pads now and all that, but what advice does anyone have for someone who has a mental block?

Just learned the Ann Arbor Ice Cube Pure Hockey has stopped sharpening figure skates. Someone messed up a pair and they stopped ever since. Anyone know other places in the area? I know theres Play it again but was told they don’t know how to sharpen figure skates well there?

So, this is one part rant, one part cautionary tale, and one part has-this-happened-to-others.

I started figure skating at 36 as a fun thing to do with my niece. She has obviously far outpaced me by now (I am 42), but we still both take lessons, and she wants me to do doubles skating with her.

Here's the problem: we're working on taking the first skating test, and I have begun to dread spending time on the ice. I can NOT to backward outside edges to save my soul. No, seriously, I can't do them. I've been working on them for pushing 5 years now. I have tried everything. Every. Thing.

I have tried backward pumps and lifting a foot on repeat. I have tried practicing on the boards. I have tried using a walker to balance myself. I have tried skating them in the waltz position with my coach practically holding me up. I've tried gliding backward on two feet, finding the edge, and picking a foot up (either I fall onto my inside edge after a second or I tip over). I've worked with three different coaches. I've put in a lot of time, on and off the ice. I'm just not able to do the blasted things.

Two weeks ago, my coach was yet again trying to get me to do backward outside edges. She told me that I had a lot more space to lean in than I thought, and that I needed to trust that edge. I told her, respectfully, I do not think that is the case. I am a terrible skater, but I was a pretty good dancer, and I know when my body isn't balanced.

She insisted that I could do it - I needed to lean against the edge and trust it. Well, I did what I usually do with coaches: I believed her. She's the expert. I'm probably just being a pansy. Sometimes, you really do just need to suck it up and do what they say.

You can probably guess what happened. It was just quick reflexes on my part that stopped me from breaking a hip. I tried to lean in like she said I should, but as soon as I pushed slightly past where I'd been, I tipped over hip-first. She was pretty shocked and started asking about potentially having the blade moved out some because it might be a physical issue more so than a technical one.

I have a similar issue with crossovers, though that's less biology than bad muscle memory. My front crossovers are terrible. I can do them slowly, but my dance background really works against me. Any time you cross over in the styles of dance that I did, you want to do it with turnout - but when you cross over in skating, it has to be with the foot slightly inverted. I have spent probably a hundred two hour sessions just doing crossovers, and there is roughly zero sign of improvement.

This puts me at a bit of an impasse. The way I understand things, without forward crossovers, there really is no 'moving on' in ice dancing, and without a backward edge, there really is no moving on in figure skating. I think I need to either master these moves somehow, or give up entirely - but I don't want to keep fruitlessly trying and failing to do the same moves for the rest of my skating career if it really is hopeless. Has anyone else spent literal years stuck here, or is it just me? And if so, did you move past it, or did you finally hang the skates up?

Hola chicos, soy primeriza patinando, ya patino y toda la cosa el punto es que hay algunas veces que los patinadores profesionales dejan grietas en el hielo, o líneas muy marcadas el punto es que siempre que llego a una parte del hielo que las tiene muyyy marcadas me asusto y automáticamente mi cuerpo se pone en modo defensa, creen que eso ya es mental o si afecta como patinas?