Well ... after 8 years in various rinks ... never heard of a "lutz corner" excepting here on the boards.

We yield to skater with music/then skater in lesson/then skater in lesson with music in that order from least to most right of way, with the coaches themselves having ABSOLUTE right of way over everyone.

That sounds like my rink. Spins tend to happen in hockey circles which puts pay to the lutz corner idea a lot of the time, but coaches tend to stake out their spot on a hockey circle where they conduct their lessons (jumps and spins) and everyone else just moves around them.

Seriously? It bugs me to no end when I have to go off pattern (especially while I'm in lesson) because a coach is standing right on the long axis of the rink watching his/her skater halfway across the rink doing a jump.

Why should a coach have right of way? They could do that just as well at the boards!


(ETA: I'm not saying coaches should stay at the boards- MOST of our coaches stay with their skaters. But if the skater is on the other side of the rink, I shouldn't have to yield to their coach!)

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Not on public sessions. There are the general rules for that: no horseplay, no pucks etc. But like skittle said the public has NO idea what freestyle rules are. Nor should they!
Our rink has rules (unenforced but we do have them) that states the coach must be next to the boards whenever possible. The exceptions are: when shadowing skaters skating moves, etc. And it is up to the COACH to ask other skaters to yield by yelling EXCUSE ME or telling their skater to WATCH OUT! when there are tots in the way (believe me, they don't know to move).

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

I always "shadow" with low-level skaters during their lessons, especially if they're small. Some of it is keeping their attention - they're easily distracted by the flying camel. I also worry about them being mowed down or unable to get out of the way on our "one size fits all" freestyle sessions. I don't consider it as my student getting "right of way," but I do consider myself to be an obstacle to skaters who might not see the small child on a lesson. I'll even take their hand when I move to a safe place because I don't want to leave them vulnerable. It only takes one bad experience like a collision to turn a young child off to skating.

When students are doing moves patterns, I skate next to them for part of the pattern to do feedback and corrections. Reminding a skater to "point on the underpush" is more effective if it's done while they're still skating. I'll drop back and move to the wall, but I can't always tell where another skater's pattern is going to go - for example, I have my skaters do the PM spirals in four lobes, but some skaters do it in six. Ice Dance - I can't instantly know the pattern just by music or a few steps.

During program runthroughs, I shadow for the first couple of practices, then I stay in the box or at the boards.

Sometimes, you move out of one person's way, only to find that you're in someone else's. I had that happen while I was teaching yesterday - one skater started the diagonal choctaw pattern, so after she passed, I moved my student over to the side, where she'd be out of the way on the return. I had no idea that another skater had decided to stop practicing her ice dance to start the same moves pattern, so we were in HER way.

I really think that high-level moves sessions make a lot of sense.

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I like it when my coach shadows me during moves, it makes it easy to hear her when she hollers out tips close to me rather than across a rink or after the fact.

My rink is at a crossroads as far as hi/low level skaters. We are just now getting skaters capable of doubles and they are now testing moves and dance. It took seven years and a complete change of skating direction to get to this point. I'm glad to see it (but I think we could have gotten to this point earlier but we were roadblocked).

The problem is changing the mindset from "recreation" and "do whatever you want" on freestyle ice to "follow the rules" thinking and getting into a training mentality (vs. goofing off). At this point, very few of the girls pursue any off-ice training (exercise, strength, dance, etc). We don't have a rink gym or even a gym in the same town (it's a hick town LOL). No one warms up off-ice before they get ON the ice. Not even at competitions ((sigh)). We are not there yet and sadly it shows.

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

Funny thing I've noticed is that I've had lessons on freestyle ice at two different rinks and have not seen skaters wearing any sort of vest that shows their music is up, though I've read that this is how it works. I spent a lot of time at my last class trying to figure out who all the different music belonged to. You'd think it'd be easy because you hear the same music each week, but just when I thought I'd see somebody who looked like they were skating a program, they'd stop but the music wouldn't, and then I'd see somebody ELSE who looked like they might be skating a program...I never did figure out who most of the now-familiar music belonged to!