Well, I'm not suggesting that Basic Skillers get all bossy with their coaches. Obviously, when we first start out in the sport, we don't have a clue what's gonig on. But by the time we get to where we're taking private lessons, we're involved enough to need to know what's what. We pay a LOT of money to participate in this hobby -- why would we want to just shell out all these bucks with no idea what's going on? This is where you put your adult brain to work and get knowledge about the sport you're in. You get a rulebook and read it. You go online and find out about adult skating. You hang out in places like here and see what people are doing at various levels. In other words, exactly what you're doing now.

Yes, it's easier for people who are naturally assertive, but I look at it my relationship with my coach as both (1)coach/student and (2)service provider/customer. I'm not paying if I'm not consistently getting the service I deserve. For $75 an hour, I'd better be treated with respect. Smart coaches know that adults are the long-term steady income. We take so d*** long to learn everything, we'll be there for decades.

But what about after she was finished with doing their programs?

How can being a skater = being an intruder? Unless you have some major self-esteem issues that make you think that way, the environment there sounds toxic. Run away!

To quote from the 1970s, fight The Man! Ha ha. Seriously, stand up for yourself. Being aggressive is bad, but being assertive is good. You deserve just as much respect and attention as any other skater on the ice. You go, girl! Um, or boy. I'm bad about remembering gender with posters whose names don't imply gender. Hi, Casey!

I LOVE your list categories!!! And it's good to know I'm not the only one who has copies of "the list" in several places. I'm not sure I would be brave enough to put it in my cubicle at work (mostly because someone would tear it down... we have to share desks so the dayside people have a tendency to "rearrange" whatever they don't like. (GRRRRR!!!)) I also keep a logbook of what I've worked on, and suggestions/exercises from my coaches. I have a copy of this year's list on the front and back inside covers of my logbook.

And I don't think that was an actual rant.. I think it was just really great advice for adult skaters.

I can understand how a coach should direct an adult skater to start with, (i.e. I don't think a new to skating adult should come in and say I'd like to start working on doubles, but I don't need to know how to actually skate/stroke) but as soon as we have a clue to what we want to do, we really should act like adults, not little kids. Isn't that the advantage of being adults? We certainly get all the baggage that goes with being an adult: the occasional lack of respect, the realization this can be a dangerous undertaking, the fear factor, the lack of fluidity, etc. (I can't imagine turning my hobby completely over to someone else no matter how good a coach s/he is! After all, I'm the one spending the money/time/energy and recovering from the bruises and brain freeze!)

Windsor, it sounds like you totally deserve a coach who respects you and your ideas. But you also need to remember you are the paying customer. My coach and I are friends more than employee/employer -- but if you don't have that relationship yet, please remember you wouldn't (or shouldn't) let a doctor/tutor/waiter treat you that way and then expect to pay the bill in full, would you?

Only you can know what you want to achieve from this crazy sport. Good luck on finding that perfect match! I think it's harder to find a coach you really click with than it is to find a good date.. but it is SO worth the effort and time because you're going to spend the time and money anyway, you may as well make it a worthwhile investment!

Very good exercise

As a young coach who often works with adults both privately and in group settings, I'm getting a lot of out this thread. So thanks to whoever it was that started it.

My feeling is that if you don't necessarily agree with what your coach wants (or doesn't want) you to do, ask why! I know sometimes my students say they think I'm having them move on before they've mastered something, but I do that because elements at the beginning tend to build on and complement each other. For example, I often introduce mohawks before three-turns are truly "there", because a) mohawks often take longer to learn and therefore I think it's good to introduce them as soon as the skater is ready, and b) occasionally, someone finds mohawks easier and it helps the forward to backward transition on the three-turn to "click". When I explain this, students usually understand, but I can see why it might be confusing to have a coach say, "Ok, let's try something new" when you're thinking, "I can't even do this right!"

The bottom line is, I'm always happy to explain why I teach something the way I do, and if a student has questions or concerns about why I teach something a certain way or at a certain time, I'm always open to explaining and discuss my reasons. That's how my coach teaches me, and that's why I like taking from him- I'm not just learning how to skate, I'm learning about skating, and it's going to make me a better skater and a better instructor. That's the kind of coach I want to be.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

I have known my coach since she was 9 when I used to watch my son skate, I never thought then that she would end up coaching me, she is now in her late 20's, married with a little girl, she has been coaching me for about 8 years now and she has all the time in the world for me. She drives me to competitions because I dont like driving out of town and she can give me the support I need, although there are more years than I dare count between us you would never guess so, to hear us laughing and joking together.

She has many young skaters under her wing that she looks after equally as well but the point is, I will never make the olympics but she still has time for me and the other adult skaters that she looks after and I have to smile when I do something right and she says "good girl" she even orders me back on the ice if I'm off for too long and the children love it because they know we are all treated the same.

PS CanamSk8ter You sound like a great coach, listening as well as teaching is always a good idea.

Ah, the nasty "Power Circles" from Canadian Skills. Just add hideous music. You do a mohawk out of the single counts and then hold that loooong back edge, and try to stay in something resembling a figure eight.

Coach makes me do these. Every lesson. "Crossovers now". I always say no. Then I do them anyway. He doesn't get offended when I say no but he is persistent. If he lets me slack out of them one day - they're back the next. If I can get the exercise right the first time, then they're done, if I get scratchy then I get to do them for a long time. That's the motivation to make them perfect the first time out, because then I get to go onto something else. I know that's the carrot for doing them and coach knows that I know that if I do them I'll get more fun stuff but we pretend to play stupid about it.

I've known my coach for a long time as he coached my son, because of that I know an awful lot about skating, maybe too much. I get told a lot to leave my brain in the lobby and let my body do the skating. What I really like about my base coach, and all the other ones at my rink is that you are NEVER allowed to be negative. Saying "that was crap", "I could have done that better" is not allowed because if you cut yourself up, it allows others to be able to criticize you as well.

There are gentle ways of saying that skating needs improvement,and I've heard lots of them. Sometimes I get a compliment just for standing up on the ice or managing to get my skates tied. (yes, there's been days like that).

I better not mention about the mohawks to my coach, or he'll add those in for sure....

It was my choice to add them into my lessons and practice. So far of his adults, only me and 1 other adult have had the "dreaded 8's" added to our "gotta do's"...

And I can tell that working on them will definitely help my flow and power.... I definitely need to work on quickness with the 1+1 quick crossovers (all combos CCW-forward, CW forward, CCW backwards, CW backwards)

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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...

I agree - I'm not telling my coach about the mohawks either. (And hopefully he doesn't spend a lunch hour on skating boards to find out for himself...)

I'm the opposite to you - the faster ones are easy for me (until he puts it to something like the "Minute Waltz"!!) - it's the l-o-n-g edges I hate.

Oh, I find that if I criticise myself, my coach doesn't criticise me nearly so much - he then looks for the good in it. If I say "I thought that was rather good", he'll say something like "You need to bend your knees more" or "Your shoulder was out of alignment" or "you didn't point your toes" or "the palms of your hands weren't facing the ice"...... If I say "That was absolutely awful!" he will say, "Oh, it wasn't so bad, but you could have....." whatever he wanted to see done differently. But he likes it if I diagnose my own mistakes - that way, I know what is wrong, not just because he told me.

All the same, bless him, I could have done without him this morning. He kept saying "Rembember this... remember that...." when we were waiting for our warm-up - I think he was nervous for us, but it didn't help. I was ready, waiting, what I really wanted was to talk of other things (as husband and his coach were doing) to take my mind off it! But then, I almost never have him with me at competitions now, and am better at putting myself on the ice!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

[[QUOTE]QUOTE]I've thought this for a while about being negative - not just in skating, but with everything - why open yourself up like that and allow others to criticize?

Problem is....I think that I shouldn't put myself down, etc...but, the problem is...sometimes I feel that it is better for me to say it first - pre-emptive strike, you know? Plus, you can do it in a humorous way....But, I have a friend who pokes fun at herself that way and I've heard people think she has low self esteem, plus, after a while, I found myself believing the stuff she was saying. Though, she'd just say she was kidding.....

But, don't you think it is better to admit your flaws than pretend they don't exist? Again...I've tried to be only positive and not criticize myself, but I feel as if I'm coming across as arrogant or unrealistic....someone have any insight here? Skaternum...you come across as pretty confident and somewhat strong-minded - have any ideas?! Anyone else?

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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

There's a big difference between criticism and put-downs. If a coach isn't supposed to criticize when I do something wrong, why am I paying him? I'm certainly not paying him to tell me I'm a good skater when I'm not. Likewise with criticizing yourself; there's a big difference between 'whoops, need to get more spring on that waltz jump, remember not to rotate early' and 'I suck'.

My coach is very nice and personable and not much of the 'that looked like crap' kind of coach. That said, he constantly readjusts what I'm doing so I can improve, and he has high standards, even for an adult skater like me. And it's not demoralizing. If I knew what I was doing already, I wouldn't be needing the coaching.

I had a coach who would ask me how I thought that dance pattern I'd just skated was. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn't. I think it's all right to be able to comment that something wasn't good because it taught me to be self-analyzing, & now I can often figure out why something isn't working & figure out a way to fix it when I'm practicing on my own. On the flip side, I have a student who is so unaware of herself she has no idea whether what she just did was good, bad, or otherwise. So I go back to my old coach's method--tell me what was good, tell me what was bad about what you just did.

I'm far enough along & aware enough now to know whether what I did was good, crap, or somewhere in between. I don't think my coach minds if I come back to him & say, "well, that was crap". Then he tells me how to fix it & what to focus on for the next time.

Also, speaking as a coach, I must say the one thing that will endear a student to me forever is one who practices & makes progress. I'll focus my attention & often go over time with my students, if they just show that they are working hard & taking it seriously. Thankfully, most of my students do just that. While I've always prefered to work with adults, I have 2 little students now who are delighting me with their progress, and therefore, I'm enjoying teaching them!

I do have to say that my instructer/coach is very supportive of adult skaters. I take group lessons and the occasional private. During group, our skills are all over the scale so lessons are always 'different' and interesting. She may have some of us working on something simpler (2-foot spins) while others are working on harder versions (sit spins). But she never makes us feel stupid or dumb because we all aren't at the same level-I think we manage to do enough of that on our own <g>!

She is always full of constructive criticism or she asks us to critique ourselves on why a particular move didn't turn out right. But she never allows us to criticize each other-she has called people out for that! I guess she figures there aren't that many of us adult skaters so we should play nice!

One thing-she never tells us in advance what we are going to work on in class or lesson! She doesn't want to build anxiety if it's jumps or spins for those that have aversions to those (like me and jumps ). If you ask her she just smiles and says, "I don't know-I haven't thought about it yet."

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Exactly. If we were children, our coaches might be authority figures to be obeyed, but we're adults and that makes them CONSULTANTS for us to hire and fire based on how well they're working out for us, LOL!

[QUOTE=windsor][I used to be self-conscious in front of my coach and I would do the pre-emptive self-criticism thing before he even had a chance to give me his critique of how I performed. I still do it a little, but now it's in a very humorous way.
At this point, my coach has seen me on my good days as well as my bad days so I don't need to worry about what he thinks of my skating. So these days, if I try something and screw it up, I usually just skate back to him and say, "So, what just happened there?" He tells me why it didn't work and I ask him, "So what do I need to do differently?" He tells me, then I try it again, and we go through this process until it's working better. I like the "So, what just happened there?" approach because it's just analyzing the physics of what you just did; it's not judging yourself as a skater. It also implies that you have every confidence that you can fix it once you know what to do differently.

Not in My eyes.They learn from a coach but someone still pays the bills.They arent to be obeyed, just a teacher.I dont want my child to OBEY them, just learn from them.

Speak for yourself (well, as far as my secondary coach is concerned anyway...I live in fear of that woman!!! LOL!!!) ("Oh, but I'm the NICE one!!!" she says. Yeah, right... )

Seriously, my secondary coach is well aware that I'm an adult skater, but she still makes me train like all her kid students. Primary coach is more "lax" in that area... (or at least he doesn't badger me to work out.) He and I have a good working relationship... he's sorta like the big figure skating brother I wished I had as a kid...

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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!!!

Jazz,
Think my point was more that there isnt much of a difference at all.Coaches, either a kids coach or a adults coach is to teach the art of skating.I wouldnt want my skaters coach to be disrespectful or rude. Teach yes, correct yes, help them inprove yes.My skaters coach tells her she has arms all over the place, that is fine, that she needs to work on something, that is what we pay her to do..But she is still just the coach, and a coach is a teacher, not an authorty figure to be obeyed.She has a set of parents for that

I ask my coach to help me with certain things from time to time, but I try to follow her lead on what I need to work on and learn. She is the coach and knows me as a skater. And, as much as it drives me crazy sometimes she does know what I need. I swear it happens almost every lesson where I'm grumping in my head about working on stupid " " that I find the very next skate that stupid " " feel better. Then I go home and thank goodness she fixed me. I'm cool on all the fixes as long as she throws something new and interesting my way on a regular basis. Gotta work on the old but be challenged by the new. Coaching needs to be give and take, at least with adults. As a student you need to work with your coaches ideas and they need to work with yours.

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

I know what you meant. I was joking about the "authority figure to be obeyed" part. (Minor poking fun at my secondary coach, that's all...)

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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 was too

My skaters coach is instilling great habits for her, and when she is asked to do something she does. I think it was the whole kids are different thing that bugged me kwim?


Im sure there are some coaches who expect to be obeyed about EVERTHING and to me that is the dark side of this sport, adult child or teen.

I was very lucky in that all of my coaches were adult friendly. They also didn't treat me any differently to the kids which I also liked. I was there to work and I worked, my age wasn't a factor. They didn't have any limits on me just because I was an adult and as a result I did things that I never dreamed that I would ever be able to do. In return I got the same attention as the kids no matter whether they were competing at nationals or not, after all I paid the same money so deserve the same attention.

My Solo Dance and Free coach was notorious for her explosions and a lot of people vowed that they would never in a million years have lessons with her. However, once you got to know her you realised that it was because of her passion for the sport and wanting the best for her skaters. I will admit that she wasn't suitable for everyone and that I wouldn't recommend her to everyone but I loved as did her kid skaters. I once spoke to them about it as she was fearsome when she was displeased about something that you'd done or felt that you weren't applying yourself. Every single kid said that they knew that she was right and that underneath the shouty thing they knew that she was that way because she really cared about them and their skating. She not only gave her attention to them in lessons but afterwards too. For her it was the whole package, she supported them at the rink and once they had left the rink.

My Dance coach was an absolute darling too. He was very supportive and even though he was a national champion never made me felt as though it beneath him to teach me. I spoke to him once about adult skaters and he freely admitted that there had been a time when he didn't want to take adults on but then came to realise that the majority of his kid skaters weren't going to 'make it' either and that adults tend to be there because they want to be rather than having parents who 'make' them go in week after week. He also said that adults tend to practise more between lessons and apply themselves better in lessons. From a purely financial point of view adults tend to carry on skating for many years whereas a lot of the kids will give up, even the good ones. Unless there is a problem and the adult either has to give up skating or moves to another coach then the adult is a regularly source of income.

Both of my coaches encouraged me to take tests and to compete. I only wish that circumstances hadn't intervened and that I could have carried on

If I had a coach who was abusive or didn't take me seriously then I would leave them. No matter how seriously we take it we still should be enjoying it. Although I respected my coaches and was disciplined in that I would do what they asked of me (discipline is something that is missing with a lot of people these days! I don't know how coaches put up with some of their pupils, I couldn't ... but that's the ballet background in me, you behave and follow the 'rules' or you leave the class no matter what your age or experience) I wouldn't put up with disrespectful behaviour from them. We pay our money and can vote with our feet. If only some of our skaters were more disciplined then I'm pretty sure that they would perform much better and the quality of skating as a whole would increase. That, however, is a completely different thread

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The best whisper is a click

One thing I should add or I would be totally remiss on is this.

My coach has the ability to impart her enthusiasm for the sport onto her students. frankly, if I had anyone else as coach in the first few years, I don't know whether i would have kept up with figure skating. Of course now I ama total addict so there is no danger there.

What I find very interesting at my rink is that during practice sessions, most of her skaters are out there on the ice...this includes kids as well as adults.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!