SkateUK - Time for a moan

[onlyhappyonice]

Okay so something that has been a bit of an annoyance is finally turning into a real pain in my posterior :evil:

Basically me and my partner have our lessons at quite a small rink where we are split up into groups of different ability.

Every week we have a different coach who doesn't know what grade we're at (we've been told working towards finishing grade 7, with some grade 8 elements)

Last night again, new coach... put two groups into one big one and asked us to do grade 4+5 stuff like slaloms, backwards chasses to see what level we're at, both me and my partner need to spend what little time we have getting support while practicing our backwards crossovers, three turns and mohawks not all the stuff we can do with our eyes closed.

We seem to spend the fist half of the short lessons playing catchup with the coach just to let them know what we can do before we can actually get onto what we need to.

AAGHHHH I'm so annoyed, and when I did find the space to try some three turns I got slightly repremanded for doing an inside three turn when she was introducing outside three turns

Rant over!
For now!

Just copied this to my blog as it says everything it needs to and saves me typing it out again :D

[Mrs Redboots]

Private lessons?

But it is impossible to spend too much time working on your basic edges at this stage - or, indeed, at any stage of your skating career. Even the elite skaters spend the first ten or fifteen minutes of their training sessions working their basic edges.

[samba]

Hi Notsohappyonice

The problem may be a lack of coaches consistently working on the day you attend, in which case they will start with the easy stuff and work up if there are too many to give individual attention to.

You are probably at a stage where you would benefit more from individual tuition, I know it will cost more but I think once you have got the basics the best way to improve is along this route.


Annabel sorry to repeat your first line, I was still keying when you had already answered it.

[onlyhappyonice]

I think private lessons are a bit of a way off, I wouldn't even consider it until I've completed grade 10.

My gripe is that we have 30 minutes with the coach and our group of 5 with a coach working on our backwards crossovers has been changed to a group of 20 with one coach in the same amount of space with no help with the things we have been learning.

Oh well suppose I should just quit my moaning, after all any time on the ice is good.

[samba]

I dont know if you are already a member but this could be of use to you:

SkateUK on-line
Have you just started a Skate UK course or are you interesting in seeing what Learning to Skate is all about? Well you can register here and watch great quality video of all ten stages of SkateUK. There is a special introductory fee of £5.00 to view the video and you can continue watching for 6 weeks. Skate UK online will assist all budding skaters in the basic moves of SKATE UK, stepping through each element of each stage in normal and slow motion with narrative to help you understand the requirement for each level. Remember you must have a minimum of 250K broadband connection to view the tutorials and NISA cannot be in anyway responsible for poor viewing as a result of low bandwidth

The link is here:


http://www.iceskating.org.uk/index.php?q=skateuk

[onlyhappyonice]

Yeah we get free access while we're on the course, plus I've already downloaded all the videos, I'm studying them religiously.

we're thinking of taking a break and not signing up for the next set of lessons, we can then use that £120 for a fair few session skates where we can take our time and practice what we know we need to practice, we can then confidently go back and start again at a decent grade and know we are where we should be.

It's obviously not the fault of the coaches as they do a great job, it's purely because there are neither the amount of coaches or the space on the ice required to split people up into the groups of skill that they should ideally be in.

[samba]

£120 on sessions without any tuition could lead you into uncorrected bad habits, which believe me are VERY hard to get out of once established.

Could you not at least put £20 of this, to one side for the odd private lesson just to ensure that you are still progressing in the right direction? You wont regret it.

[onlyhappyonice]

Probably a good idea, but I am a bit thick and quite reactionary :D

we havn't decided what we're going to do yet

[peanutskates]

hey,

when I did SkateUK, I got moved up through the grades pretty quickly, since the coaches saw I learned fast. Except for grade 4 - I had learned everything, but the coach just wasn't bothered. I stayed in the class for 2 weeks, and then on the third week, I just went straight to grade 5 and said that I had been moved up. No one checked or noticed. :)

If you get put into a lower class than your ability, just say straight out that you are of a higher standard. If they say "I don't believe you, SHOW me" then fair enough, but I think if you tell them that you've been in a grade 7/8 already, they should let you go...

[dbny]

The problem may be a lack of coaches consistently working on the day you attend, in which case they will start with the easy stuff and work up if there are too many to give individual attention to.


Or it could just be poor management. I hate having to work like that. It's not fair to the students or the coaches.

You and your partner could share a private lesson, if you are at about the same level. It might turn out to be only marginally more expensive than the group lessons, and you can cancel when necessary, instead of missing a lesson you've paid for.

[fsk8r]

You're probably suffering from a rink trying to cash in on the "Dancing on Ice" effect at the moment. The only consolation is that most of them will go back to tennis after Easter.
I agree to the idea of taking the odd private lesson. I know people of your standard doing privates and it does help because you can progress at your rate then. If you can share a private it makes the pain on the pocket easier and you still get most of the benefit from one to one attention. I quite often share lessons and get just as much benefit from that as from one to one attention, and a lot more than I get from any private lesson.

[onlyhappyonice]

As I mentioned it's a very small rink so I think it's because there isn't the room to split people up into the amount of groups there should be to match ability in which case when coaching they're coaching in line with the lowest common denominator.