I remember when I first started with my current coach he felt like he had to break down and re-teach me absolutely everything I thought I knew how to do. It was almost like he was marking his territory and removing the scent of my old coach, KWIM? I think this is probably fairly common when a coach inherits a new skater, but the overwhelming re-working of everything stops after a little while and things get more normal.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I had a coach who didn't give out compliments or praise for progress. I thought this was okay at the time, I've learned that for me his coaching style was sad and depressing. I actually felt pretty bad about myself as a skater working with him and almost stopped skating. For me, a deserved, "Your doing something better." is needed occasionally. I'm not looking for false praise, just your doing okay.

teresa

I feel that I'm lucky with my coaches; they give the right balance of praise and encouragement, but they won't let me get away with sloppy skating either.

My dance coach is really funny, some lessons she'll say 'I'm so sorry to keep nagging, but...', and my reply is always 'Listen, I don't pay you £8 per quarter of an hour for you to lie and tell me I'm brilliant!'

S xxx

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

I had one of those. Here's a telling moment, I made the most fabulous dress for myself one year (since I sew professionally) which garned me many compliments from absolutely everyone and my coach never once made a comment on the dress. Not even to say "I see you have a new dress". The most common thing said in lessons was "that was fine now do it again" or "that was better, now do it again". I think having a coach like I had was one of the reasons why I drove myself to test. It was one way of getting feedback. I've never failed a test by the way, so maybe my coaches style that everything needed to be improved upon paid off when it came time to test, but it was awfully depressing.

My current coach is very honest, things that I thought I could do well, she took apart, some of them I resisted and we've agreed to let them be because they're based on differences in technique (example, look at any of the threads here on toe loops, there's more than one way) and most importantly I understand my technique and her technique, but the dismal moments are balanced by the positive. In our first lesson: "your crosscut technique needs so much work and you do progressives more than crosscuts (thanks dance_guy) but because you have so much power no one is going to notice that much. However, let's work on that" I'm feeling good, apparently I have power, I never knew that before! I don't mind so much having to back to doing crossovers on the circle, lift and cross. If this was my old coach, I would have thought that everything sucked.

One of my coaches always finds something to correct, the other never says a negative thing to me. I have to say the balance works well but I like the criticism. I aim for perfection in everything I do, off and on ice, and yes I know I am not going to get there but I don't see that as a reason to set my aim any lower. I criticise myself constantly which annoys one of my coaches a bit but it helps me, that's how I work. I know that I am not as good as I want to be and so I welcome any correction. In figure skating I think there is always room for improvement, and I would much rather hear the harsh truth and work on an element to improve it then get praise for something which at the end of the day looks weak. I know people who can't stand constant criticism, but each to their own I say. I find it very frustrating when I know I am doing something which is not as good as it should be and get told well done for it - setting the bar lower for me is suggesting that's as good as I can get it and that in itself is the worst criticism in my opinion.

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The hardest thing about ice skating is the ice.

I have one lesson a week on patch and there is another coach on this who spends all her time yelling at her students. One time she must have spent about 10 minutes shouting "Gemma no not like that" at this poor girl. What I have noticed is though, her students just tend to ignore her.

My coach, rather than tell me something is bad, has this look that means "that was crap". When she does that it comes across to me as being ten times worse than if she was yelling at me. You can also tell when you have done something bad as after an element she either says nothing or "ok"! However, when I have done something well she praises me no end. She also corrects things in small pieces, and keeps going over the change until it has stuck.

This method works for me, and the first coach who I mentioned currently isn't speaking to my coach as her skaters got more medals than hers during recent competitions, pettiness aside I think that shows that yelling and constant critism doesn't always work.