What is Your Least/Most Favorite Element to Teach & What Has Made it More Bearable?

[SynchroSk8r114]

Coaches...
As a fellow skating coach, I was just wondering if there are any elements you dread teaching and if there are any tips/techniques that have made teaching these elements more bearable for you and/or easier for you to convey what you want to your students?

On the other hand, are there any elements you love to teach or are very good at teaching? What do you think has contributed to your success in teaching your skaters these elements?

For me, I hate teaching backward edges, esp. to younger/beginning skaters. They can never seem to comprehend the fact that edges are done on, well...edges! :roll: What I typically get are skaters who push back and then slowly drift off into nowhere, unable to get on the correct edge to bring their back edges back to the axis. In time, my students do "get it", but the frustration of waiting for them to understand or be capable of physically doing back edges kill me...:giveup:

On the up side, I really love teaching MIF. This is really ironic because when I was working on passing all my MIF tests, I hated moves. I love them now and think they are so beneficial for skaters, particuarly since figures went out. (Oh, how I miss figures...:cry:) I think part of the reason why I like them so much is because since passing my Senior MIF test back in 2005, I feel more qualified to be teaching knowing that I was a.) able to demonstrate them correctly and b.) knowledgeable in MIF requirements, what judges like, etc.

In addition to MIF, I love making up creative footwork and choreographing programs. It's just so much fun!

[CanAmSk8ter]

Back edges are pretty high on my list too. I'm not crazy about going from standstill spins to getting kids to do them out of back crossovers either, because it's hard to get young kids to understand that they have to wind up and bring their free side across the body before stepping into the spin. I'm tough on my students about that, because it's not impossible to do a one-foot spin or even a scratch spin without the wind-up, but a sit spin or a camel will never work that way.

I hate teaching the half-Lutz and the Lutz, too, but I think that's just because I've always hated Lutzes myself.

[Sessy]

I know a coach who literally loves teaching back edges. I'll ask her why next time I see her (might not be for a while though). But she's got a real hands-on approach where she just moves all your body into the right positions for shoulders, arms etc and holds you by the hand and pushes you (so you have to keep a tension in the shoulder too and you don't push off yourself). Once you get that you start pushing off. Dunno all her students get the edges real quick somehow. Then of course it takes edges to perfect control over them anyway.

[Summerkid710]

I hate teaching forward crossovers. Even with all of the exercises and technique talk, you still have to just have your student go around and around in circles. It's hard to keep that fun and kids with short attention spans tend to revert to toe pushing no matter how many times you stop them and go over a full blade push. I always have to have a talk about it is better to go slower and do it correctly than going as fast as you can toe pushing the whole time. It's hard because they've finally reached a level of comfort on the ice and they love to go fast but it's also that time when details become more important.

I love teaching camel spins.

[Sessy]

I love teaching camel spins.

So does our Ballet teacher (who sometimes will fall in when our ice coaches are all out to a competition)... :roll: He also loves laybacks.
Whenever he sees a leading shoulder that's off, or a head that's bungling around, he's almost like a kid at a candy store running over there explaining things very passionately in his broken English. :lol:

[SynchroSk8r114]

I know a coach who literally loves teaching back edges. I'll ask her why next time I see her (might not be for a while though). But she's got a real hands-on approach where she just moves all your body into the right positions for shoulders, arms etc and holds you by the hand and pushes you (so you have to keep a tension in the shoulder too and you don't push off yourself). Once you get that you start pushing off. Dunno all her students get the edges real quick somehow. Then of course it takes edges to perfect control over them anyway.

Yep, I use the same approach as the coach you're talking about. I think that's all you really can do for beginning skaters...still a pain in the butt though. Once I start letting the kids do them on their own, they somehow lose all control of their edges as they push off and slowly drift away unable to bring themselves back to the axis despite me showing them and positioning them in the correct arm/upper body/feet positions.

[AshBugg44]

Back edges are pretty high up there for me, but my #1 is mohawks. Kids just have such a hard time grasping the concept most of the time. I'm continually developing new tricks to get them to do it though.

[phoenix]

I hate teaching mohawks too. I've exhausted my creativity...off ice, on ice, at the wall, on a drawn 1/2 circle, etc etc etc. Anyone w/ good ideas, please post!!

I never had much trouble teaching back edges.....just have them do bkwd pumps on a circle to gain speed, then set feet together in a bkwd 2 foot glide still curving. Do this until the 2 foot glide is strong & truly flowing. Then do the same thing, this time once the 2 foot glide is going, lift a foot, but keep curving! This gets them going already on the curve so they understand where they're supposed to go. Doing it on 2 feet to start helps them feel the lean needed, & learn the arm/upper body posititons, while still not being too difficult.

It still takes a lot of practice, but I've had pretty good success w/ that approach.

ETA: if you mean teaching edge rolls a-la pre-pre moves, take a marker & draw it to start! Then they simply have to follow the line.

[dbny]

I hate teaching forward crossovers. Even with all of the exercises and technique talk, you still have to just have your student go around and around in circles. It's hard to keep that fun and kids with short attention spans tend to revert to toe pushing no matter how many times you stop them and go over a full blade push. I always have to have a talk about it is better to go slower and do it correctly than going as fast as you can toe pushing the whole time. It's hard because they've finally reached a level of comfort on the ice and they love to go fast but it's also that time when details become more important.


I love teaching FXO's! I deal with the toe push in several different ways. First, I have the student hold both FO and FI edges on the circle to convince them they don't need to rush because they are stable on both feet. On the FI edge, I make them hold the free foot back with toe up and knee straight. I often have students stand at the boards to get the toe up position, and sometimes even have to position the foot myself before a student gets it. Once they are doing the FXO's without catching the under toe, I have them do the XO without picking up the crossing foot. That teaches the under push and also leads into progressives. When kids think they can go faster with a toe push, I show them what a full blade push can do.

I hate teaching BXO's! This is another move that everyone wants to rush through, kids especially. I don't hate it so much when I'm the one who has been teaching it from the start, but getting kids who've learned (or tried to learn) in group lessons is a real pain. Most of them are never on a real BO edge, and most of their half swizzle pumps are tiny little pushes that never bring the pushing foot anywhere near the "supporting" foot. I hate having to correct stuff that has already gone seriously wrong. It's also just sad to see kids struggling against bad boots/skates that are going to keep them from ever holding a real O edge, either F or B. If I'm teaching BXO's from the start, I want to see real B half swizzle pumps with a pause at the fully extended part of the push and another when the feet come together. I think that sets the foundation for a stable position from which to cross over. After the student is doing crossovers, I want to see that pause again at full extension of the "swizzle pump" portion and also at full extension of the under foot/leg. I used to always teach the "slide across, push under" method of BXO's, but have found that picking up the crossing foot works better for some students, so now I try whatever I think is going to work first, and then switch if necessary.

[dbny]

I hate teaching mohawks too. I've exhausted my creativity...off ice, on ice, at the wall, on a drawn 1/2 circle, etc etc etc. Anyone w/ good ideas, please post!!


Yup. I've even taught adults who have had trouble grasping what their feet are supposed to do.

I just now thought of something that might help, and I'll try it the next chance I get. It's not nearly so hard to get a student to step forward from a BI edge to an FI edge on a circle . Maybe after a few of those, the student will be able to reverse the procedure. If anyone tries this before I do, please let us know how it goes.

[AshBugg44]

Here's some of my mohawk tricks:

- Pairs spins
- Spread eagles
- When they push onto their forward edge, I tap their free foot, kind of reminding them that they're supposed to do something with it! It helps!

[Sessy]

The way I learned the mohawk was that first I'd put the free foot on a bi edge behind my fi foot. Somehow that was easier. Then I started stepping a little more to the side each time.

[Skittl1321]

Yup. I've even taught adults who have had trouble grasping what their feet are supposed to do.



I've BEEN an adult who has trouble grasping what my feet are supposed to do.

My least favorite thing to teach (keep in mind I only teach snowplow) is swizzles. There are some kids who just get them immediatly, and others who don't have the motor control at all to even attempt them. And it's the one thing in our class that you can't fake (lots of kids "fake" the wiggles) so everyone else can easily see who can't do it, and the kids get so frustrated.

My favorite thing to teach is a 2 foot hop/jump. I always thought this was a disaster, but the kids love jumping!

[jskater49]

I only teach lower level basic skills, but I find it hard to teach someting I don't remember learning - like swizzles..they come so natural to me, it's hard to break it down. I've been known to bend over and push their feet the way I want them to go. I've also drawn fish on the ice and told them to skate over the fish.

I love to teach snow plow stops...especially since they are usually easy to fix - most everyone puts their weight on both feet and that's what makes them spin. So I make a joke out of it and act silly when I demonstrate what happens when you don't shift your weight to one foot. It's very gratifying how quickly they get the stop once they figure that out!

I was in LTS last night and got a kick out of what the coach did when she left the kids to work with someone else. She drew a face and said "This is me watching you practice this move" The kids loved it.

j

j

[UDsk8coach]

I hate teaching salchows... the kids just dont seem to get the whole "scoop & jump" action...

I love teaching MOVES IN THE FIELD!! I know, I must be nuts, right?? haha, my students seem to think so! :lol: I like the precise-ness and patterns (I'm a dancer at heart), even if my kids dont. They dont dread moves lessons, bc I make it fun, but they'd much prefer to work on jumps & spins.

[jskater49]

I hate teaching salchows... the kids just dont seem to get the whole "scoop & jump" action...


I'm not a kid and I totally do not get the salchow at all. Once my coach actually drew where I was going on the ice and that helped. She said she kept a marker with her and she'd be glad to draw it for me anytime she was on the ice.

j

[SynchroSk8r114]

I'm not a kid and I totally do not get the salchow at all. Once my coach actually drew where I was going on the ice and that helped. She said she kept a marker with her and she'd be glad to draw it for me anytime she was on the ice.

j

I do this when I begin teaching the salchow. I used to tell kids that a salchow is basically a waltz jump with a 3-turn at the front, but then they started doing this weird three turn-put the toe in the ice-waltz jump, and it just got to be too confusing for them, so I stopped using that analogy (even though it's true! ;)). Now I tell them to pretend they're kicking a soccer ball for the scooping part and tell them to imagine climbing on a horse to ride it or trying not to kick their dog so that they actually get their free leg up in the air. Works wonders and the kids laugh at the thought of kicking their beloved puppy...

[Sessy]

Our group teacher told them that it starts out like a forward spin and then you jump up. Of course the side effect of that is that everybody's swinging the free leg around now, not kicking it through and that even for me - being an adult, watching lots of video's of how it's supposed to be done and reading up about it - it's pretty hard to (no pun intended) kick that habit of swinging around instead of kicking through. I'm gonna guess they're going to have a LOT of trouble trying to un-do the habits this is causing for the kids in our class if they want those kids to jump doubles sometime. Also I'm seeing the same thing back in the GIANT difficulty they're having to get the kids started on the axels, where the kids are just swinging their foot around again because that's how they think you'll spin most.

On the other hand, it does sorta get the fear out of starting to jump.

For the toe-loop, we were rotating on the toepick at first. But again this teaches pre-rotating the toeloop, which I don't see them easily un-doing either, considering that the girls who jump doubles at our club are still pre-rotating the toeloop. One of those girls even thought the toeloop is a half-rotation jump, the double toe being a 1,5 rotation jump... Go figure!

[SynchroSk8r114]

Interesting, Sessy. I'm surprised a coach would tell a kid that they're free leg swinging through is what causes a spin to spin. I mean, in part - yes, but I think whoever the coach is should enforce a deep bending of the skating knee on the edge into the spin, which hooks the edge and centers the spin, and remind kids to keep their right arm in front (assuming the child spins CCW). As you're alreay seeing, it's leading to some pretty hard-to-unbreak jump habits. I'm still trying to get one of my newer students, who left her old coach about two years ago to take from me, to get the correct feeling of salchows, toeloops, etc. It's sooo not worth the time and energy of incorrectly learning a jump or spin only to have to basically relearn the correct techniques down the road...

[Sessy]

Well skating in the Netherlands is handled less seriously than it is in the USA, so I'm not that surprised really. She didn't actually say that's where the spinning came from. In fact she couldn't tell me where the spinning in the flip came from, so I think her brain doesn't work that way at all. She can't explain things. She can show them, and then when nobody gets it she gets desperate and goes like, it's like a jumped spin! Go practice it! That's actually the reason I didn't take privates, I didn't feel there was much point (I hope an other coach comes back in september like she said she would, the one with the hands-on approach about the edges).

On the other hand... We're a pretty strong club, by Dutch standards. So getting people past their fear of jumping is obviously doing some good and kids seem to learn just fine from copying, though explaining things so they understand why something is important to them does seem to improve their attention span DRAMATICALLY. When I mentioned I could do a bielman cuz I was stretching just like in ballet, suddenly all the kids who hated ballet got interested and even stretched at home. And I'm jealous of how far they got their splits now.

(BTW I'm not coaching at all, but kids at our club do come to me a lot during public skating sessions and even during group lessons to ask what they're doing wrong, cuz I pick up a lot from you guys in terms of the theory behind the skating moves. But cuz I'm not coaching I'm gonna go back to the on-ice skating forum now, no idea why I got involved in this discussion in the first place... Oh yeah wanted to mention something that maybe could help. )

[UDsk8coach]

Interesting, Sessy. I'm surprised a coach would tell a kid that they're free leg swinging through is what causes a spin to spin. I mean, in part - yes, but I think whoever the coach is should enforce a deep bending of the skating knee on the edge into the spin, which hooks the edge and centers the spin, and remind kids to keep their right arm in front (assuming the child spins CCW). As you're alreay seeing, it's leading to some pretty hard-to-unbreak jump habits. I'm still trying to get one of my newer students, who left her old coach about two years ago to take from me, to get the correct feeling of salchows, toeloops, etc. It's sooo not worth the time and energy of incorrectly learning a jump or spin only to have to basically relearn the correct techniques down the road...

^^^^^^^^^^^ agreed!! I have seen so many kids w/ bad "basic" skating skills, bc the coach is pushing them along just to say they have this skill or that skill... then they get to something "hard" and can't get it bc their basic skating is so crappy. Its frustrating to watch as a coach, bc I know eventually one day they will move on to a different coach and have to re-learn EVERYTHING. I feel sorry for the kids...:cry:

[singerskates]

I hate teaching forward crossovers. Even with all of the exercises and technique talk, you still have to just have your student go around and around in circles. It's hard to keep that fun and kids with short attention spans tend to revert to toe pushing no matter how many times you stop them and go over a full blade push. I always have to have a talk about it is better to go slower and do it correctly than going as fast as you can toe pushing the whole time. It's hard because they've finally reached a level of comfort on the ice and they love to go fast but it's also that time when details become more important.



What about teaching them on the line first to cross their foot over the other and sort of make it a broadway show kind of thing (A Chorus Line)?

Then when they get that down, tell them if they want to be lazy and use the least energy to get around to do the crosscuts your way. I also tell the kids that I work with to push with their heel because it covers more ice and gives you more push for the effort/work.

Not an official coach but a PA.

[SynchroSk8r114]

I also tell the kids that I work with to push with their heel because it covers more ice and gives you more push for the effort/work.

:!: Yes, that eliminates toe pushing, but then you have to watch out because that can lead to stroking where the skater doesn't stroke back, but out to the side instead, which does not allow for he or she to gain full momentum and maximum pushing power from their strokes/crossovers. I've seen this firsthand on many occasions and have had to spend countless hours correcting a skater's technique and basically re-teaching them the basics. :frus:

[singerskates]

:!: Yes, that eliminates toe pushing, but then you have to watch out because that can lead to stroking where the skater doesn't stroke back, but out to the side instead, which does not allow for he or she to gain full momentum and maximum pushing power from their strokes/crossovers. I've seen this firsthand on many occasions and have had to spend countless hours correcting a skater's technique and basically re-teaching them the basics. :frus:

I only tell them to push with their heel to get them to get away from the toe pick. Once they understand not to push with the toe pick, I then tell them to feel like they are pushing from the arch of their foot. I do the heel thing first because pushing with the toes is just to dangerous and I've seen a lot of kids get their toe pick caught in the ice and then fall hard on to their knees. Anyway, it works to go from one extreme (toe pick pushing) to the other extreme because at first the kids just don't understand "Stop Pushing with your toe picks."

[dbny]

While chatting with the mom of a 5 yr old skater where I teach (but not my student), I mentioned that I can always tell which beginners have roller bladed, because they don't toe-push. The mom them told me that the tot's coach has been trying everything to break her of toe-pushing! She's going to get roller blades for her daughter now, and I'm waiting to see if that does it. I think it may well do, as roller blades do not have anything at the toe to push with.

[jskater49]

While chatting with the mom of a 5 yr old skater where I teach (but not my student), I mentioned that I can always tell which beginners have roller bladed, because they don't toe-push. The mom them told me that the tot's coach has been trying everything to break her of toe-pushing! She's going to get roller blades for her daughter now, and I'm waiting to see if that does it. I think it may well do, as roller blades do not have anything at the toe to push with.

No, they just try to stop with their toe picks!

j

[dbny]

No, they just try to stop with their toe picks!

j


Stopping isn't the problem, it's toe-pushing that's hard to break. You can't push on roller blades with anything but the side of the foot. There is nothing at the toe to push with. Kids and adults who have roller bladed before taking to the ice really stand out in that they do not push with the toe pick at all.