Reading the coach's jab thread made me think, these folks really have a high level of tolerance and patience.

Can you imagine watching hours of sometimes horrific skating, day after day after day.

Ask yourself, could you watch "Plan 9 from Outer Space" 6 hours a day 6 days a week?

I think they use these jabs as a form of comic relief so that they don't go completely around the bend.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

I whole heartly agree! I actually tried teaching a couple of my friends to move around the ice and boy what is frusturating!!! I must say coaches must have a such a high level of patience with us cheers to them!! And I must add that my coach is very generous with her praise, she's always noticing even the itty bitty bits of improvement, it's really nice and it's a great motivator for me to work extra hard.

I agree with that one too. I have tried coaching a few of my friends and its fine if they try, but when they dont and just moan, it gets so fusturating! My coach said to me that she likes coaching me because we talk and with the little ones, they just stare up at her blankly. But, coachs must have so much patience. I think it must be very rewarding though. My coach is always saying how much I am improving recently and its just nice to know that your improving even just a little bit.

Hannah xXx

Yeap! Particularly my primary coach! We've been together for many MANY years! The best way to sum up my relationship was a dialog we had once after my having a really bad lesson. He was teaching someone else when I skated by...

Coach: "Don't worry! I still love you!!!" (Comes up and hugs me.)
Me: "I still love you too!"

And I've kept at it... especially lately since I got the sense now (especially from my secondary coach) that my chances of passing the Bronze Moves test this year isn't very likely b/c there's still a LOT I have to work on (both on and off ice) to get to the point where I will pass it. (Let's just say it ain't easy being an adult skater.)

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

i always never get mad at my coach when she yells at me because i wouldnt be able to stand watching me skate for so long

I've been watching the "coach's jabs" thread with some interest. I rely on my coach to have me feeling more positive about my skating when I leave the lesson than when I start it. I would dump a coach who jabbed me in any way whatsoever, jokingly or not. My sensitive ego can't take it. As a matter of fact, there is a little something going on with my coach right now that has me thinking about bolting. I've decided it's her problem and not mine, but I just have to wait and see at this point.

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My coach made the point that, the day she stopped complaining was the day I should get another coach because it would mean she didn't care. I found this to be a very truthful statement and one she mentions when I start to freak out near competitions and especially near tests.

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Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r

I'd have to agree with all the posters who said it would be so hard watching poor skating hour after hour, day after day.

While I'd *like* to know I'm improving, I *need* to know which one (of too many things) is most urgently in need of work. If the only way my coach can get the message through the skull bone is to needle a little, then so be it.

Of course, there are some coaches who take it too far, but coaches are for the most part in it for the love of the sport, and they genuinely want us to improve. (For sure, if I was my coach, I'd really want to see some improvement!!) And even if he needles me during the lesson, he is nearly always nice about it (I find it's hard to be offended when you're laughing your head off), and he always finds something nice at the end, so I leave the lesson with a good taste in my mouth.

I definitely count on my coach to boost my morale (and she does it, too) but I imagine we "older skaters" (teens & adults) give our coaches a boost as well. Most of my coach's other skaters are between 4 and 9 years old (I am 32 and she has another adult in her 40s); she sometimes remarks how grateful she is to be working with someone who can understand and follow instructions/corrections--and take a joke!

Of course, I usually start laughing and wisecracking about my skating even before she does.

Sometimes I have felt as if my coach only bothered to put up with me because of the money, unfortunately. I think she is a great coach, but I found her overall attitude about adult skaters to be rather unkind. I always thought it was unfair, because why couldn't she respect the fact that adult skaters are in it because they love it? She obviously loves the sport or she wouldn't be so involved in it. But, I never felt she respected my interest in the sport very much.

She was not the only coach I had who seemed to take me less seriously because I was an adult skater. A couple who would forget to show up for my lessons. Also, she would sometimes be watching her kids while she was coaching me. And, she made derogatory comments about adult skaters and the comps, etc.

She just never seemed to get that I wanted to progress and test and have a program and maybe compete. She never encouraged it much. I'm mature enough to encourage myself and that's what I did and got support from my other skater friends, but her support and encouragement and a little bit of enthusiasm from her would have really helped. She had her days - I do remember her saying something encouraging once when I was concerned about being too old to participate in the sport, but I only remember that one time.

From looking at the info on the USFS site about AN and the comp in Europe, it looks like maybe Adult Skating is really on the upswing and maybe the prevailing attitudes that I've received from coaches, judges, parents and other skaters in general about adult skaters are changing. I hope so. And even if it doesn't change, it still won't stop me from skating and loving it.

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"We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art." Henry James

My coach is actually pretty great. She coaches all ages, from really young to a woman in her 60's I think. When she has me working on swizzles, she used to tell me I need to make them symmetrical, that means like a lemon. I looked at her and told her I know what symmetrical meant, adn then she realized she could use "big" words with me. Although I think she still coaches me like she does her younger students, which I really appreciate. It kinda shows that she thinks there is some hope for me. And that I'm not above common sense.

I'm not an advanced skater, so I only coach Basic Skills, but I definitely enjoy teaching the adults at least as much as the kids. I find the adults need more confidence building than the kids in order to try something new. For example, I recently started some of students on F and B crossovers. The kids couldn't wait to try it, and of course, needed a lot of guidance and correction. The adults, OTOH, were scared to even try, so I had them first glide on each edge to be used. Then I pointed out how stable they were on those edges, and that all they had to do was add the crossover. I also give the adults more detail before asking them to try new things. The level of detail the adults want and need is usually more than the kids are ready to absorb. I take the adults to the wall and have them cross over there and pick up the crossed toe (tuck it) so they won't catch the toe pick on F crossovers. That's almost a useless exercise with the kids though. I enjoy providing the kind of detail that the adults need and want, and find teaching them, in general, to be more intellectually stimulating.

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I'm kind of the opposite of dbny...I prefer a coach to tell me what I'm doing stupid and be a bit hard on me. If a coach tells me something I'm doing looks like <insert something unappealing here>, then I will surely be trying to follow her advice on how to do it correctly more. My old coach was really nice, and would always say I was doing well, improving on this or that, and so on; and that I should be less hard on myself. She was a great coach, and I'll still be taking occasional lessons from her, but I think in my next coach I'm going to look for somebody a bit harder. Yes, I like hearing when something has improved, but it should be a brief mention, followed by a list of what I'm still doing wrong with mutterings about what an idiot I am for not getting that yet.

I think there's a big difference between playful jabs or taunts and the sort of thing that windsor has gotten though, which I would say is age-based discrimination. I wouldn't put up with that...

My coach is amazingly patient!!! We have been together for more than 13 years.. and she says we'll still be working together when all her other students have left and we're both in our 80s (she is a few years younger than I am). The worst thing she's ever said to me is "I'm not sure you'll ever get that jump (or spin or footwork) .. but we'll keep on trying"... and she says it with a smile. We DO keep after "it" and amazingly enough after a few weeks/months/years.. "it" is recognizable.. and works its way into my programs... and eventually I wonder what the big deal was.

She also understands when I am stuck on my commute to her (the rink where she teaches is 2 hours away from my house.. and sometimes I get stuck in traffic). She doesn't even charge me for that time, even though she's just sitting there at the rink WAITING for me to show up.

The greatest test of her loyalty was this season. I HATE doing bunny hops.. but she put one in my footwork. I managed to trip on the toe pick (no surprise) and fall right onto my knee... that was painful but I was fine; we didn't do much more than spins and stroking the rest of the lesson. The following week when I came in for my lesson, my knee wasn't too sore, but my brain FLAT OUT REFUSED to do a bunny hop at any time, anywhere on the ice. She was sooooo good: she took one hand and let me hold onto the railing with the other and we did bunny hops (well more like really bad limping) around the rink. My eyes are tearing-up, my brain is screaming "NO!!!!!" and she's still there speaking in a soothing voice telling me "You'll get over this, we'll just keep going around and around until you're ready to let go of the wall." After that she still held my hand while I did a bunny hop, then another, then another.. until I was still scared to do them.. but I could manage them unassisted.. I just couldn't do it in the footwork. But she insisted it stay in the footwork.. and we kept working on it. I have to say when I did that footwork at AN this year, and I managed something that resembed a bunny hop all I could think was "Thank you for getting me to this point!". I looked at the video and while it may not be a big deal to anyone else, getting through my qualifying round without giving up on anything INCLUDING that bunny hop was my biggest victory of the year.

My coach did have one other "tough" comment this week. I had to fight really awful traffic to get to the rink after a really BAD week at work.. so my lesson only went 30-minutes. Normally, we would have just continued on through the public session.. but she said "You know, this is as ragged as I've ever seen you. I don't think we should finish this lesson. We'll just pick it up at your next one". She is SUCH a sweetie!!! She says she really likes teaching adults because we can ask intelligent questions and still have fun. She is very supportive but also knows how to motivate me.. when and how to push, when to let things slide (a bit) and when to get me to try "just one more time" and to focus on just one or two of my problems at a time, so I don't get completely overwhelmed. I'm having. I'm so lucky to have her as my primary coach.

Dito!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

I want an honest coach. If something isn't right I want to know! I can't change what I don't know. However, you can correct me without making me feel bad. I try, but I still make mistakes even so. I want to be taken seriously, but as an adult I only have so much time for this sport. I have many other commitments besides my skating. Skating is a special part of my life, not my life. I want my coach to treat me kindly, with respect, push me as a skater, and listen to me. I try to treat my coach with the same. Skating is a relationship fostered by both skater and coach. Feeling positive and having an understanding of yourself as a skater makes you develop. Funny little comments can be cute, but they need to be said in a way that the skater doesn't walk away from a lesson feeling less as a person. This is a fine line in my book.

Chico

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"I truly believe, when God created skating, he patted himself on the back."

I'm totally with you on that! I can do all my jumps (singles, of course!) up to a Lutz, but I STILL prefer not to do that darn bunny hop. It just seems MADE to catch on the toe pick, doesn't it? And, then there's nowhere to go but onto your knee!

I sure wish I had your coach.....Lucky skater, you!

My coach wasn't ALL bad, though. She would go over time with me (though, I think we spent more time chatting than skating, sometimes). And, she could be encouraging (she told me once she never thought I'd get a scratch spin, but she didn't tell me until I'd been doing it for quite a while. She'd kept her doubts about my abilities to herself). She had her good days and bad days, just like anyone else. I just wanted more from her....like a program...and sitting down with me and making goals for each season, including tests and comps that I might be interested in doing, like she did with her kids. I asked for those things, but didn't get them. I guess I should have been more pro-active and really pushed the issue. I was always afraid of her talking about me behind my back (she has a tendency to do that) and making fun of my aspirations. Oh, so stupid of me! Who cares what she said to others? Or what she thought! Maybe if I'd shown a little more confidence and desire in my skating she would eventually have had more respect for me as a skater and then would have realized I wanted to take my skating more seriously.

So, obviously, it is a two way street. I guess I should have indicated more, myself, how seriously I wanted to take it. But, I allowed my own lack of confidence to run the show.

That lack of confidence will do you in every time, I tell ya. Whether it is in skating or otherwise!

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"We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art." Henry James

Hey Windsor --

You don't have to wait for someone else to give you a list of goals. Every year after AN I give my coach a list of my goals for the coming year.. and then she tells me which ones she thinks we should work on first. This year I achieved 3 of the 4.. so one carries over and I've added two more for next year. I figure if I don't know what I want to work on and/or if she doesn't know what we're working towards I'm not ever likely to get what I want out of this sport. (And I REALLY have to work at anything I want to achieve when it comes to athletics.) But the bunny hop is still in there, because she thinks I will overcome my strong dislike of it someday. It's probably one of the few things we will never agree on -- but if that's the worst of it, I'd say things are working VERY well.

I also choose my own music and bring it in already cut so all she has to do is choreograph programs. If she doesn't like what I've chosen, she'll tell me what she doesn't like about it and suggest some alternatives. Usually though, she's relieved because she doesn't have to find music for me and I'm happy because I know I have music I can listen to for 10,000+ run-throughs without getting bored with it (or if I do, it's my own fault). And my coach will tell me if she thinks it's time I've moved on because I've had a program too long, or if she thinks I should hold on to a program another season or half-season.

I also tell her when I want to compete or test -- and she tells me if she thinks that's reasonable... so it's a real give-and-take relationship. You're right.. I AM very lucky!

Agreed. This is exactly what I do, too. I make my own list and proactively take it to her. My list includes four categories:

1. New Tricks for Old Dog
2. Existing Things to Work On
3. Tests To Take
4. Competitions To Do

If there's something she feels strongly about, we discuss and add or deleted as necessary. But usually it's my list of goals. I keep a copy of it in my skatebag, posted on my bulletin board at home, and posted in my cube at work.

Once again this is exactly what I do. If I'm not sure about the "skateability" of a piece or if I want help choosing between multiple pieces, I'll get her input in advance. Otherwise, it's all my baby.

One of my pet peeves is adult skaters letting their coaches push them around or treat them like crap. By being an adult skater, we already have so many things going against us; the ability to make decisions and know what we want is one of the few things we have going for us. I say -- use those abilities. I have adult skating friends whose coaches have complete control over their skating, including music, competitions they're allowed to do, what they wear, who they can partner with, etc. One friends wants desperately (I mean, REALLY BADLY) to do a waltz as part of her freedance, but her coach doesn't personally like waltzes, so she's been told no. And my friend just complains about it sometimes to us, but won't dare question her coach. It just boggles my mind.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. No, wait. I just have to say it one more time ... ADULT SKATERS: STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES. DON'T TAKE CRAP FROM YOUR COACHES. IF THEY DON'T RESPECT YOU, MOVE ON.

Okay, sorry. I feel better now. Please forgive the rant.

Great advice, skaternum! Let's hope more adults follow your words of wisdom ....

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Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
"Do what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
-Haha, I've *arrived*! I am listed as a reference on Wikipedia.

My coach lets me have pretty much input (within reason) into what I think needs worked on (e.g. which dances for test, which dances for competition). I usually make a list of technique/power oriented stuff that I want to tackle and discuss it with him also.

For example, he has this drill nicknamed the "dreaded 8's" that he has all his kids do (similar to the MIF power circles only the circle can stay the same size. Think of doing 2 crossovers with each edge held for 8 counts, then 4 crossovers with each edge held for 4 counts, then 8 crossovers with each edge held for 2 counts, then 16 crossovers with each edge held for a single count. Do all this, then repeat once or twice. Then change from CCW forward to CW forward. Then CCW backwards, then CW backwards... by the way during the whole drill, at first, coach is counting the tempo). I watched some of them working on it, and decided I needed to do it too. So now we're working it into my "beginning of lesson" a couple times a week. (PS NoVaSk8r... the forwards version of the "dreaded 8s" would be an excellent drill for your forward crossovers.)

Sometimes for competition he'll overrule me, but a lot of times there's good reasons -- for example, in the various Pro-Am dance competitions, there are often limits on how many competitors in an age group/test level event a single coach can have, so my coach works hard to de-conflict like-level/age skaters so that we all have equal treatment. I like challenges and don't mind finishing last most of the time, so I'm usually willing to skate up if the dances for the next higher level (currently pre-gold) are dances I think I can hack through (i.e. no Killian attempts yet).

So far on my summer "to-do" list, other than training and hopefully passing the Tango, I have on my list... starting to re-train American Waltz solo, working on swing rocker turns (e.g. Rocker Foxtrot), and proper twizzles (I fool around with twizzles every once in awhile, but they're more halting double 3's than true twizzles.)

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

My coach is a SAINT. She'd have to be to put up with me since 1989. She coaches positively - almost never says something was bad. Every correction is a positive statement: "Stretch the free leg out to the side" "look up at the No Smoking sign" "A little more speed would be nice." Most of her corrections are so gentle that I don't even know how I make them until suddenly the move comes together. She got me to do a half-decent layback that way, which I vowed I'd never do, because just tipping my head back to look at the ceiling makes me dizzy, never mind doing it while spinning.

That said, I do pick and cut my own music (or wrangle a friend into doing it for me!). I do my own outfits and choreography is a collaborative effort between us - mostly she suggests things that I can't do and I adapt them into something I can do to the music. I think I h ave a better sense of music and timing than she does but we work with our strengths.

I think sometimes it is hard for any skater, adult or otherwise, to stand up to their coach if they aren't all that knowledgeable about skating. I mean, even if the skater thinks he is knowledgeable about the sport, sometimes he can't be sure since he didn't necessarily grow up in it. Sometimes the coach has been a part of the sport for as long as or longer than the skater might have been alive. And, if the skater doesn't have really any else around who is at his level (Adult or whatever), how can he really know what he is supposed to do? Or what makes sensible goals? What would make an appropriate program? A person learns, naturally, but all of that can take some time, especially when trying to go it alone. When I started skating, I didn't even know about the adult track or anything.

Anyway, I did give my coach music for a program once. But, it never came. And, I didn't want to bother her because I knew she was trying to prepare programs for her kids who were participating in Regionals/Sectionals and all that.

PLUS, actually, although I wanted more from her as a coach, and that feeling continued to grow, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find another coach who could work with my schedule (she was great about that) or who would even be willing to coach me at all or at least show up for lessons. I'd been through worse coaches before and I actually felt thankful that she'd continue to coach me at all and show up for lessons.

It can be hard to stand up for yourself when you feel like an intruder in the first place!

But, you guys are really letting me feel that, if there's a next time, I will DEFINITELY find my voice and let my coach hear it!!

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"We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art." Henry James

That is the best thing ever. I am soooooo trying that today...

Tell me what you think of the transition from the super quick "16 single count crossovers" back to the SLOOOOW-MOOO 8+8 count crossovers. ....

I find the "hold for 8 counts, cross, hold for 8 counts" to be the longest dang 16 counts of my life...

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...