People who compete in ISI and USFS(A)

[Query]

There have been discussions in these forums about whether U.S. skaters should join and compete within ISI or USFS (sometimes called USFSA). I think the dominant conclusion has been that ISI is more recreational and fun, but USFS is more appropriate to serious competitors.

Do some of you compete in both?

ISI's Recreational Ice Skating magazine mentions some Synchro teams that compete in both. I'm not a competitive skater, but perhaps this makes sense for serious skaters who do, if both clubs are present in their area. There is a small number of competitions that skaters can compete in within one organization, in any given geographic area. This gives them a chance for more practice at competing. I think ISI competitions may be a bit cheaper than USFS competitions.

(For skaters who need to join clubs to get enough ice time, joining multiple clubs, even multiple chapters at different rinks, often makes sense.)

Of course, it is a nuisance for their coaches, who would have to join and be trained for and certified by both organizations.

[cbskater]

I had previously competed only USFS because my home rink is USFS. This was also all in the Basic skills levels. I did my first away competition in May at State games where it doesn't matter whether you are an ISI or USFS member.
I will be doing my first ISI competition in 2 weeks when I go to NJ for the Adult championships. In every other competition that I have done I either skated against one person or no one. I am really looking forward to an all adult competition & competing against more people.
I don't care which organization is running the competition, I just prefer to have more adults participating in it.
My coach is certified in both organizations, so that's not a problem. The other rink in our town is ISI & she regularly has her skaters compete there.

[littlerain]

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts too!

[Skittl1321]

I competed both a few years ago when I was competing.

I did ISI for synchro, and whenever there was a local ISI competition (which was maybe twice in four years?).  I tested USFS with the hopes of going to nationals, and would occasionally compete in local USFS competitions too.  However, in general- USFS competitions, even close by, where way too expensive.  I didn't do more than 1 or 2 of them a year. 

ISI made competing a lot more affordable, but I didn't like the restrictions they had on program elements- I've heard they've freed it up a bit though.

[Shelley]

I have competed in both for the past two years, as have several other skaters from my rink.
My area has several competitions for both ISI and USFS. ISI's new open levels have made it easy to use the same freestyle program for both with only minor changes, which I believe was one of the goals for creating them. For example, last year I skated a program in Open Silver for a few ISI competitions and then only had to switch around some jumps to make it ready for silver for my rink's USFS competition.  I agree that ISI is much more affordable which is why I only do one USFS competition a year. But I've also found that USFS competitions tend to draw more adults, though that may just be for my area.
I'm also on a production team that last year competed only in ISI but this year is planning to do a USFS competition as well. I don't know how smooth a transition that will be but I expect it will be more complicated than switching a freestyle program was.