Will (15) and Christina (10) Chitwood after winning Southwestern Regionals in Intemediate Pairs, 2000.
Confidence is a wonderful character trait to have in life. Confidence helps you do well in an interview, do well in school or college, meet more people, do better in sports … in general, confidence helps you perform more successfully.
Confidence is an important character trait to develop at a young age. If parents, teachers, and coaches help children develop confidence, they will turn out to be much more confident adults.
Benefits of Competing in Figure Skating
Healthy competition is a fantastic way to develop confidence in children and teenagers. Ice skating in particular is a wonderful sport to help children and teenagers develop confidence.
If you’re in singles, skating helps give you confidence in yourself as an individual. If you’re a pairs-, dance-, or synchronized skater, it helps you develop confidence in yourself as well as develops the ability to work with a team member or members.
Ice skating in any discipline helps to improve posture. Posture plays a huge part in confidence because you appear more confident when you have good posture. At the same time, you feel more confident with good posture because you’re standing taller. Also, ice skating helps your health and fitness which naturally gives you more confidence. Strength, flexibility, and endurance are gained through ice skating.
Competing is especially helpful because when you compete, you’re under pressure. If you perform well, it gives you confidence. If you get the added bonus of a good placement, that gives you confidence. The more competitions you do, the more confident you become in yourself and your ability.
Later on in life, you can look back and say, “If I competed in ice skating with that big of an audience, then I can do this.” Even if your performance isn’t your best one, you can still be confident in the fact that you are able to go out and skate in front of large audiences.
More about Figure Skating and Confidence
My mom has posts at Raising Figure Skaters about how my brother and I gained self-confidence from competitive skating:
Self-Confidence Makes Everything Better
Success after Competitive Skating Isn’t Just Luck
Confidence is also a common theme in this video with lots of skaters answering the question, “What’s so great about figure skating?”
Have fun competing! 
