I went to my first freestyle session in a while, since I'd missed a lot of skating last week and was hoping to get a couple of run-throughs with music. What a waste of time!!! The level I'm at (completed basics and neeeeearly there with adult pre-bronze) I am essentially stuck skating with kids, most of whom I outweigh by nearly 100 pounds.

Now, I have nothing against kids--I love seeing them skate--but skating *with* them is another thing entirely. No way could I get through my program without bailing out of half of the stuff, and what's the point? The little tykes won't yield, and besides, they were all in lessons.

I'm guessing it's not economically feasible to have a low level but no one under (say) 60 pounds FS session!! I have been spoiled by nearly empty midday public sessions, and I have to say I plan on sticking with those. Doesn't work so well with the mp3 player, but oh well.

Wondering what everyone else's FS sessions are like? Oh, and I also counted 7 lessons (so, 14 people) plus a couple of non-lesson skaters. Is that normal? How do you guys make FS sessions work for you?

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"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

Personnally, I like the FS sessions. My rink has a session at 0615 in the morning that I go to every day of the week. There is one day that I go at 1615 in the afternoon, and the session is sometimes pretty full. I usually have a coach at that session. When there is a competition in town, that session can fill up and even become somewhat dangerous for a more basic skater, even one with a coach. The morning sessions, however are usually pretty empty, sometimes I am the only one there. It just depends on the time of day.

I find that the public sessions are harder for me. At least at the FS sessions, most skaters know to watch out for each other (especially the skater with the orange sash). At the public session, no one seems to care. I have had plenty of near misses and full on crashes at the public sessions, even in the center where it is usually coned off for the more serious skaters. You really have to watch.

It depends on whether they are crowded or not. Especially on mixed sessions with higher level skaters zipping around, it does get hard to try and find your own spot. But if there's fewer people < 4 on the ice its usually quite ok... (of course to get that I have to take leave from work so I can skate when no one else can....)

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~
Tidesong

I think there are two factors at work here. The first is how crowded the freestyle session is and the level of awareness of the skaters on the session.
If you can go to a very early morning session, it will usually be less crowded and those who are there will be serious skaters and regulars who watch out for each other. That's why most of the serious skaters tend to move to early mornings at some point.

The second factor is how well you learn to navigate the session, which could be difficult if it's mostly low level kids in lessons, but will help you a lot if the level of skaters on the session is a little higher. If you are skating your program to your music, you should have right of way (even over those in lessons) and you may need to call out to make sure other skaters know you're coming. When you aren't in your program, make sure you spend plenty of time looking 360 degrees around you and taking note of the various patterns the other skaters are on. Most of the moves-in-the field patterns have the lobes and end patterns in the same places, so get to know where they are so you know where the skater is headed. It's also important to learn to identify other skaters' jump setups, which may actually start all the way at the other end of the rink. Most importantly, do NOT stay in one spot for more than a few minutes at a time, even if it seems "out of the way", because there is really no section of the ice that is out of the way. Any good program or pattern uses every section of the ice surface and skaters need to practice their elements exactly where they do them in their programs, so everyone needs access to every part of the ice. Generally, the very end of the rink is used for MIF end patterns, spiral sequences and some step sequences; the corners are used for jumps; and the center is used for step and spiral sequences, spins and connecting moves.

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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

(Funny, we were just talking about having to yield on the practice thread today.)

I am spoiled! For the past year I skate a 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. session for "competitive skaters", though at struggling to be Bronze I barely qualify (but I do compete!). Except immediately before a local competition or test day it is usually quite - 6 to 8 skaters maximum, some days just 2 of us, and often after 8 a.m. I am the only one left. Since all the regulars are competitors, there is a LOT of respect and everybody watches out for everybody else. Some of the non-regulars aren't as polite however.

Having skated all kinds of figure skating sessions, I can't imagine going back to crowded day or evening sessions!

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

It's all in the logistics for me. I could go to the freestyle session at the rink by my house at 6 am-but it's $10 per freestyle session, and all the kids are there before school.

Instead, I choose to go to public skate sessions during the week at the rink by my work on my lunch hour. The public skate sessions are $3 for club members ($6 for non-members), and at 11:30 AM I have the rink mostly to myself because all the kids are in school.

I love having 2 rinks in one general area

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deannathegeek
"It's like trying to do a toe loop in hockey skates-you have to have the right tools for the job."

I enjoy skating with the kids--but I skate early mornings and those are mostly the serious skaters. And we have a small nice club, they all know me, and they are all very polite and most will say sorry even when it's not their fault. They inspire me.

It is hard to do moves on a crowded freestyle session, but that's the crowd, not the kids. I wish you could put on a vest for moves!

I don't particularly enjoy skating with adults, the ones around here like to stand around and yak.

Once at a competition, my practice ice was with intermediate and novice skaters and they scared the beegeebers out of me and I was always bailing and getting out of their way until the second practice, same story and I realize I paid the same for my ice as they did and so I claimed my space and nobody ran into me.

j

I don't skate at a "training" rink- so our free style sessions aren't too bad. BUT when I first got out of basic skills and switched to freestyle I was SO scared of them. It took me about 8 months to get used to the speed of the skaters- and usually half of them are in lessons. Now I don't like skating on public sessions, though my lesson just got moved to one due to a time change in the freestyle session I used to take my lesson on. Hopefully since the holidays are over it won't be too crowded- I have a program to learn!

The only freestyle that I felt was truly a waste of my time was when regionals was in a town near ours. Junior and senior level skaters, and lots of them, were taking advantage of cheap ice nearby and it was frightening, how fast they moved and how close they got. I was in lesson, and most of them weren't, so I did notice a few would yield, but their idea of yield, and what my mostly low level rink idea of yield is were not the same. Most of my lesson was next to the wall, because I would have been killed in the center of the ice. I didn't stay to practice after the lesson, I just got off the ice and watched the triple jumps fly!

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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)

its great for some inspiration! for my skating itself I save FS for doing jumps and spins, I find it nearly impossible to work on my MITF during a FS. I'm a bit spoiled since I skate mostly on public sessions during the day when school is in session so the rinks are pretty empty. When I do skate on a weekend public it's either with my coach on a lesson or a figure skating friendly rink (meaning, there are other figure skaters there and rink guards who really guard the middle of the ice for us!).

I generally skate freestyle sessions after work. If there are three sessions, I always skate the later 2, that way the many of the little kids are gone by the 3rd session. But, I actually find that I am less motivated to skate hard when I skate on empty ice (usually when I go to the campus rink). I like skating with the little kids as I find that I push myself more when I'm there.

Most of our freestyle sessions are quite manageable, especially because I make sure to do my own skating, but am also very aware of people around me, especially those in lessons and programs. Many of our younger skaters are not as aware and tend to get in the way a lot, which can frustrate some skaters and coaches.

We did have a couple of weeks when we had 20 or so skaters on the ice, and it was NUTS! I don't like skating on those sessions because it's mostly little kids (I am always the oldest skater on the ice and feel a responsibility to be the responsible one and not run over the kids), and I tend to not get a lot done and I also get very frustrated because I can't run through anything...My coach can recognize when that is happening even if I'm not in a lesson...

I know the feeling! I like warming up on a medium-full session; if it's dead, I have a harder time getting going.

But then once I'm warmed up, I love it if it gets emptier at the end of a session (some kids get off after their lessons). When it empties out, there's room to push harder and to play around with things that don't work on a crowded session (back spirals, etc.)

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EXACTLY!!!

I love to get warmed up and do my freestyle on a moderately busy session but then when I get ready to do moves later, I really like it when it has cleared out a bit

If I had a choice between a public session or a freestyle session with the same number of people on it, I'd take the public session. There's always at least a couple freestyle skaters who act like they own the rink. On a public session people might not get out of your way but they're easy to go around. The only reason I like going to a freestyle session is to push myself. It is nice watching other skaters at the same or higher levels.

Kevin

For now, nearly empty midday public sessions, but what'll happen next year when I'm done with my studies, I don't know.

I won't say I'd kill for freestyle sessions at our rink, and I won't say I'd kill for 7 AM sessions at our rink (the earliest you can ever skate is 10.00 and that's only during christmas and carnival holidays) but it'd be nice... I'm sorta hoping that now that they're building a second and third ice rink (one for speed skaters and recreation) the publics will kind of empty up. The reason my camel is barely coming along is that I can only practice it in lesson, and even there half the time we can't because the club has so little ice that we only can practice camels if like a third of the group doesn't show up.

I skate at a small rink (approx 1/4 size) Often the ice isn't done after the afternoon public session, so it can rough and hard.

It can get quite crowded too. Last week we had 3 coaches giving lessons at once, so it was hard to avoid them, and maybe 10 other skaters. This was after most of the younger ones had left.

Leading up to a competition, a lot more skaters come to the session and everyone is trying to work on their program at the same time. It is chaos and downright dangerous sometimes.

I could whinge all night about some people's behaviour, but I figure I must be in other people's way at least as much as they are in mine.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Yeppers, no early morning sessions I can go to. Mostly the problem with this session was not that high-level skaters were using a ton of ice to set up for jumps or whatnot. It was little kids working closely with coaches (and by this I mean coaches actually moving their arms, giving them various tools/tricks to correct posture & such) on moves mostly. And the little kids aren't so aware of what's going on around them, and there's only so much moving around of the kids that the coaches can do (how quickly can a coach/kid pair move if you yell "PROGRAM!"). One pre-pre skater working on a back catchfoot spiral nearly collided with a little tot.

I think I just need to avoid the sessions that accept "tots." Not a great idea to have a session that is tots and basic 1-8 through pre-pre. When I'm not even really trying, my crossovers, for example, really fly (hey! I'm 135 lbs and did Alpine ski racing for 10 yrs! Thunder Thighs 'R' Us), whereas some of these kids are just barely getting the idea of one foot over the other. Next level up accepts pre-pre through senior (not so thrilled about the wide range of abilities, but oh well)!!

Our midday public sessions are often empty for the first 15-30 minutes. I arrive right at the beginning of the session and just gobble up the ice while I can--it's always been freshly resurfaced so I can see my tracings and all. VERY nice. (Of course, I hope this means they won't curtail/shorten/cancel these sessions due to low turnout!)

Thanks, everyone for your input and opinions and advice.

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"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

Ours vary - I wouldn't go to a Saturday morning session after about 7:30 and our Sunday session was very busy this week, but then, there are tests tomorrow!

Husband says Saturday morning is fine for freestyle, but you can't dance on it - in the week, it's mostly dance until about 09:00. And there's usually a quiet patch between about 07:50, when the hordes get off to go to work and/or school, and about 08:50 when the adults and some of the free skaters start to come in. It isn't always quiet - it does vary - but it can be!

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Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I skate at a very quiet time usually 8:30-10:30 in the morning during the summer I skated the medium and high free skates when, they work with my schedule. I avoid skating with little ones as I don't tend to see them and they don't know how to move quickly enough to get out of my way. In general the higher skaters know how to move and I worry less. Because of the free skates I have passed I am not allowed on the lows, and our public sessions are very limited in what they allow to be done on the ice. We don't allow skaters to wear ipods or mp3 players on the ice, if you want your program played you put it in line and when your music is played you wear a sash.

These are the rules at almost all of the rinks I skate at, they seem reasonable to me.

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Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r

I will absolutely ONLY skate on freestyles. I can't stand having to dodge people who can barely stand up straight and racing about in random directions like on public sessions.

The sessions that I do in the mornings (very early) are a mix of basic skills through senior, with dances pre-silver through international. However, the normal people that I skate with are pre-juv through senior. The thing about regularly going to freestyles is that we all know each other, we have fun with each other, and we know where people are going for the most part.

It's scary at the beginning of the season when new choreography is happening, then it's dicier as they don't even know where they're going. BUT, since we know how each of us skates, we know natural tendencies when we get close to people (everyone knows I go right, S goes left, and A will almost always stop). It takes a few minutes at a new rink, too, but I generally don't have a problem figuring out who's doing what where.

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

If we're talking about nearly empty sessions, say fewer than 10 skaters, it really doesn't make much difference to me what kind of session it is. On a public session that empty I can pretty much go where I want and maybe even practice figures in the center if everyone else is going around the perimeter. Can't practice programs with music, but I rarely do that anyway. We also have "private lesson ice" that may be a mix of advanced freestylers and hockey skaters and preschool-age beginners, and they all have right of way during lessons, so even with very few skaters on the ice it can be a challenge to do moves in the field patterns at full speed.

However, once there get to be more like 20 skaters, it starts to be crowded for a freestyle session whereas by public session standards it's still empty. But on average the freestylers are more predictable and more maneuverable and it's expected that anyone can travel in any direction, so I feel free to do what I need to. Whereas with a public session I need to limit what I can work on to adjust to the flow of traffic.

There's generally only one (occasionally two) adults on our 12.45-2 Sunday patch - mostly teenagers and pre-teens. I think the bussiest I've seen it was the other day when there were tests coming up - at least 10 skaters on the ice, and about 6 lessons going on, including an really young ice dance team (I'm talking 8 and 10 here) and a young pairs couple. Patch is often scary for me...there are skaters trying (and falling on) doubles, spirals going all over the place, and no one goes the anti-clockwise way round, as I'd become accustomed to on public sessions. Everyone's very gracious though (well, almost everyone, but we won't go there), and apologises if they get within a metre or so of anyone in a lesson. It's all very friendly (if not a little intimidating at times!).

Sorta ditto here. I don't want the rink to be so full that I have to dodge obstacles in the morning but not so quiet that I practically own the rink, KWIM? And of course, it also depends on WHO is on the ice too. If there are prima donnas on the ice, it's not as much fun. Lucky for me, the majority of the skaters at my rink are NOT prima donnas and are often very encouraging!!!

As for the issue with beginning FS skaters... I was one of you once... and learning to look around was a skill that I still have to learn to do, even though I'm better at it now.

General skills to learn:

• Try to avoid the lutz corners! If you don't know where the lutz corners are...watch the other skaters to get a sense of where they do their lutzes. (And probably either ends of the rink lengthwise too for that matter.)
• (I still forget to do this but...) when I'm at the wall with my coach to look around before I dodge out in the middle to do what the coach tells me to do! There are ice dancers and people who are doing their programs and they go RIGHT near the wall. To add to the story... they are "supposed to" (particularly when they're dancing and doing certain MITF) to go near the wall... particularly either end lengthwise of the rink.
• If you are doing back crossovers, you better learn to turn your head and your torso to look backwards. (That's the OTHER item I still have trouble doing!)
• You usually get a sense of other people's programs too after a while... so eventually you know their program well enough to know at which point of the music they do certain elements AND at which spot! So this should help you to learn to get away from people. (Of course, in MY case, my choreography is still a "moving target" since things are getting moved around a lot. But even with that, you'll get a general sense of where I'm heading at which spot in the music...)
• Wayne Gretsky rule about pucks: "Go where the puck is heading, not where it is!" In the case of skaters, it's "know where the skater is heading and either stop or go around them." (Of course, there are still some skaters out there who is EXTREMELY HARD to predict where they're heading.)

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

UGH! I was afraid that was the problem. We call those skaters "little trees" on account of their ability to stay stationary. If you can get that first 30 minutes of public ice on the weekday afternoon, you have a great deal! I used to skate at that time a few years ago when I was unemployed (why don't we ever have both time and money?) and I got a little spoiled myself!

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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 use to like my session ice but now that there are kids on the ice that should be on a CanSkate session never mind on a pre-prelim session, I don't like my sessions anymore. What happened to bring this about is the scheduling of ice and the split that my club went through in the last few years. My club currently just doesn't have the numbers for a Prelim/Junior Bronze (junior) session and no one is above that. There are only about 3 of us who actually qualify to skate on a junior session and we can't afford to pay for an hour ice by ourselves. And with the way the sessions are now, those who would skate on Senior Bronze/Junior Silver (Intermediate) sessions and Senior Silver/Gold (Senior) sessions don't want to do anything with our sessions because it is very frustrating with the CanSkaters and Preprelims being on the ice. When I skate on my own sessions, I have to stop at least 5 times minimum a program.

The only way I get to skate my programs from start to finish without interuption is to skate on ticket/city ice. And this is on top of what I had to pay for my session ice. I still have yet to get my interpretive completely choreographed. I'm looking at competing this Friday with my interpretive by winging the last 3rd of my program. Lucky that I already have my freeskate program completed.

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

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I frequently wish I wasn't one of the ones who has to dash off just before 8am!

As I live literally around the corner from the rink, I'm there at 6.30am on the three mornings a week that I skate and am usually really lucky to get a very quiet half an hour before the 7am where there is rarely more than 2 or 3 of us on the ice. It took me ages to get used to skating on patch and it can still throw me a little when it's a busy morning but generally I love it, lots of familiar faces and lots of adults!

The Wednesday evening session is a little bit more unpredictable- it can be absolutely empty and I have been there when it's just my coach, myself and a friend I share a lesson with. On the other hand, it has been so busy that I've stood at one end, literally trying to figure out where the heck to go next!

I skated a Saturday morning session once and was scared half to death! Small people going really fast- yikes.