I had been skating recreationally with a friend a few times from the age of 9 (funnily enough at the rink where we now skate) but never got past clinging to the boards. Then I did skating for school sport for a year before the school canned it, but by that time the 1984 Winter Olympics had been on TV and many Australians were inspired by Torvill and Dean. At age 13, one of my school friends and I decided to take group classes. Got through what was then the ISIAustralia Learn to Skate which was based on the US ISI levels (Pre-Alpha thru Delta). Part way through Delta the new Aussie Skate syllabus was introduced and I got up to passing Figure 1, Ballet 1 and Jump 1 (bunny hop, tap toe, 3 jump). I was a week off taking the Ballet 2 and Jump 2 (half flip, ballet jump, toe loop) tests when the rink closed down through lack of money. There were rumours of it reopening for several months, but it never did. There were only two other rinks in the Sydney area at the time, and neither was easily accessible by public transport from where I lived (annoyingly, nowadays there's a train station right outside one of them), so I was pretty much forced to stop taking classes, and only skated recreationally once in a while for the next several years.
Fast forward about twenty years, and my husband and I, now living in the UK, were looking for a sport we could do together. I'd taken him skating a couple of times in Sydney before we were married but the rental skates hurt his feet and I'd ended up with a sore arm holding him up. Anyway, he bought himself some skates whilst on a business trip to the US, and when he got back we went to one of the seasonal Christmas rinks, at Hampton Court Palace. When I was completely unable to teach him swizzles I suggested he take a few lessons to learn the basics (n.b. coach also had trouble with those swizzles, so it wasn't just me!). Then I started taking private lessons as well, for the first time, aiming to get back to the point where I'd been when I stopped at 16 (never quite got back to that point though). Husband started to learn ice dance on one of his US trips, and taught me Dutch Waltz. Then a dance coach started teaching at our rink and we started learning ice dance together. Anyway, he's been skating ever since. I took a break for about 18 months before we came home to Australia, as I was tired of making no progress because I could only get to the rink once a week.
Since coming back to Sydney, I've started lessons again, and now that I can skate three times a week, and have found some quiet sessions, have made a huge amount of progress, learning dances I'd never have dreamed of being able to do two years ago. So now I keep going because I can see some progress and I reallly enjoy my lessons. I struggle a lot with confidence issues, but I'm kind of stubborn, and don't like to let something beat me, so I will slog away as long as I'm enjoying myself.