The no-ice training regimen

How much ice is not enough ice?

If you're a long time reader, you know the formula- a minimum of one half-hour of ice for every half rotation you're working on, plus an hour plus a lesson or class per week.

So- FS1 (waltz jump and half flip)- 2 hours plus lesson; Novice (test track) axel and 4 doubles means 9½ rotations or 3½ hours plus lesson. This keeps you current (but doesn't allow that much room for new or upgraded skills).  If you're a competitive skater, just do what your coach says, mkay?

I know of skaters, though, who want to skate more, but can't. Maybe they don't have the time, or the money, or the transportation. Or the parental cooperation. They might be in a market with very limited ice (we don't have that problem in Chicago).

There are some logistical fixes: consolidate your lesson or class with your practice sessions. This of course needs the cooperation of the rink, to schedule these things back to back. Car pool. Arrange "skate and homework" buddies so your folks know you're not sacrificing school for skating (haha who am I kidding, of course you're sacrificing school for skating-- don't tell mom).

But you don't actually need ice to train for ice training. Or rather, there are things you can do at home that will make you a better skater. All the best skaters do it. Seriously. All the best skaters do it, because in fact, your skating will be better if you take it off the ice sometimes.

Plus, it's free.

Everyone's heard of off-ice training. This means workouts that help you with the strength, flexibility, and stamina that any athlete needs, but also skill-specific training for balance, jumping and artistry.

The best way to make sure you're getting the off-ice training you need is to have your coach give you some skill-specific workouts like jump drills, specific stretches (back and shoulder, arabesque, etc.) There are balance aids that help with landings, spirals and even turns. I learned patch-quality turns using these.

Jump drills are one of the best things you can work on off ice, and in fact, you should be working on them off-ice. Teaching your body what a jump–even a single–feels like in sneakers takes away some of the fear of your first try on the ice.  For single-axis jumps like the flip, which requires a lot of strength, this can mean the difference between a fall and a gliding check out. Especially when you're starting the axel, learn it off-ice first.

Jump drills are not only actually doing a specific jump. Plyometric exercises teach you spring and balance while also working on strengthening the muscles that skaters need.

For cardio, running or an aerobics video (youtube is your friend) is worth one of those half hours on the ice. Not only will it improve endurance, it will help you with focus. One of the things that kids especially struggle with is the sheer boredom of practice. Regularly running for 30 minutes will make skating practice feel like Disneyland, because there's pretty much nothing more boring than running.

If your main problem is lack of or distance from ice, as opposed to finances, you can also take classes that support the same skills. Jazz dance or hip hop (I like these better than ballet for figure skaters unless you can find an actual ballet-for-figure skaters class, but ballet is great as well), yoga, and karate are all great companion disciplines for figure skaters.

In other words, you don't have to skate to train.

What non-skating do you do to help your skating?

What's wrong with adult skaters?

There is no single group of skaters more vulnerable to dislike than what I call Adult Onset Skaters. Please note that I don't endorse, or share, these opinions. Just giving you the low down on the haters. So what is it that annoys people so much?

Out of place 
Girls Rule at ice rinks. Adults, especially at the lower levels, just look out of place, especially on freestyle sessions. In a universe largely populated by pre-adolescent girls and skinny superstars, standing out is the original sin. And there's this giant on our pretty ice. And it isn't only, or even mostly, the kids who resent us-- a lot of coaches are extremely resentful of adults on "their" ice. You'll find people don't resent you, and in fact don't notice you, if you learn how to fit in-- don't show up in a parka and snow pants; keep moving, follow the standard ice patterns, don't yell at people for "getting in your way" (they aren't).

Slow
Personally, I like slow ice. Find me ice full of skaters moving at a lumbering gait, and I'm a happy camper. Freestyle ice moves FAST. On a typical freestyle session, in fact, slow-moving (or worse, unmoving) skaters are a hazard. If you've got to skate on a fast session, learn the rules of the road. Don't hog one spot--move around the rink.  KEEP MOVING! The worst thing you can do is stop in the middle of the ice. Understand the patterns (no circles of cross overs in the lutz corner), etc.

Skittish
We startle easily. A lot of adults freak if someone skates within a couple of body lengths, especially if they're going fast. But if you watch practice sessions, you'll notice that collisions are relatively rare (spectacular mishaps at the Olympics, Grand Prix and other elite competitions notwithstanding). This can be extremely annoying to other skaters, especially if you make a big deal out of it. If someone is outside the reach of your arm, they aren't close.

Distractible
I can't work if anyone else is on the ice. I'm worried about where they are, what they're doing, whether they are judging me. This makes me skittish, and slow.

Rude
Adults, unlike most kids, are not at the rink to meet people. We do, of course, meet people at the rink. But the kinds of adults you find working on skating (as opposed to recreating), are usually extremely focused and can come off as unfriendly or even rude. Mostly I think, though, they're just shell-shocked from all the hate and have retreated into their happy place and screw you anyway.

Clumsy
We aren't, actually. But it's one of the criticisms you hear from coaches about why they don't like to work with adults.

So what do you do with the haters? Well, happily, you're not a pre-adolescent girl anymore, so who cares what they think. Get out there and skate!

Unmotivated

A reader emailed me that her Basic Skills kids "love to skate but they hate going to the rink". This was further complicated by the fact that getting to the rink was also exhausting to the mom-- both because of a long commute, and because of having to motivate them to go every time.

So how do you motivate skaters, especially beginners who aren't yet as invested emotionally, or don't have as much cool stuff that they can do?

Transitions
Sometimes the issue isn't skating, it's everything around it. You want to watch tv. You have homework. "None of my friends skate; they think it's weird." And on and on.

So this is not always a skating issue, sometimes it's a parenting issue. And the parenting issue here is, who is in charge? They're kids! Yes, they have a strong will, but honestly folks, if you can't get your 5 year old to do what you say, or if you're offering him the option to negotiate, skating lessons are the least of your worries.

In other words, stop negotiating, and just go.

They don't always have to have a lesson
The mom in question was having 2 lessons and and 2 classes per week, at Basic 6 and Basic 8 levels. That's quite a lot of skating at that level; I think she could probably sacrifice one of those sessions to a "fun skate." Take them to one of the weekend public skates, and promise you won't make them "work". At that level, everything they do on the ice is "on task" pretty much, whether they know it or not. Saturday and Sunday afternoon free skates are FULL of kids from the classes; they'll find people they know and make friends and then skating will be about fun instead of about work. (It's also cheaper, plus if they get into it, there are carpooling possibilities, saving you a chore)

Bundling
If your skaters are doing privates, class, and practice (and maybe off-ice or dance as well), think about "bundling" them-- back to back class+lesson, or tack skating onto an existing trip (piano lesson, regular grocery shopping, immediately after school, whatever) so that you're already out anyway.  Some parents do homework at the rink--you get there right after school, get them a snack from concession and do homework, then have skating class as a reward for getting some homework done!

Socialize
Encourage your kids to develop rink-based friendships. If they seem to connect with a certain child, find the parent and set up play dates, or see if they're at the rink early so the kids can hang out. Sign up for class together; even share a semi-private lesson (this also helps with costs).

What not to do
No bribes. No trades. If you really want your child to skate, and you know she likes it/is good at it, stop making it a choice.  You don't have to be mean about it, just matter of fact. Skating is one of the things you do.

What strategies have you used to motivate your skater?

How to practice on public skating

There are two kinds of ice: Public, and Practice.

Package ice is also sometimes called "practice" ice, and is run by the club or the rink, but the key point is that it isn't public-- there are restrictions based on skating level, club or class enrollment, and number of people allowed on the ice at any given session (generally fewer than 30, not counting coaches).

In the Chicago area, where ice is abundant, one rarely needs to resort to the public sessions, because the restricted ice is cheap-- generally under $10 an hour, and often as little as $5. It's simple economics--the rinks are packed so tightly that they have to keep this ice cheap to attract customers.

But many skaters have to resort to the public, unrestricted sessions, because of access, schedule, cost or other factors.

And then you're dealing with

• the unsteady dad carrying his screaming toddler
• the hotdogging teens
• the hockey dads screaming at their 8 year-olds to "just plow right through them if they're too slow!" (true story)
• the giggly high schoolers flirting with the guards (who are flirting right back, thus ignoring the above situations)
  

and of course, crowds.

So how do you practice on a crowded, minimally supervised session where the mission is, of course, not to accommodate serious work, but simple family fun?

The center area
Even in minimally crowded public sessions, the guards will "cone off" or can be asked to cone off, a large center area that is reserved for practice and lessons. You're probably not going to be trying axels in there, but you can work on most Moves patterns, basic skating, spins, and even single rotation jumps. The people in the center watch out for each other.

But kids keep cutting through the center area
And you don't have to tolerate it. Police it yourself, or ask a guard. Every rink I've ever seen has rules posted, and one of them is always "no cutting through the center coned area."

Skating with the hoi poloi
In all but the most crowded sessions, you can actually get a fair amount done even outside the cones--you can certainly work on stroking, and you can get a good aerobic session in. Depending on the tolerance of the guards (which we have established is fairly high), you can work on edges and turns in the end zones.

What about the guards?
I wonder this myself. For the most part, they are high school hockey players who don't quite get the policing aspect of the job-- they can tend to view it as a chance to flirt, hot dog with their non-guard friends, and generally ignore the bloody mayhem around them. At least at places like the Ice Rink of the Damned they receive no training, and I don't think that's unusual. However, if you bring clear rule infractions to their attention (like crack-the-whips, backward spirals, dangerous hotdogging, cutting through the cones, etc.) they will generally step in. There is also often an adult guard semi in-charge who can be appealed to.

Use some common sense
If you show up at a Sunday afternoon session in January expecting to finally nail that flip, think again. Winter weekends are going to be crowded. Don't go, or if you do, don't get all bent out of shape because the people there don't understand that you are a serious skater and they are just wasting your time. Public sessions can be great for practicing, but they are not meant for that.

Alternate times
Weekend afternoons are going to be crowded in the winter. But not in the summer! Rinks are empty in the summer, and even starting around spring break time they begin to empty out. It's an ongoing mystery to me why skaters continue to attend the crowded practice ice sessions all summer, when public ice just sits there.  If you're lucky enough to work or go to school close to a rink, think about using your lunch hour to skate a couple times a week. Most rinks have midday sessions, sometimes restricted to adults even, that are empty all year round.  (Just be aware of school holidays)

How have you made public skating sessions work as practice time?

I thought there was safety in numbers

Well, not in figure skating. There is nothing more terrifying than a public skating session the Sunday after Christmas.

At some rinks, practice ice can be packed to the gills as well--even though you're paying a premium for restricted ice, this can still mean 20 to 30 skaters, plus their coaches, and they don't skate in a nice predictable circle like happens on public.

So how do you skate safe on a crowded session?

Public Ice
Follow the rules!
Don't skate against the flow. Don't cut across the coned section. Don't do knee slides, or crack the whip. Don't shoot pucks, or small children. Don't wear ear buds, or talk on the cell phone. In other words, use common sense.

Practice ice
This one's a little more complicated, but starts the same--follow the rules. Which means know the rules. Ask a coach what the rules are. This can also have the affect of making the coach remind herself what the rules are, since coaches are often the worst offenders (and frankly a coach that tells you, don't worry about it we make our own rules--giant waving red flag.) Pattern, right-of-way, and priority will vary somewhat from rink to rink, but here are some common sense rules to follow.

Right of way
In general, the person whose music is playing has the right of way. At a well-run session, this person will be wearing a bright pinney or belt. At a stupidly run session, you are somehow just supposed to know who is skating to their own music. Following that, a person in a lesson has the right of way over someone there for practice. The person doing the jump or spin in the proper place has the right of way over someone doing a non-music runthrough of their program (i.e. if your program has a jump or spiral choreographed in the center where everyone is spinning, you have to yield to the spin).

Don't stand still
The worst thing you can do on crowded ice--public or practice-- is stop and stand in the middle of the ice. If you have to stop, get over to the boards. Do not give me the excuse that you're "trying to see where the skater is going to go." Straight into you is where, because no one expects immovable objects in the middle of the rink.

Lefty
Lefty jumpers get the right of way. Do not cut off their jump patterns.

Lutz corner
The lutz corners are upstage right and downstage left. Never give a lesson, or practice small patterns in these corners, you will drive the people working on lutz, and their coaches, into a murderous rage. (Left jumpers use the other corners; if there are a lot of left jumpers on a session you also cannot use these corners, but with just a couple lefties on a session, just be aware and get out of the way--lutz setups telegraph a mile away.)

Round and round and round and....
Don't stay in one little circle practicing the same move over and over and over. If you have to practice some small pattern, move it around the rink. Better yet, start learning how to "use the ice," i.e. use at least half the ice on all jump set ups, do turns within moves patterns, etc. Adult skaters are particularly guilty of this one.

Lower level or upper level skaters?
Lower level skaters get the right of way. Period. I don't give a shit about your triple flip. If there's a skater working on waltz jumps they clearly do not have the tools you have at your disposal to pull a jump and not cause a crash. Do not role your eyes, or complain to the monitor, or your mother, or stamp your little foot. Lower level skaters are a fact of life unless you are in a serious training program. If you're not, then get over yourself and stop frightening the babies.

Friends, and coaching groups
When you're skating with a friend, or if your coach does group lessons on practice sessions, it is very easy to get tunnel vision, and to see only your own group. Don't let the group be an ice hog, pissing everyone else off. Understand that group activities, even when parsed out a skater at a time, have a tendency to command the ice. If 15 skaters are all skating the same set pattern, even if they're only going out one or 2 at a time, they are going to create a vortex that no one else can skate through. Be sensitive to this if you're part of a group.

Get up
If you fall, get up, even if you're hurt. Your prone body is the skating equivalent of a pothole--no one is expecting you, and you're hard to see down there.

Stick with it
Practice ice is terrifying the first few times out there. It looks like chaos. But a session has its own sense and pattern, which you will only start to understand when you are out there. Stay with it, and learn to go, as they say, with the flow.

This is why he's head of the PSA

An excellent post on practice etiquette from Jimmie Santee, Executive Director of the Professional Skaters Association. Complete with traffic diagrams! Everyone who uses practice ice should read this!

http://skatepsa.blogspot.com/2010/11/forgotten-art-of-skating-ettiquette.html

And here's the common sense part

Don't do backward spirals on crowded practice ice.

If a coach tells you to do something-- your coach or another coach-- for pity's sake just do it. Don't stand there arguing. You can get into it later, when you're not interfering with the session. And if a coach who is not your own tells you to do something, you can be pretty sure that you are engaged in a huge error, because interfering with someone else's student is the biggest no-no in coaching and it's not going to happen for frivolous reasons.

Yield to inexperienced skaters whether they have the right of way or not. Would you rather be right or upright?

Don't play chicken. (I might also phrase that don't be an idiot, but that would be rude.)

Don't talk back to coaches, even adult skaters. Again, take it up later. No attitude on practice ice please, no one has time.

And, finally: Don't. Stand. In. The. Lutz. Corner.

Practice ice etiquette and common sense

This post from Ice Mom caused me to dig into my drafts list and resurrect an idea from a couple of months ago called "what is practice ice." I had let the idea fall off because it seemed rather prosaic, with no hook or narrative. But the dilemma of Ice Mom's reader got my juices flowing, and helped me remember what it was like being a new mom and a new skater dealing with practice ice.

So, what is practice ice anyway? Well, a healthy program will find as many ways to use the ice as they can-- classes, figure skating practice, hockey games and practice, speed skating, special events, private rental. This is to appeal to as many customers as possible. You'll generally find people practicing figure skating on dedicated practice ice, and on public sessions. The difference is that at most rinks practice ice has an upper limit of users-- usually between 20 and 30 (this is why you pay more for practice than for public), and you can teach on it (not all rinks allow lessons on public sessions). You can also impose more specific and more stringent rules on practice ice.

Practice ice protocols and rules will vary from rink to rink. And this means not just what the published rules are, but also how far you can bend those rules. At my main rink, we are inflexible on skating level. "High" ice means you have a solid axel, period. Doesn't matter if the ice is undersold. If you're not tested onto that ice we will kick you off. But we're notoriously lax about making sure skaters have turned in a coupon, and some monitors are more haphazard about rules enforcement than others. At another rink I teach at I have seen puck practice on figure skating ice, apparently because they're more concerned about money than safety (did I just say that?).

So the first thing to find out when you or your child starts working on practice ice, is "what are the rules". Don't run up against them out of ignorance and then get all bent out of shape. Don't assume that what you know at one rink applies at every rink. Don't complain because someone seems to be in violation-- they might be utilizing some dispensation you don't know about. Observe for a while and find out where the rules seem, um, flexible. You're probably going to have to live with that. You need to understand not only the rules, but also the rink's idiosyncratic culture.

Sports facilities always have rules. One sees rules posted at swimming pools or the basketball court at the Y. There are things that are forbidden ("no jumps or programs in the first 5 minutes of each session," for instance, or no triples on low ice), general flow patterns (moves in the outer corridor, spins in the middle, jumps at the ends, lutz corners and watch out for clockwise jumpers) and right-of-way (generally for lessons and program run throughs). Other rules you might encounter: number/order of program plays, jump set-ups must utilize at least half the rink (i.e. no skating round and round in circles doing waltz jumps in one spot), coaches must teach from the boards (i.e. no standing around in the middle of the ice giving tips), no splitting sessions (i.e. paying for only half a session, or sharing coupons), no standing in the middle of the ice, no hanging out at the boards, no colored drinks. I'd be interested in hearing other rules from other rinks as well.

You can find out the rules by checking to see if they are posted or published. We used to post practice ice rules at my rink, but I haven't seen the poster in years, which is too bad because I think it would save a lot of grief and confusion. If your skater has never been on a practice session before, for goodness sake ask your coach (or any coach, if you aren't doing privates) to skate you around and explain it the first time. Why this isn't a requirement to qualify for practice ice is an utter mystery to me.

Things that can sabotage a well-thought out set of practice ice rules:

• coaches who refuse to comply because they know there are no consequences. You're going to get some of this anywhere, sometimes over all the rules, sometimes over just some of them. My guess is management lets some things go and digs on others; I don't want to speculate or complain about why some rules are enforced and others ignored. It is what it is.
• monitors who don't understand their power, or who abuse it. Yes, the ice monitor has power. Yes, sometimes the monitor will favor her daughter, or the daughter's cronies, or the daughter's coach. Too bad. Complain to management later. I used to tell my daughter that the ice monitor was g*d. You do what she says, when she says it. If you have a problem, take it up with her later, don't gum up practice ice. That said, ice monitors need to know the rules, they need to have regular training sessions, and they need to have occasional thank you luncheons, as having the worst volunteer job in the rink because everyone dumps on them.
• guest coaches who try to impose their home rink rules on your ice. The other coaches in the rink, or the monitor, need to set them straight, politely but firmly, at the time of the infraction. "I'm sorry, this is low ice, your student can't work on triples here. Could he do moves instead? There's a high session in an hour."

So, I hope that helps. Practice ice can be terrifying for first timers. As far as I'm concerned, no skater should be allowed onto practice ice without understanding the rules first. It's a dangerous place if you don't know what you're doing.

Don't expect miracles

A friend of mine tweets "Okay, really sick of parent who expects miracles from me."

I'm guessing this has to do either with a student who is not passing tests, or who is not placing well at competitions, or who is not mastering a difficult skill.

I'm not saying that it's never the coach's fault. There are coaches that couldn't teach a frog to jump, and there are coaches that don't care or pay attention. But if you're disappointed in the coach, if you think your or your skater's problems are due to the coaching, here's what you need to ask first:

• Are you skating enough to achieve the outcome you're looking for? If you're trying to test Moves, you need a dedicated lesson and at least half of every practice devoted to the test. Is the coach telling you that the student is not ready to test? Listen to her, and ask her what you need to do to get ready. (quick answer-- practice more, and practice effectively). Is it a jump? Read my formula for achieving mastery at freestyle. If your skater is working on the axel and is not on the ice 3 hours a week (including practice, lesson, and class), it's going to be a looooong slog.

• Is the skater practicing effectively? Does the coach give the skater practice guidelines? How much are you practicing that jump? Are you breaking down the skill (i.e. practicing segments of the skill in isolation). How many times are you willing to fall? Skaters who aren't falling when learning multiple rotation jumps are not trying to learn the jump; they are trying not to fall.

• Am I basing my expectations on what other skaters are achieving? This is a huge error that parents make, and one I regret that coaches encourage. (Overhead from a coach-- "Oh, all my skaters are in Freestyle 5 by the time they're 7!) Maybe the skater who seems to keep moving ahead of your child skates 2 or 3 times as much. I hate to say it, but she might be more talented. Or, she might be getting "cuted" up. If you're concerned that little Mabel is all the way to Freestyle 5 while your Suzie is "stuck" at 3, take a look at Mabel. Does she really look like a freestyle 5 skater? I worked on a Nutcracker number last night in a lower freestyle level, and there were an awful lot of cuties in there who did not have a clue how to do the basic jumps at that level.

• Understand that what it really takes to place well at competitions is not just skill, talent, and levels, but also a great big walloping dollop of sheer dumb luck. You have absolutely no control over what happens on competition ice. Forget the program. Here are the things you cannot control:

-Incompetent or spiteful judging. I hate to say it, but this happens.
-Your skater had a bad day
-Another skater in the group had the skate of their life. Our own local hero, Evan Lysacek, US Champ, World Champ, was on his way to Olympic Gold. And then former World Champion Yevgeny Plushenko decided to come out of retirement and give it one more shot. And now everyone is saying, hey Evan, enjoy that Silver!

Miracles happen in the movies. Skaters happen through perseverence, work, and an awful lot of bumps and bruises.

Yes, please practice. Why are we even asking this question?

On the FAQ for skating parents-- should she be practicing?

The answer is yes.  And no.  If you've started jumps and spins, you should be practicing.  The skills are difficult and complex, and require independent thinking that comes from independent practice.  If you're a beginner skater the answer is still yes and no-- it's hard to "practice" when you don't know how to do anything, but for the beginner skater just skating around in circles constitutes practice.  Plus, I don't know any kid who will come to a rink, especially with friends, and not, number one show off, and number two, check out what that girl over there is doing, and trying that.

If your child is in love with skating, at least in Chicago you can easily find ice 5 hours a day.  But really, there's no need.  I raised a high level skater who passed the highest tests in 3 skating disciplines; at her highest competitive level she skated about 12 hours a week, including 2-3 lessons and 2 classes.  But before and after her short competitive stint, she never skated more than  about 7 hours a week, again, including classes and lessons.  Before any coaches reading this have an apoplexy, I wouldn't recommend this approach to a student whose ambition is to compete nationally.

My point is, you don't need to go crazy here.  Just like not every student taking violin lessons is planning to go to Juilliard, there's more to figure skating than being the next Michelle Kwan.  However, just because you're not heading to Juilliard does not mean you shouldn't practice.

The skills in Freestyle are complex (a spin utilizes two types of turns, backward crossovers, forward and backward edges, change of edge, and oh, yes there’s the spinning part!).  As with high-level skills in any discipline, only by practicing will you get it right.  So I strongly recommend that your freestyle skater come more than once a week.

Below the freestyle level (essentially when you start doing spins and full-rotation jumps) come to class and come at least once a week just to skate around.  Lessons are great-- your child will learn better technique and will progress faster with lessons-- but the most important thing for beginners is just to be on the ice having fun.

Once the more complex skills begin, technique becomes especially important, as well as skill-specific practice so the muscles learn.  But the amount of time is entirely dependent on outside factors.  Does he or she (or you, as the parent) have the commitment and stamina to come several times a week?  Can your schedule and budget handle it?  A good starting point for a new freestyle skater is one or two free style classes, or a free style class plus one or more specialty class.  To this you should add one or two hours of practice.  One pro suggests that you start with an hour of practice per week, then add one hour for each free style level you achieve (so a skater in Freestyle 1 should practice for two hours per week outside of class).   I came up with a formula- 1/2 hour of non-class practice for each rotation in jumps that you've learned.  So if you're in ISI Freestyle 4 (salchow, toe-loop, half-loop, flip) you should be skating 2 hours on your own outside of class and lessons.  Someone doing 4 double jumps and an axel should be practicing 4-5 hours per week.  Someone doing only the 6 low-freestyle half-jumps would practice 1-2 hours per week.

The more ambitious the skater, the more time needs to be devoted.  Want to compete?  You need to add time to practice the skills plus the program.  Moves tests?  Now you need  a moves lesson and dedicated practice.  Help with a specific jump?  More practice.

Just want to skate in class and ice shows?  Back to the formula-- that's probably enough to maintain and even progress.

There are lots of skaters who can learn all the jumps through Freestyle 4 just from class.  The higher level skills require one-on-one lessons.  Some skaters need extra lessons and extra classes earlier on, and like I said, all skaters can benefit from private lessons if the coach is a good fit.

The more you practice, the better you’ll be. Does your skater want to skate a lot?  Bless her or him.  If you can afford the time and money, go for it.  If you can't handle it, or your child can't handle it, skate enough to progress through the levels.  It's not about what the coach says, or what the industry says, or what the mom sitting next to you says.  It's about you and your skater and the love of this wonderful sport.