LTS coaches: 5 zoomers, 1 frozen, what do you do??

[phoenix]

This is a bit of a breakaway topic from the other thread about adult skaters.

This is a bit hypothetical, but I have actually had this very situation more than once, & I'm mainly thinking of adult classes here, though it happens with the kids too.

First day of classes, you have Adult 1. Turns out you have 5 people who have skated enough before that they're very mobile, able to stroke from foot to foot & glide a bit in between, right from the get-go. They don't have any of the skills to move them over to the Adult 2 class, but they're really ready to tackle the Adult 1 skills. THEN--there's one person, never been on skates in his/her life, or any other related activity (roller skating, inline, skiing, etc). Absolutely no feel for how to move at all, frozen to the wall with feet slipping every which way.

You have no helpers, so you have to manage this situation so that everyone is learning and getting their money's worth.

Has anyone else ever had this? I've typically started with the frozen one, showed them how to fall & get up, and then gotten them started on marching with one hand on the wall (if they can). Then I leave them to work on that while I get the rest going on the swizzles, stroking, etc, that they're ready to do. Then I typically go back & forth a bit, but it seems the "frozen one" ends up getting the short stick because all they're able to do is slowly march, possibly try a 2 foot glide---so it doesn't take much time to check on them, give some pointers & encouragement, then go back to the bigger group where explanations & demonstrations are more involved and take more time.

Obviously this wouldn't work w/ kids as you wouldn't leave anyone alone, and adults are able to practice something/focus on something once you've shown them.

Any other ideas on how to make the best of this situation? Often it seems the "frozen one" drops out after a couple of weeks, so it becomes a sink or swim deal---which maybe is okay? I don't know.....

[Debbie S]

I'm not a coach, but here's my .02:

I can imagine how frustrating it must be to have to divide your attention, and figure out how it should be divided, b/c there's never a perfect compromise (I used to be a (school) teacher). The problem with the situation is that group lessons aren't the place for individualized instruction like that. If someone really needs that much help, the best thing would be for them to have private lessons, at least for a while, to get them started until they are ready to work on the skills with everyone else. Of course, that would cost more money and a beginner might not be interested.

Little kids in Snowplow classes who have never skated seem to be OK, but kids (as we know) don't have the same fear (or distance from the ice - lol) as adults and adapting to skating movement comes more easily to them.

[CanAmSk8ter]

Sometimes at my rink we shuffle classes around a bit anyway, since we don't use a set curriculum with the adult classes. Usually in the evening we have three groups, and in the scenario you described, the mobile adults might be able to move into the middle group, or the middle group and advanced group could combine to free up another coach (we usually have three advanced adults at most). During the daytime we often have two coaches instead of three, and that would be more troublesome. In that case, I'd pretty much do what you suggested for the first class, and describe the situation to the LTS director so that she would know I needed another coach for the next class.

[Sessy]

I'm no coach but maybe it's a matter of expectations. At our club, adult skaters are put in the same group kids are, but they're immediately warned they might have to take the same class twice, or else practice extra besides the classes, if they want to keep up with the rest.

[phoenix]

in the scenario you described, the mobile adults might be able to move into the middle group, or the middle group and advanced group could combine to free up another coach (we usually have three advanced adults at most).

Which then puts a coach giving a private lesson to the weaker one, while the more mobile ones are now in a doubled-size class, ie, less attention......

[CanAmSk8ter]

Which then puts a coach giving a private lesson to the weaker one, while the more mobile ones are now in a doubled-size class, ie, less attention......

Yeah, that's probably not how we'd end up handling it unless the middle class happened to be really small already (1-3 students). It's more likely we'd do that for the first week as a temporary thing and make an attempt to bring in an assistant for the lowest class the next week.

[Skittl1321]

I honestly wouldn't suggest private lessons to the slower skater, unless they really talk up about how they really really want to learn this whatever it takes. I think the cost would just make most beginners give up.

I've never taught a class of more than 3 adults- and we definetly have this issue where it's 2:1, but I think 5:1 is a bit more drastic.

So I think I'd just do the seperation thing. Work with the slow one, get them started marching, go to the bigger group, get them started with stroking or what not. Head back to the beginner, offer advice, spend a bit of time demonstrating, continue, or get started on swizzles. Move back to the larger group etc.

I would spend about 3/4 of the time with the "advanced" group and a quarter with the slower skater. It's not proportional to the number of people, but I've found adults will (more often then children, but not always) keep practicing what you've asked them to, talk amongst themselves to determine if they are praticing correctly, and ask for help if they are pretty sure they are doing it wrong so I don't think the higher group would suffer.

As long as your entire class knows to approach you if they have a question (a quick excuse me, while you work with the other group) I don't think anyone would feel slighted.

I do think adult 1 is much more difficult to deal with then the basic skills. Then last few things in adult 1 are hard. I rarely have adults who have never skated before pass that in one session. They feel like they should be able to, because they've been introduced to the everything, but in 8 weeks there just isn't time for mastery. I hate not passing adults when they are clearly practicing, and I know will continue to practice but just aren't there yet.

[slusher]

One technique I use, a lot, with kids, is if I have to go attend to a straggler is to have the group come with me. We might be skating to the end of the ice, I've lost a little one, so I'll turn around and make my group do swizzles or bubbles back to round up the straggler. So, if I'm working with the high group, it would be "come on, we're going to see what Fred's been up to, lets do one foot glides all the way over to where Fred is". Fred's task might have been to walk all the way around the rink, using the wall support only when necessary. We will congratulate Fred for achieving however much he did. I'll send the higher group to go practice their one foot glides "on the foot that they don't like" and spend some time with Fred.

[daisydo22]

I have adult classes like this all the time. Usually it's more like 2 can skate and are working on Adult 2, 2 can kinda skate and are working on Adult 1, and 1 is holding on to the wall the whole time.

I give each skater an element to work on, sometimes even two elements and then I go to the next skater and so on. Revolving around to everyone. If there are any elements that are similar, like elements done on hockey circles, I try to keep the adults together, but doing the elements that they need to work on.

For the skater clutching the wall, sometimes I have a helper who can stay with them the entire class time and help them. Other times I will draw a line on the ice with a marker and have the skater follow the line. Then I draw other lines or boxes and have them skate down the line and then glide the length of the box, or do swizzles around dots drawn on the line.

I like to keep everyone in the class moving and working on something.

[Mrs Redboots]

I'm no coach but maybe it's a matter of expectations. At our club, adult skaters are put in the same group kids are, but they're immediately warned they might have to take the same class twice, or else practice extra besides the classes, if they want to keep up with the rest.
Oddly, when I was in the groups, it was the other way round - we would be passed if we showed we knew what the skill was and roughly how to do it, even if we weren't yet successful, on the grounds that we knew we couldn't do it yet and would practice, whereas the kids would assume that they knew it all as they had been passed - so he passed me where he would have failed a child!

Going back to the original post, though, what I have seen happen is the instructor takes the slow student and walks him or her through the skill they're asking the rest of the class to do, assuming the rest of the class can attempt it by themselves. Then will leave the student at the barrier while checking on everybody else's progress, returning frequently to give them a hand and to encourage them to do it themselves, no matter how small and slow.

[kayskate]

This has happened to me. I try to keep the others skating and practicing while I give instruction to the slower one. I balance my time appropriately. The wall-hugger has to realize that s/he needs to just march while the others are ready to move on. As the marcher comes along, introduce swizzles and keep him practicing while you work w the rest of the class.
I've also had a 2 person class w one of each. That was easy to manage b/c I worked w one then went to the other.

Kay

[quarkiki2]

You're describing my first set of lessons, LOL! Although, we had 6 students and two instructors and were doing ISI back then, but 5 of us passed pre-aplha and half of alpha on the first day and one wouldn't let go of the wall. Our lead teacher started with the larger part of the class and sent the assistant to the slower skater. They swapped a couple of times while we were practicing, but I clearly remember that none of us expected a ton of attention -- that's why we'd picked group lessons instead of provates.

In the adult class I assist with on Saturday mornings, we've got one skater ready to start back crossovers, one starting forward crossovers, and one practicing swizzles and slaloms. The other instructor and I rotate between the three of them pretty easily. When I've soloed in that class, I sort of work them on similar skills -- like, we're all going to do swizzles in some form. You do back one-foot swizzle pumps, you do forward one-foot swizzle pumps and you do forward two-foot swizzles. Or glides, one goes backwards on one foot, one goes forwards on one foot and one goes forwards on two feet. I like doing it this way so that they can see how often a skill comes back and that learning it and learning it well means that it will be easier to understand in each of it's incarnations.