Ain't Misbehavin'

As far as I'm concerned there are no bad kids, there are only mismatched (I won't say bad) teachers.

Any group of children, even one with no behavior issues, is hard to manage and control. As I mentioned in a previous post, a 16 to 1 student teacher ratio is not unheard of in a skating class, and there are no chairs to put them in so they stand still. On skates, you can move and a lot of kids really really want to.

Move.

Constantly.

Especially boys.

If you luck into a Learn to Skate level class with a lot of sweet girls who stand and listen when you speak, hooray. It does happen, but it's pretty rare.

More common are classes where about half to 2/3s are kids who can focus and stand still even on the ice. The rest of the kids will be what I call noodles (no muscle control), exploding brains (Must. Say. All. Words. Constantly.) and astronauts-- they're in outer space. You have to radio them to get their attention. "Earth to Suzy! Come in Suzy!"

I recently watched a coach explain at length how to create beautiful stroking using the entire blade and stretching then pointing the toe to create power, grace and line. It was a brilliant description of the art of stroking.

Delivered in monotone, with no eye contact, to a group of 8 year olds.

Who all wanted to just watch the tots next door playing some sort of boisterous and obviously engaging game.

I've seen sweet young coaches make kids stand still for 5 or 6 minutes while taking attendance. Five or six minutes is an eternity in a skating class, especially for a child with what I call the "exploding brain"-- they cannot stand still. Cannot. Not "will not." Not "don't want to." They Cannot Stand Still.

Don't make them. Let them move. Give them something to do that isn't "oka-ay. Let's do one foot glides. Oka-ay. Let's do that again. Now lets do swizzles! I'm not going to offer any specific advice for those of you struggling with this, we're just going to keep going back and forth until Xan claws her eyeballs out!"

Like the trope says, you don't teach the skating class you wish you had, you teach the skating class you get. If you get one with an astronaut, two noodles, an exploding brain and a kid with oppositional defiant disorder, you better have strategies ready to keep that class engaging for all of them.

Having fun in beginning skating

Ask any skater what they love about skating and they won't give you a skill. Nobody skates because they like brackets, or axels, or spirals.

Skaters like speed.

They like the wind in their hair.

They best thing a coach can do for beginning skaters isn't teaching them how to swizzle or balance. It's just letting them skate.

I sometimes tell beginners' parents to skip the first year of lessons. Just buy your child  pair of skates and bring them to public once a week for a year. It will cost about the same.  If you really don't feel like they'll do anything without instruction, then hire one of the rink rats to babysit on the ice every Sunday afternoon. Just let the kid have fun.

But you can have lots of fun in class too, as long as your coach isn't asleep at the switch, or consider themselves too good for Pre Alpha (and therefore checked out of being an engaging coach).

Back and forth
The worst thing you can see in a beginning skating class is the kids just skating back and forth and back and forth and back and forth doing the same thing over and over. Especially in a class with really slow or really fast kids, just putting the kids on a circle instantly makes it easier to manage and more interesting. Or just switch it up-- sometimes back and forth, sometimes circles.

Repetition
I'm not saying the kids don't need to drill. They really do.  But drills don't need to be boring. Have them count how long they glide on one foot, and let them count super fast. Make them start their one foot glide as a specific marker (this is very challenging for beginners and requires a lot of concentration, which also keeps the boredom at bay). Offer a challenge: have them see how many of a given skill they can do--how many dips, how many swizzles in a row, how many 5-second glides, or anything else you can think of.

Pattern
Even the beginningest beginner knows more than one skill. So make up a pattern that combines several skills. And if you only have three skills, or the skater moves so slowly that the pattern only takes them a couple of feet, add a clap, or a stomp, or  jazz hands.

Hard stuff
There are all sorts of higher level skills that lower level skaters can learn. Pre Alpha/Basic 1-3 skaters can do pivots and spins and two-foot turns. Alphas/Basic 4 can do lunges and backward dips; betas/Basic 5 can do bunny hops, gammas/Basic 6 can do shoot-the-duck and backwards two foot turns. The coach needs to know the critical element that makes a skill possible. If you can do a one-foot glide, you can do a modified lunge. If you can swizzle, you can pivot. If you can march, you can spin. (This is one area where Basic Skills gets it right-- it puts choreographic skills in the curriculum, instead of relying on the coach to not be boring, for instance, one-foot spins in Basic 5.)

So here's the coach's oath: First, do not bore. (yourself, or anybody else)

It doesn't have to be boring

There is nothing worse in the day of a figure skating coach than 15 minutes before the end of a Pre Alpha class.

More than any other level, Pre-alpha (Snowplow Sam 4, Basic 1) is going to have wildly divergent speeds and engagement from the students.

Once they get into the true Learn-to-Skate levels, most kids can at least "keep up"-- that is, move at the same speed as everyone else.  By the time they get into low freestyle, they've self-selected to just kids who are really motivated to skate.

But at Pre Alpha there are days when you just know you shouldn't check the clock because you have another 15 minutes of trying to get the whole class across the ice together.

As far as I can tell, it's worse for the kids.

They get this glazed look.

They start looking wistfully at the Beta class next door that seem to be having so much fun.

They have to go to the bathroom, or give their hat to their mom.

They're tired.

And the classic clue that you are being boring: "how much longer?"

Here's the thing-- if coach is bored (boring), the kids are bored.

And why do that to yourself?  There is simply no reason to run a boring class. Every time I'm helping in a class with a teacher whose lesson plan is "okay one foot glide, right foot. Okay, let's do it again. and again. Couple more times! Now let's do the other foot." For. Forty. Minutes.

I want to poke my eyes out with a skate.

Put the kids on a circle. Have a contest. Make up a pattern. Play a game. Do a challenge. Sing a freaking song.  Make up a program.

It's not only boring to the kids. It's boring to you-- if you're boring them you're also boring yourself.  Being boring, or disengaged, or unimaginative is not going to make Pre Alpha class go away. So you might as well have fun.

Have you had a boring coach? What has a coach done with basic skating that made it interesting?

Comparing skaters

The International Skating Union Judging System, or IJS, was instituted to attempt two goals: first, to reduce the appearance of collusion and, yes, cheating, among the judges,  and second, to reduce subjective measures of judging as much as possible.

In other words, they're trying not so much to stop comparing apples to oranges, as to find the commonalities between apples and oranges and to judge those objectively.

One of the most common parent conversations at skating practices goes like this:

Parent A: I see Mary has her double lutz.
Parent B: Yes, but look at those legs. Of course she's landing that jump, whoever saw thighs like that on an 8 year old.
Parent C: Her folks can afford four lessons a week, too. If I had that kind of money, Johnny would have his lutz and then some.

In other words, we're looking at all those apples and attributing their success to the fact that some of them are actually oranges.

Lots of factors go into success as a skater.  You can't really compare them, which was the point of IJS-- ranking skaters to choose a winner was inherently unfair. How in the world do you compare Michelle Kwan and Surya Bonaly, two brilliant skaters with nothing but the framework in common.

But compare them we will. We'll go ahead and ascribe positive motivations to the people that came up with the IJS, and try to figure out how to compare our own apples and oranges, from the stands, without the catty comments (okay, maybe a few catty comments).

Age
Age is less a factor than you might think in actual skating ability, as anyone knows who's watched the little 6 year old dynamos who keep crushing your talented 9 year old at Regionals. It's better, both for your own ego and as an objective factor, to consider a skater's maturity.  A 9-year-old who cannot focus on a lesson or direct her own practice is going to be less successful than a 7-year-old who can.

Body Type
Not a factor, unless your body type is "40 pounds overweight." There are certainly some physiognomies that help a skater-- flat bosom, long waist, bow legs-- but we've all seen enough body types to understand that there is no body type that actually precludes skating success. Body type complaints and kudos (think Rachael Flatt and her supposed problems because of "sloping shoulders," or the positive but frankly racist assertions about Asian body types) are about aesthetics, not athletics.

Trajectory
A kid who is not aiming for Nationals is not going to Nationals. I don't care how talented he is.  To achieve a goal you have to set it. No one gets into elite skating by accident. You can't compare your recreational skater, who likes to try new stuff, to the 30-hour-a-week phenom.

Motivation
Motivation pretty much equals Maturity + Trajectory. You have to know your goal (elite skating, International competition, Gold level tests, a certain jump, a solo in the ice show, or whatever), and then manage the steps it takes to get there. Without motivation, the game is over. And mom can't supply it. Further, motivation doesn't just mean "motivated to win competitions." Kids are motivated by, and toward, different outcomes. Don't compare a kid who's motivated to win Nationals with one who's motivated to landing the axel before graduating high school. Both are worthy goals; comparing them is pointless.

Coach
Even given talent, motivation, and trajectory, a good coaching match is the single most critical factor in a skating career, whatever the goal is. And yet it's not one of the things you commonly hear parents comparing, or praising. You hear lots of praise for coaches-- "we have the top coach," "our coach has taken xx number of skaters to nationals," "he has the most students," etc. But the most important factor-- that wonderful coaching relationship-- is often ignored.

Level
Don't even. If your Jennie is in Freestyle 1, and "rival" Susie is in Freestyle 5, why do you even care. Everyone goes through the levels, at their own pace. I do not want to hear skaters compared based on their level. Sh! I mean it!

Financial
 Out of your control. If Mary can afford four lessons a week, good for her. Work with what you've got, and don't teach your child to make excuses based on external resources.

Triples at 9

You'll see me complaining a lot on this blog about pushing kids too hard, too young.

To a large extent that's because I like to focus on what ordinary kids can get out of the wonderful sport of figure skating, and also to help parents keep in perspective exactly how extraordinary their kids are (or, ahem, are not).

But some kids are extraordinary. We've seen the phenomenon over the past few years of elite boys pushing the age envelope downward, with younger and younger kids winning at Intermediate and Novice before they run up against minimum age restrictions at Junior.

As an email I received queried,

"What if you're talking about a reasonably talented 6 y/o with solid single jumps and axel and there seems a bit of time yet to worry about triples but they've been bitten by the competition bug. ... Do you go with that and delay and possibly limit progress or do you pull them away from competing so they make hastier progress but barely compete for the next few years?"

In fact, I had this exact question from my Alpha students this week. They all claimed to "be really good" at cross overs. And y'know, they are really good at cross overs.

But their cross overs can be better-- more confident, more advanced.

And that's really the crux of the matter.

Whatever skill you're working on right now-- whether it's simple cross overs or a double axel-- it can be better.

So the first answer to "why not move on to the next thing" is actually another question, namely, are you properly identifying what the next thing is? If you've got all the doubles, is the next thing really the triples? Or is it consistently landing all jumps in competition, or improving your GOE, or landing more difficult combinations, or improving the technique?

I like to point out the brilliantly managed career of Jason Brown, a skating phenomenon who was one of those 9 year-olds with all his doubles. But, knowing that he had tons of time because of his young age, his coach has parsed out his milestones. The goal was not "national champ by 17" which he arguably might have pushed for, but rather to hit specific measures-- land the triple axel in competition, then land it in a major competition, then skate a clean program that includes a triple axel, etc. Jason's going to have a long, injury-free career because his coach understood that his youth was not a goal in itself, but rather a gift that allows them time to develop a brilliant skater.

Skating skills in and of themselves are not the goal. They are sign posts along the way. A child with doubles at 9 is certainly going to be landing triples by the time they're done with high school.

The reader asks, essentially, "do you delay their progress or do you have them compete with their age group."

I ask, in return, what, exactly, do you consider "progress?"

What choice have you made, or would you make, with a skater who pulls ahead of their age restrictions in competition?

Skating and puberty

Figure skating is getting younger again.

For a while, both figure skating and gymnastics seemed to be moving away from the jumping bean sensibility-- those tiny athletic geniuses who had all the tricks by the time they were 11.

After several younger skaters started suffering debilitating injuries, notably Tara Lipinski's multiple hip surgeries, the federations seemed to get the message. The rules were changed to keep 12 to 14 year olds out of the Senior level competitions, although no rules were implemented to keep very young children from training at those levels, and the various national federations still have different rules.

The girls seem to have been held at bay-- I identified only two 14 year olds in Ladies Singles  at the Senior level at Nationals this year (someone correct me-- I couldn't find a complete list that had skater stats) , but the sport has now discovered the boys.

The boys have a self-limiting disadvantage-- the triple axel and the quad anything. You cannot place at Nationals at the Championship (Senior) level without these jumps, and boys simply don't have the muscular strength for these before adolescence, and in some cases much later.

But since the pre-pube girls have become off-limits, the sport has found a way to push that envelope down, and there is now the phenomenon of 9 year old Intermediate and 10 year old Novice boys (I refuse to call them men) with all the triples except the axel. The fans have gone right along with it--Twitter goes insane for kids like Nathan Chen and Tomoki Hawatashi, praising them for being "tiny," "adorable" etc.

Russia isn't helping. They've clearly spent the last 8 years setting up for an all-event podium sweep at Sochi and have been trotting out streams of baby skaters who will just creep into eligibility in time for the 2014 home-soil Olympics. This pressure pushes down the age for everyone else as well, with baby Japanese, baby Chinese, and then of course all the American skaters with one immigrant grandparent skating under you-name-it flag in order to get to an international career. (Note-- I have no argument with this phenomenon, as it opens up competitions to a lot of kids who would be also-rans in highly competitive nations, but I fear the age pressure it engenders.)

There is something to be said for teaching kids the advanced skills in early adolescence. Studies, and experience, show that what you learn between the ages of 9 and about 15 will stick with you your whole life. Think about that piano sonata or poem you memorized in 7th grade-- I bet you still remember it.
Pushing that envelope downwards does a terrible disservice not just to the torque and landing forces put on young, unfinished bodies, but also on the emotional lives of these kids. Part of the problem lies in the refusal of the NCAA to add figure skating as a subsidized college sport-- these kids feel (rightly) that they have to get it all done before the end of high school. If you're not at the elite level by the time you're 17, you will simply run out of money and will have to choose-- college or skating. Every other sport manages to educate its kids, allowing them to train and learn at the same time. At every rink you'll see the spring ritual-- up the pictures of all the hockey kids who have gotten college scholarships to play and learn, and down come the tears from all the figure skaters who have to give up either college or skating.

We need to give our skaters time to grow up. We need to be careful with their beautiful bodies and minds.

Tales from the front

My friend Bree posted this amazing "note" on her Facebook page today, and I had to share it.

***

I skated like sh*t today.  Then the 2 year olds made everything ok again.

But then I went to teach at a different rink and there were 30, that's right, count 'em, 30 tots the first class between 2-3 yrs old. I love this job. It is hilarious and makes me feel so much better about all the bullshit. Those damn kids are so awesome. There's at least one character at every rink, and usually they are the little boys who want to play hockey. I still remember my first teaching gig ten years ago and this little boy in my class was just sassy. I kept telling them, "stop on the balls of your feet" and he goes, "the only balls I know about are the ones down there." I was in high school but I was supposed to act like I was an authority figure and be good. I had to put the clipboard over my face to keep from showing them how hard I was laughing. And then I waited for like half a minute and was like, "honey; that --- is, inappropriate!" oh, my gosh. I really just wanted to tell him that was so clever and I was mad I didn't think of it first.

So things usually aren't like that now but sometimes my favorite part of teaching, well, always, what can I say, is when little kids want to just tear up the ice and go as fast as possible and I end up just playing tag and chasing them around and letting them chase me around. There's this little boy, cooper, at national sports center, and he comes all decked out in his hockey gear every week, even a mouth guard, so I can not ever understand a word out of his mouth, but he is super chatty and loves to go fast. We'll be doing some skill and going really slow and he'll just randomly take off and yell, "let's go!!" and be off and running. I don't ever get upset. I love it. I try to rein him in until there's only five minutes left, just so they sort of learn and retain something useful, but man, when you are a kid that age, you don't even really need that much discipline in sports--- just time and fun.

Then there's those days we just hang out at maple grove and throw the ball around with tots for half an hour. Just chuck that sucker as far as it will go and then go chase it down and do it again. Sometimes I'll get the limbo stick out or do a bean bag toss and we'll "go fishing" (or, "go tishin'" as Olivia calls it), but mostly just make huge messes on the ice with toys and go whirring around cleaning up for half an hour increments with kids. It's awesome.

So one night, I'm hanging out and this little boy at maple grove, porter, is chasing the ball with me. He stops real abruptly and puts his hands on his hips, turns, and faces me. "What's up, porter?" he looks thoughtfully up at me. "You know somethin’? That jacket makes you look really tough." "You think so?" "Yeah. You look like a power ranger!" "Well, thanks porter. You know that was kind of the idea."

Tonight was no exception. Usually week one of a session is hell week because tots don't like skating sometimes and want to be with their mom and dad.

This little boy, Brayden, is so cute. He comes every week, on time, in his helmet, Spiderman jacket and snow pants. He wears good hockey skates and matching black Spiderman mittens. And he can actually skate out on the ice by himself, march to the middle of the ice with no help, and then what does he do? For 8 weeks he will do this little routine and then just sprawl out on his back like he's sun bathing in Cancun. He's happy as a lark doing it though, so i can't really be mad. I go over there and peer over him like a giant, say, "Brayden, what's up? What're you doing over here?" and he just smiles at me with this mischievous, goofy, all knowing grin.

 We sing this goodbye song every week at new hope. I love it, these damn corny songs. And i cannot sing or carry a tune in a bucket. Those poor kids. But i will sing and do the little hand motions and stomp my feet and shake my tail feathers because kids eat that shit up. They love crazy grown ups and i would say i safely fit that profile. ;) so we sing the song and played blast off tonight, which basically teaches kids to go backwards but they don't know it until they did it already. It's so slick, i love it. So i told the kids they could go home and tell their mom and dad they learned how to go backward. And Libby comes up to me and tugs on my sleeve. "I don't have a dad," she whispers. I kneel on the ice next to her. "Well, that's ok, honey. Do you have a mommy at home who loves you?" "Yes." "Well, that's all you need then." and she puts her wings out and i fly her to the door to meet her mom. Before she goes, I set her down and face her to me. "Oh, Libby. I'm so happy to see you again. I missed you." I give her a big hug.

This boy Keene wears a baby blue Nike sweatshirt and a hockey helmet and is legitimately talented. He is a good little skater and I love it because he is fearless. He falls but he will like, somersault as he falls, and then I'll be like, "whoa, Keene! That was so cool!" and he'll look up at me as he pops up onto his feet and just grin from ear to ear, giggling. It's so good to be a kid. I love their free spirits and i love they don't care how they look.

Conditioning for very young children

I hear it all the time at the rink.

Coaches telling parents that their 8 year olds need to do weight training and conditioning class.

And it is, not to put too fine a point on it, bull hockey.

Pre-pubescent children not only do not need weight training and strengthening, it's pointless because they don't have the hormones yet that make weight training in particular useful. They simply will not build muscle no matter how many push ups they do.

That said, you can, and should do stretch, strength, and aerobic activities with very young children. However, it doesn't have to be run by the skating coach, it doesn't have to happen at the rink, and it doesn't have to be boring.

The playground
The best strength equipment for little kids is monkey bars and climbing walls. Further more, it's a lot more fun than hand weights and push ups, which is the number one thing you need to do to engage young kids in "exercise." Playgrounds in general have everything you need-- equipment that encourages strength (monkey bars), coordination (various climbing apparatuses), cooperation (see saws), etc.

Soccer
Here's your aerobics. If your Juvenile or lower skater is competitive, talk to your coach about making her "season" the non qualifying events in late fall to early spring so she can do field sports in the fall.

Track
If she or he is already doing the qualifying events (which happen in the fall right on top of soccer), then you're switching your aerobic sport to spring. In-season, your little competitor should be running or doing other aerobic activity before getting onto the ice. Don't worry too much about things like Maximum Heart Rate for little kids, but if you're interested, here's a nice description of the issue that also deals with children and their specific needs.

Dance
Dance is great conditioning for kids-- it's fun, there are many reputable, vetted programs to choose from, and it covers strength, balance, muscle tone, conditioning and aerobics as well as great lessons in focus and discipline. Most skaters choose ballet, but for boys in general and for girls who balk at ballet, you can get the benefits of dance training from hip-hop, jazz, tap, or modern dance classes. (Older, competitive skaters should take ballet.)

Martial arts
Martial arts are another great multi-benefit activity for kids too young for dedicated weight or aerobic training. It offers all the benefits of dance, and is a good alternative for boys.

What do your younger skaters do for off- ice training?

What to wear

In about a month, everyone with a skater or potential skater is going to be hitting the stores, looking for holiday gifts. And one of the main things they'll be getting is clothes, because man do they have cute stuff for skaters these days. Here's a guide on what you should be wearing, whether gift-giving, or just to know.

Tots
The biggest thing that tots need is comfort. It's cold, slippery, and mom is inaccessible. They don't need need pads or elbow pads or giant mittens. The little stretchy mittens, a long sleeve shirt and a light sweater, plus jeans or sweats and snowpants, is a good outfit for a beginner in the 3 to 5 year old range. Don't put them in big bulky jackets as it's too hard to move. Don't tell them they are cold, or that they are going to be cold. It's not that cold in an ice rink if you're properly dressed.

Yes, I like to see tots in well-fitting, flat-back helmets (skateboarding helmets are the best).

Older Beginners
Long sleeve shirt plus sweatshirt or warm sweater, pants in two layers--tights plus sweats or jeans, or leggings plus sweats. Again, light gloves, not bulky mittens (mittens are too warm, and it's hard to hold hands). Younger children are fine in helmets or a soft or padded hat. Please don't put your 6-year-old or younger in low rise jeans (whoever came up with this concept was an idiot). You would not believe the number of baby-butts I see in a week.

Learn to Skate levels, especially tweens
You're going to start getting agitation for the cute skating clothes at this level, and your degree of indulgence is entirely up to you. I like to see kids deliver the goods before they start dressing like skaters, i.e. mastering the first jump is plenty of time for the Chloe Noel pants. In the meantime, your upper body and gloves are the same as the prior two levels--long sleeve shirt plus sweatshirt (a zipper one is good at this level, for easy removal if they get warm), and stretchy gloves. Tights plus workout pants are great; you can get perfectly adorable yoga pants in any size at Target, for a fifth the price of the ones at the skating shops. Personally, it makes me insane to see some Delta or even low freestyle skater in $150 worth of skating clothes, especially when parents then turn around and complain about the cost of lessons. That's 5 privates or two 10-week class sessions that kid is wearing.

Freestyle
At this point, your skater is committed and needs to start dressing the part. Hair combed neatly and pulled into a high ponytail. Yoga or skating pants, or skating tights and dress (you can get inexpensive ones at resale or a Big Box store, or specialty ones at a specialty skating store). Skating pants are usually a little longer than ordinary yoga pants, or come with stirrups or other skate-specific details. Let your budget and frou-frou tolerance guide you. But at freestyle the coach needs to be able to see the line of the skater's body, so body-skimming styles are best.

Some places to get nice specialty skating clothes are Rainbo Sport Shop, Chloe Noel, and Seku Skatewear (my favorite, but oy, the prices).

Years ago at one of the rinks I work at there was an unspoken rule that only freestyle girls wore skating skirts. As time went on, younger and younger, and lower and lower level girls started wearing skating skirts. Low and behold, the high level girls all started wearing pants instead. Now everyone's in pants. I'm waiting for the high level girls to reassert their preeminence and switch back to skirts any day now.

What do you like to wear, or to put your kids in for skating? What are some places to go for good skatewear?

Xanboni Camp, Day One: Why twins should dress alike

Okay that was intense. Five hours with kids of varying levels, ages 5 to 9. Forget the ice skating: here's the story they came up with during story time. It's a round robin game, so everyone contributes one sentence or phrase at a time (as best as I can remember it).

Once upon a time there was a skater who liked nachos. He went to outer space. He blasted off in a space ship and then came back. He met a girl and then they went to the beach, where they met a bird.

Who liked nachos.

So they ate the nachos and they got sick. They went to the doctor, and he gave them medicine and they got healed, but then they got sick, so the doctor told them to rest. So they went to sleep and they dreamed.

About nachos.

The end.

Oh, twins should dress alike so they don't have tug of wars over the pink shorts. Just sayin'.

Getting over the hump

Everyone hits the wall. Where skating used to be easy and fun, it suddenly becomes difficult, or serious, or both. Among recreational, class skaters, what I observe is that alpha is easy, and beta is cool. Then it gets tricky because gamma is hard, and delta is boring.

And then it gets really hard.

After beta, there are suddenly lots of things to remember--opposition, getting the edges right (on purpose), what to do with that pesky free hip, really not toe pushing. And on and on. The expectations are higher, not only for being able to accomplish new things, but to be able to execute the old things solidly and without excessive instruction. The skills are complex, and it suddenly matters what you know, and not just what you can do with your natural talent. The coach will start nagging about extra lessons and practice time, and suddenly it's not "fun" any more.

You know your kid loves skating, but they're complaining an awful lot. So what do you do?

Insist
Some people make actual contracts with their kids-- "I'm about to pay money for skating. This means that you have to come to all of these practices, lessons, and/or classes even if you're tired, or have homework, or want to do a playdate instead." And yes, I mean it about homework. If you and your child can't figure out how to get homework and outside activities to co-exist, you should not be doing the outside activities.

Don't listen to their complaints
Don't indulge the skater's crocodile tears, complaints of sore feet, boring teachers, hard skills or mean classmates. When children test these statements, simply reply neutrally and continue as though there is no issue. If the issue is really serious, the child won't drop it. If the kid is just testing your resolve, the problem will mysteriously go away.

Do listen to their complaints
If the skater suddenly hates this thing that's given him or her such joy, see if there's a real reason. Maybe the coach is boring, or mean, or ignores them. Maybe their skates ARE too small. Maybe a clique has formed that excludes them. Maybe they've been pushed through too fast and it's gotten scary because their skills aren't up to their class level (this is very very common). A complaint that persists, or has a specific pattern, is probably real. Figure out how to mitigate it.

Let them have fun
The last 5 minutes of any class should be extras that aren't in the curriculum. It might be putting on a little exhibition, or games, or coming up with a program, or learning something from a higher level. Even a high competitive child should be allowed to have some fun interspersed with the work. Private lessons probably aren't the place for this, but your skater should have at least some control over their own practice, and shouldn't be yelled at for taking a few minutes every now and then just to have fun.

Give them something else to do
It's okay to take vacations from skating. A week, or, frankly, a year. (If it's a year, don't expect to come back in at the level you left.) Don't skate every day (even competitive skaters). Have another activity that the skater enjoys.

Make sure they skate enough to improve
One of the biggest things that takes the joy out of skating is when you can't progress. If you are constantly missing lessons, or not skating enough for your level, your peers are going to start leaving you in the dust. This will make anyone feel bad. Believe it or not, O modern parents, you might have to ask your child to choose from among the 19 different activities that they participate in in their relentless pursuit of admission to Stanford.

Recess

I did the following game on the last day of class, once with 4-5 year olds, once with an Alpha-Beta class and once with a Beta-Gamma-Delta. The tots went along with it and had fun, and the BGDs seemed to like it but the A-Bs absolutely rocked it. I've been doing this for a while, but this group of kids came up with some new stuff to do. I love it when the kids do my work for me.

The idea is to come up with ways to mime playground equipment on the ice.

Swing
Rocking Horses- one swizzle forward, one back. If you do the forward swizzle larger than the backward one, this will travel across the ice. Add swinging arms for effect.

Slide (F&B)
High-stepping marches (up the ladder), slowly sink into a dip (down the slide).

Merry go round
"Teacup" spins-- two person spread eagle around a common center.

Hop scotch
Jumping swizzles-- give a couple of pushes to get going, two foot glide, then jump to feet apart, jump to feet together, all the way down the ice. More advanced skaters could jump to one foot glides as well.

Sand box
Different stops (scrape up "sand" or in our case, snow)

Tire swing
Forward skating to small spread-eagle turns

See saw (F&B)
Couple of pushes for speed, then dip low, stand up, repeat until you get all the way across. Advanced skaters do it with a partner, one forward, one backward, one up, one down.

Tow line
Lunges with arms stretched overhead

Monkey bars
Couple of pushes for speed, then wide-leg dip and pull yourself across the ice with your hands. For little kids, just mime monkey bars with your hands while doing high-stepping marches.

Balance beam
One foot glides, with different leg positions

Your first clue is the screaming

I want to say up front that there are no serious competitive figure skaters without a pushy parent lurking about somewhere. It's a necessary part of the equation, and it's not just the skater they're pushing-- they're also pushing the coach, the judges, USFS and rink management, and we need them to do this.

If you've done your homework and set your goals, then have at it. There isn't a teenager on the planet who really wants to get up at 4:30 to go skate for 4 hours before school, I don't care what Rachael Flatt's press pack says. That girl and every one like her has a pushy mom helping her achieve greatness, and god bless 'em.

Skating needs pushy parents.

What it doesn't need are stage mothers. These are the Skating Moms who think they know better than the coach, the judge, and the skating director, or who insist that their 4 or 5 or 6 year old participate in class even though they're having a tantrum, or who buy their Pre Alpha skater Pattern 99 blades with K-picks because, well, only the best for Princess.

So how can you tell if you're right kind of pushy?

Did the skater set the goal, or did you?
Is your skater aiming at competing in qualifying competitions? Even if you're still in Learn-to-skate classes, if you've discussed this with the kid, then you need to push, which at this level just means telling the kid "you promised" or "you made a commitment" to skate this much, and I paid for it, so you're doing it. You have to read your own kid and understand the difference between pushing him to do something he loves but is hard, and pushing him to do something hard, which he hates.

What's your skater's age?
If your child is under the age of 5, lighten up. If your child is 11 or older and you're sinking money into skating, then push them to excel or make them scale it back or quit. Now, by "pushing" I don't mean screaming at them in the lobby, complaining about them to everyone, embarrassing them in front of their friends, et cetera. Figure out what you need to do to make them fulfill their goals and obligations-- take away the cell phone, make them pay for part of it, conspire with the coach, whatever. If you don't know how to push your teenager, you're in trouble, anyway.

What was that about goals?
Are you goals and the skaters the same? Does the coach know what the goal is, and does she support it? No matter how talented your skater is, if her goal is not to be a competitive skater, you cannot push her hard enough to make that happen. There's a legendary skater at my rink, best skater that ever went through there. She didn't want to compete, but her mother pushed and pushed. So she would just sabotage her final round at Sectionals every year. The skater has to want the prize, whatever it is.

Dino-Boy and Joy Boy
Oh Dino-Boy. What can I say about Dino-Boy. I don't argue with him. Sometimes he skates. Sometimes he don't. He's got me and everyone, including his mother, his sister, and the junior coach, completely in his power. This is a push-resistant kid. They exist. You just gotta go with the flow. I think he'll be a skater eventually, but for now, I just let him do his thing.

JoyBoy on the other hand loves to skate and he's really good at it. Unfortunately, he also loves to mess with you, but you can push him really hard and he'll respond. He'll roll his eyes, he'll stick out his tongue, but you can push. If you've got a JoyBoy, push away.

Pushy skaters
Interestingly, there's a subset of families where the pushy ones are the skaters-- it's the parents who are reluctant. This can be a heartbreaking phenomenon, because minor children are at the mercy of their parents' whims and needs. I've seen kids who had to quit because mom doesn't like getting up at 5-- kid was perfectly willing, but mom wouldn't do it. I have seen families decide that spending on unneeded consumer goods was more important than the child's dream. Dad retires and moves to a community without a rink, and off the kid goes too, kissing the skating dream goodbye. These kids need to push-- for time, for funds, for respect, and sometimes for the right to move away from their families in order to pursue the goal.

You can tell if you're pushing too hard by how hard the kid pushes back. Kids will test you; they'll see if they can resist just a little. Don't give in to the little bastards, and they'll generally step happily onto the ice.

More about pushy parents (the good kind) here.

Attack of the two-year-old skaters

I've been teaching lessons all week on midday public skate and have been observing a lot of families skating with, really, babies-- two-year-olds whose parents figure "well, she can walk, so I guess she can skate!" Every now and then you will find a two-year-old who can stand up or even move, but mostly 2-year olds are NOT ready to skate. (And by "2" I mean anyone within their second year of life. "Almost 3" is still "two".)

The biggest impediment to skating before the age of 4 is social and emotional development. Most kids of this age are just not ready to try new things with a stranger. This is why 2 year olds cry when you drop them off at daycare and 5 year olds don't. It is extremely suspicious to very young children for a parent to insist the child do something without the parent. If it's such a cool thing to do, then why isn't the parent doing it? Two-year olds are also sometimes mistrustful of strangers, so putting a child that young in a class, even a parent-tot class, is quite fraught.

There are some things you can do to prepare your child for skating, however. First of all, figure out what's best- public skating with family, parent-tot class, or regular tot class. Your child is ready for regular tot class if she or he:

1. can easily walk in skates on the floor
2. understands how to follow 2-3 step instructions ("sit down, now roll to your hands and knees, stand up", for instance, or "find the yellow toy and put it in the yellow circle")
3. willingly allows her/himself to be handed off to a stranger
4. speaks the same language as the instructor (this is a bigger problem than you might imagine in urban areas. Older children with language difficulties understand that the instructor speaks a different language and have developed coping strategies. Very young children are just completely flummoxed by an adult who speaks only gibberish.)

Before you jump in and say "oh my child is very social/verbal/smart/athletic" I am here to tell you: No. He's not. You only get to count your child as one of the above if he's that way with everyone, and not just with people he knows.

If your child can do everything but 3 and 4, try a parent-tot class. If your child can only do #1, take her to public skating. If your child cannot even stand up in skates on the floor (and sometimes it isn't "cant'" but rather "won't") then for god's sake, wait 6 months, it won't ruin her Olympic dream.

Here are some ways to get your child ready for skating:
Let the baby watch
Coaches' kids are always great skaters. This is not because they have a "skating gene." It's because everyone they know skates, and they've been seeing people skating their entire lives. Just like preachers' kids are quiet in church, and musician's kids like singing, and actor's kids like being on stage (at least until they get old enough to understand the power of the contrary), it's not different to them. You can use this too--come skating yourself, and sit your child in the stands with a sitter, the other parent, grandparent or friend. If your child sees you skating a lot, they will feel more comfortable with it. You don't have to be a good skater, you just have to be on the ice.

Bring her on the ice, but don't make her skate
Some rinks have "family skates" or just lax public skating rules and will let you put a young child in a chair and push her around on the ice. If you really want your child to skate eventually, the absolute worst thing you can do with a very young child is insist that he skate when he doesn't want to. Don't even put skates on him, just push him around in a chair. (By the way, never carry a child on the ice, especially if you're not an extremely experienced skater, and I'm talking Senior-test experienced. This is incredibly dangerous.)

Sign up the older siblings for class
Two- and three-year olds who have been watching their older sibs and cousins skate are crazy to get on the ice. Sometimes in class we have to close the doors to keep the little ones from just racing on to the ice to be with big sis.

Do not lie to new skaters
Don't tell a very young child that they're going to skate "just like the girls on tv" (or Disney on Ice, or whatever). They will take you at your word, and when they can't glide the first day, or possibly even stand up, they're going to be mad.

Sign up for Mom and Me sing alongs, Music Together, or pre school
Toddlers do much better in skating class when the only new thing they are having to deal with is the slippery ice. Kids who have experience with the concept of "class" do much much better than kids for whom this is the first class of any sort they've every taken. I can't tell you how many parents have told me "I signed her up for skating to help her social skills before pre school." WRONG. So here's this poor little child, supposed to be learning "social skills" when you've put her in an environment where she can't even walk. It's completely backwards, plus I am a skating teacher, not your kid's psychologist. You socialize her. I'll teach her to skate.

Once the baby is on the ice, either with you or with a class, there are still some things you can do to help get them used to concept.

Let the teacher teach
Don't stand in the doorway shouting. In fact, best if you get out of sight. Don't leave the building, but don't stand where it's easy for your child to see you. If your child is not ready to let you out of her sight, she's not ready for class. Sign up for parent-tot. If the teacher seems to be spending a lot of time playing games, sitting on the ice, singing songs, playing with toys, et cetera, she's got a good reason (namely, because these are 2- and 3-year olds and are not developmentally ready for a structured lesson).

No crying on the ice.
I have a firm "no crying on the ice" rule. If a child starts crying I have them stop until they get off. Then they can cry as much as they want, but they are not allowed back on the ice until they're done crying. This works even with children as young as two and is amazingly effective in helping kids like the ice, while allowing them to need and receive comfort. If you're skating with a toddler and she starts to cry, just take her off the ice until she's done, then go back.

Don't skate with a reluctant skater
If she doesn't want to go back, don't go back. Let the child make the decision to skate or not. Really. This is the number one thing that will make your child trust the ice (and you). You don't have to skate if you don't want to (by the way, any freestyle skaters reading this, you have to skate whether you want to or not). Seriously, there are plenty of things in this life that poor child is going to have to do. Why make skating one of them, when they're only 2.

Right now I have a 4-year-old student working on waltz jumps. She stepped on the ice at about 21 months and just took off like a demon. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Assume your child is normal, and then when she's one of the little geniuses, be pleasantly surprised. Here's what I tell parents: if your child starts skating once or twice a week at 3, by the time she's seven, she'll have really good crossovers and turns. If your child starts skating at 5, by the time she's seven, she'll have really good crossovers and turns.

Little children should skate for fun. If they're not having fun, why are you making them skate?

Off ice training: just when you thought it was safe to leave the ice rink

No, not "office." Off. Ice. In other words, what you do outside the rink to support and enhance your skating. Who does it, who needs it (both actually and sarcastically), where do you find it, how do you know what kind to do?

Off ice training is for serious figure skaters, or unserious figure skaters who are looking for a second activity. The bad news is that it adds an activity to your schedule. The good news is it's fun, and the better news is you might already be engaging in an activity that counts.

The little guys
For very young children (age 6 and under) especially if they're in learn to skate levels, the best off-ice activity is running around in the playground. This gives them energy (grown-up word: cardio workout), and encourages both courage and coordination.

Not so little
If your five to seven year old child is in soccer, or one of those other marginally organized dash fests that little kids engage in, this is also a great off-ice activity for beginning skaters. The biggest problem with soccer is that the schedule makes figure skating hard-- they tend to conflict. Again, it supports endurance, coordination, and effort. Most very young children don't need much stretching- they're pretty flexible anyway, and strength training is both beside the point, since they don't have the hormones yet that build muscle, and dangerous, because their growing bones are susceptible to stress injuries.

Serious skaters
First, how do you know you're a serious skater?

Start with how much time you're putting in. If you are "practicing" (as opposed to skating around in circles) at least 3 hours a week, you're serious. You're also serious if you're doing USFS competitions or are gearing up for either the USFS or the ISI testing tracks. For these skaters, whatever the age or level, you need off-ice training that both helps with figure skating skills and technique, and reduces the risk of injury on the ice.

The most common injuries on the ice are soft-tissue: pulled muscles, strained ligaments and tendons, bursitis, stress fractures (which in young skaters is often in the growth plates rather than the bones themselves). You need off ice activities that keep these tissues limber, warm, and strong.

Serious competitive skaters above the Juvenile level MUST do proper off-ice training, including strength, flexibility, plyometrics (jumping), and cardio workouts. Your coach will guide you in this. Kids who are learning jumps, especially once they move into doubles, should do activities that build coordination, endurance and strength, to keep them safe on the ice.

Here are some options, the good, the bad, and the unnecessary, plus some you might not have thought of:

Ballet
This is the most common off-ice activity you'll hear suggested. It has the whole package-- strength, flexibility, grace, artistry, posture as well as understanding of music. You will be required to participate in the recital at most programs, but performance experience is also critical for skaters. I've seen "ballet for skaters" programs, but frankly, what's the point. Do ballet for ballet dancers and you'll know it's right. Find a reputable studio-one that's been around a while, or is managed by someone who came out of a reputable program. It should have a range of classes from beginner to dilettante to serious. The biggest advantage of ballet is that most communities have lots and lots of ballet studios so the scheduling tends to be easy. If you're taking a boy, call it "dance class" or "dance for skaters" to start and let him figure out that it's ballet once he's into it.

Ice Mom has an excellent article on ballet for skaters today, with some good links.

Strength Training
Do. Not. Take. Your. Pre-adolescent. To. Strength. Training. If you find a program for pre-ads, report them to the authorities. This type of work out, especially on machines, can be actively dangerous for young children, and besides, doesn't do them any good. Their bodies don't have the proper hormones yet. The best strength training for young children is having them use all the "equipment" on the local playlot, which is designed to work the whole body at an age-appropriate level for grade school kids.

"Off Ice Training"
Many programs offer a hodge-podge called "off ice training" ( which always looks to me like they're going to teach kids how to use the copy machine). These generally include some dance or ballet, some callisthenics, some running, some stretching, and some off-ice jumping (not necessarily in that order). They may be run by individual coaches or by the program. These are fine. If they are coach led, the instructor may or may not understand fitness, especially for kids at ranges of age, level and ability. Some facilities have fitness specialists running these, which is optimum, but my experience of these nevertheless is very positive. You want to watch for coaches who run the programs with only their own students in mind (make sure all the kids are getting instruction, in other words), and that the facilities are adequate. I've seen coaches having kids do pushups on bare lobby floors (yuk), and jumping drills with no mats (ouch). Big advantage is that they will be scheduled around the skating schedule, and in the same facility, making them easy to slot into your week.

Pilates and Yoga
These are both terrific for strength, discipline, agility, and flexibility, but are inappropriate for younger children (say under the age of 12). They are fantastic for adult skaters however, with their slow approach, low impact movement, mental discipline, and adaptability to, shall we say, alternate morphologies.

Gymnastics
Again, great for strength, courage, and especially flexibility. However, with flexibility a major focus of gymnastics, it can take it too far. I would not put a child who is not naturally flexible into gymnastics if their main focus is skating. You do not need unusual flexibility to skate well; it's nice if you've got it, but focusing on it is unnecessary. I also think that putting a child into two dangerous sports activities is just asking for trouble. Stick with one of the other options.

In addition to the traditional off-ice options like those above, there are other activities that can support and enhance ice skating that your child might find less boring or onerous. These can be especially useful for boys (or girls) who balk at dance, or for people having trouble making schedules work.

Theater training
Theater programs will often include some dance, lots of body and spatial awareness exercises, as well as creativity.

Karate or other martial arts
Martial Arts have many things in common with ballet-- set patterns, discipline, respect for authority and heirarchy, strength, agility and flexibility training-- and boys like it. I prefer to find programs that are stingy with the rewards (as in 8 year olds with black belts) because skating can be somewhat stingy with the rewards, so it mirrors the culture.

Specialty Dance
Speciality dance disciplines like jazz, tango, tap, ballroom, or hip hop are great options for older skaters who are looking for help with different types of expression, and are a must for ice dancers. However, it is not a substitute for ballet. Specialty dance classes without a solid classical background will just be play time for younger, untrained kids. By all means take jazz dance or hip hop. There will be other benefits, including creativity, agility, et cetera. But it's not ballet.

Let you coach guide you, but as always, ask respectful questions. If your coach tells you "you must take the off-ice class" tell her or him what other activities the child is already engaged in and see if these meet the need. You can then decide whether to continue the existing activites, add new ones, or change your schedule. Be sure to consider your budget-- don't let the coach keep piling on the costs; if you need, for financial reasons, to drop a lesson or a skating class to pay for this, tell the coach. (If the coach then says, "No. If you want to be a serious skater, you must do this", you might want to consider a different coach. A coach who doesn't care about a family's financial needs might also not be responding to your child's emotional or physical needs.)

(Thanks to Stitch's mom for inspiring the post!)

3 years old

First, she never stops talking.

But you have to listen, because she'll give you clues about how to engage her in a lesson.

This is Gia Cool Butterfly Rockstar (as she tells me), my super talented 3 year old student. She's no bigger than a minute, but skates like a demon, and will be working on the axel by the time she's 6. She takes several hour-long lessons a week, which, if her mom doesn't want to skate with her, you kind of have to do. She wants to skate all the time. So here's yesterday's lesson:

We always start with "free time." (I call warm up "free time" for beginners and very young children, because they move better when they think they're playing.) Yesterday she was having this thing about the number 23, so we decided to go all the way around the rink 23 times. And she stuck to it. When I proposed curtailing it around #16, she said no. Around #7 I started insisting on proper stroking. (23 in a row, natch. Also swizzles. 23 of them.) Gia's an aural and kinetic learner, so she'll repeat key phrases to help herself do and understand. So we got several minutes of bend-push-and-all-the-way-together sing-song, as we did stroking.

I do make her learn the proper names for all the moves, which is hilarious, to listen to this tiny three year old talk about stroking and rebend.

The "big girls" (some of them are a big 7) were on the ice with us and spinning, so we did spinning too (she loves doing what the big girls are doing), and then when they did backwards landing positions, so did we (on two feet, but I think 1 foot backwards glides are close). Then they left and she got a little distracted (oddly she's more distracted by empty ice), so we invented several invisible skaters to skate with us.

Once the other girls left she wanted more free time, so we started to do "one lesson and then one free time" (lesson for 10 to 15 minutes, free time for 2 minutes); I make her finish the whole lesson, for instance cross overs on every hockey circle, or backwards all the way around the rink.

A typical lesson comprises stroking, swizzles forwards and backwards, one-foot glide drills and games, crossovers, baby back crossovers (swizzle and cross), and turning games. She likes playing chase, but you hardly need to encourage speed with this one.

Gia's an outlier--she's the one that makes all those other parents think that their 3-year olds can skate too.

They can't. Wait another year. And watch this girl-- Olympics 2026.

Using visuals

Kids learn in different ways. One of the challenges of teaching is identifying the best way to get information from the coach's brain into the student's muscles. "Learning styles" are now an accepted philosophy of teaching, although when they were first proposed, it was extremely controversial, because, gasp, it treated each student like an individual.

It's especially challenging to work with different learning styles in a group class, where you might have representatives of every type, and every one of those kids needs to be reached. The kinetic/spatial learner can't stand still, and won't learn by listening anyway. The visual learner needs a map, and a demonstration. The aural learner has to hear you describe it. The tactile learner must be placed in the proper position.

This is the first of a series on ways to use all these styles in group teaching.

There are lots of things you can do to help the visual learners. If you're lucky enough to be teaching in a rink that lets you draw on the ice (with heavy markers), it's easy-- you can draw pictures. For tots, this might be icons-- a bunny or a frog for jumping, an ice cream cone for "dip" a big 1 for one-foot glide. But on-ice visuals work for older students as well. Of course, there are the actual hockey markings already in most rinks. Want a circle? Put the kids on a hockey circle (believe it or not, there are kids who can't follow a circle, even if it's drawn. If these kids are spatial learners, you can tell them to follow someone, or touch a marker- the wall, you, a cone, etc.) I love to amaze everyone by taking a big marker and drawing a perfect circle (I'd say it's from years of figures classes, but frankly I've always been able to do this.)

Other drawings that help some kids are the different turns, stroking, jumps. One of the things coaches learn to recognize, in fact, is the proper "print" for each jump-- the skate leaves a distinctive mark on the ice for each jump. It's very important for a visual learner to know this mark, because like as not, they can't "feel" it. But they can see it.

Visual learners are also good at visualization, meaning, giving them concrete images to imagine to help them understand where their bodies are in space, which is often difficult even for the athletic kids in this group. Visualizing is also fun, and can make a challenging, frustrating or difficult skill more enjoyable to work on.

One of the most difficult concepts in figure skating is the "open" hip. Hips, of course, are not a hinged joint, or in fact a joint at all, and yet skating coaches are always yelling at kids to "open your hip! lift your hip! you dropped your hip!" Huh?

I like to take a metaphorical arrow, and stick it through a skater's hip (pretending, folks, just pretending). Then I'll tell them where the arrow should be pointed. For a mohawk, the arrows have to point away from each other. For a cross over, they have to be parallel.

The other difficult thing in a crossover is the shoulder position--hips closed, shoulders open. Again, huh? So you tell them to hug the circle with their arms. Want them to lean? Have them lean against you, then step away and tell them to lean "on the invisible coach."

When learning swizzles, kids never glide between swizzles--they just go from swizzle to swizzle to swizzle. So I tell them "it's shaped like a spoon, with a bowl and a handle. Don't forget the handle" I might actually draw a giant spoon, and then trace it myself, skating the swizzle over it.

Visual learners also do well with physical objects, i.e. something they can see. Using objects is great, because it also reaches the spatial and tactile learners, so everyone benefits. Hula hoops can be used to keep a skaters arms in proper position, to get them to stand straight, and to learn shoulder rotation and check. The coach's hand or body is a great tool for both visual and spatial learners, both in demonstration (although I cringe when I see coaches demonstrating things badly-- please don't demonstrate if you are not absolutely positive that you are doing it right). Objects on the ice are great too--kicking a puck, or aiming for cones, for instance.

What style learner is your skater, and what are some clever teaching tactics that have helped her?

Game Day: Beyond the relay race

Curmudgeon that I am, I hate Game Day.

The whines of "no fair, they have all the fast skaters" and the timid ones who are too scared to play catch games (personally I don't blame them). The wracking the brain for a new variation on the relay race and the tedious wasteful arranging of the children.

But I am happy to say that I have managed to get through the last week of the current session without running a single relay race or red-light-green-light game, and only one instance of Sharks and Minnows. So here's some Game Day alternatives:

Programs
Especially this week, following hard upon the Olympics, all my Beta and higher classes got to make up their own programs. First we talked about what goes into a program, and I made the kids figure it out: Jumps, Spins, Footwork and Gliding Maneuvers. For jumps we did two-foot hops, bunny hops, and two foot jumping turns. For glides we did spirals (sort of), lunges, attitudes, and shoot the duck. Footwork was one- or two-foot turns and crossovers. I told them about transitions: "it's what you do in between the other stuff," and then how to put everything into the program. (Basically put one element in each hockey circle). To time the practice period, I put on the Skater's Waltz, which is about 12 minutes long, and had each kid make up his or her own one-minute program. I went and got the parents and explained what we were doing, then at the end of the music, everyone got off the ice and we all watched each student perform their programs one by one.

Challenges
This one requires that you really know each kid's strength, so that you can make sure you have challenges that everyone can win at least one of. This can be longest glide (one foot or two foot). Longest glide from a single push, or from one or multiple swizzles, or backwards. It can be an actual race, for the fast kids. It can be most creative one foot position (or silliest), or best use of arms. For higher level kids most rotations on a spin or most waltz jumps in a row, best spin feature or longest jump sequence.

Add on
Basically this is another program game. You start with one skill everyone can do, say stroking. Everyone does it. Then you ask for a suggestion on another thing they can do. Now you do stroking plus that skill. Keep adding skills until you're doing as many as fit in the width of the ice.

Messy-Neat
Divide the group into two equal teams (speed does not matter in this game). Put out an even number of traffic cones. One team is "neat" and stands the cones up, the other is "messy" and knocks the cones down. Whichever one has the most cones in the desired position at the end of a specified time period wins. Kids LOVE this game. They will play it 20 times if you let them. It's great because it's a "fast" game where you skate your own speed.

Free time
That's right. This is the one thing that kids today don't have enough of. So give them the last 5 or even 10 minutes of the last class to just do whatever they want to do.

As far as you can go

The Olympics is bringing up issues that face all athletes at every level, and I don't mean being stuck at the airport, unable to make the opening ceremony.

You'll hear a lot of sports reports talking about the athletes needing to "peak" at the Games. What this means is that their training needs to lead to the best performance at the optimum time. This kind of peaking is a short term goal, with a one-year arc, and there is an entire sports training discipline, called periodization training, devoted to it.

But it's not just world-class athletes that deal with peaking, and it doesn't mean just season-to-season. For the recreational and amateur athlete, peaking can mean reaching your highest potential, and it's one of the most challenging places to be, especially for younger people.

Because what if your highest potential is "just" an axel, or a couple of double jumps? Or, what if your highest potential is triples, but suddenly your life is hard, your hormones are rebelling and your dad just got a new job in a different state? Or your coach quits teaching? Or that really cute boy wants to go the movies, or there's a late night party, and you have to traiiinnn.

I talked to several coaches about this over the last couple of days-- what do you do if your skater seems to be peaking?

B shared the difficulties with a young woman who has gotten into a negative cycle. "The lessons have been about the negativity, and it starts to feed off itself. Her bad attitude infects me, and I start to wonder how much I should be dealing with this. I'm here to teach figure skating, not to provide therapy." S concedes "it's the most difficult place for a skater to be. If you don't really have a clear goal, or your skating goal is getting muddied or superseded by the rest of your life, you have to think hard about whether to stay or quit. Skating requires a lot of commitment, if for no other reason than that distracted skaters get injured. Plus, you'll drive your coach crazy." (S is basically the mom of the rink. We have all agreed that it is her role to be driven crazy.)

What do you do with a kid that's stuck?
Once you get to the higher levels, you will get stuck if you don't devote the time and emotional commitment to skating. An axel is hard. Doubles are scary, especially in the learning stages. The ice is crowded, and the cliques will drive you mad. If a couple of kids at the rink have achieved competitive success, you're going to be dealing, sometimes, with their egos and their coach's egos and their parents' egos. Who needs it? Can't land the damn jump, just quit.

And you can. You can quit, and you can come back. When you're 13 or 16, if you're a freestyle skater, it's actually fairly easy to come back to high level skating. Your muscles will remember. So taking a break is not the end of the world. It might be the end of a competitive career, if you had one, but competitive careers are just the tiniest part of the sport.

Rinks need to support this, by having classes for teens, "catch up" clinics, "intro to privates" classes (where you get 20 minutes one-on-one with a rink-assigned coach), et cetera, as well as specialty classes like Synchro, ice dance, hockey for teens, or junior coaching. How about starting a hockey cheerleading squad? Coaches need to support it as well. Keep the lines of communication open, and honor a family's decision to take a break.

Goals can change
I've talked a lot about the importance of goals in figure skating. Goals should be clear, they should be stated. They need to come from the skater, and everyone needs to agree on them-- skater, coach, parent. Adjusting your goals is the best way to get unstuck, to change the "peak." Never going to make it to Nationals? Look into coaching, or joining an ice show, or doing an independent study through your school, and arrange an exhibition with all your skating friends (you get to be the star). Is the axel an unattainable Everest? Ice Dance. Synchro. Speed skating. Hockey. Curling, for heaven's sake. Date night! Take a boy ice skating. Trust me he doesn't care about the stupid axel, because you sure look cute in those leggings.

The point is, you need to do what you want to do. If you love ice skating, like B's difficult student, yet you're miserable every time you step onto the ice, find a new goal. If you discover that you can't find a new goal, come once a week for a while, or drop the lessons and just skate for fun. That ice rink has been there a long time. It's not going anywhere. It'll be there when you come back, with a fresh goal, and a new summit to climb.

I WAS TOO paying attention, so THERE!

We had mid-session evaluations and freestyle solo testing at my rink last week, which always brings out the crazy in parents (sorry parents, you know I love you). Some choice bits, both said to me directly, and quoted to me by other coaches:

"She better not come in last again like last year" (from a parent whose child who skips three lessons/practices in every five)
"She passed the elements, that means she should pass the program" (not if she didn't do the elements at the test standard in the program. Sorry, 2 rotations on a spin that requires 6 isn't passing just because it's in the program.)
"I've watched you. You never pay any attention to my child." (Not even going to dignify it with a response, but more later on how to handle this.)
"Those other girls need too much help" and "why did you give that boy all that extra attention?" (essentially suggesting that because some of the skaters were more needy, they should be neglected in favor of the "better" skaters.)
"Coach X promised my daughter would pass" (based on? This wasn't her private coach, nor her class coach, just some random coach who told you your kid would pass?)
"I'm a lawyer, and she better move up one level" (or what, you'll sue?)
"They're best friends, they have to be in the same level." (Does that work at their school, too?)

Well, I sound pretty callous and cynical, and when confronted with these statements it's difficult not to get defensive. Especially during testing week, when you get this multiple times after every class, you sometimes wish there was a side exit so you could just sneak out without any parents seeing you.

So are the parents right, or are they out of line?
Your interest in your child is never out of line, but if you talk to the coach honestly and without blame, he or she will have a clearer head to examine the issue. If you start with "you're a bad coach" we're only human and will get defensive; the coach might end up denying something he needs to hear. Personally, I try to do active listening (saying to a parent, for instance, "you're concerned that I'm not paying enough attention to Suzie") but it's hard to do when your first instinct is to say "am too!!"

If you're concerned about something, ask the coach about the problem, not the cause. Ask "Why didn't she pass" not, essentially, "Why don't you like my child." (You might not like the answer to that.) You'll get a more honest response, and maybe some good ways to help.

Get off my lawn!
Some of the over-the-top statements come out of the culture. Middle class parents these days are involved in their children's activities and successes to a fault. Having grown up in an era when we were left much more to our own devices, and allowed to define our own successes and failures, to me this is ineffective parenting. But I know that there's a bit of a "get off my lawn" element here-- (imagine curmudgeonly voice): "you young parents don't know what you're doing!" So I try to keep the judgment at bay when responding. (Plus I'm just the skating teacher. My opinion of your parenting falls into the "not my job" category. When you're a busy-body like me it's easy to forget!)

Some of the misplaced concern comes from simply not being part of figure skating culture. Parents of recreational skaters, or parents who didn't skate themselves, often don't mean "you, the coach, are doing it wrong," even if that's what they're saying. They mean "I don't understand what's going on out there. Please explain it and reassure me."

So here's what's going on:
My general goal is to give every child individual attention in every class. In a 30 minute class with 10 children, when you take out group time, your child is getting 1 or 2 minutes with me, because that's literally all the time I've got. If you happened to get distracted during that one minute, you think I didn't pay attention to your child. Even the most eagle-eyed parent is going to lose focus for a few minutes during class. Sometimes I'll look up to catch a parent's attention when their kid does something well, and they're not looking, so they miss the moment. I would like to emphasize that this is fine, but don't then accuse me of ignoring your child. I can't force you to watch, and I can't wait until you're watching to focus on your skater.

Sometimes a child is doing especially well, and I'll let them work on their own for a class or two. They're still participating, but I may have made the judgment to leave them be, to work out any kinks themselves. Another week, I'll "neglect" someone else. I am, in fact, aware when I am doing this, but it's not because I'm ignoring someone. Skaters also need to be able to work on their own.

Sometimes a child is doing especially poorly. I've got a struggling Beta student in a very strong Beta class. He's getting further and further behind. Rather than let him simply fall off and just repeat the class, I've been pulling him out and working with him for about 3 to 5 minutes by himself each class. The rest of the group gets set a task; I've got the eyes in the back of my head on them, and they're learning to manage their own time and tasks. Meanwhile, little T is catching up, and furthermore is less of a distraction and hazard because of it.

Sometimes a child is working ahead of the class. I don't believe in passing kids up mid-session. They can always use the time to work on the current skills to greater proficiency, or at a higher level. So I may take the time to give them specialized instruction that keeps them engaged in the class.

Sometimes a child is unreachable in the limited time, maybe a half hour a week, that I've got. A classroom teacher has both the time and the obligation to get each child past his or her barriers to success. In an after school program group class instructors don't have that luxury. I'm not your kid's therapist and I'm only part of the village that it takes to raise him to a certain extent. There is a limit to the amount of indulgence one can offer a child who constantly gets on and off the ice without permission, who complains of aches and pains, who wanders off, or doesn't listen. The child who won't participate cannot be permitted to create a drain on everyone else's time. If this is your child, you need to take a deep breath and be honest about it. The coach will do what she or he can, but you can't make the whole class suffer to constantly discipline or indulge one child.

So how can you know when it's the teacher and not your kid?
Look at your child. Is he or she steadily improving? If he's not, look at the class as a whole-- in general are the children improving as a group? If the whole group is improving and your child is not, that is what should be brought up to the teacher, not blame and recrimination. Like as not, the coach is aware of the problem and has a good idea of the cause (poor attention span, promoted to too high a level, bad equipment are all causes of poor performance).

We want to talk to you about your child, and we want to be the best coach for each child that we can be. Blaming the coach is a game that can't be won. Don't play it.