How many skaters on the ice?

[skating_life]

I was just wondering, approximitly how many skaters are on the ice at the same time as you during your lessons?
Are they in the same level?
How many people is "too many people".

[jenlyon60]

On my morning lessons, there's about 10-12 skaters:

3 Senior dance teams
1 Junior dance team
Me
1 or 2 other skaters working on dance
1 or 2 freestylers (novice and higher)

On my afternoon lessons, there's about 25 skaters, all ability levels, from LTS camp kids to senior freestyle.

[Debbie S]

Each rink where I skate limits FS sessions to 25 people, but that doesn't count coaches so there can sometimes be more people than that if the session is crowded. The weeknight session where I've been having my lessons this summer is about the capacity limit (one rink in my area is closed for the summer so the other rinks have been more crowded lately) but yesterday's sessions at this rink probably had about 15 people.

Early evening (like 5:30) sessions tend to have a few less people than the later evening sessions, b/c after 6:30 everyone comes after work (and the kids come after an early dinner).

[quarkiki2]

Public skates are a free-for-all at my rink, but there's usually 5-10 people on the ice for freestyle sessions, sometimes a couple more, sometimes a couple less.

[doubletoe]

I think the "too many" number varies according to the level of the skaters and whether or not you've got pairs or ice dancers on the ice. When everyone is high level and moving really fast doing sections of their programs, 12 can be too many, especially if there is a pairs team on the ice. On the other hand, if most skaters are somewhere between Preliminary and Intermediate and there aren't any pairs or ice dancers, 18 is absolutely fine.

[phoenix]

On opposite extremes, this Saturday I had the ice all to myself for an hour, and this morning was on a dance/move session that had about 20 people! That was a zoo--but everyone was fairly high level so it actually wasn't that bad.

In my experience the faster everyone is going the less we get in each others' way.

[jazzpants]

My FS session varies from week to week!!! During the summer I sometimes would have about 22 skaters (that signed up anyway... and it doesn't include coaches...) on the ice. (FS Capacity at my rink is 25.) And sometimes I get maybe 10?

During the school year, it's probably closer to around 10-15 though and I skate at the FS sessions AFTER the kids have gone to school! (But of course, I still have the adults to content with and we have A LOT of competitive adults too -- including an adults pair team!) 8O

Public sessions are free for all. Monday night is a zoo -- but I think of it as more of a social session than a practice session for me anyway so... :P During the summer, weekends at my weekend rink is when I get a LOT of practice!!! It's often about 10 to 15 people on the ice at a time. I get a LOT of practice done then! :twisted:

[Isk8NYC]

I think the "too many" number varies according to the level of the skaters and whether or not you've got pairs or ice dancers on the ice. It also depends on the ice surface size. I think 20 skaters is a good cutoff number. As doubletoe says, that should be lower if you have couples working together.

[kateskate]

Our one session a week practice ice for 'proper' skaters (I put it in inverted commas because our rink doesn't have any proper skaters) has about 15 skaters (plus teachers) on the ice. And we are a small rink. (46m x 20m if i remember rightly)

But that is because we only have one evening clear ice session a week.

Mornings there are usually only 3 or 4 people on the ice.

Most people have lessons on a public session - I learnt for 4 years on a crowded Sunday morning session with I would say 60 or so people at least I would say. Sometimes more. You learn to find and fight for a space quickly!

[Justine_R]

Maximum for us is like 23.

But we normally have about 10-13.

[Mrs Redboots]

As we only had an hour this morning because there were tests (normally the session is 4 1/2 hours long), there were about 15 skaters on the ice, but only one Senior couple and one Junior free skater. That's quite a lot for us on a weekday morning, but you get a great many more than that at weekends. But as the session is so long, people normally come and go, so you don't get just so many all the time.

[Hannah]

There is a young-ish girl (10 maybe?) who has her lesson during a public skate (generally there are upwards of 50 people on the ice during public skates, most of whom have a hard time staying on their feet OR zoom around like it is their own private hockey practice). Somehow, she does her lesson as if there isn't anyone else on the ice. She doesn't even LOOK at the other skaters. Like she has a magic bubble around her or something. I'm impressed...

My lesson is during adult skate, so I generally have a few other skaters on the ice with me- but they all watch me!

[TaBalie]

Typically there are 1-4 other people skating at the session I prefer -- it is an Adult Freeestyle session from 12:30p-1:30p. The most I have seen is maybe 14 or so, right before a testing session.

[ouijaouija]

last week, 200, today, up to 5! :) i was alone at one time today, looks like all the kiddie trips are done

[Mrs Redboots]

This morning was pretty quiet - we had four elite couples, two adult couples and two beginners (who will be an adult couple one day, but aren't yet). When we arrived, as is so often the case on a Wednesday, there was nobody under 50 on the ice, and that held true for about the first 10-15 minutes of our practice.

Later on, Husband left and a few free skaters came on (the two things were not related!), and by the time I left at 9:00 there were about 20 people.