There is no age, height, or weight requirement to skate. It is good exercise no matter what your age is. If you want to be competitive, most start young. But, I practice with many adult competitors.
But it seems that the judging maybe they shouldn't at least see the practices all week long. That can taint the way they go into the judging and the outlook of what's going to happen, instead of just watching those four minutes and judging on those minutes alone.
But after a few minutes of convincing myself that I really wanted to go - telling myself that I love skating and that my coach is there waiting for me - I would get up and go. And my mother would always get up and eat breakfast with me!
Even now, my husband Jerry, our son Matthew and I live only five minutes away from my parents home, and my brothers live about ten minutes away. It's been great having such a supportive family.
I get to see the different sides of skating now which involves not only competing, but entertainment.
I like to try all kinds of styles so it always challenges me and forces me to try to look different.
I took group lessons at a rink near my home. We first had to learn how to stand up on the ice wearing skates. Eventually we learned to move forward, but soon found out that it was not that easy to stop! So that was our next important lesson.