People often wonder what makes a “great” ice dance partner. Is it talent? Chemistry? Matching skills? The truth is, it’s all of those things – but there is also a lot beyond what is visible to the outside that goes into a partnership.
It starts with trust.
Trust has to be the basis of everything a team does together. In ice dance, you’re constantly relying on another person for timing, balance, and most importantly safety. Whether it’s a lift, a step sequence, a twizzle sequence, the trust needed to perform without hesitation is huge.
That kind of trust doesn’t happen overnight. It’s built over thousands of repetitions, ingrained cues, microscopic corrections, and learning how the other person moves to the point their movement becomes like muscle memory to you.
Communication is key.
Strong partnerships depend on honest communication, but more than anything it is the way you say things versus what you are saying. Instead of speaking in a “you” perspective, through which partners can place blame (“you were off timing”), it’s much more productive to speak from an “I” perspective—like “I felt a bit stuck in our pattern here” or “I’m having trouble finding the timing your using here.” It keeps things collaborative and focused on solving the issue together.
Respect above all.
Every partnership goes through difficult moments. Bad skates, disagreements, injuries, or just the natural stress of high-level competition. I believe that the growth moments in a partnership come from how you handle the adverse experiences.
I’ve learned how important that is firsthand especially during periods of injury, when both sides of a partnership must adjust, be patient, and find better ways to communicate through frustration and uncertainty. How you find mutual respect and support through the hard moments is how you build a relationship – experience is life’s greatest teacher, and the harder experiences are where we really learn who we are, whether as an individual or a team.
At the end of the day, a great ice dance partnership isn’t just two people who match each other’s skating style and physique. It’s two people who complement how each other thinks, how they work, and how they perform.
