Comparing coaching styles

Tags

private lessons, rink culture, rink etiquette, skating costs

When I only had the experience of taking lessons with Coach A, I’d sometimes wonder if and how other people’s experiences were different. But while I could ask my skater friends about certain aspects of their skating, some issues are a bit touchy to discuss, like money, and so I didn’t really ask anybody about their coaching arrangements.

Now that I’ve taken from four coaches, I’ve been thinking of how their styles compare. I don’t mean (only) in terms of skating technique, but in that there are so many variables from person to person on how they conduct the business of coaching. For instance, how they manage cancellations, or payment, or communication.

So here’s what I’ve found from my experiences thus far, in randomized order:

Rinks

• One coach teaches only at freestyle sessions at the Serious Rink.
• Two coaches teach me primarily at my preferred rink on public sessions, but we have frequently gone to the other rink for freestyles when scheduling requires it. Both these coaches teach more on freestyle, but have enough lower-level and adult students to be regulars at my usual rink.
• One coach teaches me at the Serious Rink, and once because of scheduling issues I traveled an extra half hour to a third rink closer to her, though it’s too far for me to make this a regular thing.

Communication

• One coach texts and calls.
• One coach only texts; I don’t have her email address.
• One coach only does email; I don’t have her phone number. (Granted, she’s not my main coach, in which case I would probably ask for her number.)
• One coach mostly texts, sometimes calls, and sometimes emails.

Fees

• $50 for half hour.
• $40.
• $38.
• $36.

Skating is NOT cheap!

Payment Timetable

• One coach invoices me at the beginning of the month, and I pay in advance.
• One coach trusts me to keep track of our lessons and pay her at the end of the month.
• I pay one coach every lesson, before we begin.
• One coach gave me the option of paying per lesson or buying a “package” of 10 in advance. Since she’s not my main coach, I pay weekly.

Lesson scheduling

• One coach is like clockwork: We set a time and day, and unless we change things she is always ready to coach at that exact time, for exactly 30 minutes.
• One coach is very reliable and on time, and adheres to our lesson time pretty closely. Once we got carried away with showing me fun tricks and we went over the time alotted, but I was her last lesson of the day and that’s not the norm.
• One coach is pretty good about keeping to our schedule, but I generally figure there’s a 15-minute window where things might get pushed due to other students or other reasons. If she’s running late or needs to cancel she always lets me know in advance. Sometimes it’s pretty last-minute (the morning of, or even an hour before) but she won’t leave me hanging.
• One coach is terrible. If she were my main coach I would have long left, because she seems really scatter-brained and regularly forgets or flakes or is late. Twice I left the rink after skating the entire session without her, because it was expensive freestyle and I didn’t have money/time to waste. I wondered whether I’d gotten the day wrong, or if she’d forgotten, or maybe she’d gotten into an accident. She only told me she was running late after I called, after I’d gone home. I started confirming the day before our lesson, and half the time would get “Oh I’m out of town” or “Sorry I can’t make it.” I wonder if she’s this bad to her regular students, or if she just keeps forgetting/pushing me because I’m not one of her regulars.

Personality

• One coach is no-nonsense and professional, though not unfriendly. She’s cordial, just businesslike.
• One coach is very warm and fuzzy, giving me hugs after every lesson. She’s somewhat motherly and welcoming to all her students, chatting about personal lives on top of the skating stuff.
• One coach is the perfect (for me) level of professionalism and warmth. We chat about personal lives after our lessons, but not during them, like a co-worker you like and respect but don’t necessarily hang out with.
• Another coach is pretty close to the one above, maybe a little more open and friend-like. Like the co-worker you might go to happy hour with, but only right after work and not all the time.

In terms of skills and teaching ability, they’re all excellent — I wouldn’t continue with them if they weren’t and not at those prices. In the past several months since I’ve been taking from the additional coaches, I feel like my skills have sharply improved, and at an accelerated rate. Of course, that could merely be due to the increase in coaching time overall, which is significant enough to account for the progress. And it could also be that breaking my lessons into moves, spins, and jumps has helped me focus on them more effectively. But they all know their stuff, and overall it’s been a positive experience — and now some of my questions have been answered now that I’ve seen firsthand how different people operate.

The one at the rink who…

Tags

rink culture, rink etiquette

Are you familiar with the man or woman at the rink who apparently likes to give out advice more than, oh, skate? I have always wondered about that person (or people — there are a couple skaters like that whom I see on a semi-regular basis). I don’t get it, because when I go to the rink, I go to skate. Only to skate. Socializing may be a byproduct of my skating, but it is not a goal, not even a low-priority one — if I get zero socializing done but lots of skating, I’m happy. But they’re usually helpful people, with their hearts in the right places, so I don’t think anything of them and just continue on my way.

Except, of course, when it interferes with my practices. Now, if you’ve got a tip to offer, I’ll gratefully listen and try it out. I’m not talking about those people. I’m not talking about polite conversation or the occasional session of trading tips. If I’m not in the mood to talk, I don’t engage in the conversation and we all focus on our own things.

I’m talking about people who hover, whom you have to ignore in order to avoid. Who skate up to you and start ordering you, “Let me see that toe loop again” and stand there and wait until you oblige them.

I seriously lost my patience yesterday, and almost my temper. That NEVER happens. I’m a pretty low-key person and I usually just smile and keep to myself. But this skater kept popping up to tell me how to correct things (things the skater cannot perform), and was hard to brush off. I have found that the fastest way to deal with it is to nod, say thanks, and skate away. But this time was particularly persistent and I kept hearing my name being called out across the rink. I tried to put my concentrating face on and keep skating, but you can only ignore your name being boomed aloud for so many times before it becomes awkward for everyone.

I know that the advice I’ll probably get — and the advice I would give — is to just say something directly and frankly to the offender and get it to stop. But I have said mild things before, like, “Thanks, but I’m practicing now” or “I’ll stick to the way my coach taught me.” Also, I skate at this rink all the time, and it’s sort of like kicking up a fuss with a co-worker — sometimes it’s not worth the tension that would result, that you have to live with afterward. I start to see the appeal of freestyle sessions at the Serious Rink, aka the Kinda Mean Rink, because there nobody talks to anybody unless they’re in lesson. Sure, some skaters have serious chips on their shoulders and they all think they’re better than me — they’re better SKATERS, not people — but at least they don’t mess with my time or my practice. The problem is, skating there costs about four times as much as my regular rink.

Have you ever encountered this? How do you deal with it?

A tale of two rinks

Tags

figure skating, ice skating, public sessions, rink culture

On Wednesday, I headed back to Rink 1 for a late-morning session. I had a tough time maneuvering the Sunday public skate, but I wanted to give Rink 1 another shot on a less insane day. Rink 1 is shabbier than Rink 2, but I like the people who work there, who were so helpful when I bought my skates and spent a lot of time talking to me.

I regretted my choice almost immediately. About ten minutes in, a crowd of teenagers mobbed the ice, making me feel like a grumpy old person, thinking, “Why aren’t you all in school?!” on a Wednesday at 10:30 am. There were twenty or thirty of them, but I was determined to make the most of my practice time. Sadly, I soon found out that they are the epitome of the public skate nightmare: madly tearing up the ice, showing off, attempting figure skating moves in mocking ways in order to rouse laughs despite having no skating ability. They’re not just annoying, but dangerous to skate around. They raced up and down the sides of the rink and slammed themselves into the barriers like it was a competition to make the loudest bang. Ugh. Obnoxious sixteen-year-old boys, being intentionally obnoxious for the sport of it.

It must’ve be a class trip, and not everybody was part of the wild pack. A few girls quietly skated together apart from the main group, but they were in the minority. I considered leaving early, but the idea of being driven off my practice time by a crowd of punks made me more mad than anything, so I gritted my teeth and kept going.

What irritates me most wasn’t the fact that there are punks on the ice, or that it was busier than I would like, but the fact that the rink employees didn’t seem to care. Nobody bothered to step in and tell the boys to stop shoving each other across the ice. Nobody monitored the session. This lack of any sort of management annoys me the most.

That makes my decision easy, at least. I want to like the family-run Rink 1 despite its smaller space and rundown facilities, because who isn’t programmed to root for the little guy next to the big, new, corporate-run competitor? But you root for the little guy when they give you a reason to want them to succeed — better service, or friendlier help. When the little guy doesn’t appear to give a damn, you go to the bigger, cleaner, more professionally run Rink 2.

The next day (Day 4 in my first week — what can I say? I’m loving it), I returned to Rink 2. I was the only person on the pristine ice, joined by a second adult after about an hour. She was clearly an advanced level skater, working on double jumps and complicated footwork. I was working on more pumps, one-foot glides, and backward swizzles (trying to find the sweet spot in the middle of the blade, instead of leaning forward and scraping to a stop on the toe pick. What can I say? I’m scared of leaning back and falling on my tailbone. I did that the other day, and ouch. I still have a bruise). On the upside, I’ve gotten to the point where I can skate for a half hour without stopping to rest my feet muscles. My one-foot glides are coming along, though my left foot is more stable than my right.

Near the end of my practice session the other skater gave me a friendly “Hi” near the boards and asked if I’m taking lessons. Learn To Skate classes haven’t begun yet but I’m starting to consider taking private sessions as well, and she offered me a few names as coaching recommendations.

Another good day at Rink 2, which may hereafter be called simply The Rink.

Skating Day 2: Trying out a different rink

Tags

figure skating, ice skating, rink culture, skates

A new rink today. I know it’s a luxury to have a choice of rinks; there are two within reasonable driving distance. I’d gone to one for the Sunday public skate, so I checked out the other one today. It’s a bit farther away, but it turned out to be worth the extra drive: the facility is newer, cleaner, and larger than the first rink.

It was a relief to step onto practically empty ice given the madness of Sunday’s public session; when I arrived, only two people are skating. This prompted momentary anxiety of another kind, since they’re intimidating with their jumps and spins, while I’d be clunking onto the ice on my second time out.

I got over those worries pretty quickly; I had practically the whole surface of the ice to explore, with only myself to worry about. As a complete and utter beginner, I have no illusions about not falling, but I do like for my falls to be purely based on my own mistakes.

I wore my new skates for the first time, and they make a world of difference because the pain is gone. I don’t know if it was the smooth ice or the freshly sharpened blades or the nice rink, but today’s session felt so much better under my feet than Sunday’s. Rink 1’s ice was so soft and cut up that even with frequent zamboni breaks, it made skating harder than it had to be.

Almost immediately, like on Day 1, my foot muscles began to burn from being forced into use. Not in a “Uh-oh I’m hurting myself” way, but in the way that all muscles need time to get used to new movement. Like clenching a fist as hard as you can and not letting it relax. I couldn’t imagine sticking out a full hour with achy feet, so I started taking breaks. Ten minutes of skating in fits and starts around the rink, five minutes off. The nice thing about an empty public skate is that I can stand at the boards and relax my feet for a few seconds. With two advanced skaters and nobody else, I’d be in no one’s way.

There are still a few weeks till the next Learn to Skate session starts up, which means that I don’t know any exercises yet, so I had little to practice other than trying to keep my knees bent as I attempt to stroke. I know about the snowplow and swizzle from one time skating in my childhood, so I took some time practicing those. But I started to get a little bored.

An hour in, probably 40 minutes of which I actually spent on the ice, I felt all tuckered out and considered calling it a day. After a zamboni break, though, out of nowhere, something clicked and I found myself moving across the ice more smoothly, without lifting my skates in that awkward glide-clomp I’d been using. Maybe my muscles instinctually figured out a better way to stay moving. I don’t even know what to call the movement — I checked at home later; they’re swizzle pumps — but this finally gave me a bit more speed and control.

More skaters arrived in the early afternoon, spanning various skill levels, though all are better than me. Not that that’s hard to do. I was encouraged to see the number of adults, and one of them — a friendly elderly man — caught me during a slow moment (so, any moment, basically) to offer a few pointers and the basics of a one-foot glide.

Another regular skated up to offer more tips, assuring me I’d be jumping in no time. Ha, it’s kind of him to say so. I was grateful for the tips, because I have actual exercises now! I can work toward something instead of just waiting for classes to begin.

More significant was that I felt welcomed in a new, unfamiliar world. I felt like apologizing for taking up their practice time while they gave me a free lesson, but the fact that they were happy to oblige gives me a good feeling about the adult skating culture at this rink.

I spent the rest of the session working on one-foot glides on both feet, and swizzle pumps with deeper knee bend. I got my second wind and felt pretty energetic in that latter half, but I made myself leave at the end of Hour 2 because I don’t want to overdo things and hurt myself. Probably a good decision since I’m sitting here exhausted now, ready to nod off at my desk. It’s a good feeling.