Okay parents and coaches, it's a whole new week to talk about your child's or student's practices and lessons.

Frumpy: I torqued my knee on Saturday, so wasn't able "skate" with the learn-to-skate kids. I did put my boots on and stand around on the ice with them.

Frilly: I told the kids about my injury and said they would have to do the exercises without me skating with them. I would stand near the boards and yell it to them. Wow could those guys/girls skate when they wanted to. VERY few falls. Lots of concentration. Not bad for 4 & 5 year olds.

It was the last session for this class and all of them will be moving up. Some I will see again, but others will be off to a new coach.

One girl even gave me an unsolicited hug before she got off the ice.

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

gary
As mom of two huggy kids, how did you feel about the hug? both my kids have always hugged and thanks their teacher/coach.They all seem to enjoy it, and now the teachers expect it when we leave.
But I know there arent many kids that do it.
We are off to the rink now

I thought it was sweet of her to do it. It made me feel special to her.

Of course, I'm a huggy person too. Both Karen and Susie, my former coaches, get hugs from me when we see each other. I also give my coaching partner, Allison, a hug when I see her.

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Aw Gary, sorry about the knee.

Frilly
Two women asked for lessons (together) with me on Sunday, and they were both skating pretty well already. I did snowplow stops, one footed snow plow stops, F half swizzles on a circle and B half swizzles on a circle with them. When I showed them what that was leading up to, they were both very excited, and one of them even did one F crossover in the lesson. In spite of a bad fall, one of them got right up and kept going. I really enjoyed myself and I think they had a pretty good time too.

Frumpy
One of my new students went to buy Riedell model 12's and was told that they only made them for girls, and then was sold hockey skates! It was only his second time on the ice ever. This poor kid (about 11 yrs old) did not care what color his skates were, but was back to square one in the hockey skates, and left the lesson black and blue.

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Frumpy
One of my new students went to buy Riedell model 12's and was told that they only made them for girls, and then was sold hockey skates! It was only his second time on the ice ever. This poor kid (about 11 yrs old) did not care what color his skates were, but was back to square one in the hockey skates, and left the lesson black and blue.


We had that same thing.. huge huge hockey town here.We ended up going online to buy his skates.We knew we didnt want hockey skates and have have an 18 yo try and sell us them was a pita.Thank goodness for online
gary hope you feel better !!!!!!

Sounds like someone at the skate shop needs to be caned (like they do in Singapore).

I'm healing slowly. Might be back on the ice in a limited way by Saturday. Thanks!!!

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Frilly... Well, on Monday, got one of the kids to land her first waltz jump... she's one of those that have issues with jumping or leaving the ice at all... "We can't call it a waltz JUMP if you don't JUMP!" Still a long ways to go, but hopefully whoever teaches her today will keep reinforcing it. Hurt my sprained wrist helping her, but was worth it.

Frumpy... had the least liked group for the first while during lessons... too many kids, too varied skills, and a group of 3-4 that spend the entire time fighting/pushing/etc. Was happy to pass them off to someone else eventually. I'm seeing them still improve their skills, but it's at the cost of my sanity.

Need to get homework done before going to the rink today, paper due at midnight!

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Known as IrishDancerAndSkater/Azlynn at FSW

Wednesday Mommy & Me:
Frilly
Got an adorable but shy TWO year old onto the ice with my bag of little stuffed animals. This tot picked up her feet and marched right away! Even more surprising, she bent her knees to pick up the animals, instead of stiffly reaching down while pushing out her tushy.
This one also got up all by herself on the second try. She had sat out the class portion of the hour, but in the second half, I had no defined role, so I worked on luring her out. We spent about 15 min together, and by the end she was having fun and moving better than some who had been in the class for months. This one really has the aptitude for skating, and I hope she continues to enjoy it.

Frumpy
We have one poor little tyke whose mother constantly sabotages her. She was asked to sit on the bench if she wasn't interested in the lesson, as she insisted on lying on the ice. This child has been in class for at least two months, but mommy wants to pull her around, and is there in seconds if she falls, so she never has a chance to learn anything.

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Frilly:

Taught my 12 & 13 year old group how to do hockey stops, swing rolls and speedskating. Made it lots of fun for them. A couple of them tried to follow me in a Dutch Waltz.

Frumpy:

I have one third grader who feels that my skating lessons are beneath him, as are his classmates since they are beginning skaters. The first day, I asked him to join the lesson and he told me point-blank, "I don't need lessons. My Dad's a hockey coach and I'm a really great skater." I didn't know helmets came that big.

His Dad seems nice, and I mentioned that we were working on "giving back" through demonstrating and helping others. Frankly, it hasn't rubbed off on this kid and it's very sad. Every week's lesson is a confrontation of one sort or another. I'm tired of retrieving students that he's drawn off, and trying to pull him into the lesson. This week, I lost it and told him to leave the ice until my lesson was over.

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We had a great practice last night!!!
We have the girls under 16 hockey regional games here.They played last night after freestyle.The teams are from here... alaska, the san jose sharks girls team from ca, ect.pretty good girls teams.
My dd was on the ice along with a pair of ice dancers.The girls, all teenagers, noticed my daughter and starting watching,about 25 girls.
Then they started clapping everytime she did something, she was working a her chinese spiral.She started beaming and then just hammed it up.It was great to watch, and it made her practice that much harder.She loved the fact they liked what she was doing.a mom told me most of the girls started out in fs and moved to hockey.One of the teams has trained where mk skates

It all made my 4yo so happy

My knee was still sore, so at my Saturday morning group lesson I just drifted around on one foot while the class went on as normal. I spent a lot of time watching the 4 & 5 year olds in their learn-to-skate class.

The learn-to-skate coach was trying to get the kids to do dips by telling them to pretend they were sitting on a watermelon. That didn't seem to be working so:

Coach: Well, the watermelons didn't work. How about pretending we're setting on beachballs.

Class: No

Coach: Okay, how about pretending we're sitting on pumpkins.

Class: No

Coach: Well what should we pretend we're sitting on?

One little girl in class: Carrots!!

The coach, his assistant, and I laughed to tears.

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Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

Gary,

Thanks for the post, I needed that laugh.

I get my tots to dip by telling them we're driving race cars and to go fast we have to get way down low.