Puberty Woes

[sk8tmum]

With the kick-off of the "season" I've been seeing so many kids felled by puberty. Height growth, weight growth, changes in body dimensions. I'm seeing a lot of "got axel at age 8, DS at at 9" etc kids who are struggling to land a decent flip, or can't get down in a sit-spin any more because their legs are inches longer, or their change in waist/hip/chest means their centre of gravity has changed.

And, I'm seeing quite a few quit in frustration as what used to be "easy" needs to be re-learned, or, where poor technique isn't enough to lift the new body into the air anymore.

Having suffered thru the puberty thing already with skaters and emerged with kids on the ice but with painful memories :(... how do other parents keep the kids going? any tips on minimizing the puberty issues? I'll be going thru it again, soon. We found in the past that dialogue, discussions, continual training, encouragement, focus on refining technique, and coaches who knew what puberty can do to a skater ... helped.

[Kay]

This can definitely be a major issue for a lot of skaters! Here are a few suggestions that might be able to help skaters...

1.) Patience, Patience, Patience, on the part of the parents and the coach, will help encourage the skater to work through it. Sometimes saying it out in the open helps. "It's a growth phase, it will take some effort, but you'll get through it!" can often go a long way towards alleviating the fears in skaters that they just "suddenly suck.

2.) Work on relearning your body, especially off the ice. Approach it similar to a way that an Equestrian Rider would: if you're riding w new horse, you need to practice learning how the horse handles.

--> Have your skaters work on simple things at home on the floor to help them stay in touch with their body. YOGA is an excellent way to do this. I would also encourage stretching, reaching, and balance activities. Eg. do a spiral and touch the ground, reach to one side, reach to another, etc.

*** A great way to help this along is to have the skaters close their eyes while doing stretches/spirals/balance/reaching activities off ice. This will help them to feel how far away body parts are and where they can expect them to be. It becomes more of a body-knowledge awareness than a visual awareness.***

3.) Go back to basics. Practice basic balance skills, eg, edges, turns, footwork, spirals, single jumps, and practice them a lot. Mastering techniques on single jumps will set them up for regaining their doubles.

*** Have them focus on doing the elements "in control": puberty can often bring about additional strength, and/or weight within limbs (esp in boys) and their skating can become difficult to control and appear "flail-y" in nature. Body control, not landing jumps, needs to be the focus for awhile ***

[RoaringSkates]

To add to what Kay said, which was great:

Puberty can be a great time to start learning ice dance, as it is very much "back to basics", and yet does build on what she already knows. Ice dance forces you to look again at what you think you know - edges, etc. - and get them right. It gives a lot of body/edge awareness, and it not only can improve the skater's freestyle, but it also gives the skater something new to focus on, in skating, and which they can work toward - going forward toward new skills (while also relearning body awareness and etc.) Thus the skater doesn't compare themselves to how they were when younger; or at least, not while doing the dances. Instead, they look toward learning these new skills.

Synchro can also be a great idea, as suddenly, a girl who feels alone and sucky is part of a team of girls at their same level. It's a joiny-joiny rah! rah! team! thing that can really work for some young women. And like in dance, suddenly she's learning all sorts of new skills, so she can't so much compare to herself when younger, and a lot of the focus is on stuff that will improve her freestyle (edges and etc.)

She could also consider doing off-ice work such as ballet, or another, new-to-her form of dance if she's been doing ballet. Something completely new to her (which style of dance is less important than that it be new to her) so she can't compare to who she was, but which will increase body awareness, strength, allow her to find her core again, etc.