For recreational skaters, figure skating can be much more than a singles skater plowing from jump to jump. Starting with synchronized skating, which pretty much everyone in the sport knows about by now, there are all sorts of team, group, and specialty skills that skaters can learn. Here's a few:
Team skating
The Ice Skating Institute (ISI) has a competition category in Team Skating, namely, groups of 3 to 9 skaters doing freestyle skills as a team, with both group skating and spotlighted skills with everyone on the ice at once.
Rhythmic Skating
Another ISI innovation, Rhythmic Skating is essentially skating with props drawn from Rhythmic Gymnastics-- hoops, ribbons, balls.
Jump and Spin classes
These can be either specific jumps/spins (Axel Workshop, doubles, flying spins) or general classes for skaters with any jumps/spins from the simplest to the most complex. A good general jump class will help the skaters learn how to create jump combinations and sequences (and what the difference is), will work on improving speed and flow into jumps, how to do footwork into a jump and other special skills that utilize the jumps that they have already mastered. Spin class could work on adding features to existing spins (arm and leg positions, reverse rotation, etc.)
Ice Dance class
Best ice dance ad I ever saw: "Hey! You in the hockey skates! Wouldn't you rather skate with a woman?" A great specialty class for adults.
Couples Class
Not pairs-- no throws or high lifts, boys a plus but not required. There are all sorts of skills that kids can learn for skating with a partner, same gender or different-- stroking holds, couples spins, simple lifts, drapes. AND, more kudos to ISI, there's a competition category.
Junior Coaching Class
Why not? Get your tweens and young teens out there with experienced coaches and have them teach how to teach. Right now, the profession more or less assumes that if you're a high test or competitive skater, you can teach skating. Not true. Like any teaching, you need to learn how to do it-- how to manage a class, how to deal with injury, how to make it interesting to teach a swizzle, let alone keep a skater (and their parents) engaged their 9th time through Freestyle 5.
Oct 29, 2009
Nine times through freestyle 5-enough already!
With my various professional memberships in the alphabet soup of figure skating federations, come magazines. And in the Edge, ISI's magazine for it professional members, I read a very telling sentence this week:
"Do you really expect your skaters to stay in a Freestyle 4 or 5 class forever?"
But this is exactly what we seem to expect of our skaters. Among some coaches there is almost a contempt for the kids who can't progress past these two rubicons of skating skill (they get stopped by the sit spin at 4, and of course the axel at 5). There are lots of reasons kids stop here-- poor early training and insufficient technical skill, actual lack of ability, perceived lack of ability (usually traceable back to the first reason), insufficient time on the ice.
But looking over the classes offered at rinks around my area, I see very few addressing this problem. And there are ways to address it-- specialty classes. Whether it's unwillingness to risk the several sessions it might take to develop these classes, lack of ice to devote to it, a failure of imagination on the part of management, or the contempt for these kids that I spoke of, little is being done to address the problem.
It is a truism in skating that kids quit at freestyle 4 or 5, or in late tweens and early teens. But few professionals I've spoken with delve very deeply into this, it's just accepted with a shrug of the shoulders. It is also one of the top five topics that parents talk to me about, leading off with "she's just never going to learn that jump in class, so we're dropping classes." This does not sound like a strong business plan for the rinks, to just allow all your higher level students to be siphoned off into private lessons.
For some rinks this can work without much loss of actual revenue-- if you have an extremely robust practice ice program, with lots of after school times for kids to skate, a lot of these kids will move their $9/hour fee from class to practice ice. (Although hourly revenue on practice ice is much lower than for class ice, so your program looks full, in fact it might be losing out on revenue since you can potentially place more kids on the ice in a class). Clearly, parents are willing to switch from paying $9 to $15 per session for class, to paying upwards of $40 per session for the practice ice plus coaching fee. Why do rinks just shrug and let this potential revenue go? Bizarre.
So what can a parent do?
Certainly talk to your child's coach, although they have probably the least power to change things and the strongest self-interest in maintaining this status quo. So go to the skating director, preferably with several other parents and let him or her know that you want specialty classes (more about what kinds of classes you can suggest in another post).
Write a letter to the facility manager, and to his or her boss as well, again with signatures from lots of parents.
You're the customer. If management knows you're pulling your money from the program, they will listen.
"Do you really expect your skaters to stay in a Freestyle 4 or 5 class forever?"
But this is exactly what we seem to expect of our skaters. Among some coaches there is almost a contempt for the kids who can't progress past these two rubicons of skating skill (they get stopped by the sit spin at 4, and of course the axel at 5). There are lots of reasons kids stop here-- poor early training and insufficient technical skill, actual lack of ability, perceived lack of ability (usually traceable back to the first reason), insufficient time on the ice.
But looking over the classes offered at rinks around my area, I see very few addressing this problem. And there are ways to address it-- specialty classes. Whether it's unwillingness to risk the several sessions it might take to develop these classes, lack of ice to devote to it, a failure of imagination on the part of management, or the contempt for these kids that I spoke of, little is being done to address the problem.
It is a truism in skating that kids quit at freestyle 4 or 5, or in late tweens and early teens. But few professionals I've spoken with delve very deeply into this, it's just accepted with a shrug of the shoulders. It is also one of the top five topics that parents talk to me about, leading off with "she's just never going to learn that jump in class, so we're dropping classes." This does not sound like a strong business plan for the rinks, to just allow all your higher level students to be siphoned off into private lessons.
For some rinks this can work without much loss of actual revenue-- if you have an extremely robust practice ice program, with lots of after school times for kids to skate, a lot of these kids will move their $9/hour fee from class to practice ice. (Although hourly revenue on practice ice is much lower than for class ice, so your program looks full, in fact it might be losing out on revenue since you can potentially place more kids on the ice in a class). Clearly, parents are willing to switch from paying $9 to $15 per session for class, to paying upwards of $40 per session for the practice ice plus coaching fee. Why do rinks just shrug and let this potential revenue go? Bizarre.
So what can a parent do?
Certainly talk to your child's coach, although they have probably the least power to change things and the strongest self-interest in maintaining this status quo. So go to the skating director, preferably with several other parents and let him or her know that you want specialty classes (more about what kinds of classes you can suggest in another post).
Write a letter to the facility manager, and to his or her boss as well, again with signatures from lots of parents.
You're the customer. If management knows you're pulling your money from the program, they will listen.
Oct 28, 2009
More do's and don'ts
Okay, do's and don'ts for the scary kids-- Ages 11 to 14!
Ags 11-14
Do
Parents
• Teach responsibility and self-reliance
• Be supportive
Coaches
• Share responsibility
• Expect responsible behavior
• Discuss the future
• Keep it fun
• Set clear boundaries
Don’t
Parents
• Do things child can do for self (This means you, all you moms tying your 11 year old's skates)
• Panic when beliefs and values are questioned
Coaches
• Ignore signs of distress
• Ignore relational and social concerns
Ags 11-14
Do
Parents
• Teach responsibility and self-reliance
• Be supportive
Coaches
• Share responsibility
• Expect responsible behavior
• Discuss the future
• Keep it fun
• Set clear boundaries
Don’t
Parents
• Do things child can do for self (This means you, all you moms tying your 11 year old's skates)
• Panic when beliefs and values are questioned
Coaches
• Ignore signs of distress
• Ignore relational and social concerns
Oct 25, 2009
Oct 24, 2009
The other side of the coin
Okay, what if your kid is being held back?
I've talked a lot about kids moving up too fast, and it is the more common problem, but what about the child that needs to move through classes faster?
It's important for parents to remember that in group classes, the operative word is "group." These are not private lessons; most kids are not going to move at their own pace, they're going to have to normatize, to move with the class. Again, the success of this -- keeping the slow learners from feeling pressured while keeping the fast learners interested-- really depends on the teacher. A good teacher will find a way to keep all of the kids moving as close to their own pace as possible. For instance, if you're teaching a beginners class where some kids are fast and some kids are slow, you need to put them on a circle, rather than in lines skating back and forth across the ice, so that everyone can keep moving. There is always something you can do to make every child feel engaged, at every level.
If you think your child is the best in the class, don't move her up. For one thing you might be wrong-- she might just be the fastest one in the class. Or maybe the other strong skaters aren't there that week (this happened recently). But think about it-- your child is the best in the class. If you pressure the teacher into moving her up to the next level, she is likely now to be the worst in the class, and to not have learned the vocabulary of the next level, so she'll be lost. Would you rather your child take the lower level once and pass with flying colors, or get stuck twice in a level she wasn't ready for?
I get a lot of kids with strong athletic ability, but poor social skills-- can't stand still, can't follow through on instructions, can't retain skills they've learned without serious drilling. Don't just watch your child's skating skills, watch the whole child. I do.
Fallacy number two, "he already learned that." No such thing. Every skill can be learned at a higher level. Has your skater "learned" 3-turns? Fine, let's get him skating into them, or do running 3-turns, or alternating 3-turns, or bigger 3-turns, or really fix the rock and the check. Are you lost? That's because I know more about figure skating than you do, and you need to trust me to know whether you child should move up, or to keep him engaged at the level he's assigned to right now.
Think about where you're trying to move your child. I had a parent insist that her Alpha 2 student should be in Beta. Fine, I'm not going to stand here arguing with her. So she moved the child from an Alpha 2 class with 4 kids in it, to a Beta class with 15. Is she going to get better instruction?
Okay, full disclosure. There are kids that need to move up. I'll tell you. If they can't move up because of your schedule or ours I'll make sure they get the additional skills they need, or I'll propose private lessons. Every now and then there will be a child who can skip two levels. I've never seen a child who will benefit from skipping more than that, regardless of ability, because they miss all the vocabulary. I have an ongoing argument right now with the coach of a child who can "do" everything but you have to demonstrate and explain, and take away from class time for the kids who did the job and went through the levels. I should not be explaining Beta skills to a Freestyle 1 student, it's not fair to the other kids in the class.
It's complicated, isn't it. You just thought your child liked skating. And that's great. But let the coaches do their job, be engaged, ask questions. If you think your child is better than the other kids in the class, don't get in my face and make me do what you want, ask me if what you're observing is accurate. I'll be honest, I'll be kind.
But I'll want the kid at the level he's ready for.
I've talked a lot about kids moving up too fast, and it is the more common problem, but what about the child that needs to move through classes faster?
It's important for parents to remember that in group classes, the operative word is "group." These are not private lessons; most kids are not going to move at their own pace, they're going to have to normatize, to move with the class. Again, the success of this -- keeping the slow learners from feeling pressured while keeping the fast learners interested-- really depends on the teacher. A good teacher will find a way to keep all of the kids moving as close to their own pace as possible. For instance, if you're teaching a beginners class where some kids are fast and some kids are slow, you need to put them on a circle, rather than in lines skating back and forth across the ice, so that everyone can keep moving. There is always something you can do to make every child feel engaged, at every level.
If you think your child is the best in the class, don't move her up. For one thing you might be wrong-- she might just be the fastest one in the class. Or maybe the other strong skaters aren't there that week (this happened recently). But think about it-- your child is the best in the class. If you pressure the teacher into moving her up to the next level, she is likely now to be the worst in the class, and to not have learned the vocabulary of the next level, so she'll be lost. Would you rather your child take the lower level once and pass with flying colors, or get stuck twice in a level she wasn't ready for?
I get a lot of kids with strong athletic ability, but poor social skills-- can't stand still, can't follow through on instructions, can't retain skills they've learned without serious drilling. Don't just watch your child's skating skills, watch the whole child. I do.
Fallacy number two, "he already learned that." No such thing. Every skill can be learned at a higher level. Has your skater "learned" 3-turns? Fine, let's get him skating into them, or do running 3-turns, or alternating 3-turns, or bigger 3-turns, or really fix the rock and the check. Are you lost? That's because I know more about figure skating than you do, and you need to trust me to know whether you child should move up, or to keep him engaged at the level he's assigned to right now.
Think about where you're trying to move your child. I had a parent insist that her Alpha 2 student should be in Beta. Fine, I'm not going to stand here arguing with her. So she moved the child from an Alpha 2 class with 4 kids in it, to a Beta class with 15. Is she going to get better instruction?
Okay, full disclosure. There are kids that need to move up. I'll tell you. If they can't move up because of your schedule or ours I'll make sure they get the additional skills they need, or I'll propose private lessons. Every now and then there will be a child who can skip two levels. I've never seen a child who will benefit from skipping more than that, regardless of ability, because they miss all the vocabulary. I have an ongoing argument right now with the coach of a child who can "do" everything but you have to demonstrate and explain, and take away from class time for the kids who did the job and went through the levels. I should not be explaining Beta skills to a Freestyle 1 student, it's not fair to the other kids in the class.
It's complicated, isn't it. You just thought your child liked skating. And that's great. But let the coaches do their job, be engaged, ask questions. If you think your child is better than the other kids in the class, don't get in my face and make me do what you want, ask me if what you're observing is accurate. I'll be honest, I'll be kind.
But I'll want the kid at the level he's ready for.
Oct 22, 2009
Who do I ask?
Where is skating advice on the web?
There are some yahoo groups geared to coaches, although activity seems to have tapered off lately. Haven't been able to find one for parents of figure skaters. Figure Skating Universe has some useful forums; although it's mostly a fan site, there are skaters on there. As I've noted before, US Figure Skating and ISI (see side bar for links) have lots of useful information for parents and skaters, but ISI heavily sells membership, and USFS info, even on the Basic Skills page, is heavily invested in steering skaters into testing and competing, and the parent advice is skewed toward parents of competitive skaters and private lesson coaches.
There are some interesting coaches' blogs, but to me they look like advertising sites for those coaches (My technique is great! I have written a book! Buy this product that I invested in/invented! Click on my ads!)
And then there's me. As far as I have been able to find, this is the only blog up right now written by someone whose main coaching interest is group lessons and recreational skaters, that is geared to the kinds of questions that I wish someone had been answering for me (or even that I should have been asking) when I started this journey.
Has anyone found other blogs written by skating coaches? Post the links in the responses. (Seriously, please post responses!) Thanks.
There are some yahoo groups geared to coaches, although activity seems to have tapered off lately. Haven't been able to find one for parents of figure skaters. Figure Skating Universe has some useful forums; although it's mostly a fan site, there are skaters on there. As I've noted before, US Figure Skating and ISI (see side bar for links) have lots of useful information for parents and skaters, but ISI heavily sells membership, and USFS info, even on the Basic Skills page, is heavily invested in steering skaters into testing and competing, and the parent advice is skewed toward parents of competitive skaters and private lesson coaches.
There are some interesting coaches' blogs, but to me they look like advertising sites for those coaches (My technique is great! I have written a book! Buy this product that I invested in/invented! Click on my ads!)
And then there's me. As far as I have been able to find, this is the only blog up right now written by someone whose main coaching interest is group lessons and recreational skaters, that is geared to the kinds of questions that I wish someone had been answering for me (or even that I should have been asking) when I started this journey.
Has anyone found other blogs written by skating coaches? Post the links in the responses. (Seriously, please post responses!) Thanks.
Oct 21, 2009
Skills or tricks?
I started a new student today, a teenager with some talent, but limited time and only moderate patience for really digging into technique.
In any skill-based endeavor, technique is crucial, but sometimes I think it's okay to do something badly, that is, to not push through to be the best at some given thing. For instance, I love to cook, and I'm pretty good at it, but I've never felt like I need to have the technical skills of a chef, or to know the chemistry behind it, or be able to wield a knife like the sushi chef at Kamehachi.
So you can take skating with a grain of salt, and a toe-push or two as well. I asked my student whether she wanted to learn really great technique, or if she just wanted to learn tricks. She knew just what I meant, and told me she wanted to be able to do jumps and spins. Now, her technique is a little sketchy; her turns are clunky, and her edges wobbly. But her basic skating has a nice flow and she's motivated by her desire to jump. So I told her we would focus on skills, but that she needs to understand there are some techniques that you cannot skip, and some of them can be tedious to drill and to learn.
Each skater (and their parents) need to know what they want to get out of the sport. This can change-- I've seen skaters who started out just wanting "to skate backwards" go on to USFS testing and competitions, and I've seen high test competitive skaters turn recreational. But each time you get on the ice, you should understand where it is you're going right now. This is especially crucial for parents, whose goals may be different from the child's, sometimes out of ego, but sometimes just out of the fact that adults have a longer "dream" arc-- they can see the 16-year old doing triples in the 8-year old who just wants to skate with her friends. Both goals are correct, but they are not necessarily the same goal. They might be-- I've seen a lot of kids motivated by the idea of keeping up with their friends, too. But, again, that's a slightly different outlook from "win competitions." It might lead to that outcome, but the path is not the same.
A lot of coaches push for more serious skating than kids or parents are ready for as well. Sometimes the coach is thinking about her own investment. Securing a private student is time consuming. If that student doesn't get really into it, they might leave, and then you have to replace them. This, of course, is self-defeating. If I'm teaching the student what I need, that student will feel pressured and unfulfilled and will leave anyway. Coaches push kids into tests or competitions from ego, just as parents, and even skaters do.
Conversely, there are coaches who are emphatically not "competitive" coaches. I had a competitive daughter who moved to a coach who didn't do competitions. We didn't believe her when we switched, but guess what? She didn't do a competition with that coach until 5 years of coaching had gone by. That coach didn't do competitions.
Sometimes a coach will decide they're a certain "kind" of coach-- "competitive," "serious," "recreational" etc. And rather than refusing a student who doesn't fit that mold, they try to mold the skater into "their kind" of student. An ethical coach will ask you what your current goals are, and will let you know if this is compatible with the coach's goals and methods. Don't count on a coach to teach your student differently.
Long story short, know what you want. Know what your child wants (that's what really counts). And find out what coach is going to honor that.
In any skill-based endeavor, technique is crucial, but sometimes I think it's okay to do something badly, that is, to not push through to be the best at some given thing. For instance, I love to cook, and I'm pretty good at it, but I've never felt like I need to have the technical skills of a chef, or to know the chemistry behind it, or be able to wield a knife like the sushi chef at Kamehachi.
So you can take skating with a grain of salt, and a toe-push or two as well. I asked my student whether she wanted to learn really great technique, or if she just wanted to learn tricks. She knew just what I meant, and told me she wanted to be able to do jumps and spins. Now, her technique is a little sketchy; her turns are clunky, and her edges wobbly. But her basic skating has a nice flow and she's motivated by her desire to jump. So I told her we would focus on skills, but that she needs to understand there are some techniques that you cannot skip, and some of them can be tedious to drill and to learn.
Each skater (and their parents) need to know what they want to get out of the sport. This can change-- I've seen skaters who started out just wanting "to skate backwards" go on to USFS testing and competitions, and I've seen high test competitive skaters turn recreational. But each time you get on the ice, you should understand where it is you're going right now. This is especially crucial for parents, whose goals may be different from the child's, sometimes out of ego, but sometimes just out of the fact that adults have a longer "dream" arc-- they can see the 16-year old doing triples in the 8-year old who just wants to skate with her friends. Both goals are correct, but they are not necessarily the same goal. They might be-- I've seen a lot of kids motivated by the idea of keeping up with their friends, too. But, again, that's a slightly different outlook from "win competitions." It might lead to that outcome, but the path is not the same.
A lot of coaches push for more serious skating than kids or parents are ready for as well. Sometimes the coach is thinking about her own investment. Securing a private student is time consuming. If that student doesn't get really into it, they might leave, and then you have to replace them. This, of course, is self-defeating. If I'm teaching the student what I need, that student will feel pressured and unfulfilled and will leave anyway. Coaches push kids into tests or competitions from ego, just as parents, and even skaters do.
Conversely, there are coaches who are emphatically not "competitive" coaches. I had a competitive daughter who moved to a coach who didn't do competitions. We didn't believe her when we switched, but guess what? She didn't do a competition with that coach until 5 years of coaching had gone by. That coach didn't do competitions.
Sometimes a coach will decide they're a certain "kind" of coach-- "competitive," "serious," "recreational" etc. And rather than refusing a student who doesn't fit that mold, they try to mold the skater into "their kind" of student. An ethical coach will ask you what your current goals are, and will let you know if this is compatible with the coach's goals and methods. Don't count on a coach to teach your student differently.
Long story short, know what you want. Know what your child wants (that's what really counts). And find out what coach is going to honor that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
