Self teaching

[luckykid]

How bad is it to teach myself skating? I had taken lessons before, and now I've stopped, and have been learning waltz jump and salchow on my own. I understand self teaching can lead to bad technics, but to what extend?

[NCSkater02]

Have you ever had to unlearn bad habits? That's what happens if you don't learn proper technique to begin. I had to relearn to skate after I had reconstructive surgery. All the bad habits I had from being off balance I had to relearn. It took a looooong time. If at all possible, don't go there...

[vesperholly]

It is too soon for you to go without lessons if you expect to make any notable progress in your skating. Jumps can not only be learned poorly without instruction, but you could be doing something dangerous and injure yourself. Can you take group lessons?

[Isk8NYC]

You can't coach yourself, you just reinforce bad technique, over and over.
I taught myself to spin the wrong way and learning to spin correctly was more difficult than learning an axel, lol.
(I do spin really well now. I should, for what I spent on lessons and ice time.)

Skaters who've self-taught usually have no control over their spins and jumps. Their stroking and turns (threes and mohawks) are clumsy and incorrect.

Take a short private lesson once a week and you'll improve in your skating.

[londonicechamp]

Hi luckykid

If you must, it is better to take group lessons than to self teach yourself.

It is not a good idea to self teach jumps, or spins, as you can easily be doing something dangerous or hurt yourself.

And yes, it is very true that you can develop a lot of bad habits when you self teach yourself, so don't ever try to go there.

londonicechamp

[mr.small]

I think up to a point self teaching might be beneficial; up till not that long ago everything I had learned on ice was self taught. It did mean that I didn't have to begin at the very start when I started taking lessons. That said, if I had had lessons before, I would have gotten to that stage much faster.

What is not so good is of course learning bad technique. When I landed my first full rotation jump (not that long ago) I had some help from one of my friends at the rink who lead me through the steps and gave me some wall exercises to do to get the action right. I had been trying this for a couple of sessions before and hadn't a clue how to do it (except trying to copy a youtube video... those do help for simple footwork but are terrible for anything else imo.)

I would say that practice is better than no practice regardless of whether it's with a coach or not though.

[londonicechamp]

Hi

Well, I suppose that if you really want to self teach, then you must ask a friend who has skating background and they have gone through lessons, no matter how high their level is, though the higher the better. In this way, you probably will be saving some lesson money, and won't learn any bad habits which your instructor will have to correct later when you start taking proper lessons.

londonicechamp

[Skate@Delaware]

It is so much better to take a brief lesson and go from there. Un-learning improper technique takes so much time.

We have a young lady at my rink that was self-taught. She would watch something on tv and imitate it, poorly but she had up to an axel. Once she started in lessons, everything she had taught herself had to be undone and relearned correctly. This took almost 3 years!

Save yourself time and frustration-take lessons.

[RachelSk8er]

I'm going to echo what everyone else says. Teaching yourself only helps you develop bad habits, which are very, very hard to break. When I started freestyle again in '08 I was coaching myself and successfully got myself through my adult bronze free test on my own, but once my coach got to me, he had some wild, crazy, out of control jumps and spins to fix. It was a lot of work and frustration.

The only thing I have actually (successfully) taught myself are steps to compulsory dances. I can read them out of a rulebook to learn the steps or follow another skater. After enough years of ice dancing, generally you know where your hips, shoulders, etc need to be, so I'm not doing any damage that my coach and I will have a hell of a time fixing once we actually get to the dance on a lesson. And it saves a lot of time during my lessons if, once I pass a dance and am ready to move on to another, I already know the steps and have a base down for us to work with. Same goes with moves--I've taught myself the patterns out of the rulebook so that we didn't waste lesson time. That's no different than doing your own choreography (which I do).

I also do play around with things that are new and try to figure them out as much as I can on my own, but I immediately ask my coach for help the next time I see him if it's something I want to seriously consider, that way I haven't had time for bad habits to develop. For example, I started playing around with edge changes on my spins on my own, and showed him what I'd been trying the next time I had a lesson. I've also progressed things beyond his drills on my own (i.e. he had me working up to a double toe with 1.5 revs, I went for the full 2 on my own), but I always had a base of what he taught me to work off of, and then we address what I did on my own in lesson time.

[falen]

I second, third all here! My DD took group lessons, but over the summer practiced on her own. By Sept she had developed so many bad habits, it would have been better if she just didn't skate in the summer. She now does groups and privates. The group is like supervised practice to keep the skate gremlins away.

[iSk8Dance]

You never get to see yourself skating and to see how bad you really are.

Sure you can learn to do a jump or a turn yourself, but do you realise how you're holding your free leg, your arm, that grimace on your face, your hips, your head, etc., etc.

At some point after you've learnt the basics from a teacher you'll start to need a coach.

[Query]

You can teach yourself to skate fairly efficiently, if you work at it. You can learn to move smoothly, using minimum energy, with good balance.

But efficient skating is not acceptable figure skating. All forms of Dance, including the various forms of figure skating, involve moving in ways that are characteristic to those particular art forms, and are quite unnatural and inefficient for most people. You can make them more efficient by training and strengthening to move in the prescribed way - but it is still unnatural and inefficient.

Without a coach, you won't be able to understand what is acceptable by the standards of figure skating, and what isn't.

So if you want to be judged well, at least take group lessons. In the end, if you want to advance in "proper" technique quickly, you will probably need an expensive private coach.

On the other hand, lots of Hockey and Speed skaters take fewer lessons, though I'm sure pointers help there too. Efficiency and balance, along with a bit of strategy and unpredictability, are apparently all you need. A hockey referee might penalize them because they let a stick go too high, but there is no judge in Hockey or Speed to takes off points because you let your spine curl forwards or twist too early, your blades make too much noise, or you used an entry edge to a move that works better for you than the one the rules say you have to use.

[Isk8NYC]

I gave this topic of "self-teaching" some thought this morning on the treadmill as I watched the kids skate and chatted with students' parents.

Pros:
Save money on lessons, memberships, testing, competitions and coaching

Cons:
Higher ice time costs since it takes longer to self-teach
Takes longer to learn everything
No expert guidance as to how the test and competition structure works
Can't enter a test or competition without a coach
Relying on non-professionals for advice and expertise leads to incorrect technique
No feedback on skating skills, so bad habits form quickly and stick immediately
No objective evaluation of skating skills or equipment issues
Coaching career, even as an assistant, is out of the question

The only information you receive to keep you up to date on skating is via paid magazine subscriptions or websites that might be out of date or incorrect. Asking people, even coaches, for technical information is unreliable since some people don't keep up themselves, they follow others' leads. Rulebooks are limited to members.

Hockey and speed skating are very different sports from figure skating. Hockey skaters are usually taught in a clinic-style setting with a high skater:coach ratio. They really intend it to teach the game moreso than individual skater skills. However, many hockey players take Power Skating and private lessons.

Speed skating coaching is done en masse during practices, although some skaters also take private lessons.

Both organizations require membership and coaches' approvals to participate in organized games or competitions, just as figure skating does. Many rinks will not allow a skater to participate in open hockey or stick-and-puck unless they have a USAHockey membership. (For insurance purposes.)

[Query]

The USFSA and ISU have recently gone to a lot of trouble to place "rulebook" and rules-of-judging type information online, available to everyone.

See http://usfsa.org, under the "Technical Info" tab, and http://www.isu.org.

But it's all very hard for a non-expert to understand. For starters, it mostly assumes you already know what the moves are, and that you already have the proper type of aesthetic appreciation for what constitutes moves and sequences of moves done in good figure skating style.

There is an exercise computer program that comes with a motion tracking camera, that claims to analyze your workout, and tells you what is wrong with your form, presumably checking for things like unsafe alignment. (I don't know how well it works.)

In any event, as far as I know, there is nothing similar for skating. Perhaps Isk8NYC would like to write one? I'll be happy to beta test it. :)

[Isk8NYC]

Perhaps Isk8NYC would like to write one? I'll be happy to beta test it. :)Flattery will get you nowhere - I chaperoned a test session this morning for my no-test students and parents and I had to refer to the rulebook to figure out which tests needed a certain number of judges. I'm no expert on the rules - for that, we have judges on this board, lol.

Posting the rulebooks online serves two purposes: it provides a sense of "transparency" and gives people the chance to print just what they need. As DBNY observed, it also gives them the opportunity to eliminate the paper copies in the future.

I much prefer the electronic pdf versions since I can do text searches to find what I'm looking for in the rulebook.

If you're looking for a good reference guide for the basics, I really like "The Complete Book of Figure Skating" by Carole Schulman (former PSA Executive Director). http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Figure-Skating/dp/0736035486

[Casey]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I learned the most, the best, and enjoyed the process the most, when I taught myself. As some have pointed out, it is important to see what you are doing, but if you can record and study yourself on camera, this suffices pretty well. You can also ask others for their honest opinions. That said, I never managed to learn an axel or a double, and I was not always well-disciplined about correcting bad habits that I knew I had. Only you can say how good your self-discipline is, and how well a given coach works for you.

My problem with coaches was finding somebody who would take me seriously as an adult skater. The ones I had held me back, and were just as bad as me at not being strict enough about correcting bad habits. I would always hear negative reinforcement from my coaches, telling me that I would never be able to do certain things and didn't need to worry about them and even, that I didn't want to push myself the same way younger skaters did. Who are they to tell me what I don't want?

So beware of coaching - you need to find a really good coach that believes in you, otherwise you're just throwing a lot of money away. Of course, one cannot only blame the coach - many adult peers say the same sort of nonsense, and at the end of the day, it is really up to what YOU believe (but it's hard not to let opinions of others, especially your coach, affect you).

Here is one of my favorite quotes:

"My own suggestion is to drop the idea of personal guidance, because anybody will try to guide you according to his mind, according to his ideas of how you should be. That's what all the teachers of the world have been doing: imposing their idea, their image on people who are searching and seeking guidance. It is one of the most dangerous games to play, because in it you are always the loser. If the teacher succeeds in imposing certain directions, certain patterns, disciplines, according to me it is not guidance; it is misguidance. Because nobody knows your unique self ― only you can know it. And you have to grow according to your nature, not according to anybody's guidance."

~ Osho

What should be taken from that is not that fixing your own personal bad habits is unimportant, but only you can really figure out, oftentimes through trial and error, what will succeed in fixing them for you. A coach can give you ideas and try many things, but oftentimes they are just trying one thing after another until they hit something that works too. Whether or not you have a coach, always push yourself and find the motivation to get better within and via your own initiative instead of only depending on another!

I do think that a good coach is an irreplaceable asset, hope that you can find one who believes in you, and I hope to find one myself one day. But thus far, I have not had very good luck, and no coach is better than a bad coach in my book.

[luckykid]

OK I guess I'll just stop teaching myself. I know about picking up bad habits, since the same thing happens across any field of activities. It's not that I don't want to get a coach, but it's just so expensive here that my parents cannot afford to have me take lessons. Sigh I guess I'll just have to continue 4 years later. But it's kinda boring to skate with just what you already know, and not learning new things.

[Casey]

OK I guess I'll just stop teaching myself. I know about picking up bad habits, since the same thing happens across any field of activities. It's not that I don't want to get a coach, but it's just so expensive here that my parents cannot afford to have me take lessons. Sigh I guess I'll just have to continue 4 years later. But it's kinda boring to skate with just what you already know, and not learning new things.

I really think if your only options are skating uncoached, or quitting, due to having no money not to skate, that you should keep skating anyways. Yes, it can be boring when you don't know what else to try or how to do it, but you can find motivation to continually push your limits and try something just beyond your ability. You could also have your parents or friends watch you and tell you what you need to work on form-wise or what bad habits you have, and make a focused effort on working on those things. You may not be able to perfect things by yourself but you can at least get a lot closer than doing nothing would do! It may not be the same as having a good coach that believes in you, but it's better than quitting for four years! I haven't skated very much in the last few years due to finances and I sure do regret it!

[doubletoe]

OK I guess I'll just stop teaching myself. I know about picking up bad habits, since the same thing happens across any field of activities. It's not that I don't want to get a coach, but it's just so expensive here that my parents cannot afford to have me take lessons. Sigh I guess I'll just have to continue 4 years later. But it's kinda boring to skate with just what you already know, and not learning new things.

There are two reasons to have a coach: (1) To tell you the correct way to do things, and (2) to watch you doing it and tell you what you are doing wrong. BUT, if you can get those two things without an actual coach, then you can probably make some progress on your own. This is what I would do:

If you have a figure skating instructional book, you can get some information on how to do jumps and spins. Then you just need to go to do a Google video search for each element and you will find a number of videos showing how it is done (but make sure you watch a video of someone doing a SINGLE jump, not a double or triple, since it will look different).
Here is a book that introduces you to all of the basic figure skating elements and gives some helpful tips:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568000707/figureskaters-20

If you have a video camera that you can set on the boards to record your attempts, then you can see whether you are actually doing the element correctly. I have often been *absolutely convinced* that my skating knee was deeply bent and that my shoulders were level, only to see a video of myself and find that they were not! That's why it's important to use video if you don't have a coach.

Also, pay attention to doing your basic edges and turns correctly. For example, if you can't do a 3-turn with good form and control, you are not ready to start jumping or spinning and are guaranteed to develop terrible habits (and probably hurt yourself).

[techskater]

Would it be possible to get in a group class? This is typically an inexpensive option (especially compared to a private/semi private lesson) and often comes with practice time or public skate passes.

[RachelSk8er]

OK I guess I'll just stop teaching myself. I know about picking up bad habits, since the same thing happens across any field of activities. It's not that I don't want to get a coach, but it's just so expensive here that my parents cannot afford to have me take lessons. Sigh I guess I'll just have to continue 4 years later. But it's kinda boring to skate with just what you already know, and not learning new things.

This happens to many of us. I think in this case it is better to keep skating. I went 4 years without a coach (either couldn't afford one, or there were not dance coaches where I went to school). I still skated knowing that in a few years, I'd have the money or be in a geographic location for a coach. Sure, I probably did develop bad habits along the way and they have been hard to break, and sometimes it was boring working on the same things and frustrating that I wasn't really improving. But I'm glad I kept skating and didn't just quit altogether those few years. (Luckily I had synchro during some of those years to keep me interested, but guess what? I skated on a collegiate team that didn't have a coach, either! Two of us essentially coached the team--we did choreography and ran practices--but we were also skating on the team at the same time.)

To second Techskater's suggestion, maybe if your parents can't afford a group class, depending on what level you are at and your age, maybe you can volunteer to work with the lower levels/toddlers, or if there is a special olympics/adapted program, in lieu of being able to take the class at your level. They are always looking for volunteers to help with learn to skate at my rink.