I am worried.

[N-square]

Hi!
I want to know how I know that I do my jumps or spins correctly. How do I notice the minor mistakes that I make if my coach doesn't tell me?? I am
asking this question because I think not all the coaches mind the small problems of jumps/spins.

One of my friend has passed her FS 1 exam, but all the others were thinking how she got such a high score in her exam, because her waltz jump & two foot spin and all other things were not good enough, her two foot spin(and one foot spin) travels more than 3 footsteps away from the starting point. Her coach is teaching her change foot spin recently even though she is not ready for it, I don't understand.

Few months ago in the summer when I was still doing FS1, I was practising the waltz jump,my friend was watching(He was learning Axel). He said I was doing my waltz jump very badly.About a week later, my local coach had gone on holiday, I had 2 lessons with a guest coach, he said my waltz jumps and one foot spin were good and taught me salchow, toe loop, back spin and sit spin. I thought he teach too fast.

In September, I came back to England and my coach here is doing FS3 & FS4 with me. I am a bit worried, am I doing everything that I've learned correctly?? The guest coach and my coach here said that I am learning fast, but is that really true?Maybe single jumps and basic spins for them are NOTHING, so they don't mind the tiny mistakes that I make. :roll:

[Skate@Delaware]

I wouldn't worry too much about it right now. My group coach has us doing stuff from Adult 1-4 AND FS1-4 also...whatevery she feels up to tossing at us! (as well as some of the kid stuff, like EVIL BUNNYHOPS :twisted: ).

If you feel you are getting too much stuff at once, just ask for a slow-down and work more on fine-tuning what you do know! My private coach had me learning 3-4 new things at each lesson for a while-my head was spinning. Luckily (for me) we started working on my program, so no new stuff!

[coskater64]

You just need to learn how to do these things first, with time you will learn to do them better. Learn-to-skate levels are just that, learning...when you merge with the higher more difficult standard or adult track you will need to do things in a more polished manner. Mind you, I have seen very good learn-to-skate, skaters and very poor standard track skaters, it depends mostly on your level of perfection and what you consider satisfactory. Watch other skaters at your level and get yourself videotapped, do you like what you see? Remember skating is a time consuming sport and tends to for those of us who are a bit anal retentive. You can be your own best/worse critic, learn to balance and make sure you enjoy the sport.

:)

[batikat]

There's a huge difference between learning to do something and learning to do it 'well'. Crossovers are taught pretty early on but you continue to work on them your entire skating life to get them better (even if you are Olympic level skater you still work on perfecting your basics). However if you wait til you can do something 'perfectly ' before you move on to the next skill, then you will never progress at all.

Some coaches like to teach a bunch of skills and then continually come back to work on improving them as they feel you are ready to implement, whatever improvements are necessary. When you say, 'Why didnt' you tell me this before?', they will answer - 'because you couldn't have done it then'. e.g as you get better control of your edges you can improve the 3 turn, get better leg position, hold the entrance and exit edges for a long time in a controlled manner. When you first learn, you aren't capable of those things so there is no point in trying to teach a 'perfect ' 3 turn but you can continually improve it.

For the coach teaching the change foot spin when you think your friend is not ready - perhaps the coach feels that attempting the change foot will help your friend to find her centre and that will improve her scratch spin - who knows? Coaches have many different ways of teaching and often trying to learn a harder skill helps with a lesser skill.

You will never have a 'perfect' jump or spin - there is always something that can be improved but there are only so many 'improvements you can cope with at one time, so it would be pointless (and demoralising), for the coach to be telling you every little thing that is wrong at the start.

Have fun - just enjoy!

[Mrs Redboots]

In my experience with skating, you learn something, and just as soon as you can do it, they make it harder! I have been working on some elements for years now, and I still go back and do them over and over, because I need to be able to do them better. Even forward outside edges - I spent most of my lesson today working on them (and squealing that my coach was trying to kill me - I still think he was!). And my forward cross-rolls - level 1 Dance Moves. I passed them about four years ago, but I still work on them, and they are a lot better now than they were when I passed them!

You'll find that you will go on working on these elements long after you've been tested on them. Even crossovers - perhaps especially crossovers.....

[doubletoe]

When it's time to move on to more difficult jumps and spins, your coach will probably fine-tune your technique so that you can build on it. It doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about right now, but it won't hurt to take a lesson with a different coach from time to time to get a fresh point of view. :)

Hi!
I want to know how I know that I do my jumps or spins correctly. How do I notice the minor mistakes that I make if my coach doesn't tell me?? I am
asking this question because I think not all the coaches mind the small problems of jumps/spins.

[stardust skies]

I think there's a difference between a coach teaching badly or a student executing badly. A coach could be teaching perfectly correct technique, but if the student cannot execute this perfectly correct technique, then of course it will look wrong.

As far as teaching something harder while the simpler stuff has not been learned- sometimes, teaching something harder is actually a good thing to help with easier things for two reason: 1. because the "easier" thing will indeed seem easier in comparison to the harder thing you've just learned, and thus you won't fear it as much as you might have before, and second, because the harder something is, the more good technique you need to have to just SURVIVE attempting it, so if you are doing something that requires good technique, you'll be pushed to do it. For example...if you are crooked in the air for a waltz jump, it doesn't matter. If you're crooked on a lutz, you're gonna die. So by teaching you a lutz, the coach may be teaching you (by trial and error) correct air position. Sometimes the only way to learn something is the hard way.

Some things to think about. :)