Without seeing the jump, I'm inclined to say she's leaning to the left and dropping her free hip/not transferring weight to the right side.

Can she do loop-loop combinations? (To do that, you really need to be over the right side and checked.) That would be a good drill to get the landings to "stick"

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Yes she can do loop-loop combos. She is not transfering her weight to her right side. I guess I am asking for any more drills I can use to work with her. Without a harness it is hard to get her to get the feeling of being over her right side. She is eight, and the axel is a relatively new jump (she has been working on it since the beginning of September). Thanks

Half-axels would be good, ie. one-rotation jumps landing forward on two feet. Gliding to the RIGHT would force her to lean that way before landing.

Since she's little, she might like this:

Jump up on the box (right foot steps up and forward)
and slide down the pole (backspin position in the air)
then step on a stone (right toepick into the ice on landing)
and *kick* your left foot around. (Pull out into a landing position)

Make sure she keeps her hands to the right of her chest center, so the jump stays checked in the air.

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Okay, I have another question. Same kid, same axel, new problem. Recently she has started not bringing her right leg through on the axel. She kind of just puts it right behind her left leg on the take off. It looks weird and very uncomfortable. This is clearly prohibiting her getting over to her right side. I need some ideas on how to fix this. On her axel prep, she brings her right leg through great, she can walk it through correctly as well so she know what she is SUPPOSED to do. She can also do the waltz-jump back spin correctly, waltz-loop, loop-loop, etc. Any ideas? Remember we don't have a harness. Thanks

I had this problem with my axel and completely reworked the technique. The three things that help the most were:

• Keep my right shoulder checked strongly back on the take off. It's easier to kick through towards my left side when I am still going straight and not already turning on the edge.
• Bend my free leg knee and bring it BACK and slightly up before kicking it through. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
• Bend my skating knee and stay down in the knee on the FO take off edge. This also helped me not to rush the takeoff.

Are you sure you don't teach at my rink?

I forgot I had even posted this. She made a huge amount of progress this session. I passed her on Basic 6 and even checked off a couple of Basic 7 elements (not everything). She's been doing the Bridge program at another local rink (with an instructor I had in learn-to-skate!) and I can tell they've been pushing basics. The instructor she has is very good about that kind of stuff.

My other class, well, that's another story. I had a skater testing for Basic 5 whom I would not have passed had she been testing Basic 4. I found like two elements I could justify passing her on- I didn't want to just hand her a test sheet with nothing checked off- and I made some strong notes about what needed more work on Basic 4. Actually, I had to do that with several of them, because three others would have been borderline on Basic 4, including one who's technically in Basic 6. (This is the same kid who wanted to know when we learn the spirals where you hold you leg up behind you with your hand- apparently her private coach has been doing catch-foot spirals with her. Can't be bothered to get her to stop toe-pushing her crossovers, though...) Several of them have joined a Beginner synchro team, and I know the coaches will have them working on basics a lot, so I'm confident that they'll catch up.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

I've gotten in the habit of playing "Show Me" on the first class of each group lesson session. I just run through all of the elements on the test BELOW the one I'm allegedly teaching. (Print out a cheat sheet, so you know what's on the different levels.)

Toe pushing crossovers. Sigh.

I have an 11-year old with whom I worked really hard to stop the toe pushing. I got her to the point of having a reasonable amount of knee bend. Even a bit of outside edges.
Started working on one-foot glides and crossovers and BAM!
She now has toe pushes on everything and she can't hold an outside edge for beans.
Maybe she's just been having a rough week or two. (She definitely grew a bit) Or MAYBE her skates are too dull/sharp....

Here's an odd question: how do you handle argumentative students? I have two in particular that are getting on my last nerve. The first one is the waltz jump queen. (Who, btw, told me that she can't do a snowplow stop. ) The WJQ will only do (poor) inside three-turns because she can't hold an outside edge. She cheats at all of the exercises, like outside edge glides (she does them on her inside edges as soon as I'm not looking) and sulks if anyone masters something that she can't even fake well. It's becoming a distraction for the other skaters. I'm going to leave her in the level with a note that she needs remedial work.

The second one talks back and tells me I'm wrong when I try to correct her posture or checks. For example, "You're breaking at the waist." results in "No, I'm not." (Called her bluff this week and video'ed her, reviewing it frame-by-frame.) This week's lesson ended with her absolute REFUSAL to work on spirals because "they're boring." I told her too bad, they're part of everyone's skating and she'd better learn to accept that fact. I got so annoyed , I told her she can always find someone else if she's unhappy with me as her coach.

The group student is an issue because I feel like she's challenging me in front of my other students in the group.
The private student I could walk away from but, I really like the parents and I teach her sibling with little/no problem.
(Although that one's an envelope-pusher, too.)

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Toe pushing - can she reasonably point her foot in the boots? Not a full on Sasha Cohen point, but at least angle it a little bit. I tell students to think of their skate like a hand pointing - point to the tracing on the ice with your toe, like "see, here's my edge." Repetition of standing on one leg and pointing, and then one-foot glides with a point helps.

OK, wow, what BRATS.

The first student sounds like an attention whore - the second you walk away, she does it wrong so you'll come back. Maybe if you set a few minutes aside just for her to show you what she's worked on? Give her some undivided attention and let her know she's only getting a little bit so she'd better impress you.

I would tell the know-it-all that if she really knows what she's doing, why isn't she the coach? Maybe a little "left behind" tactic would work: "If you don't work on your spirals, I can't pass you on the test, and all your friends will pass and be in a different class." Or maybe a little reverse psychology, since she seems to be a contrarian personality: "*sigh* Yup, you're right, you'll never be able to do a good spiral, so let's work on other things." I've found that begging and pleading just won't work sometimes, it's when you turn your back that they will do an element.

Good luck!

I'm going to try the "Show Me!" time with her next week. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ironically, the second student's major complaint is that I'm NEVER watching when she does it perfectly. (Is it my fault that she starts before I'm watching her? Once she b****ed about this when I was distracted by getting out of the pairs team's way to save my life!

The reality is that a skater never does it perfectly, period. You can always do better, but rarely when the coach is watching. (Don't we all go through that as skaters?) She's a bit of an attention begger during groups, too. (I've had her as my private student longer than as a group student.) I just let her sulk on the side now and move the other kids over to work on the next element. She'll do something else and work her way over to us, then rejoin the class when she's ready. Or not. Maybe I should make a remark about her parents wasting money on group lessons?

Reverse psychology, that's a good idea. I'm going to try it with her. (Worked on my daughter last week.)

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Hello all! After taking the summer off the ice, I'm finally back. Nothing really worth to tell as of now, I don't want to start complaining.

I promised myself to spend less time on the ice and focus on school (this is my last year), but it seems like I'm working more than I want to. I guess I have to give up something, like stopping myself from using the internet!

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Reach out for the sunshine ~*

Welcome back, frvanilla!

I taught my toe pusher earlier this week and she was much better. I used the verbal cue of "turn your laces to the side before you push." That seemed to click with her this week. She managed some edges as well, which made the three-turn exercises much easier. I told her it would really help if she came and practiced on her own at least once a week. She takes her 30min lesson, then plays with her brother for 20 minutes, then she's done! Doesn't skate any other days. I "invited" her to come skating on Sundays.

Know what's interesting? She's jealous of skaters doing spins and jumps that are her age or younger. I'm using that to my advantage, of course!

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Isk8NYC,
Thank you!


A girl's mother told another coach that her daughter felt boring in lesson because we were working on backward skating and stroking and these are similar elements to the previous level (but with different expectations). It's my first time doing real work with this group. They are relatively (but equally) weak for their level, and 10 out of 10 kids in my group are toe pushers. May be that's why the girl felt we were not working on new stuff (because we can't).

I guess next week I got to come up with some new challenges, such as working on backward circle pumps to aid those backward skating.

At the end of today, please let me yell "No more toe pushing kids!!!" Argh!

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Reach out for the sunshine ~*

Last week's lesson was going well; I did the "Show Me!" first, so everyone was psyched. We started working on one of my exercises where the skaters hold an edge and l-e-a-n into the circle and (on one foot) ride the edge in a loop from outside to inside and back outside again.

The attention-seeking student just kept doing forward crossovers. I tried calling out the instructions loudly for everyone. I might as well have been talking to the wall. I noticed the crossovers again as I was correcting another girl. I finished my correction and started off to catch up the little lost lamb and put her on the right track. Before I took a step, she tripped on her toepick and belly-whopped onto the ice. I helped her up, she was crying, but didn't want to leave the ice when I called over a helper. She basically sulked for the remainder of the lesson, complaining whenever I tried to engage her in the group. ("I CAN'T do snowplow stops." "I don't do that; I do THIS instead.")

I finally had enough and I told her (nicely) that, if she re-registers for the next class session, she should have her father request another instructor's group since she doesn't seem to be enjoying my class. Quite a wakeup call for her, maybe she's afraid the father would get mad at her? She apologized and actually tried half-heartedly to do what I was telling her to do.

While I am NOT interested in her as a private student, I think she would probably do better in private lessons since she wouldn't be able to wander off and she would get the attention she desires. She definitely needs some remedial instruction in the basics. Maybe I'll ask the Director to discuss it with the parents...

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I've had to tell a couple of young skaters (4/5 y.o.) that they need to work on what the rest of the group is working on, or they'll have to get off the ice. It's always a last resort- making sure the parents are aware of the "listening issue", giving multiple verbal cues, and even a physical interruption of what they're doing (hand to the shoulder, "so-and-so, we're doing snowplow stops now, I need to see yours") all come first, but if they don't work I don't hesitate to go to, "We're doing snowplow stops right now. I need you to do your snowplow stops with us, or you'll have to get off the ice." (This works better if the child wants to skate, but the fear of having to explain to Mom or Dad why they were removed from a lesson can sometimes convince even a reluctant skater to participate).

Isk8NY, how far are you into this set of lessons? Would it be worth giving each skater a "mid-term grade" type of thing, letting them know what's going well and what needs work and just give the waltz jump queen a "NI" on any of the stuff she won't show you or do during class (as well as anything she really can't do, of course). That would send her a definite message that at the rate she's going she won't pass the level. You could leave a space for comments and make a note about how her attitude is keeping her from learning some of the elements.

As for the private student, what level is she? Is she at the point where you could start explaining MITF to her and pointing out that every skater has to master them if they want to take their freestyle tests? She'll have to do spirals on pre-pre moves.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

This series of lessons ends next week, so the group student *may* have another instructor next session. (Although our school likes to try and keep the group kids together, so no one feels "demoted" to another coach.) If I have her in my group again next session, I'm going to have to catch her early and lay down what I expect of her in class. In looking at my attendance sheet, she is absent every third or fourth class; maybe that's why she's lost when the group starts working on things - she may have missed that lesson.

The private student who hates spirals and footwork has already passed Pre-Prel MITF under another coach. She and I had a private conversation last week, I guess her first coach didn't really explain the testing well. For some odd reason, she thought she was done with MITF forever! She takes a group MITF class, so she didn't want to "waste" private lesson time on field moves. That'll be resolved next week when we start working on a new program. (stares into crystal ball) I see lots of connecting steps and spirals in her future ...

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A question off the top of my mind for all coaches here:

At my rink, we are doing a lot of forward stroking for the LTS aduts. I noticed a problem for several of the LTS adults. When they skate forward, they would push off with one foot, and then glide with their feet placed unevenly, before pushing off with the other.

Instead of gliding with their feet close together like this:
| |
L R

They glided with with one foot slightly in front of the other like this:
l l
L R

This has almost make it to my list of the "almost unfixable" like the "skaters' shuffling syndrom". Anyone knows why and has any tips for it?

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Reach out for the sunshine ~*

Not a coach, but I've noticed my mother and other adults doing this. In my mother's case, she would push off with the left foot, and that would be the foot in the front - after thinking about it, I realized that 1) her right foot is dominant, and she is more comfortable keeping her weight on it 2) she has broken left ankle twice, and this reinforces the point #1.

If you look closely, it will be quite clear that the skater in question doesn't put much weight at the foot that is in front. I'm quite sure that the skater would also not hold the glide on the foot that is always in front - ex. if it's left foot, he/she would be unable to hold left glide: the weight would be too much to the right, forcing the skater to put the right foot down.

No good ideas on how to fix it - I just explained to my mother that the weight HAS to be shifted to the foot that is on the ice (in stroking), reinforced it at the boards, etc.

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--renatele

A lot of kids who ride scooters on one side only struggle to keep their feet even and push with alternating feet. I do a warmup drill where they stroke around the circle using only the "outside" foot. I emphasize good pushes from behind the skating foot and insist that they keep the "inside" foot on the ice.

I've been doing an unofficial survey for some time now and the unevens are usually scooter riders or have some other reason (as Renatele points out) for favoring one foot.

The good part is that, if they can keep their feet uneven, back crossovers can be that much easier.

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