I think my daugher has had the worst luck in the world with her novice test. She's been ready for this test since last fall and had two coaches sure she would pass OVER this time. She's had judges make her reskate both sides when she fell on one side, she's had judges stop her and make her go a different direction, things other judges have said they would never do....

So she spent a week with her old coach doing nothing but work on her novice moves. I literally made her do this, telling her she would regret it if she didn't give it one more try. People were telling me how beautiful she looks, how she flies down the ice, how silent her brackets are. I thought we had this this time.

So she calls me this morning crying hysterically, she fell on her inside 3 turns and her coach was getting her ready for the reskate and "thank you -no reskate" And I'm not with her, and her coach is with other skaters testing and she's going on about how the last 6 years of her life have been a waste of time and she's never going to skate again.

I gave her the speech about how I couldn't be prouder of her if she had passed, that she had done everything within her power, anybody can fall, she has no control over the judges, she faced her fears, she worked on these moves even when she didn't want to, blah blah blah. I think the speech works better when you pass the test. I just feel so bad for her and so frustrated when I know she can pass this test and everytime she takes this test she has some kind of bad luck.

And of course since I really pushed her to do this, I'm thinking I should have just left it up to her, because at least she was skating when she was refusing o take this test...from now on, there's no more pushing from me. Even if she wants to quit skating...skating won't go away, she can always take it up again if she wants.

j

That's horrible! I remember reading about the last time she tested NM and my heart just feels terrible for her. I can't even imagine how frustrating this must be for her, especially since she knows that she can skate everything perfectly, but keeps having crap luck. Oh man, that really sucks. I hope that she is just upset for the moment, but decides to keep skating. It is terrible that she keeps failing the test, but I don't think that she should let it stop her from doing the sport that she loves(well she must to have gotten to NM and to agree to take it 4 times!) Best of luck to you and her both.

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No way, don't just stop pushing completely! Try and push her gently to continue skating for like at least 2 or 3 weeks before she decides to quit. Because if you just say "ok, if you want, you can quit now", she might find it hard to tell you like next week or in a few weeks whatever, that she wants to start again. and then everyone will be unhappy until she can beat the child pride.

make her continue for at least 2 weeks, until she can calm down from the test trauma. If she still wants to quit, then you can tell her 'OK' but remember to say that if she ever wants to start again, however soon or late, it's OK with you.

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oh and I am sorry about the bad luck... but to be a little brutal... she should be able to skate both sides again and again, and skate the other direction... you shouldn't just prepare for one side of the test; prepare all the possible ways and expect the worst. then you will not be as panicked. I imagine that when these judges started saying all these new things like do it this way and that way, she was probably startled and that made her even more nervous and unable to do the elements.

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The point is that if she only screwed up one side, they shouldn't have made her reskate both sides. The elements aren't new.. you have to be able to do both sides for the test. I think this time she just didn't want to bother reskating because she figured she would screw up anyway.

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Oh she can do both sides, what happened last time - talk about bad luck - she fell on her inside 3 turn (what happens is that she gets so much power that she runs into the wall) going one direction - she passed the other side. When she had to reskate, she passed the side of the reskate but they made her also redo the side SHE"D ALREADY PASSED and then she fell. SHE PASSED EVERYTHING ELSE but a fall makes you fail. And no one I (or our coaches)have talked to has ever heard of judges making you reskate both sides when you fall on one side.

Obviously if she would stop falling, she'd pass..but I told her- you just can't always control falls. ANybody can fall on anything, no matter how prepared you are. That's the other part of her bad luck.

Anyways I just talked to her and told her her stones for her new dress arrived, but since she's not skating any more it doesn't matter. SHe said she'll skate again, but won't take this test again.
j

Well that's a good sign. Maybe in a couple of months she'll decide that it's worth it to try it again. And even if she doesn't, that's okay too. I don't even know her and I'm proud of her for trying to pass it 4 times. That's tough for someone to have to do. I don't know if she'll ever be ready to try again, but you never know. She might get inspired.

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oh ok, that does suck then. so, even if you fall just once, you fail the entire test? that is really unfair.

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No you get a reskate if you fall - but you only get one reskate so if you fall again, it's all over. This time, she must have done something else not passing or they would have let her reskate. I haven't talked to her coach but it must have surprised her coach because they both were preparing to reskate when they were dismissed.

j

No she was ready and prepared to reskate and the judges told her "no reskate"

It sounds like she fell on the same thing she did before. She gets too close to the wall. When she does a dance her dance coach says "now don't tell anyone else I told you this but DON'T PUSH SO HARD" because she often runs into the walls in dance, the more nervous she gets, the harder she pushes. Don't I wish I had that problem!

j

Oh sorry. I misinterpreted you. That's really sad. I think the more times she tries it, the more pressure she puts on herself to pass it. And that's a hard thing to overcome.

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I'm really sorry this happened to your daughter. Is is possible that this group of judges are particularly tough? Novice MIF is notoriously hard to pass and your daughter really should not feel bad about it. She has lots of company all over the country. I would be interested to hear what the scores were on each move and what the comments were too.

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That is another frustrating aspect---she has been taking it from notoriously tough judges (same ones that failed my dutch waltz 3 times) and so we went back to her old coach, old club, region where the judges love her (they always are the ones that place her higher in competitions) - so I thought, a week of nothing but working on her moves, judges who know and like her skating...this should do it.

Don't know if we will see the judges comments - one thing about this coach --she's slow in giving you the comment sheets. But she will go over it with my daughter although right now dd is saying she doesn't care, doesn't want to see it. That's how I felt the third time I failed my dances.

j

It took me SIX tries to pass the NM (though admittedly the first two times I deserved to fail! I hit the wall too). I finally went out of state to take them, since all the judges around my area had seen them and kept failing me over and over when my coach and others said they were of passing level. When I took them out of state, the comments on my sheet said they were the best NM they'd ever seen. Go figure!

So tell her to keep persevering . . . four failed tests is not the end of the world, and I can say from personal experience and the agreement of many many others that the Novice test is the toughest by far. Junior and Senior are much easier.

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manelywoman's right. Yes, failing a test even once sucks enough, but if you put it into perspective, it's not the end of the world. I know that's not exactly comforting for someone's whose failed - I don't even like to hear it! - but it's true. Think about it: it's not something that's going to make or break her. It's not like it's the SATS or something that's going to get her into college. She doesn't need the pass this test to keep her health, you know. I doubt that's going to make her feel better, but maybe it will. You never know...

Talked to DD again. Her coach made her promise to come back and test them again with her in August. That's another reason why I sent her to old coach. Old coach is very um, "persausive" The reason she didn't get a reskate is the judges said she put her foot down on her brackets but she says she did it after she completed the turn and she's convinced she did them right. I asked if she had any good comments "I don't know I didn't look"
None of the kids that went down with her passed the higher tests. Tough session. But she seems in a better mood.

j

Oh, God! I hated the brackets and back when I tested my MIF (years ago), the brackets that are currently in the Novice MIF were only in the Intermediate test. I failed that darn Intermediate test three times before I passed because of putting my foot down on the brackets. I was thrilled when I finally passed that test only to find out that the exact same brackets were being moved up to Novice! Talk about frustrating. But the one good thing was that I passed waaaay over on my Novice thanks to all the hardwork I had to put into passing my Intermediate brackets. Man, kids are so lucky nowadays - the Intermediate brackets are no longer on a straight line like they were when I tested (they're on edges now). Boy, how I wish I could have tested those ones.

Tell your daughter not to give up. I finished all of my MIF in May of 2005 and it was the most rewarding skating experience to this day! I am so happy that I sucked it up despite failing my Intermediate moves 3 times, my Junior once, and getting my Senior MIF on the third try. My first try at Senior, I failed (and should have). I didn't give the judges the large, wall-to-wall pattern they want. Second try: I nailed that test. Failed again b/c of tough, picky judges. I'm appreciative of that though b/c I had to keep pushing myself to improve and give them what they wanted. Third time I tested I was deathly ill with asthma and a sinus infection and wanted to pull out the day before the test. My coach forced me to test and looking back, I thank her for doing so. I didn't skate as good as my second try, but there must have been something the judges liked because they passed me despite a nasty fall on my powerpulls. Luckily, I got a reskate and only had to do the one side b/c I told them I was somewhat sick and shocker: they sympathized with me, hahaha! Sometimes you just gotta get that frustrated and all that you have nothing left to lose and you just go for it. That was my outlook the day I took my Senior moves and you know what - it worked!

I'm planning on taking my Intermediate freeskate for the (gulp) fourth timethis summer/early fall and that's the exact attitude I'm going into it with. That and a new coach!

Glad she's in a better mood - the Novice test is really hard and really long.

And if she put her foot down on ANY part of the bracket move (whether it be on the turn or the edge and flow out of them) - that plus a fall on another move would make it hard to ask for a reskate, since you can only reskate one element.

I know that as a judge, I really WANT the skater to pass the test - hopefully no judge is out to make anyone do a retry unnecessarily, although sometimes it probably seems that way. I definitely feel bad if I have to ask for a retry when there is more than one serious error on a Moves test.

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Likely not for much longer. There are changes coming down the pike. My skating director just got a DVD of the proposed new MIF. They include twizzles in Juv, and level 4 moves in Sr. They are making Int and Nov harder too, of course.

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I'm aware of that. As a coach, it's going to be a whole new game having to learn these new moves strictly in order to teach them. I've vowed not to worry about it until these rules def. come into effect, otherwise I'd go crazy.

Oh, I am sorry for your daughter! What an absolutely miserable thing to happen. But I'm glad her coach has persuaded her to have another go - and that, having slept, she is feeling more positive.

Everybody wants to give up when things go pear-shaped (I certainly do), but I now know from experience that tomorrow is invariably another day and even if it's time to get off the ice today, I'll come back tomorrow and have another go!

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I think exercise tests us in so many ways, our skills, our hearts, our ability to bounce back after setbacks. This is the inner beauty of sports and competition, and it can serve us all well as adult athletes. - Peggy Fleming

So very true...

First of all, I think Novice moves are evil. I finally passed them on my fourth try. So let your daughter know that she is certainly not alone!

Is it possible that after a week of nothing but moves, her brain and body were so fried and burnt out from the repetion and trying to process feedback that she couldn't perform at her best? I know I have a weird learning curve, but I would reap the benefits from a week that intense a week or two later, not at the end of that week. I did something similiar, though not quite as extreme for my junior moves test, and by the time I got to the test, I wasn't skating my best. I failed by 0.2 (one judge passed me, one judge 0.2 away, the other judge 0.4ish away, I think). I haven't been doing the patterns a lot for the past month, and even so, they were FANTASTIC in my lesson today. SOOOO frustrating, but I think it comes from that intense week a month ago. Best of luck to your daughter!

I just skimmed the thread so I don't think anyone else addressed this---re. having to do a re-skate in both directions, even if one direction was fine the first time:

That's because there are elements that even though you go through & do the whole thing twice, once in each direction, according to the rules that's still considered ONE element. You pass or fail it all together. And, if you have to re-skate it, you re-skate the WHOLE thing, both directions. It sucks, but them's the rules.

As an example--take a look at the rulebook listing of Novice elements. Number one is "Back Perimeter Power Stroking with BI 3-turns and FI 3-turns" That means you do it clockwise, and counter-clockwise, and then you're done with *one* element.

My condolences to your daughter! If it helps, I know someone who took her European Waltz 10, count them, 10 times before she got it. And the highest number I've heard of a repeated test is 14. So she's definitely not alone! I hope she can have some fun w/ her skating & find the joy in it, and then she may start feeling like having another crack at it.

Actually it's up to the judges and I guess it depends on the area. Around here NO JUDGE has EVER asked you to reskate both sides if you make a mistake on one side. And several judges have told us that. They were quite surprised. THey would not have made her skate both sides. This judge was from another region and that's how they do it there and it was her decision. THat's the rules. But bad luck for my daughter. Any judge from around here, she would have passed.

j