Report From the PSA Conference

[dbny]

I'm in San Diego now, attending the joint PSA/ISI conference. The hotel's high speed internet access is more like aged snail speed because there is a Microsoft convention here too, and they are using a huge amount of bandwidth :frus: , but I refuse to let that keep me offline!

Sheila Cluff gave the first presentation yesterday morning, titled "Passion, Persistence. Professionalism and Power = Success". It was well worth attending. I would love a chance to go to one of her spas, because they are all focussed on fitness, rather than pampering. She is an excellent speaker and is, herself, in amazing shape, doing about a dozen pushups right in front of us - at the age of 69 8O 8O 8O

I heard Ken Shelley speak next on "Lessons Learned: Looking Back on 45 Years in Skating". Ken is a quiet and methodical speaker, who told us some very funny and very interesting stories of growing up skating with Jo Jo Starbuck. Their first skating experiences were in studio rinks and the shows that the studio schools put on, so it had never occurred to them to be nervous about competition, because it was always just a show to them.

Charlie Cyr gave a presentation on the CoP, and I was able to ask him afterwards about the annonymity issue. He said that it was primarily for the European judges, and especially for the old Soviet Bloc judges, who feared retribution from their governments. He added that in the judges' room after an event, with the CoP and annonymity, there were judges who spoke up who had never contributed before.

One highlight of the day was a jump draw class with Kathy Casey, who is a remarkably entertaining speaker, and extremely knowledgeable. She started with axels, and explained why she prefers a take off with some skid, but not too much. Afterwards, I asked her about a B crossover entry into Salchow's, which is what we did on roller skates, and she said that it is being used now on ice also. She also explained for me why there is a difference between the roller skating loop entry (free leg next to and slightly in front of skating leg, pointing out) and the ice loop entry - roller skaters can't get the same kind of deep edge. The most interesting thing she told us though, was that she saw N. Korean skaters in China who were using equipment worse than rentals, and landing triples with it! It's all about attitude, and that has a lot to do with your position in life, evidently.

I'm doing this while skipping the Keynote address by Sherrill Diller, because I found it boring and hackneyed. She was going into different personality types etc.

Audrey Weisiger is up next with "Grassroots to Champions" - I'm off .... don't want to miss that one.

[dbny]

Scott spoke to an SRO crowd. Here are some of the points he made:


Skaters are being put into a rather constricted box by all of the requirements for the long program. He feels this is quashing creativity, because there is just no time left for it.
Public interest in skating is waning, and the restrictions do not help.
Judges should have their own organization and they should decide who judges each event. Ninety-nine percent of judges are honest, hard working, and truly dedicated to the sport, so they can be trusted and should be. This got an ovation.
He would like to do more comentating (in response to a question), but there is nothing available at the current time.
Things will not change until there is strong action by the parties involved. He mentioned a boycott specifically, and also the WSF, which seems to be fizzling out. He was trying to be optimistic, but didn't see a solution to skating's problems in the near future.


My friend and I both had the exact same thought about what would certainly raise public interest in skating: another Tonya Harding type incident. What a shame that that's the sure fire way the American public can be reached! I'm sure not everyone will agree with us.

[icedancer2]

Thank you for the reports! Nice to have someone on the "inside track"!! :bow:

[dbny]

Today was spent at the rink, and all of the sessions I attended were on the ice, although we didn't get to skate for most of them, just stand around and watch. Very hard on the feet, and freezing after a while.

I started with Group Lessons - Teaching Turns, which was doing the one foot turns on two feet to help the student understand the rotation. We did threes, brackets, rockers and counters. This wasn't new for me, but Sandy Lamb, the instructor (wonderful person!!!) said we should start teaching all of the one foot turns early, even if the student is not ready for more than threes, because then, by the time they get to brackets (for example) it won't be entirely new, and the rotation will be in place. So many skaters will rotate the wrong way on two footed threes, and I've just been telling them "turn into the circle", now I know to say "Wow, that was a bracket" and encourage it, while pointing out the difference in rotation.

Pairs Lifts & Throws, with Burt Lancon was totally awesome! He had two pairs teams demo. One was a new team skating at the junior level, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them come up strong in the future. I got a real appreciation of how hard pairs skaters must work to build and maintain their strength. Burt pointed out that the girls were wearing crash pads, and commented "pad your girls" and "treat them like crystal". He demo'ed how a coach should spot a pair just learning overhead lifts, with the object being to keep the girl from hitting ice.

Triples & Quads with Audrey Weisiger was also an amazing presentation. She had four boys and one girl demo various training techniques, among them the "h", "d", "small d", "big toe" and "little toe" positions. She also demo'ed the use of the ProMotion jump harness (on a pole), and one of the kids landed a quad with it. She emphasized how he had enough height and time to do a quint, and said that quints are coming. I believe her.

Stroking Techniques for Dance with Darlene Gilbert and Suzie Semanick Schurman was the presentation I was most looking forward to. They cleared up the Schafer push on back progressives and the double knee bend in stroking. I also learned that the shoulders are square to the tracing in dance, which I had not known.

Theater on Ice with Robin Wagner was basically a performance, and I really didn't get too much out of it...possibly because I spent some time in the snack bar getting a large coffee.

On Ice Choreography with Scott Brown was a lot of fun, even if I did do it off ice. After a demo of various moves and explanations about the stroking having to build with the music and other interpretive tips, he had the on ice group follow him in a few moves in place, with a lot of arm motions. When he put the music on, I was shocked at how fast we had to go! Kind of sorry I had taken my skates off, buy my feet were killing me and I needed a break.

Special Olympics was presented on ice by Sandy Lamb, and Scott Hamilton joined her, to the delight and amazement of the students. The students were totally awesome. To participate in the Special Olympics, an athlete cannot have an IQ over 70. Many of them have physical disabilities also. Nevertheless, we saw a pairs team perform, and several skaters did singles programs, some of them with grace and power. I skated a little with a Down Syndrome athlete afterwards, and hope I can get involved in or even start a Special Olympics group when I get back. P.S. Scott Hamilton happened to skate over and stand next to me during the performances. Scott, for your Special Olympics contributions: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

There was a presentation on ISI Dance Moves next, but it turned out to be the most advanced moves, and I was just totalled by then, so I headed back to the hotel (busses provided) to get online and rest up a bit before tonight's reception.

[skateflo]

Great reports and very appreciated!! Hope to hear more!! For me, the awards dinner was always the highlight!

[Cinderella]

This thread is just fascinating and I'd like to thank everyone who's reporting for giving us a glimpse behind the scenes.

It truly makes me appreciate my coach more than ever. So much to learn ... so little time!

[dbny]

Great reports and very appreciated!! Hope to hear more!! For me, the awards dinner was always the highlight!

The awards dinner was impressive. Both Michelle Kwan and Todd Eldredge recieved awards, and Todd accepted his in person. Karola Dietl also received an award, and Jazzpants' rink, "Yerba Buena", also won an award (the first ever - for best management of an ice arena etc.) which was made in honor of Fritz Dietl and named for him. I happened to be sitting at the same table as the Yerba Buena recipients, one of whom I knew from the ISI courses I had taken. They were all very surprised, and the woman among them (sorry, don't remember the name) was teary eyed.

It seemed that everyone attended the President's reception, very few (but many notable) attended the Awards Dinner, and most attended the closing party & (so called) banquet. As soon as I saw that the closing party was titled "Fiesta Fantastica", I knew I was in for lousy Mexican food, and I was all too right. There was a live band, and those few who had any energy left danced, but mostly people just hung out with their friends for one last night before heading home.

Happily, the "banquet" had been preceded by the trade show, which was great. I spoke with Riedell and Jackson reps about the lack of inexpensive beginner boots for boys, and got some good ideas. Jerry Damroscher (supplier) was there with a large exhibit and great prices on various accessories - I got a really fun pair of yellow, red and black flame boot covers for only $5.25 (the kids will love them). If I ever get to open my own studio rink, I know where to buy my rental skates, and it might even be worthwhile for a skating school to buy beginner skates from him when there is no nearby pro shop. I stopped at Harlick and asked them a few questions about their boots and my specific needs, and saw Don Klingbeil, who wasn't feeling up to par that morning. I'm sticking with Don & Bill and will go see them when I get back home. John Watts had a nice exhibit of their blades, and I spoke with them about the dance blades. I had never known that dance blades were higher than freestyles, to keep the boots from scraping on the deep edges. There were lots of fun freebies at the trade show, of course. I got five rubber duckies for my kids to do swizzles over, a small multipurpose knife with phillips head screwdriver, frisbies, candy (like I need that), skate guard key chains, and loads of pens.

I'm coming home with a lot of great ideas, and the decision to get rated as a group instructor. I bought the study guide, which was $15 for about 15 pages of xeroxed questions - no answers! One of the coaches I met, though is master rated in group instruction and gave me her card so I can consult her.

I'm off to Oakland tomorrow evening, where I hope to skate at Yerba Buena and meet Jazzpants!

[jazzpants]

The awards dinner was impressive. Both Michelle Kwan and Todd Eldredge recieved awards, and Todd accepted his in person. Karola Dietl also received an award, and Jazzpants' rink, "Yerba Buena", also won an award (the first ever - for best management of an ice arena etc.) which was made in honor of Fritz Dietl and named for him. I happened to be sitting at the same table as the Yerba Buena recipients, one of whom I knew from the ISI courses I had taken. They were all very surprised, and the woman among them (sorry, don't remember the name) was teary eyed.

I'm off to Oakland tomorrow evening, where I hope to skate at Yerba Buena and meet Jazzpants!If it's a tall brunette woman with long hair, that woman is Paige Scott. She's the rink manager! :mrgreen: (GO PAIGE!!!!) :bow:

I sent you a PM with my list of times and availability. Let me know which times on that schedule you can make. I DO hope though that you can make it to the Monday night session. It's fun and you'll see a LOT of adult figure skaters there!!! You'll probably meet Jay there too, since he teaches Monday nights. Those of you who don't see many adult skaters will be 8O when you show up at this session. (And that's not all the adult figure skaters!!! The ones that are competing shows up at the morning FS sessions.) :P :lol:

[LoopLoop]

Triples & Quads with Audrey Weisiger was also an amazing presentation. She had four boys and one girl demo various training techniques, among them the "h", "d", "small d", "big toe" and "little toe" positions. She also demo'ed the use of the ProMotion jump harness (on a pole), and one of the kids landed a quad with it. She emphasized how he had enough height and time to do a quint, and said that quints are coming. I believe her.

My coach was part of Audrey's team for the presentation! He's the (young) energetic blond guy.

And I highly recommend using the pole for working on jumps; it's much less distracting than the regular ceiling-mounted harness, because you can skate into the jumps with your normal trajectory and placement on the ice rather than having to do them in a straight line.

[dbny]

If it's a tall brunette woman with long hair, that woman is Paige Scott. She's the rink manager! :mrgreen: (GO PAIGE!!!!) :bow:

I sent you a PM with my list of times and availability. Let me know which times on that schedule you can make. I DO hope though that you can make it to the Monday night session. It's fun and you'll see a LOT of adult figure skaters there!!! You'll probably meet Jay there too, since he teaches Monday nights. Those of you who don't see many adult skaters will be 8O when you show up at this session. (And that's not all the adult figure skaters!!! The ones that are competing shows up at the morning FS sessions.) :P :lol:

Yes, it was Paige! They all looked so surprised and pleased, but I could see that Paige was especially moved by the award. BTW, Paige & co were all very nice, which was not true about everyone there (some were a bit snobby).

I'm going to the Monday night session, but probably just the last hour, since you won't be able to be there at the beginning, and my friend (that I'm visiting) will not want to spend longer than that just watching. I'll PM you with more details.


And I highly recommend using the pole for working on jumps; it's much less distracting than the regular ceiling-mounted harness, because you can skate into the jumps with your normal trajectory and placement on the ice rather than having to do them in a straight line.

That makes sense, but the person with the pole requires considerable skill and speed to keep up with and not interfere with the skater. Audrey said her "pole guy" had been doing it for about 20 years!