Hi, for those of you who are skating (and competing) and coaching, how do you juggle your own training and coaching?

I'm just wondering, 'cos I can never find enough time to do all that I want to do.

I sometimes skate in between or after coaching, but that is not ideal because I don't have time to properly warm-up and stretch, and it gives me little time to skate, so I can't really work on much.

Years ago, a friend of mine insisted on skating & coaching at different rinks so that she doesn't skate when her students can see her!

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A lot of the still-skating coaches I know do that--or skate very early mornings when no one's around. I drive too far to the rink to make separate trips; so the kids see me skate, & hopefully understand that I'm still learning too!

I too had a hard time doing/scheduling both, but finally realized that I *had* to commit time for myself, and make it non-negotiable. So now, If I'm at the rink for 3 hours, one hour of that is my practice, and if the other 2 hours are booked, I'm not available. And I don't apologize for it; it's too important to me to continue my own training.

You have to be firm, it's soooo easy to give up a 1/2 hour here or there for the sake of a student, or to fit in one more lesson, but then you lose all your hard work/lesson money paid out if you can't keep up your own practices.

My ice dance coach still competes, and I don't think he's ever trained at the same rink that he teaches at. He skates in the morning and then takes a break for a few hours, and then goes to the rink where he teaches in the afternoons. Actually he's not really teaching right now, but that's what he did till about a month ago. He's always very up front with his students about the times when he absolutely cannot teach (i.e. mornings, which I'm sure has caused him to lose a lot of those kids who only skate mornings, but I guess you have to decide what's important for you.)

He's also very up front about when he's going to be gone for competitions and training so that people aren't surprised when he's gone for 4 Continents or Worlds or whatever for a couple of weeks. I knew his schedule through April, way back in December. I think that if you're trying to compete and coach, you sort of just have to put yourself first sometimes which is what you should do... you have your whole life to coach, and not your whole life to be competitive. Anyway, good luck finding a good schedule that works well for you

I skate and coach. I no longer compete, but I am working on finishing up a few freestyle tests and my pre-gold/gold dance tests. I also skate on my university's intercollegiate synchronized skating team, which competes in Eastern competitions, so I know what you mean about not having enough time!

Here's my typical day:
6:00 - 8:00 am > synchro practice
8:00 - 9:00 am > dance/freestyle lesson and practice after lesson for 30 min.
2:30 - 3:30 pm > practice
3:30 - 5:50 pm > coaching, coaching, and more coaching

I'm a total morning person, so I love that I get a chance to skate in the morning. In fact, I'd be on the ice at 5:00 am, if I could, but there is not ice available until 6:00 am, which is when freestyle sessions begin for the day. I'm also in college, so it's easy for me to skate, go to school, then head back to the rink to skate/teach. Also, because all of the kids I coach are still young (12 yrs. old, at the oldest), they're still in school and can't take a lesson in the morning, so I take advantage of that time. I always make sure I make time to skate for myself; I love it too much to be off the ice or sacrifice my own skating because of poor time management. Finally, I always set my personal skating schedule first and then book my students in - I don't let them switch days - once my schedule's set, that's it - and it's worked out well that way.

Finally, I also send out monthly/bi-monthly newsletters that inform my students of when I'm not going to be in town, competing, comitted to school functions, etc. I also sit down with each skater and his/her parents to develop our schedule for fall/spring/summer. As much as I dread doing so because it can get confusing, I just wrapped up setting my summer schedule, which begins next week. As I stated earlier, I still go to college (finishing up my last year!) and my schedule changes from fall to spring. Luckily, parents understand that and are adaptable when it comes to switching days/times. Just be upfront - that's the best advice I can give you...and always make time for your own skating without feeling selfish. Like others have said, you must make time for yourself to continue skating/learning/improving so that you can offer the best of yourself to your students and help them as best you can.

Well, your day schedule actually looks rather good :-) to me, at least

I have a full-time job (a real job ), which means I have even less time to play around with. The rink here doesn't open 'til 8am, and even so, begrudgingly, which means I can't get ice in the morning unless some coach is willing to come in at 8am (the good thing is that my boss doesn't make a fuss about exactly what time I get to work).

Cheers,
Chow

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Blog: http://chowskates.blogspot.com

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/chowskates
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