I'm thinking about waiting to put dd in any more competitions until November. I was planning on putting her in a competition in September, but I am thinking of waiting until November so she can work on skills instead of worrying about preparing for a competition. Since June last year, she's competed in 5 competitions. Is that too many over the course of a year? I don't think that's TOO bad but I also think it might be good to be able to spend time working on moves and mastering a few more elements too. WWYD? I'm pretty sure if I ask my daughter, she will say she wants to compete in September. I haven't mentioned this to her coach yet either. Still, I keep thinking taking a comp break would be nice too. We did a have a 6 month break in between the last competition, but we've spent the last 2 months working on programs, so I guess I feel like that's all we've been doing lately. LOL! Her coach DOES work on other things too... but I am curious what you all think about waiting. Is it better to let dd compete if she wants to, or take a break and work on skills too? Deadline for this next comp is August 7th, so I need to decide soon.

FWIW, dd has 2 lessons a week. I am thinking about adding in an extra 15 minutes a week. I think I could swing that. Would 15 more minutes a week make a difference?

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

How old is your dd? What level does she skate?

My dd has done 2 basic skills (her home rinks) and 3 open competitions this summer so far (No Test Level). She is doing 2 through August (Pre-preliminary).

She doesn't really do anything passed early September though as then her synchro team practice starts. She takes about 3-4 lessons a week (different coaches).

Oh, my dd is 8- she will be 9 in the fall.

The only thing is, if your skater isn't working for a competition, what is she working for instead? Many, if not most, of us need a goal to keep us motivated. If you're thinking in terms of Moves tests, that's probably a good thing, but she may well need a "what's next?" to keep her interest going.

On the other hand, you know her, I don't - she may just welcome the opportunity to play around at the rink rather than skating seriously for a couple of months!

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

My girls are like that. My younger is trying to improve her camel spin and I am not sure, without competition, she'd be so motivated to do so. I think the competition helps her focus on improving current skills - otherwise, she'd probably just want to keep learning new instead when she really needs to do both.

My daughter just turned 11 and just competed in Freeskate 1. We're still in basic skills. She's been skating about 2.5 yrs and has been taking private lessons for about 1.5 yrs now. She'll be moving up to Freeskate 3 for this next competition. I'm a bit concerned about the backspin thing, but thankful for the challenge. She can do a backspin, but not sure how good it is just yet. Hopefully the next 2 months, we'll see a change. LOL! Sometimes I think taking a break to work on elements would be good too... I dunno!

Moves is part of my wanting to take a break but I don't know that she'd be ready for testing yet either? I was thinking more along the lines of trying to improve her backspin, sit spin and camel in addition to some jumps before the next competition. I actually think her sit spin is better then her backspin and the backspin is the spin she will have to compete with if she competes in September. I dunno. I guess I should talk to her coach and see what she thinks about waiting until November. Honestly, my reasoning has nothing to do with placement possibilities, but is more about making her skills stronger. Does that make sense? At the same time, I am fairly certain dd will want to compete in September. She enjoys competing!

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

If your daughter enjoys competing, and you can afford that many competitions, then it's not too many. That's about how many my daughter did a year when she was competing.

My personal feeling is that skill building is more important at the Basic Skills level than competing, but you need to assess every child individually. If your daughter loves to compete, she does need to get moving on her tests. As it is, she is unlikely to ever be able to go to Regionals as a Juvenile (the lowest qualifying level), since she's already 11 and will age out of that category when she turns 13. There are certainly plenty of other competitions she could do, so it's not like that's the only possible goal - I just mention it because if it is her eventual goal to go to Regionals, you need to know that she probably won't be able to enter a qualifying event until she's an Intermediate. To make Juvenile in time, she has 8 tests to pass in less than two years, and those can't be rushed.

Thanks! To be honest, regionals isn't something we ever talk about. She knows about it, but honestly we're good where we are at now. She didn't start skating until she was 8.5 and that first yr, she skated once a week and sometimes on the weekends. She had about 5 months total of that 1st yr off too. She was 9.5 when she started taking private lessons and then did not compete in her first comp until she was 10. Anyway... we're in this mostly for fun. We have no idea what will come of it. I figure we'll take it step by step and what happens, happens.

I talked to her coach and she really would like her to compete in September. These are small, local competitions, so they are pretty affordable. We're going to add in an additional 15 minutes per week and we will use that time however we see she needs to use it. Her coach will need to add in the new required elements for the new level into her program, but I am hoping that won't be too difficult to do. We'll be using the same music, so hopefully the changes will be easy enough to do w/o changing her programs TOO much.

Thanks again.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

Something to think about - but why not dedicate the extra 15mins a week to working on the basics and new elements. I sometimes pick up an extra 15mins from my coach with the express intent of doing one thing - spins or moves and that's all we do for those 15mins. It allows a bit of dedicated focus on them without worrying about doing all the other stuff (like running programs and choreography). I find this way, I actually get to work on something specific and concentrate on it. OK there might be times when she needs that 15mins for a run through just before the competition but if in all your minds (your DD, yours and the coach's) it is for working on one thing it might provide the focus so that you're still learning new skills while preparing for competition in the other lessons.

Competitions motiviate my DD. Her coach likes to have spaces between competitions to work on skills and tests. My DD did 6 comps last year and will be doing 7 this year. She was Pre-Pre, but is moving to test track this fall (Preliminary/Pre-Juv depending on tests at end of summer).

2009
Jan - Competition - travel (only 2 hours away)
Feb - Competition - local (home rink so are expected to participate)
Mar - Test session
May - Ice Show, Test Session
July - 2 Competitions - 1 local (home rink), 1 travel
Aug - Test Session
Sept - Competition - local
Nov - Test Session, 2 Competitions - 1 local, 1 travel (my parents' area)

We live in a metro area that has 1-2 comps every month. There were girls in our club that did 11 last year(they were skating No test or Beginner). That's crazy to me.

One problem we run into is that DD's rink sponsors 2 ISI comps that we are expected to participate in, but DD's other comps are USFS. That requires 2 programs instead of just tweaking one.

Thanks and yup, that's kinda what I had in mind! Her coach has done that in her regular lessons too. It's nice when we take a break from programs and work on something new or skills that need refining.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

We were planning on attending a comp in Vegas, but as circumstances would have it, we can't attend it this yr. We're hoping to go next year though and now that I think about it, it'll probably be more interesting then since she will likely be non-test/pre-pre then. There's another out of state comp I'd like to go to in March. It's close(probably 3 hours away) and I've heard good things about it. So far for this upcoming season, we will likely be participating in approximently 6 competitions. Plus, a couple ice shows, exibitions and judges critique in there. Anyway... my daughter does seem to enjoy all of these things and we leave it completely up to her. She currently has 2 catagories she competes in. It's fun to watch her develop.

Anyway, thanks.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

I ... ummm ... think 5 is too many. That doesn't give you enough of a time to work on elements and basic skating; if you're training for a competition, you're working on programs and such, and you don't have the time to step back and work on skating as such. Especially with the number of lessons you have in a week; your coach simply doesn't have enough time to really focus on skill development. (Or, are you doing element competitions? I don't really understand the US comps, I'm Canadian).

We have coaches at our rink who try do a comp every 6 weeks. These kids never really get a chance to dump the program and work on skating, and frankly, you can see it - even though they are skating 5 or more sessions a week. Other coaches (including ours) set a minimum of 2 months between comps. One month is devoted to improving skills, jumps, etc, the last few weeks before the comp is devoted to the program and adding in the new, and/or improved, elements and features.

I know that comps motivate lots of kids, however, substituting other goals, whether it be a test or a perfectly rotated axel / perfectly executed mohawk and/or sit spin can be a thought. Hey, we party with every new jump, or every new skill improvement - a DQ Ice Cream Cake seems to be quite a welcome reward!

It is funny you should say that- I find that my dd's coaches don't work much with her at all on her program and even though she is a very good skater, she doesn't fare that well at competition because of it (it is not as smooth and she doesn't perform the choreograpy as well). I am fortunate that right now I am able to pay for some extra "program" lessons with her choreoagrapher while her other coaches are working on other things with her (MIF, improving elements, new elements)- she is pre-preliminary though and didn't do this much competition at the FS 1 level.

I should explain a bit more. Last year, she did her first competition in June. After that, she didn't compete again until September. Then, after that she didn't compete until November. After that competition, she didn't compete until January. That was the last competition until the competition she was in the weekend of the 10th. So, she had 4 months between the 1st and second competition and then 2 months between the next 2 competitions. After those, we had a 6 month break. Oh and this was the 1st time dd competed in 2 catagories.

Her coach is pretty good about not exclusively working on programs and leaving out practice time for other skills. Thank you for your reply. When I talked to dd's coach last night, she mentioned wanting to work on skills for a few weeks before they tweak her program for the competition in September. I personally would like to see her take MIF test sometime this season too. I think I will talk to her coach about that as well. The comp in November also has a test session so I could opt to have her test instead of compete. Still, a lot of work involved there too.

Thanks for your reply. It's good to see different opinions.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

Thanks for your reply too. Dd loves competing. However, I do want to be sure she is learning stuff too.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

My DD's coach does this too. They don't work on the program in the lesson until 3-4 weeks before the comp. She has a basic program she uses, but they tweak it closer in. DD will run through it once or twice a session on her own.

I think it would be great for your DD to take a MIF test.

My DD also tests ice dance and competes in Solo Dance.

If programs are worked on (to start with) and then just run through a couple of times a week, would it matter how many competitions were done?

My daughter did 6 last year (although it was her first season competing) and while she loved it, it did have me driving all over the place. (Furthest one was 150 miles away). For me the biggest challenge was fitting it round her brother and the rest of our family life. Some of the parents did more and some did less from her local rink.

Daughters coaches will spend a couple of hours developing a program about 2 one to one lessons) and afterwards (she is mainly group coached) it gets run once during a training session 2 or 3 times a week and she'll run through it on practice ice so don't think it influences training much.

Different things do need to be practiced for tests though and I guess it must be tricky getting the balance right. In our case daughter did beginner level competitions this past season but has papers in to go up three levels and Im hoping to take a break from competitions for a couple of months.

I think the competitions are too expensive, and getting more expensive this season.
My daughter only attended two local competitions last season, one USFA and one ISI. She will only do two USFA this season. We would like to save the money and time for her lessons and practice. We focus on the basic elements and the tests. She has been skating for 18 month, and passed Juv. Move and Pre-juv. Free test. We will go to the regional if she could have four "perfect doubles".
The competitions are fun and we enjoy them. But we only have limited resouce and limit time.

That's great your daughter has made so much progress in such a short time frame! My daughter is still in the basic skills levels so competitions aren't too expensive yet. Right now, it costs me around 80.00 for 2 catagories. That is of coarse before coach fees. She'll be competiting in Freeskate 3 this time. Anyway... good luck to your daughter! I hope she can get those doubles! Regionals would be exciting!

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

What level is your daughter? We're hoping mine will be landing an axel sometime this season. Coach worked a lot with her yesterday during her lesson on combo jumps and some other single jumps, spins and so on. Coach won't start re-working dd's program for another few weeks. What you described is usually what we do too. I'm wondering if it will be a bit better once dd is pre-pre and above because then she will likely spend the whole season skating at that level so her programs won't need to be tweaked as much...right? Right now, because she is skating at the basic skills level, each time she levels up her coach has to change her program! Dd could skate at the Freeskate 2 level, since technically that is the highest level recorded so far. But I want her to skate in Freeskate 3. I want her to have the challenge AND I am hoping we can keep the same prgrams for the next 2 competitions. We'll see.

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven

It is good once they have a program that they know which they can just do at competitions. Yes some clubs/coaches do focus loads on the program (and one can see very polished programs) where my daughter's one doesn't.

I guess we see the competitions as experience rather than getting more than anything else. Certainly with the 6.0 judging sometimes the results are quite strange with big differences between different judges (places varying between judges by as much as 5 places) which I think helps not to take it too seriously.

My daughter loves the competitions though - sees them as a social event and would be doing every single one if I thought I could cope. This season we'll be trying (with some close friends) sharing with other parents - one parent taking 2 kids and taking turns. Its an experiment which may or may not work.

In the UK so levels work a bit differently. Beginner have 4 jumps up to loop with no jump combinations. She should have moved up a level for last competition but was doing some solo dance stuff so didn't have time.

However for the tests she'll need to do 3 diffferent programs but hopefully they can wing it for level 2 tests, then do something resembling final program for 3rd test level.

I'm not sure how to judge US levels. She'll be going up to level which requires an axel in program, 3 other jumps (one has to be combination jump), a change position spin and a change foot spin and full length step sequence....Would that be similar to pre-pre?

Good luck whatever you decide with your daughter. Its such a hard balance to get right.

What you described, sounds very close to pre-pre. I don't expect we'll be there until the end of this new skating season. These are the required elements for a USFSA freeskate 3 competition. Of coarse there are more elements in the actual program, but these are the elements dd will be judged on:

Forward crossovers in a figure 8
Advanced forward outside swing rolls 4-6
Back spin
Salchow
Waltz jump/toe loop or Salchow/toe loop

She can do everything but struggles with the darn back spin. *sigh* We have 2 months and a lot can happen in that time frame. PLUS we don't put a lot into placement. Until this last competition, she hadn't placed 1st since September. I think that is a good thing.

These are the required elements in competition for Freeskate 4:

Spiral sequence: FI spiral, FI Mohawk, BO
spiral R or L
• Forward power 3’s, 2-3 consecutive R or L
• Sit spin
• Loop jump
• Waltz jump/loop jump

Maybe by November, we can have her in Freeskate 4. We'll see how her coach feels. Then again, it would be nice to keep the same program for 2 competitions too!

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skating mom to 3 angels on earth and 1 in heaven