How to become a Skater Mom (or dad)

Step One

Have a child who is obsessed with skating. If your child is not cooperating with the skating obsession, start bribing her with sparkly dresses. (This also works with boys, but dad has to be a really understanding sort.)

What is "obsessed?" Wants to skate more often than you want to take her. Doesn't mind (much) getting up at 5 a.m. to skate. Is willing to forgo social opportunities to skate. Knows what a closed choctaw is. Voluntarily does cardio workouts. Likes the coach better than she likes you. SEES the coach more than she sees you.

Steps Two through Infinity

Send daily emails to the coach, questioning her progress and wondering why that other girl is going to Regionals when she has not been skating as long as your child. Tell that child's mother that she has no idea what she is getting into. Call up local judges and ask them to come observe your child, without letting the coach know you've done this. Send a press release to your local newspaper when she wins the rink's ISI competition. Change coaches every six months, so you can find the "perfect" one. Invite out of town coaches to come work with your child (without informing your coach). Have loud fights with the coach in the lobby. Only talk to parents of your coach's kids unless you have something nasty to say about them, then say it to parents of the other coaches' kids. Walk around to the back of the boards during practice ice, so you can "monitor the lesson." Come to the rink with her every time she skates, even if she's twenty. Stand in the door yelling at your child during practice. Buy those skates with the colored blades. Alternately, buy K-picks for your FS 4 skater. Get custom-made practice dresses. If you're the ice monitor, always place your skater's music at the top of the queue. Wonder, to anyone who will listen, why your skater always gets the worst ice show solo. (And don't forget to complain about the costume.) If someone else gets a good solo, be sure to mention that your skater had that solo LAST year.

Any more? Obsessed Skater Moms, please add to my list!

Update from Ice Mom: talk very loudly about how smart your kid is and how the kid should be in a more advanced skating level because she's such a good reader. (More from Ice Mom in the comments)

Update from Beth M: tell your daughter to quit standing still and listening to the coach. Why? Because kid needed to practice!

Alphabet Soup

There are two established curricula for figure skating schools across the US: the Ice Skating Institute's Learn to Skate or weSkate program, and US Figureskating's Basic Skills. Both these programs take skaters from first-time on the ice up through triple jumps (in USFS kids transition to high freestyle through their Bridge program), as well as specialties like Pairs, Dance, Figures, etc. Basic Skills also has speed skating and hockey curricula. In Canada the skating federation (Skate Canada) promotes the CanSkate curriculum (see what they did there? Cute.).

There are also rinks that use their own curriculum, but if you then compete in any ISI or USFS competition you have to adhere to the curriculum as laid out in the two federations (ISI has greater restrictions on elements that can be in programs than USFS believe it or not).

ISI is strictly recreational. Although it does have local, national and even international competitions, and trains to the highest level (most difficult test in figureskating is not USFS Senior, but ISI FreeStyle 10) the focus is on fun. Even if you start in an ISI program, if you want to compete in qualifying competitions leading to Nationals, you must eventually switch to the USFS Moves and Free Style tests. It is possible and common for skaters to do both.

So that's the outline. What's the difference?

Both curricula are designed to lead the skater in a logical progression through the skills; to "build" each skill as it were. From two foot to one foot glide, to glide on a circle (edge), to crossovers. Then do it all over again backwards. Then combine forwards and backwards (turns). Add jumps, spins, more complex turns, etc.

ISI is a goal oriented curriculum. The skills are basically stated as "Forward Crossovers," "Backward Crossovers" "Three-turns" et cetera, leaving the instructor to break the skill down into the necessary glides, rotations, body alignment etc. A successful coach in ISI needs to understand the details of each move, because the curriculum doesn't hand it to you.

Basic Skills is very process oriented, and relies less on the knowledge and creativity of the teacher, but it forces students to really master each individual component of each skill.

I like the way Basic Skills forces a teacher to break the skill down. The drawback with the curriculum is that it breaks the skill down so far, with 7 testable skills at every level, that it removes a lot of discretion and creativity on the part of the coach, and just takes up a lot more class time on each line item skill. This is part of an educational approach called "deskilling" as in the teacher doesn't need actual skills to teach. It is directed at the idea of anyone being able to teach anything if they just follow the curriculum exactly, whether they're a trained teacher or not.

I like the way ISI makes it very clear to the student (and the parent) exactly what it is they are learning. "Forward Crossovers" is way clearer than "forward alternating half pumps on a line, then pumps on a circle, then forward inside and outside edges on a circle, then crossovers" (which spans 3 separate levels, but are all aimed at teaching crossovers). ISI forces skaters to connect the dots. My experience of Basic Skills was that kids just do not really get the connection between stroking, pumps, one-foot glides and crossovers, because the curriculum decouples the skill from the goal.

The drawback with ISI is that kids get "stuck" and it's harder to demonstrate why to the frustrated parent. In Basic Skills you can see that you have to have a solid one-foot glide on a circle before the crossovers. In ISI it's just "can't do crossovers."

Kids learn to skate no matter which curriculum they use, or neither. The key to learning how to skate is mileage. If you keep taking classes and lessons, you will get better, ipso facto. You will get best if you allow the teacher, and not the parent or the kid, decide when a child can move on. Slower is better. As I said to a child today, bored with edges, "in 5 minutes, you will get to do whatever you want. Is agonizing boredom for 5 minutes something you can handle?"

I like the way ISI leaves the breakdown up to the coach. Unfortunately this does not work if the coach does not know how to break down the skill.

So what's the solution? ISI requires coaches with a clue. USFS has the better skills progression. Coming up with better skills progressions and lesson plans is a favorite coaching parlor game.

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.

Another great practice ice question

Great question from a regular reader:

Do really high level coaches only have one student at a time? And, do advanced (like, international) skaters have private ice time, outside normal freestyle sessions, when it's just them and their coach on the ice? It's just something I've always wondered, for some reason.

Elite coaches (if any of you are reading this, feel free to chime in), like any coach, will have more than one student (after all, what happens if that student switches coaches or quits- suddenly no income!). I imagine that when the big competitions come up they focus in on the skaters attending, and pass their other students at least for a while, to their staff, underlings and developmental team. One at bat, one on deck, couple in the wings. They're going to have fewer students than less lofty coaches, if for no other reason than an elite skater is working with the coach every day, sometimes for hours. The fees add up.

Elite coaches not only have more than one student, just a few coaches will account for most of the top skaters in a single country or discipline. Frank Carroll and John Nicks used to pretty much own U.S. singles, and Tarasova is working on owning the rest of the world. Just two coaching teams accounted for 5 of the top 7 ice dance teams this year. We're witnessing the rather exciting (to a skating geek) phenomenon of the emergence of a couple of new coaching dynasties in the U.S. with Tom Zakrasjec (ha! spelled that right without looking it up!) who coaches Rachael Flatt among others and Jim Peterson who coaches Denney and Barrett and a couple of other high ranking pairs teams.

Anyone can have private ice time if they're willing to pay for it. People rent ice for birthday parties all the time, about $160-200 per hour. This is undoubtedly negotiable since most ice goes unsold; I assume a lot of rinks would like the ability to say "so-and-so trains here" as much as the extra income. A little bird tells me that there are probably rinks who would give away ice to a "name" skater in exchange for the ability to say that. That said, my daughter has shared regular club ice with Evan Lysacek, Vikotoria Volchkova, Gregory and Petukov, Totmianina and Marinin and others, not because she was some fantastic skater, but because that was her regular ice and they showed up. You go where the ice, or the coach, is.

Finding "empty" ice is a religion to the less fortunate (and wealthy) skaters. Kids work with school districts to rearrange schedules so that they can skate during the day. Finding optimum training time, including that empty ice, is one of the reasons you find so many so-called "home schooled" kids in elite skating. (So-called because in fact they're being taught by professional tutors, not mom. This always bothers me; it's not homeschooling if you're farming it out to pros, as far as I'm concerned. Tara Lipinski, famously "home schooled" had separate tutors in math, science, English, and foreign language.) What I always wonder is how U.S. Figureskating can keep these kids on the road for weeks and weeks (think 2 Grand Prix competitions, possibly Sectionals, Regionals, Nationals, and Worlds) out of the school year and not be required to provide tutors for them. Trust me, the film industry isn't getting away with that.

Xan's all-purpose answer to every skating question

Beta means B for backwards. I always liked that accidental coincidence in the ISI curriculum. Aside from backward swizzles, this is the first place that sustained backwards skating is introduced.

By definition, backwards crossovers are a continuous backward movement around a circle, pushing with the “outside” foot, then crossing it over the “inside” foot; the crossed foot then pushes to the outside of the circle (the “undercut”), and returns to the starting position. To pass, you must demonstrate a strong first push without dragging the toe pick, smoothly lifting that foot to cross the skating foot, and pushing to the outside of the circle with the second foot. (USFS Basic Skills teaches cutbacks, i.e., no lift. More on that in a minute.) Five consecutive cross-overs are required to pass, with no additional pumps or pushes.

Backward Stroking is also in this level: Continuous alternating backwards pushes along an axis. Finally, Beta includes forward T-Stops (right and left): A one-foot stop in a “T” position, using the outside edge of the rear foot to stop. To pass, you must be able to use either foot to stop and you must be able to come to a complete stop after three strong pushes.

Throughout the ISI curriculum, a great deal of independent thinking is required on the part of the coach. Inexperienced coaches will jump in on the first day of Alpha or Beta with crossovers, forgetting that you can't do crossovers with a hinky one foot glide. The USFS Basic Skills curriculum solves this by making testable skills of one foot glides and pumps around a circle, forwards (Basic 2 & 3) and backwards (Basic 3 & 4). Unfortunately, these skills are in the levels BEFORE the crossovers. I also think Basic Skills gets it backwards, teaching pumps before edges. You can't do a proper pump if you don't know how to balance on a curve (i.e. edge). Further, separating these skills disguises their connection to each other. You'd be amazed at the number of kids who tell me there are no one-foot glides in crossovers.

Cut backs, with no lift over, are actually correct backwards crossovers. High level skaters don't generally lift the foot on back crossovers. However, in the lower levels, unless you're in a program that's willing to let a kid languish in Beta for a while, it's difficult to start with the tricky weight shift in a cut back when you've never done back crossovers before. Unfortunately, ISI does not then put cutbacks into the curriculum farther up, and some coaches expect the kids to just pick it up, or to learn them in private lessons. (ISI, are you reading this? Can you please add a pre-freestyle level for cutbacks, moving turns, and stationery spins? Thank you.)

Unlike at the Alpha level, where "correct" is good enough to pass (i.e. a "C" grade or even a D), your Beta skater should start working towards As and Bs. Coming out of Beta, the skater should be starting to use backward crossovers to generate power. This means no toe scraping, and a clear understanding of how to generate the underpush. Not every teacher will continue to work on crossover skills in the following levels, so if they don't learn it here, they'll suddenly turn up in a freestyle class in a few months with everyone whizzing past them. Personally I think Beta should be divided into Beta 1 and Beta 2, but no ever asks my opinion, for some reason.

So how do you generate the underpush? The key is to sink down as you stroke through. Watch a low level freestyle or under class sometime. You'll see kids nicely bend their knees for the first pump, and then straighten up as the leg crosses under. Crossovers bend down and then down again. (Can't use your knees for power if they're straight, after all.)

Bend your knees. It's what the title of the post means.

Impudent strumpet

Not me. One of my tweeps, who asked the best questions about figureskating during the Olympics. I was extremely proud of my 140 character twitter responses, but here are some answers in more depth:

Can figure skating dresses be machine washed with all that netting and sequins? If not, do they get smelly?
If a dress has jewels or beading, you can gently hand wash it, but you can't put it in the machine. A dry cleaner who specializes in beaded garments (for instance, one that does wedding dresses) can clean it.

Yes, they get smelly. IceMom has a post on caring for beaded and jeweled dresses here.

Do they enter jumps backwards because it's easier, or because it's harder?
The two hardest jumps are axel (forward take off) and lutz (backwards take off). Axel is hard because of the extra rotation (forward take off adds a half rotation, so a "double" axel, is actually about 2 1/2 rotations), Lutz is hard because it's one of the few true full-rotation jumps (more about that in a sec) and because it's a "counter" jump-- rotational direction is opposite of entry edge direction. Don't ask.

In fact, salchow, loop, and toe loop, mechanically, actually all jump off a forward edge. This makes them easier not because of the edge, but because in these cases it reduces rotation in the air.

Do they have to start at centre ice, or can they start anywhere on the rink?
The can start anywhere in the rink, starting in the middle is just a great big "look at me!" sign. Especially in show programs, you'll sometimes see skaters starting against the boards, just to be funny. Starting and finishing in the middle of the rink also gives you that fabulous publicity shot against the Olympic logo, cuz when is that ever going to happen again.


Why do they go with opaque instead of sheer flesh-coloured tights for their legs?
Sheer tights are too fragile for figure skating. You'd never get through more than one program. Years ago, skaters used to wear tights with a sheen, but that is now considered tacky. The tights don't match skin tone, because they are made in literally only one color. This is a real problem for black skaters. Surya Bonaly used to refuse to even wear tights. They tried to force her and she told them to go f*** themselves. I read somewhere that Debi Thomas dyed hers with tea. Show skaters will often wear standard microfiber in a tan color (a little heavier than sheer, not quite the blanket weight of skating tights) with brown fishnets over them, which gives the legs a nice definition. I don't know why competitive skaters have never picked up this trick.

Don't get me started on the over-the-boot thing they were all doing this year.

Why is her score so relatively low? She didn't seem to mess up, did she?
I don't know which skater this referred to, but it hits the crux of the disconnect between the scoring and the fans. The scoring marks 12 to 13 required elements, plus 6 "component" scores that grade technique, choreography, interim steps, and other artistic elements. Non-jump required elements further are divided into levels of difficulty from 1 to 4. The level is awarded on the spot by a technical specialist. Then each element is given a "grade of execution," i.e., how well you did it, from -3 to +3. The four major things that drag a score down are: under-rotating jumps (lower base score), low levels on required elements, negative grade of execution, and poor component scores. Judges seem to award component scores on a "stair step" basis, i.e. the less technically skilled skaters ALWAYS get lower component scores, no matter how brilliantly they skate within the technical confines. Conversely, the technically skilled skaters ALWAYS get high component scores, no matter how ugly they are on the ice (Comrade Plushenko comes to mind.)

Would a skater be allowed to compete in both singles and pairs, if she were wunderkind enough to do so?
Yes. This happens all the time at the National level. Caydee Denney was also a singles skater, looks like until last year. (someone correct me?)

Is there a functional reason why figureskating dresses are so often high neck low back instead of low neck regular back?
The "keyhole" style is traditional in figure skating dresses. Gonna refer this one to Ice Mom, too! Update: see the responses!) The bare back is just sexy. Tonya Harding tried this in reverse in 1992, with essentially a bare front. Judges weren't happy, but then Tonya generally pushed a lot of people's buttons, even before it occurred to her to try actual criminal activity.

Is it just me, or do the women spend more time obviously cueing up for their jumps than the men?
I think it's just you, but it could also have something to do with upper body strength. Multiple rotation jumps take a tremendous amount of upper body strength, which will favor the men.

Why doesn't it injure him when she puts her blades on his thighs like that?
This was in reference to the style in dance lifts this year, in which the lady actually stood on the gentleman's calf, thigh, stomach, or head for all I know. The answer is, yes it hurts. Charlie White tried skating with a pad under his pants on their amazing lift, but found it too cumbersome, and decided to just deal with the bruise.

On a similar topic, the women often cut their hands with all that blade grabbing. US Juvenile Dance champion Angel Giordano wraps her hands in gauze when practicing.

Is there like a standard choreography notation for explaining to ppl how exactly the compulsory dance goes?
There is no notation per se, but the patterns are drawn out (men's steps and ladies' steps) and there is standardized abbreviation so you know what to do at each step. All the patterns can be found at icedance.com.

Is it hard for them to not crash into each other when they're all skating around and warming up?
Short answer-- not really. On-ice warm ups at competitions are about the least crowded ice that skaters ever get to practice on, especially at the lower levels. A typical free style session has an upper limit of 26 to 30 skaters, and half again that number of coaches. Most of the time when you see skaters having close calls at competition warm up they are psyching each other out. Tonya Harding and Katarina Witt used to be notorious for it. Actual crashes are accidents. There are actually protocols and rules for practice sessions, regarding right of way, pattern, and manners.

Impstrump's blog is Impudent Strumpet. Thanks for the great questions! See you at Worlds!

Having a bad day

The world held its breath and then broke into tears as one on Tuesday night when Canadian skater Joannie Rochette skated her heart out for her mother and then collapsed in emotional agony.

But you'd never have known to watch her skate.

This capacity to remove one from the exigencies of the moment is one of the incredible things about this sport, whether teaching it or engaging in it. On September 11, 2001, I debated not attending my figure skating class. After some thought I went, and we spent a glorious hour and a quarter removed from the world. Not one of us thought about the horrors of the day for that period. The second we walked off the ice, it hit us, and we all marveled at how good it had felt to remove it from our thoughts through the joy of ice.

There are days when I walk into class and think, "I can't do this today." I'm angry at something, or had a bad day at my other job, or am frustrated with management or family or just the general state of things.

But you cannot bring that into class with you. You think that you just cannot bear it if one more timid, spoiled 4 year whines because her gloves don't match her skirt; you just want to march up to that parent and scream that they don't pay you enough to deal with their bratty kid.

Of course, you can't do that. And most of the time I don't actually feel that way about that kid. But on a bad day, you take a deep breath and reach inside and find the joy that is intrinsic to skating and teaching. You pull it out, like the game of reaching into your pocket for a smile, and you make yourself work through it. It's neither the child's fault, nor the parents' that your day is rough, and in fact they do pay you to deal with all the kids, bratty, charming and in-between. And after a while, you remember how to charm, coerce, trick or ignore the child into getting back into the game.

And along the way find, that you've charmed yourself into it too.