How Did You Choose Your First Coach

[IceDanceSk8er]

I'm curious to know how skaters and/or parents selected their first coach? Was the coach referred to you? What criteria did you use to base your decision?

[Elsy2]

What often happens at our rink is that a coach will take an interest in a student in the LTS program and will offer their services for private lessons. Often it's obvious which skaters will do well with which coaches.

As for me, I worked with two coaches during group lessons, and chose the one who took an interest in me, and who obviously had good technical knowledge. My coach has taught me on several levels every step of the way. She kept introducing new elements soon enough that I didn't get bored and was always challenged. I also was aware that she had several tricks up her sleeve, if she couldn't teach me something one way, she's switch to another technique.

When it came to my daughter, she also had 3 coaches teach her during group lessons, and I observed their interaction, as well as observed what their skaters looked like on the ice overall. My coach wanted to teach her and worked hard to get me to say yes to privates. I balked at privates for a long time since there was only one other girl in her group lessons, and I felt like she was almost getting privates for the cost of group lessons. Eventually I agreed to privates, and daughter took off and was competing within 3 months.

[dbny]

My daughter had a friend who took private lessons at the outdoor rink, so I asked her mother, my friend, if she could recommend a coach. She said they loved her daughter's coach and gave me her number. When we went to the rink for her first lesson, the friend was skating also. I was aghast to see that after several years of private lessons, the friend could just barely do a few forward crossovers and could not skate backwards at all! Then my daughter had her lesson, and the next week she did her first waltz jump. It was after that, that my friend told me her daughter was deathly afraid of any kind of pain and would do nothing that might possibly result in a fall. My husband and I now take lessons from this same coach and could not be happier.

[tazsk8s]

Taz Jr. started skating at age 3, and private lessons at 4. She had taken group lessons with several different coaches, and she and her first coach hit it off really well in group classes and sort of chose each other.

[jazzpants]

I did some checking on their teaching, competitive credentials and how much I was willing to pay for a coach for a beginning FS skater. Then I weed out the ones that were not a schedule fit for me. The rest was just a matter of trying them out and seeing if it was a personality fit. Didn't take too long to find my primary coach... his name is all over the web!!! (Not to mentioned everyone knows (or knows of) my coach.) :P

[StarshineXavier]

My current coach guest skated in my club's skating carnival the year before she started coaching. I fell in love with her, and when my mom found out she was going to coach, she signed me up with her right away. She was young (16) and full of great ideas. We gelled right away and it's 11 years later, and she's the only singles coach I've ever had. She was referred to us by another coach that my mom had talked to about private lessons as well.

[Poohsk8s2]

How I selected my daughter's first coach, and how I should have selected her coach are two separate entities! It goes to... if I knew then... what I know now...

My daughter skates at a very good and well known training center. I think that any parent who is in this sport for the long haul needs to view coach selection as an investment.

The first thing I would recommend is to look at which coaches at your rink produce winners. I say this not because winning is "all" but rather that a coach that produces winners is generally teaching good technique and have a working knowlege of the system. Coaches are very expensive, and you don't want to spend the time and money re-teaching your skater if technique is not on target. Many of the parents at our rink request resumes (years experience, standing in the PSA, former students, off-ice qualifications) from coaches they are considering. Also, when I referred to the system, I was talking about the testing system of the USFSA. Some of the coaches from other countries do not know how to bring students through testing in a timely manner because they have never had to work within the guidelines set by the USFSA.

Second, I would inquire about the highest levels a potential coach has taken their students. Many coaches can bring your child through single jumps and some doubles, but as your child advances are you going to have to move on because of limited coaching ability? Trust me, letting a coach go can be quite an emotional event... and if your child has established a deep rapport with said coach, it is even more difficult.

Network with other parents. Ask what they like about Coach A, or what they don't like about Coach B. You may find yourself sifting through gossip, but follow your gut about the things your know would effect your skater. Take your time.

Finally, establish a trial period. Let your skater and potential coach know that for a set time, the relationship is for try-out. Communicate what you would like to see from the coach, ie. lesson updates, weekly reports, goals to be set. But most importantly, be sure to demand honesty from your coach. There are so many parents that want to hear their skater is the next "Oksana"... but there is so much more to skating than chasing an Olympic dream. Look at what can be realistically be expected from your skater at this time in their life. When they reach one goal, then move onto the next... and who knows they may eventually find there are big dreams within reach. But don't make the expectations so high that the joy of skating vanishes.

Good Luck and Have Fun... I love my skater, and we have found skating to be a lifestyle... more than it is a sport.

[Elsy2]

I think this is very good advice from Poohsk8s2, especially since going into the sport you are not thinking down the road for the long haul. It is traumatic to change coaches down the line. You may not realize the committment you may decide to make with skating, and all that you are in for.....It's a shocker in many ways, from the time required, to the cost, to how it affects the rest of the family, etc. So that first coaching choice can be very important.

[IceDanceSk8er]

Originally posted by Elsy2
I think this is very good advice from Poohsk8s2, especially since going into the sport you are not thinking down the road for the long haul. It is traumatic to change coaches down the line. You may not realize the committment you may decide to make with skating, and all that you are in for.....It's a shocker in many ways, from the time required, to the cost, to how it affects the rest of the family, etc. So that first coaching choice can be very important.

A real eye opener for us was when we moved my daughter from ISI to a USFSA track. This was about 10 years ago. The ISI coaches at the rink were not very forthcoming about skating programs outside the rink. In fact, they strongly urged parents and skaters not to look elsewhere. A friend of my wife had a daughter who was an ice dancer, and told us about a clinic in Indianapolis and that opened the floodgates. Looking back, we're amazed at how much we didn't know. Our only regret was not getting my daughter involved with USFSA programs earlier.

[batikat]

I never intended to choose a coach at all. I started in group lessons with my daughter who I dragged along for moral support. Like so many who start, I only wanted to know how to stop and to go backwards but quickly got hooked. After the first 10 week session my son decided to join in - and he turned out to be a natural and whizzed through the all the course levels and finished ahead of us.

Along the way the coach who had taken us for the first few courses asked if my son would be interested in private lessons. We all got along really well with this coach in the group lessons so I agreed we'd try it starting with 1 lesson a week shared with another boy of similar level.

Eventually the other kid dropped out and we tried with my son and daughter sharing the lesson. Pretty soon we added another lesson and another lesson and then, since it was my idea in the first place I started to take private lessons from this coach too. (When the coach bought a new car recently I joked that it was really mine, as I reckon I must have paid enough in lesson tickets over the years!)

My son likes to be taught by a male coach, my daughter adores him and I enjoy the way he approaches teaching adults too. We also benefit from the input of this coaches' wife from time to time.

Starting with group lessons is a good way of seeing if you like a coaches style and also asking around the rink, bearing in mind that different styles of teaching suit different people, so ask about how they teach and not just results - do they shout, are they encouraging, do the kids they teach look happy?

Anyway - so much for stopping and going backwards....it's very easy to get sucked into this sport and find you are spending a lot more than you intended!! But we love it!!!

[CanAmSk8ter]

I thought I'd add the perspective of a (fairly) new coach here: I teach in the (ISI) Learn-to-Skate program at my rink three days a week. Right now, we have our ISI competition coming up, and that always results in more parents trying to set up private lessons for their kids. Most of the time, though, it's up to us to talk kids into private lessons. We literally have kids in Freestyle 2 and 3 who only do group. Sometimes it's because the parents don't realize the option of privates exist, sometimes it's because they don't realize that by that level most kids are in private lessons (and that by that level it really is difficult for a kid skating in a group class once a week and not skating any other time to pick up the harder elements), and of course sometimes it's because the actvity really is "just for fun", along with piano on Tuesdays, soccer on Fridays, etc.

When I'm looking for kid to recruit for privates, I look for a kid who has some degree of talent, obviously, but this is probably the least important thing. Sometimes I also will suggest privates to the parents of a kid who is clearly struggling, especially if I think he/she is getting frustrated. Mostly, I look for a kid who clearly likes to skate- I'll teach any level of kid who wants to be taught. Really the only kids I don't enjoy teaching are those who clearly don't want to be in lessons. (And believe me, we do get some of those! Don't get me started on the parents who will send a crying three-and-a-half-year-old future NHL star onto the ice each week). I also look for a kid who has decent, level-appropriate equipment, i.e. is not wearing skates from Wal-Mart in Gamma level. I know that at that level if the parents have not been willing to invest in decent equipment, either the kid or the parents are probably not all that serious. I always talk to parents of skaters in my group classes right away if I think the kid isn't wearing appropriate equipment. They don't always run out and buy decent skates, but I feel like if I'm getting paid to teach their kid to skate, it's my responsibility to let them know that the skates their kid has might be holding him or her back, especially if they're so flimsy I'm afraid the kid could get injured in them. The only other thing I really look for is attention span. At the tot levels, this isn't such a big deal, but around Alpha or so, it begins to be more important. The skills get harder, and to really learn to do good forward crossovers, or the dreaded mohawk, a kid is going to need to have the attention span to do several repititions, instead of doing three and wanting to go on to something else.

[Candleonwater]

I found my daughters coach in the bathroom at the rink! Seriously... that's where we started talking. I was getting frustrated because I couldn't find a group lesson for my daughter and she helped me out. I didn't have a chance to check her out, so fortunately for me (and my daughter) it worked out for the best. :P

[96.23??]

This is kind of weird but I got my first coach because she was pretty much the only coach at my rink! She had taught me from canskate and when I progressed into needing private lessons, I just stuck with her!

But I found as i got higher up I needed a better coach with more time for me, so I called people that have had this coach that I wanted asking them what they thought of her, and they all had great comments and I'm still with that coach now!

[icenut84]

Do I have to be honest? ;) I fancied him! lol. No, it wasn't just that, I'd just been in a summer course where he was the teacher for my group. I'd been having group classes with different coaches in the rink (they changed around) so I'd got to know what most of them were like, teaching-wise. I liked him from the start, he was very friendly with everyone and made lessons a lot of fun (I was 17). He taught everyone from kids to adults, beginners to national skaters, and had a great rapport with all the people he taught. He was also a very good teacher. After the course I asked him if I could have a private lesson with him once every 2 weeks (I skated once a week), then it became once a week, then 2 lessons every other week and 1 the other week, then 2 a week (still just skating weekly). The fact that he was drop dead gorgeous was just a bonus :mrgreen: I had to get different coaches when he left to teach at another rink, so had to choose two others (one free, one dance). For dance, I wanted a man to teach me. I got recommendations from my then-coach, and decided on the one who was nicest and who I knew was a good technician. For free, I chose a woman who I'd had for group lessons before - she was always very friendly and bubbly in them, and a good teacher and good technician, and I'd also seen her do axels and double jumps and great spins so I knew she'd probably teach good technique. :) I'm definitely glad I chose her - any time a jump or spin was going wrong, as soon as I had a lesson with her she'd sort it out and I'd be able to do it again. :) I've now had to stop taking lessons from both of those now, too, as the rink's closed and we've gone to different rinks. I still have to arrange lessons with someone new, so here's hoping...

[Anjelica]

How did I choose my daughter's first coach? She was a new coach and had just moved to town and was the only coach who had any openings for new students! The coach I had originally wanted was full and wouldn't take her.