Which of these is a reasonable deadline:
A. Inside 3 turns by June 1
B. All the singles before her next birthday
C. All my students have their axels by age 7
D. None of the above
If you answered D, you are correct.
But I have heard all the other three, and similar ones, and that's just in the past couple of weeks.
As I told one of these people, it's common for skaters to get stuck on specific skills, and deadlines like these are most notorious for being missed. If you, or your coach, are setting deadlines, make sure that they are in your skater's control, and not either misplaced psychology, or something for the coach's ego (that would be answer C, and yes, I know a coach who brags about that. Guess what happens to the kids who ruin her record.)
Ineffective psychology
It is good to set goals as a way both to motivate and to benchmark progress. But deadlines have a way of superseding the actual goal, which is the skill itself. Especially for a skater who is struggling with a skill, that looming deadline can make it worse, not better. "Land the axel" is a goal. "Land the axel by Christmas" for some skaters, is a burden and a threat. I'm not completely opposed to calendar goals, but they should be used cautiously, and not arbitrarily. For instance, "all the singles by your Xth birthday is not a reasonable goal for a 7 1/2 year old who is struggling with back 3 -turns and scissors her waltz jump (i.e. lands with her free foot behind her). It's arbitrary, focusing on the date rather than the quality of the skating.
Damaging psychology
Comparing your skater's progress to that of other skaters, or setting up the coach's needs as the primary motivation is a terrible thing to do, especially to a young child. It removes her from the equation; the important thing becomes not her progress, but how her lack of it reflects badly on others-- her mother, her coach, her program. This is how you make children hate skating.
More damaging psychology
"Your child can be a champion" is coachese for "I think you have a lot of money for lessons." "I want to make your child a champion, but she has to land her axel by age X" contains the unspoken threat "Or I will dump her" and is particularly egregious when coming from prestige coaches. This sort of thing sets my blood boiling.
Why is that skill so important?
There are skills that inform everything that comes after-- in particular edges, mohawk turns, inside 3s back spin, axel, all must be perfected in order for other skills to follow. But focusing in on a single skill and placing a deadline on it can obfuscate the real problem, especially with kids who have blasted through the basics (which, in my opinion, is another mistake a lot of parents and coaches make-- the idea is not to get through basics as fast as possible, but to get the basics as good as possible).
Difficulty with axels, for instance, can often be traced back to a lousy back spin which can be traced to lousy edges. A coach who is too focused on that "axel by age 7" for instance, may let the skater get away with a bad back spin. Watch a skater who is struggling with the axel enter a back spin sometime-- I'll lay even odds that she's spending too much time on the entry edge and then spinning on her inside edge for 5 or 6 rotations before "catching" the proper outside edge. Slow to get into proper backspin position? Axel is not going to happen, I don't care what your deadline is. Can't do a flip? I'll bet you anything that skater has a spinny salchow and can't check her turns (i.e. closes her free shoulder right after the turn). Rushing to the "sexy" skills on deadline often means cheating the critical basics.
Anyway, it's not your problem
If you're the parent, your child's skating deadlines have absolutely nothing to do with you. Let her/him talk about it if they want, but don't impose deadlines on them, or dwell on those deadlines if the coach has set them. You can't fix it, and you can't motivate or advise your skater into fixing it. Best to sit back and let your skater and the coach work through it.
There are other skills, you know
While axels, or flips, or three-turns, or whatever it is that's holding you up are important, there are so many skills to work on. If you're stuck on a skill, set a certain amount of time to work on it, per lesson or per week, and then move the bleep on. Spending an entire lesson being told, essentially, that you're a failure if you can't do this one skill is pretty much like signing a contract in the blood of virgins to keep you from getting that skill. Double loop giving you trouble? Do ten of them and then practice spirals.
Have you or your skater gotten stuck on a skill? What helped you work through it?
Posts
Not yet. I am concerned about that, however. My child is now working on the axel and from what Ive learned this takes a great deal of time to learn. Im worried because everything has come so easily to this point. If this doesn't happen sooner will she just get discouraged and not want to continue? That said I tend to worry about silly things. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've been having knee problems (landing leg, old lady knees, predictable...) which have forced me to think more creatively about practice time. Rather than feel "stuck" being unable to improve my jumps because I can't jump too many in any given practice session, I've really upped the amount of time I'm working on edges, jump set ups, moves, and other things that are about power and control. It will not surprise you to know that my jumps are getting better anyway, even though I'm working on them, as such, less.
ReplyDeleteMy point is: I do think that this is one useful way to think about what it means to be "stuck." Sometimes, it's about having ingrained the muscle memory on bad form. Working on a whole bunch of other, related, skills can help that muscle memory get corrected, make practice much more fun because more varied, AND lead to improvement on the "stuck" thing. (Of course, you have to be lucky enough to have a good, creative coach who thinks carefully enough about skills to offer you a dozen or so of these drills, exercises, etc., to do. I know I am lucky that way.)
My DD (9) pre-pre, FS5 has told me her goal is to land her axel this summer. She's got all her other singles, lutz is not perfect, back spin getting there, but hasn't started working on it yet. I'm afraid she'll be in for a disappointment... :(
ReplyDeleteThe good news is, she has set this goal for herself, rather than having it imposed on her.
DeleteIt takes my daughters a very long time to learn each spin. And some jumps, and some moves... In fact, very few things come easily. But they are always working on a lot of different things, so somewhere there is always some progress. I think this helps a lot not to get discouraged.
ReplyDeleteMaria, mom of 2 skaters: pre-pre and Free skate 2.
I want an axel before I'm dead.
ReplyDeleteToo much pressure?
;-)
My goal is to have my axel soon so that I can compete at Regionals in Open Juve. I've landed it inconsistently for the past year, and at this point it's purely psychological. I think doubles are my saving grace, though- I started working on double loop a month ago, and landed them (albiet slightly underrotated) a week later, and as of today now can do three doubles. Before I started working on the doubles, I was convinced that I just wasn't a good jumper, or that I was too old or something. But it turns out, axels just aren't my forté, and that's okay.
ReplyDeleteA peice of advice that I would give to someone who's struggling is to find something in skating (or even outside of it) that you can do well. So what if everyone else has their axel? You're still a better spinner/artist/chef than them. If those evil 3-turns aren't going well, try a scratch-spin instead, and come back to them later.
Another idea that is kind of related to the first is to not let your goal define you. Your self-worth should not be measured by a single goal. All that you do by defining yourself off of one goal is make yourself frustrated when you don't succeed at it.
This: "don't let your goal define you"
DeleteBest comment in the thread.
The 2s was a struggle after my skater came back from an injury. There was a mental part of the challenge. What helped was her coach said he did not care if she landed it- all that was important was the body position in jump. He cheered her on loudly when the jump was correct and encouraged her when her legs forgot to be crossed or other error. It took lots of cheers and encouragement and time and effort.~Meg
ReplyDeleteI have a trajectory I call the "higher quality of mistake." So rather than focusing on you did that wrong, or you haven't mastered this yet, I'll praise a skater who makes a "better" mistake, like a spin that still travels, but now it's traveling around a circle instead of in a straight line-- still a mistake, but a higher quality mistake! (hmmm, that's a great blog topic!)
DeleteMy goal was to get my axel before I turned 50, but I have 4 months left so I am not going to make it :-( boo!
ReplyDeleteI actually changed my axel goal to "off- ice axel" and did achieve that!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm 21 years old, and I want to have an axel by age 25 :)
DeleteMy DD landed her first axel a week before she turned 7. Next 3 months, she was going back and forth. Her coach told me that if she could slow herself down and think through the technique, she could land it very consistently. The problem was that she usually rushed into her jump. I did set a date for her to make the consistent axel happen. She was able to reach that in half the time.
ReplyDeleteMost 7-year-olds are not terribly analytical developmentally; difficult for a child that age to "think through" technique; they're all about feeling it.
Delete